How is the rest of your marriage?
once, i would have said we had the "perfect" marriage. we were best friends and led happy lives. even after all of the hurt feelings, we are still attracted to each other. it wasn't until our son came along and got to the age that rules needed to be enforced that problems arose.
H treated the child as you would a baby - still pacifying at any cost to avoid the tears, screams, objections or tantrums, even though that just created more problems. H is a major conflict avoider in all situations. family. work. home. as a parent. he taught our son from a very early age that it's ok to throw a fit to get what you want.
my biggest concern is that the child is more in control in the house than the parent. child knows not to do certain things around me (i.e., talk back) or he will have a 5-minute time out. with dad, he may get away with it 4, 5 times before dad does anything, if he does anything at all.
H used to have a problem with not knowing how to talk to the child. he would let things go until they built up, then explode at him. which really bothered me, to say the least. this isn't so much of a problem anymore.
the discipline isn't consistent. dad and i will go into another room, have a private discussion on what needs to be done about a given situation, come to an agreement, and as soon as he walks out the door, he starts making up stuff as he goes along (rambling) and everything we decided on goes out the window. why bother reaching an agreement if it won't be followed?
he claimed his problem was anxiety. so, he began seeing a therapist. he was also put on an anti-depressant. it's been months now. i see a small improvement, but the same issues keep cropping up.
what the counselor said at our last visit really scared me. she said at some point our kid would grow up to be more physically dominant than me and that i would need H's support. i don't want to see my kid getting out of control later in life because his parents didn't do the right thing. she said we still have time to regain control, but i know it will be a blink of an eye before that tipping point comes.
i see this as the parents needing to be parented, not the kid. the kid is a good kid. he just has parents who don't follow through, don't speak clearly and aren't consistent. i know, the hallmarks of good discipline. i have been trying to teach - there's that word again - my husband about these concepts. he has read at least one book about it, but he doesn't follow through on the info.
i believe this issue alone has wreaked so much havoc on our marriage. it has spilled out into other areas, making other things suck pretty bad. so, to answer your question, the rest of my marriage is not ok. we are struggling with communication/intimacy/needs/respect/you name it.