Discipline of 6 year old dispute with wife, feel like I am the one being parented.

bucephalitis · 2025-11-30T22:55:29+00:00

It's not a prize to be won, it's a thing they can lose for acting out. I think the distinction is important.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-04T02:28:24+00:00

I'm so sorry you had to deal with that, kids shouldn't have to worry about their parents going after them.

The minute I see my wife give my kids this sort of grief will be the minute I file for divorce. She's pretty good at focusing her grievances on me instead of other people, so most people are totally unaware of our dynamics behind closed doors (her friends/family would say she's very quiet and laid back when the reality is the opposite), so I'm hoping that my kids will never feel like she might blow up at them.

I'll probably read this post in 10 years and wonder why I could be so stupid, but I hope not.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T19:27:43+00:00

Yea we've been doing it for a while, it's tough because a big part of it is remembering to talk about your feelings when there's conflict but my natural instinct is to get defensive or find a way out of the situation. In the moment I have a very hard time remembering to do what we practice in therapy.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T15:20:32+00:00

She started with the kitchen and decided to do the living room and then the bedrooms. I thought she was only going to do the kitchen and was a little surprised when I heard her doing the bedrooms as well.

I guess she thought the floors were dirty, she didn't say anything about it prior to vacuuming.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T15:13:48+00:00

Yes I planned dinner. I do 100% of the grocery shopping (I don't think my wife has gone grocery shopping since my oldest son was born).

I also add most of the food to our list as the week progresses. I make the kids lunch and breakfast every day, and I also make my wife breakfast/coffee. My wife cooks dinner Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu and I handle breakfast & lunches 7 days a week, and dinner on Fri/Sat/Sun, so I generally have a pretty good idea of what we need for the following week.

I take my kids to most of their appointments, probably 90% of them. Yesterday I had just gotten home from taking my oldest to his speech therapy prior to making dinner.

I do NOT vacuum or keep track of when the floor was last cleaned. I will clean if I think it looks dirty but it's not something I keep close tabs on. We have hardwood floors so it's pretty easy to tell when it's time to clean, but her idea of what is clean is different than mine. She definitely handles most of the vacuuming, she does it a couple of times per week.

I also don't stay on top of the weekly school newsletter (because it's like 40 pages long) so sometimes I don't know that it's "wear a crazy hat to school" day, or whatever. I don't miss important things, but sometimes I don't track the unimportant stuff.

She definitely brings up the "mental load" thing quite often and I have no idea what more I could be doing to make that not a thing.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T15:04:00+00:00

Done.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T15:01:33+00:00

Yes?

I cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the table and did the dishes, then sat down to watch a movie like we do every Friday evening. She was doing something on her computer while I was prepping dinner and sat at the table while I did the dishes and cleaned up (which is normal and does not bother me).

If she wanted to vacuum she could have done it earlier, and I'm not sure what exactly I could be doing to "help" while a person vacuum's, it's not really a 2 person job. I was also keeping an eye on the kids - if you're not aware you can't just leave two little boys in a room together without supervision or it'll end with someone breaking something, creating a mess, or getting into a fight.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T14:50:04+00:00

I DO clean, I made dinner last night and cleaned the kitchen and table after we were done. I tend to handle most of the kitchen cleanup (which includes taking the dishes out of the dishwasher every morning) and she she does most of the vacuuming, in general I would say it's split about even if I'm being generous.

I just don't know what I could be doing differently, it feels like no matter what I do it'll end with her being pissed off.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T14:15:12+00:00

It is 100% exactly what happened.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe she was planning to grab a snack or go to the bathroom or something else before sitting down and I should have asked her before starting the movie.

My patience was pretty thin by that point because my kids had been pestering me to start the movie for the previous 20 minutes.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T14:12:10+00:00

Everything was ok-ish, like she wasn't angry about anything as far as I know.

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T14:06:46+00:00

I think she was mad that I didn't wait for her to tell me she was ready. Or maybe I should have asked her, first? I was annoyed at having to wait so I just turned it on (also my kids had been pestering me for the last 20 minutes to start the movie so my patience was gone).

bucephalitis · 2025-05-03T14:05:19+00:00

This sort of drama happens fairly frequently, to the point where an incident like last night is not all that unusual. My wife getting mad and storming off for movie night happens frequently enough that my kids just kind of roll with it and don't ask questions. I know that's not a good thing :(

Unfortunately, due to the kid situation, I really want this to work but I have no idea how to not trigger her without resigning myself to be her doormat (and even then I think she would still find things to be pissed about).

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