Parents often never realize how their emotions are effecting their children.
And on that note, many partners seem oblivious to the times they are harming their other half.
Emotional distress is difficult to face but necessary.
Case in point…
Redditor Glassholering wanted to discuss his story for some feedback. So naturally he came to visit the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit.
He asked:
“AITA for sending out ‘Bad Day Alerts’ to my family whenever my wife is having a bad day?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I’m a father of 3 boys from ages 12 to 17 and a husband of one woman.”
“My wife is an amazing woman with very few flaws.”
“One of these again few flaws is her anger.”
“When she’s not happy, she has a habit of kinda making everyone else’s days worse.”
“For example, if she has a bad day at work, I know it’s likely that I’ll get fussed at for something she usually doesn’t care about.”
“For my boys, I know it’s rough as they really don’t want to argue with their mother.”
On previous bad days, my wife has went off and overboard on our kids for small things such leaving the toilet seat up or leaving a paper plate out.”
“To combat this, I made a group chat with all the boys that we call, ‘Bad Day Alert.'”
“The way it works is that if one of us notices that my wife is not exactly having a good day and will make it our problem.”
“We will simply text ‘BAD DAY’ into the chat so the others can prepare.”
“We also use it for just quick guy talk but its main purpose is to warn in case of a bad day.”
“When we get a Bad Day alert, we do what we can to ensure that no one gets in trouble.”
“It also gives me time to prepare to cook or pick up a dinner she really loves and take care of any chores that are typically hers.”
“That way she’s able to come home and just decompress from the bad day without lashing out at any of us.”
“My wife prior to recently was not aware of it.”
“She did however find out.”
“My sister-in-law recently moved in temporarily and my wife had a bad day.”
“My oldest son notified the rest of us.”
“Our youngest son thought it would be smart to notify his aunt; he was right to do so, I just hadn’t thought about her.”
“She questioned him about everything, and he spilled the beans.”
“My sister-in-law told my wife and now she’s mad at me.”
“She says it’s wrong of me to do that because I’m essentially teaching our kids to treat her like an angry child.”
“I protested that it was beneficial for all of us but she refused to hear it.”
“I really think I was doing a good thing for all by starting this.”
“AITA?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed some options to the question AITA?:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors declared our OP and everyone else IS the A**hole.
It’s a tricky situation.
Let’s hear some thoughts…
“ESH. Yeah, this is really messed up.”
“Your wife’s temper so bad you need specific coping strategies and instead of protecting your kids, you’re teaching them this is normal.”
“This should be a wakeup call for you and your wife.”
“Do it for your kids, if nothing else.” ~ madelinegumbo
“This can be really damaging to kids.”
“They learn to walk on eggshells and can develop hypervigilance or anxiety orders.”
“They can also start to feel responsible for other people’s emotions.”
“Which gives them impossible-to-live-up-to expectations.”
“Not to mention the self-esteem hit of constantly being degraded by a bully and being powerless to stop it.”
“This is a really bad situation and the whole family needs therapy.” ~ Ghostridethevolvo
“Hi this was my family growing up.”
“I only have one sibling, but we definitely mastered quickly communicating our parents’ moods to each other.”
“Both of us are anxious and hypervigilant.”
“It’s taken different courses as we’ve aged but it can have severe, long-lasting consequences.”
“OP, your wife needs help for her anger issues and your family needs help more generally.” ~ matchy_blacks
“That was my experience growing up.”
“It was traumatic and it primed me for ending up in an abusive relationship as an adult because I thought that walking on eggshells.”
“Because I never knew when he would blow up at me because of whatever excuse was normal.”
“I thought that using me as a metaphorical punching ball for his anger was normal.”
“Holy christ OP you’re just letting your wife abuse you and your children without even blinking. YTA.” ~ Broutythecat
“Been there done that.”
“My dad would warn people when my mother was angry because she can and will take it out on anyone around her.”
“Warning people seems like an asshole move, until you’ve been on the other side of this kind of behavior.”
“OP does not realize it but he is sabotaging the rest of his life.”
“If this is a frequent problem it will only grow worse and chafe more.”
“The response to finding out looks like it lead to blame, anger etc not introspection or anything useful.”
“EDIT: A shocking number of people are calling someone in and coping in an abusive environment the asshole along with the abuser.”
“I should have expected as much.” ~ arpg_addict24601
“You… actually pretty much demonstrate the difference in how this would be treated in a gender-reverse situation in your very comment.”
“Man and his children being abused: ‘ESH. She for being abusive and you’re the AH for letting your kids be abused and not getting out yet.'”
“Woman and her children being abused: ‘Oh honey, no, he’s abusive & you’re NTA. Get out for your kids’ sake!'”
“With maybe a handful of ‘NTA, but you will be TA if you stay and keep your kids exposed to this.'”
“Notice the difference?”
“Man already is deemed an AH for so-far remaining in an abusive situation & exposing his kids to that.”
“Woman will become the AH if, after having been advised her partner’s abusive, she and her kids nevertheless stay.” ~ AddWittyName
“I grew up learning to teach myself to know when family—especially my mom—was having a bad day just by the sounds of how they we’re cleaning or even just walking around.”
“I’m the Lightning Rod of my family, which to anyone who doesn’t know what that means.”
“It essentially means that when someone is having a bad day it will be taken out on me regardless of what I do.”
“I would then be denied that I was being treated any differently than anyone else.”
“This set me up for failure and I ended up in an abusive relationship without even realizing it.”
“Because that’s just what I thought love looked like until I met my current boyfriend.”
“Who has shown me what a healthy and loving relationship really looks like.”
“It took a massive amount of therapy for me to come to terms with the fact that I’ve been emotionally abused my whole life.”
“And even now I struggle with using the word ‘abuse’ because I spent so long thinking it was normal behavior.”
“A phrase my therapist likes to use when I’m blaming myself for or letting others blame me for their own problems is ‘not my zoo, not my monkeys.'”
“OP you have to stop letting your wife’s monkeys dance and throw sh!t all over yourself and your children.”
“They’re going to grow up thinking this is a normal way to be treated.”
“Try and get her to go to therapy for anger management.”
“And if she shows no intention of changing it’s time to start thinking about if this is the kind of environment you want your children in.” ~ deaddlikelatin
“My stepmom is like this and my dad’s response was to pressure us as kids to silently, unasked, do the things she wanted us to be doing around the house.”
“I internalized the message that when she screamed at my dad for how ‘terribly’ we were behaving.”
“Like sleeping in on the weekends, procrastinating our homework, not making the bed until asked – normal kid stuff.”
“It was my fault he was getting screamed at.”
“My fault that she then turned around and took out her mood on the younger kids, my fault that we couldn’t just have a nice pleasant weekend.”
“I too recently exited an emotionally abusive marriage where he and I tacitly had agreed that anytime he was unhappy or upset, it was somehow my fault.”
“I’m unlearning all of that in therapy but man, it is hard.”
“OP, that’s what you’re teaching your kids, whether you mean to or not.”
“They’re going to internalize the idea that if their mother does find something to be upset with them over.”
“It’s their fault, because they should have known that she was already upset and they should have anticipated what she would want.”
“I hope like hell I’m wrong, but that was my experience.” ~ justatrashypanda
Well OP, you are certainly in the middle of a situation.
There is no easy road out of this.
But it sounds like Reddit had some good idea.
Therapy now is maybe where you start.
Good luck.