My daughter feels that her marriage is not working. Her husband will not discuss any issues with her at all. If he is angry he may get into the car and drive around in the middle of the night leaving my daughter worried sick about him.

A few days ago he told my daughter that he was taking their toddler out and that my daughter was not welcome to come. He was out for hours and at first would not answer the text or phone call she made to him. He came home after several hours and acted as if everything was normal.

How could it be when he left his wife in frightened despair for hours on end?

My daughter is very sad. How can I help her?

Help her learn what boundaries mean. Encourage her to go to counseling, such as an Alanon program, to learn healthy behavior. He is not exhibiting it. She has to learn to protect against lack of it.

If I were her, and my H took my toddler like that, I would tell him that the next time he does it, I am calling the police to report a kidnapping, and let him deal with the legalities on his own. You don't mess with my baby!

She needs to get to that point of anger and self-respect. Start building on her confidence.

Does he do any other such things? If so, there's an awesome book for her to read called Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. I'd get it for her. Before she's too far gone and lets him do anything he wants.

CatPerson, OldChristian,

I would remind Old that he/she has only heard one side of the story, so encourage some communication. Also I assume they are both parents to the so the "my baby" thing is a crap, although typical attitude. Anyway, check before you actually call the police, depending on the jurisdiction they can be a pain for making false calls. You would probably be ok, but no reason to get in a problem when a simple check would prevent it. Is there a similar book about controlling women that I could recommend to a friend of mine?

How old is your granddaughter? I would not be so happy if my H took my son (5 yrs old) and did not respond to my calls or texts. Especially if we were not getting along. I think it has to do with respect. I would be more concerned if my son was a Toddler.
The fact that he will not discuss any issues is ridiculous. How can you work things out if you cannot talk. That's my situation too. Everything gets heated. If they have not tried counseling..I suggest that for her peice of mind if anything. If he does not agree to go....then that's a strong sign he is not willing to try.

Be supportive but try to stay away from telling her what to do. Just listen to her feelings and be there for her. ; )
Good Luck.
XOXO,

Jen,

Who is the father of YOUR son? Do you think it would be reasonable for your H to be upset if you were unavailable for a few hours while with HIS son. You may not mean it this way but that attitude can really offend single (divorced) fathers.

6, he could try this one.

Valid point about the sides of the story. Maybe it's because a man taking a child out on his own is such an anomaly in today's society, as women are still perceived as the one in charge of a child's well-being.

And you know you can't use your history on this because YOU are an anomaly.

In any case, ANY person taking a child out of the house - in anger - and not returning or contacting so the person left can know something didn't happen to that child, is abusive, manipulative, controlling, or just plain selfish.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I hope he doesn't get in trouble from the title.

I always react to the MY child language, I even try to never do that to my xWW (although she would deserve it more than most.) I also hate to see children in the middle of these things. I've become so conditioned against the language that I actually checked Jen's history before posting, just in case it was not her H's child.

Interesting discussion.

Here is what I find most interesting. IF her H got angry and and huge AO's toward her daughter, most would be saying tell him to go to anger management, and they would tell him, if you are getting angry and/or frustrated leave, don't argue and don't let the anger surface.

Interestingly this is exactly what her SIL is doing. He won't "talk" about things but we don't know what "talk" means. We often see on this site that "talk" means "listen to me and agree with what I say and my opinion". We have no data on their methods of communications but somehow they did manage to communicate wedding vows.

Further, we don't know if daughter communciates in a way that allows her H time or a position of safety to communicate in his own way.

As for driving around with the child, women do this frequently and the H's don't know where the child is, and YES they do it when they are angry.

So let's step back here for a moment and see if there is more information to be passed on to us about communications styles, about anger and why it is there, and the state of their marriage. What people are talking about are signals but not the cause of them, and it is the cause of them that needs to be addressed.

Just thoughts.

God Bless,

JL