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I dont' reject MB at all. Nowhere does MB advocate allowing a step parent to abuse your child.

She should have done a lot more than get angry with him for trying to discipline her child for being "too tender." She should have shown him to the door. Of course a mother gets angry when her child is being treated poorly.

Finding behavior is unacceptable is NOT abuse. If he finds the behavior, if he finds the situation unacceptable, then it's unacceptable.

That can be true without it being abuse. In most cases, it's not abuse. So don't play the abuse card unless you know he's being abusive.

Being angry is not being abusive. If it is, then he's married to an abuser as well as his wife is angry with him.

So let's give BOTH the same benefit. Either they are both abusive one to another, or they are not.

If he finds the behavior unacceptable, and what I really think he's finding unacceptable is his wife's dismissal of his concerns.

So basically he has no voice and you are suggesting he should not have any voice in how his home life goes.

If that's the case, who is abusing whom. He's being told, you will tolerate the behavior and you will like it.

Yep, that sounds a lot like a loving wife to me.

Ditto for a father. If we are going to assume her anger is valid, then give him the same benefit of the doubt.

You can't play it both ways, either they both have valid reasons to be angry or neither.

Pick one, but be consistent. You can't dismiss his anger and validate hers.

I suspect his anger is as valid as you claim hers is. If you invalidate one, then you have to invalidate both. If you accept one, then you have to accept both.

So given you validate her anger, I'll take that as you also concede he too has valid reasons to be angry.

It seems to me that this is the kind of situation where a marriage coach is useful. An educated third party can sometimes identify when a person has a valid complaint and when the complaint is not reasonable and is stepping on a boundary of the other person or being controlling. It is very easy to justify controlling a spouse by saying their behavior is annoying.

A spouse does not come first when the health or safety of your child is at stake. If you were in a sinking ship, would you tell people to save their spouse first over their child? Not everything is black and white.

Yes, I would save my spouse before my child.

If my spouse was saved, she would be there for any of the children who were saved.

My vow is to my spouse, she comes before anyone else, children included. That's what I vowed when I stood on the altar and spoke my vows of matrimony.

Anything less makes a lie of my vows, and my that would mean I lied to God.

God first, spouse second, others next.

No getting around that order.

I'm not saying it would be easy. But that's the order I learned.

I agree with this. Creating a happy, secure marriage does not involve bad behavior that harms the children.

EE, are you saying you would allow your spouse to abuse your child? Because that is exactly what this is. To discipline a child for being too tender is very abusive. Damaging a child emotionally should not be allowed under the guise of "putting your marriage first."

Nowhere does MB advocate tolerating child abuse by using the marriage as an excuse.

p.s. if I were forced by my spouse to choose between child abuse or him, of course I would not choose the marriage or I would be just as guilty as him.

It's just as easy to be controlling by REJECTING a complaint and claiming it's invalid. I.E. saying you should not be annoyed by that is a controlling statement. WE don't get to determine what annoys or doesn't annoy another person.

We only get to determine if we are going to accept or reject the complaint. To say it's invalid it to engage in controlling behavior. To say something shouldn't bother someone is to engage in controlling behavior.

Parents do have the responsibility to mold a child's behavior. Children are not to be trusted with the role of molding a parent's behavior.

So if a parent suggests he finds a child's behavior unacceptable, that's NOT controlling because it's the natural role of the parent. If a spouse asserts a parent should not feel a specific way about a situation, that IS CONTROLLING because you are saying they should act, feel, believe differently.

It's like the example in Patricia Evans book about controlling people where the mother, IIRC, says corrects her daughter and says she likes a particular food, and suggests that even though she says she doesn't she really does, or that she should.

That's controlling.

Suggesting that someone not be annoyed by something, or they shouldn't is simply an attempt to control them.

So if there is any controlling behavior here, it's all those who are suggesting the OP is wrong in how he feels and he should not be annoyed by the child or the child's behavior.

From what I understand about controlling behaviors, that suggestion is an example of controlling behavior on the parts of those who are telling him he should not be annoyed or angry, or whatever folks think he shouldn't be feeling or thinking.

Because if he can persuade her that these concepts, policies, and agreements are in her best interest, she will become willing to respond to those formerly ineffective actions.

I agree it is controlling! And I sure hope his wife controls him as much as possible when it comes to protecting her son. That is her JOB! If I were her, I would be controlling the man right out of my house [perhaps at the point of my gun] if he tried to discipline my son - not for doing something wrong - but the sole reason that his sensitivity annoyed him.

You are assuming he's abusing the child, and that's quite a leap from being angry over the situation and finding it unacceptable.

Again, if being angry is abuse, then everyone in the situation is abusive and an unsafe parent. If finding behavior unacceptable is abuse, then everyone is abusive and unsafe.

I think you are grasping at straws that are not there.

Finding behavior unacceptable or annoying is not abusive. To continue to subject someone to behavior they find annoying IS ABUSIVE. To dismiss your spouses complaints and subject your spouse to additional annoying behavior is ABUSIVE.

So maybe there is abuse present. But don't be so sure the OP is the abuser here. Or if he is, it's unlikely he's the only abuser in the relationship.

Oh, we've gone far beyond this now. The ladies want him out of the house. He's an abuser, an axe murder and Hitler's second cousin according to some of them.

His complaints are no longer valid, and he should be escorted from the home at gunpoint.

That's where this conversation has fallen to.

ML, that's why I asked if he was willing to take anger management. The answer is no, he says he's not willing to change.

So I guess all we can do is try to persuade him that it is normal for a ten year old child (of either gender) to be sensitive. That what a ten year old child needs is a good strong DADDY to be hard for them and protect them from the world and make it safe for them to grow up and make them feel loved until they are big enough to face the world on their own. (Which I agree can happen earlier than our society expects, but typically not at ten.)

Note that there is also an 8 month old baby involved here.

And I hope you are faster on the draw and have more bullets to defend against all the sons whose mothers escorted a concerned father out of the home because she thought he was too hard on her son.

Funny! It just occurred to me that you are saying he's too hard on the kid. But how can you reconcile your opinion, and that it's OK for you to judge him, but he's in the wrong to judge the child as too soft?

If he, a parent, is not in a valid position to judge a child, then isn't your position to judge him even less legitimate?

After all, you are not his wife? You don't know him or the child?

Meanwhile, he lives there, if only on weekends, far more than you, and has experience with the child.

What makes you or anyone more able to judge the circumstance than the man living in it?

You can't judge him and criticize him for judging the child at the same time and be credible.

The solution to every annoying behavior is not to make your spouse change. Sometimes the answer is to change yourself.

In this case, maybe the solution is for the OP to read some books on sensitive children and grow in understanding. If the OP knew more about the type of child his stepson is, maybe he wouldn't find the behavior so annoying.

The abuse I reference is his attempt to discipline and punish the child for being "too tender." Of course a mother is going to be angry when someone tries to harm her child. There is a difference between anger in defense of abuse and anger that is intended to harm.

Dr. Harley dealt with that step family situation on the radio program once a few months back. He had at least one situation where stepchildren and stepparents could not coexist. He did not advise a parent to abandon their children. In his words that just couldn't be done. So in the situation he referred to, the married couple lived apart (not 2 1/2 hours away, but in separate houses) until the children were grown, lived by all of the principles especially including POUA (15+ hours per week) and POJA, and reunited when the children were grown.


Then he should pick up Love Busters, read the entire book, especially including the chapter on stepfamilies, and try to better the situation in a way that is respectful of his wife and thoughtful of her feelings. First and foremost, he MUST become willing to eliminate angry outbursts toward this poor defenseless ten year old boy. That is not acceptable. Dr. Harley advises a husband or wife married to someone who will not or cannot eliminate angry outbursts to separate, and that would include this situation, because this man has specifically responded to the Angry Outburst issue by saying that it is "just me" and he is not willing to change.

If he expects his wife to work with him, then he needs to become willing to work with her. He can start bettering this situation right now by eliminating angry outbursts and other abuse, which will increase his odds of getting what he wants, anyway. Why should his wife negotiate with a terrorist?


Marriage Builders advice in the case of uncontrolled angry outbursts is separation.