This is what I was referring to earlier when I talked about sacrificing.

Being passive is another way to say you sacrificed, just letting him have his way to keep the peace. This also has to change.

Sorry, Kat, but I really disagree.

I think your H is manipulative and makes the situation so that he gets his way but tries to make it seem he's doing things to your benefit or puts you in a difficult situation with your children.

I think he knows darn well exactly what he is doing.

Has your H agreed to stop the IB? I think this was asked before but I can't remember the answer.

Any time you don't enthusiastically agree and he goes ahead and does what he wants anyway, it's an iB. Does he understand this?

These concepts are not rocket science. Don't let him make it more complicated than it is.

Susie Q, he's agreed to stop doing IB, but things like this come up and I don't know if he sees it as IB or not. He's told me in the past that I am too controlling with our 12 yr old and that I was disregarding his input regarding parenting.

When you say manipulative, I get what you mean, that he wants his way. But you're also saying that he's trying to put me in a difficult situation with the kids? I don't see this, but I've been so confused when these issues come up that I may be missing something.

My husband sees me as very emotional and himself as very calm, when faced with challenges, especially parenting. I think this is a case of what Dr. H described, that he doesn't know yet that the two of us can make better decisions together than one of us alone. And it will make his life better. My husband is willing to sacrifice for the sake of the kids- he just doesn't see how much this hurts us. Getting "his" way in this recent situation meant going out of his way to do extra work after work so our 12 yr old wouldn't miss out, and setting us up for more issues down the road since son was able to go even after being disrespectful to me.

12yr old son disrespectful to me this afternoon. Violated a house rule, then swore at me when I told him it was not ok and there'd be a consequence.

.....

Husband was trying to be nice to me. But I strongly felt 12 yr old should not go after hs behavior, so I said so. Husband said it was best for him to go. He sad he's already talked w son about his behavior and so did I.

We discussed it more and he took him without my agreement. I tried to point out that this decision directly affects me too because son now thinks it's ok to be disrespectful to me, and husband said I was getting "worked up." That I should go back to getting ready and let him handle.

Kat, I've been following your story, and wanted to jump in here with a comment. You have a very serious problem here. Your marriage is on fire while your husband is pouring gas on your kids. Yes, that serious. It will bring you unspeakable heart ache in the future.

If you have a 12 year old son SWEARING at you, multiply that by 10x worse per year until he leaves the home, ENABLED and ENCOURAGED by your husband. Your husband is alienating your son right under your nose.

Yet your husband sets himself up as the nice guy and you as the bat crazy witch which the two of them, going in together, can entirely discount and disrespect - him and the son against you.

The kid always goes for the parent that's "on their side".

This deed right there would cause me to lock my husband out of the house until he stops belittling you to the children. I can't overstate the intense, heart wrenching pain this will cause you.

Dr. Harley advises a wife "plan A" her husband for only a short duration before her health breaks down. An unruly kid to this degree is multiples of the heartache a mean husband is.

Read up on parental alienation and how horrible that becomes for the alienated parent. THAT is your path and you not just at the verge, but well on your way down it.

The action he took, countermanding you over the swearing son, is despicable. Don't stand for it.

This instance of IB is not just "hurtful" and annoying - it's destroying you, and unfortunately, your son. Don't stand for it. Make it very clear that your H needs to let your son know H was WRONG and have your H impose a punishment 2x or 3x stronger than the degree that you were about to impose.

This type of situation alone is enough to consider immediate separation until your H will stop alienating your son. You urgently need to be able to parent your son without an H countermanding you because if this continues very much further at all, you will lose all hope of an un-alienated relationship with your son.

Stay strong. Insist on no parenting IB whatsoever, ESPECIALLY in your deteriorated circumstance. If that is not acceptable to your H, SEPARATE for the good of your children. It is far more destructive for the child to provide this type of two parent home than to separate.

Sunny times, I'm listening and thanks for the honest post. I'll read up on the term alienated parent- and what you've described is what my instincts have been telling me. Son directs disrespect and anger towards me, husband says it's because I've been too controlling with him. We've been going to therapy and the approach used is "connection parenting," where parents work to be on the same side as the child, that his disrespect and anger is a way to protect his feelings.

However, I believe our son responds very well to boundaries. He needs to know what the rules are and who will enforce them. So far, that has been me. Husband disagrees, says talking is a form of discipline (for some kids, I admit this works, just not with ours), and we don't need to resort to consequences and punishment.

The problem is, there is a lot of support for my husband's approach. It worked for him as a child, and our therapist referred us to The Whole Brain Child (ironically co-authored by a close friend of mine) and the recent research supports his approach. So I hate to blame him or say he's wrong.

Bottom line- we need more help. There's a lot going on here that I hoped we could solve on our own, but now I'm thinking the issues are deeper than I thought and we need more help.

I would suggest the following:

"DH, I love you and want our marriage to be wonderful. I am willing to do everything in my control to make it so, and am eager to our future together.

However, it is very damaging to my relationship with the children for you to openly side with them against me, and to reinforce to DS12 that he can swear at me, receive your backing and get his way.

So that I can be the mother that he needs me to be, I'm asking if you would be willing to circle back to DS12, letting him know after further reflection you harmed him by reinforcing that he could swear at his mother, and to remedy the situation, you are imposing [fill in the blank] consequence to help him remember to never do this again. Should it happen again in the future, the consequence will be immediate and even more severe."

If husband is unwilling to do this (leaving ALL mention of your request out of his dialog with the son), then your next move would be to say something along the lines of:

"I'm sorry that our marriage cannot continue on until you stop alienating the children from me."

And, I'd have his bags out on the driveway with the locks changed when he comes home from work that day, along with a note as follows:

"DH, I regret that we are unable to parent together due to your decision to alienate the children from their mother. If you are willing to reconsider, I'd love to continue building our marriage again. Until then, please notify me of which days you would like to have the children once you are settled in a new residence."

This is from a person who was SO AFRAID to separate. The MB regulars can confirm that, unfortunately. It would have been the best thing to do in retrospect, but I didn't dare to do it. I wish I had. I hope you do.

How's that working out for him? Ha! A 12 year old who swears at his mother.

My children would NEVER think to swear at me when they were 12. EVER!! When they were 12 they were under control and still very sweet. Nor would they think to swear at me when they were 18.

However, did I ever have my hands full by the time they were mid-teens. I cannot even imagine the mess you are headed for. And with him cheering them on against you. It's a cluster of train wreck pile ups heading your way, and you will be the target. Sadly, the mutual target based on this incident.

It's important to POJA the house rules that will be enforced, but you and your H need to back each other up to the kids.

Kids are master manipulates and very smart. They want their way. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." In their immaturity, they think that exploiting the division gets them their way and they don't see how destructive that will ultimately be.

Oh, pulEEeeeeaze!

As a mother of many children, not a single child of mine would have responded to this in any other way than demanding more and more of the rule of the household.

This is training up a few raging narcissists, as you are experiencing.

It is not doing them any favors at all, but instead is damaging them.

Sunny times, I agree. And our son needs clear rules/consequences. I'm copying your script above and will use it the next time. Because we had a great date following the incident and husband did talk to son already, and I didn't yet read advice here, I'm going to use it the next time, which sadly, will not be long I'm sure.

And at age 12 I did not treat my parents the way our son treats me either.

Glad you see it that way and recognize the problem.

I'd suggest not letting it rest until next time, but to circle back now and have him address it.

Waiting until next time just kicks the can you are dreading to touch down the road, and then the circumstances won't be quite the same so you'll be second guessing yourself whether this really is the "next time", and you'll allow the problem that much more time to perpetuate and entrench.

I was in a similar "next time" rut in my marriage, one that rolled along for at least 10 years. "Next time" he threatens to leave..... yet "next time" was a little softer so I let it go. And the next time... and the next, etc. There were over 100 "next times" before my health let me know it couldn't continue.

And the behavior of your DS12 will just continue to harden, if he gets away with this one. Don't let him. What you enable, you promote.

I strongly advise to circle back now and let your H know it was not OK and needs to be fixed so there is NOT a "next time". You don't want a "next time". That's what disciplining kids is to prevent - repeated behavior.

Find your spine NOW so you don't need two of them later.

....


BTW, I'm speaking from experience with a similar situation with just one of my children, although it was not nearly as bad already at 12 years old. It's wrenching, almost every day, now.

The other children were not alienated like that, and my relationship ranges between pretty good and fantastic with them.

If I could go back in time, it would be to take the collusion behind my back with this child far more seriously. Collusion very similar to what you described here, where you lay down a consequence and your H teams up with the child while countermanding it.

Yes!! Your instinct is exactly right. That's because he's a kid. Very typical.

Kids need boundaries so they know you love them.

There is a parallel between raising children and training dogs. You teach the dog boundaries in their behavior so you can all enjoy each other more. With no boundaries, you are always yelling at the dog (ineffectively) and their bad behavior has you in a constant state of aggravation.

Dogs don't listen to your words because they like your words, they listen to your words because you train them with consequences they would prefer to avoid if they don't obey.

Same with kids. Set boundaries so you can all enjoy your time together. You are doing the children a terrible disservice to allow them to terrorize and rule the household so they don't get to experience their realistic role in relationships and enjoy a peaceful home life.

In short, by not enforcing boundaries, you are derpving them of a warm, loving and peaceful childhood experience, their future potential and possibly their marriages since they have been trained to be raging narcissists. That type of character won't get the child very far in life.

He is not too delicate to learn and observe boundaries - rather, he is yearning for them.

Going back to the training parallel, a dog really just wants to be loved and enjoyed. And, while children's needs are not only exactly this simple, yet they do also have this need - children want to be loved and enjoyed. They can receive that best if they understand boundaries.

Obviously, there are many differences how you would raise children vs. train dogs - my post didn't mean to oversimplify that. I was only using the illustration for boundaries.

It doesn't matter if he sees it as Independent Behavior or not. He needs to agree to stop anything that YOU see as Independent Behavior . He needs to agree to stop doing anything that you don't feel enthusiastic about. In other words, he needs to agree to follow the Policy of Joint Agreement. And the reason is: BECAUSE IT HURTS if he doesn't.

The Policy of Joint Agreement doesn't leave room for debate - either you feel reluctant about something, or you feel enthusiastic, and if you feel reluctant, then he needs to not do it.

Stay on him about this.

I am concerned that this discussion may have veered a little bit off track.

Your husband might not feel that your son needs clear rules and consequences.

But even if he does not feel that way, he needs to refrain from taking any action that you are not enthusiastic about BECAUSE IT HURTS. Stay on him about this.

YES. Please take note of Sunny's comment that Dr. Harley does not advise a wife to spend long years trying to win her husband over. It is horrendous for her health.

Fix the marriage by insisting that your husband fix it with you, and then you will be able to fix the child.

And I'll repeat that Prisca would never let me do something like this - I would come home to find the locks changed, and she would get backup help from her family. She'd probably call MelodyLane to come down from the next state up north and rough me up, too...

I'm taking note of what Sunny is saying and what you've said. Thanks for spelling it out very clearly for me- this is where I get tripped up- differing parenting styles, and who's right? It doesn't matter- what matters is that he's deciding for both of us without my agreement.

And it really helps me to know your own wife would not put up with this.

He does not know this hurts me. I need to say "It hurts me when you make parenting decisions without my agreement. Please do not make parenting decisions without my agreement. If we can't agree, we need to not take any action until we come up with a solution."

How to bring up everything coming up with son that he's assuming we will do that I don't agree with? Do I make a list? Send an email? Address it s it comes up? There's so much I don't know where to start.

You need to wipe the schedule clean and start fresh. Sit down and discuss each and every activity and whether or not you are enthusiastic about them. Until you agree, your son does nothing.

This is not a board in which we decide which parent has the right parenting style. This board's purpose is to teach couples to be integrated so that they can figure out their parenting style on their own. Please keep that in mind when posting. Thank you.

This is great, I'll start here. Thanks, Prisca.

Another incident w son today. Husband agrees w me that there will be a consequence. Husband is at work. I sent son into room. He went, though he argued about going.

Husband thinks behavior is due to son's stress about an unrelated issue. He will likely not want to impose a hard consequence. I think son should be grounded from sports practice tonight. Husband will not agree.

Keep brainstorming together, then wait until husband comes home to give him consequence? Or I tell him we both decided on consequence?

Thanks for any help here- this directly affects my marriage and is a major cause of our stress.