Kat,

Here's the deal. When you gave your ENTHUSIASTIC agreement to son attending sports practice, it was CONDITIONAL. Conditional upon son's appropriate behavior, right? Expressed or implied. You need to make it clear if you are no longer enthusiastic about his going to practice tonight. That is NOT a punishment. That is a withdrawal of a privilege. Because of your son's bad behavior, you no longer feel good about that privilege.

In addition to staying home from practice, you will need to decide together whether or not to PUNISH him for bad behavior, or better yet, take away another privilege until his disrespect stops.

I would let your husband know that although there may be "reasons" for your son's emotional outbursts, you do not agree to accepting those reasons as an EXCUSE for son's outburst.

If your husband takes him anyway, let him know that it hurts you terribly that he would maintain privileges for a son who treats you disrespectfully. Tell him that it hurts you that he disregarded your feelings and decision that son did not earn the privilege to attend practice. Attending practice is conditional privilege. (Hopefully Dad can help him see that to join him at practice in the future, he should make sure to respect you and cooperate.)

When you make agreements about son in the future, make it clear what your conditions are for being enthusiastic if you can. Even if you didn't make it clear, changing your mind due to unforeseen circumstances or events is still respected under the Policy of Joint Agreement. No moving forward without both spouses feeling GOOD about it.

***EDIT***

Yes, that's what we are doing now. I agree with everything you've said, Sunny. I'll give him the opportunity to brainstorm with me and include ideas that he did not agree with in the past. Thanks for helping me see that I can include those options again.

This whole forum has helped me see that I can keep negotiating the parenting solutions that I want for our son. I don't need to stop and I'm not being too controlling or restrictive by expecting our son to treat his family respectfully

I'm going to stop allowing my husband and son to walk all over me. I'm going to stop being so darn passive and begin upholding boundaries once again.

Thank you for this. I'm copying much of what you said here to refer to in the near future.

Also, you can brainstorm many alternatives. For example, Just because you chose for son to stay home doesnt mean H must stay home too, if you can be enthusiatic about H coaching, etc.

Good question. Not in these words, but yes, I've been told to chill, just relax, let it go, stop trying to make everything hard, in heated situations, though not directly in front of the kids but they have been nearby.

Absolutely, apples. Husband has to go, he's responsible for the other kids on the team.

I think it's important for you to understand that your husband is the one "controlling" the situation when he forces his action even though you don't want to move forward. The POJA is the rule that keeps both parties from controlling each other by "doing it anyway".

Please continue to remind your husband that his moving forward against your wishes is making you feel unsafe and unprotected.

DQ, I've read over your posts here today and you're saying what I'm instinctively feeling but didn't put as well as you did. It is about the privilege of doing fun activities that we try hard to provide for him. Knowing this, and with his behavior so poor, even while getting him to practices or driving him to tournaments, I'm beyond ready to stop all of it until his behavior improves.

And it helps me very much to hear that I'm not the one who's being controlling here.

In this case, today, my husband did not move forward against my wishes, but you must be referring to the event on Monday. I will no longer accept that.

We have let this slide, but I want to reiterate markos's earlier advice that that this situation needs to end. Your husband's involvement in the kids' sports has hurt your marriage, and it is still hurting it today. Your husband needs to give up coaching this team.

This discussion is becoming sidetracked.

Kat does not need to "explore how her husband might be enthusiastic now" to keeping her son at home in those situations. This couple needs to use POJA, which means that if either of them does not enthusiastically agree to a course of action, they do nothing.

I missed this somehow. This is not the travel team, this is a local team. And, he's been great at meeting the 15 hours a week. This is the last week of the season so it's a bit of a moot point. But he will likely want to coach again next year, locally, and while making sure our 15 hours a week of UA is met. This is something we will need to discuss and POJA, right?

* I see, you mean husband's involvement hurting marriage while trying to also POJA parenting son. This is an issue, I didn't think of that.

It sounds to me as if this was not a decision that either was enthusiastic about. What appears to have happened is that Kat refused to drive her son, and her husband, anxious that the son should not miss practice, took the trouble to do it himself. There was no "agreement" as such; rather, Kat's husband acted independently to stop his son and the team feeling let down. Once again he was showing his over-involvement in the kids' sports, and utter lack of consideration for his wife.

As with this latest example, unless they both enthusiastically agreed to a solution that time, they should have done nothing. If Kat's goal was to make her son face consequences for being rude to her - that consequence being for him and his friend to miss the game - then that didn't happen. Kat's wishes were in fact overridden when her husband dropped everything at work to drive the kids himself.

POJA was not being used in that situation (or at all in this marriage), and so we really cannot look back on that as an "agreement" that was made at the time, that now needs to be revisited.

Kat's husband needs to give up coaching and focus on spending much more time with his wife. Even if time isn't the issue with the coaching, it is having a bad effect on the marriage. Things should never have been allowed to get to this level, and the coaching needs to stop.

Kat and her husband need also to discuss whether they want their son to continue playing for the team, and if they do, how he will attend practices. Driving their son to sports a few times a week might also be taking its toll on the marriage, and again, if so it should stop.

True. And POJA also says that husband's activities are conditional as well. His COMMITMENT to YOU TRUMPS ALL OTHER COMMITMENTS.

In my own situation, I became unenthusiastic about my husband's attendance at many events that could have met my need for FC. Too many unilateral decisions were being made. I found myself in competition with the other party or event under all circumstances.

In order to solve this problem, we had to wipe EVERYTHING from our schedule and start clean using POJA. (I remember someone else recommending this to you.) Summer is a great time to do that because school is out and many sports end. I would suggest that you approach your husband with this idea of wiping the slate clean and adding things to the schedule one at a time, after you BOTH feel good about it. If you do this, let us know how he responds to the idea.

Tell him you want him to give it up, and do not agree to his continuing with this. It is harming your marriage, not because off the time it takes, but because of your husband's loyalty to the kids and the team, and his utter disloyalty to the idea of doing nothing without your enthusiastic agreement.

Yes, Prisca said this same thing. It is something we need to do. I'll approach this with my husband. Any suggestions on when to do it? Is this something we can talk about on our next date, in a pleasant way and if it gets heated, shelve it for another time? Also, do I explain why I'm not enthusiastic about certain activities son and husband expect to sign up for?

That's a way to punish you for your viewpoint. Hurting another until a person gets his way is an AO, even if his voice is not raised and angry.

It's likely you quickly acquiesced to avoid the children from hearing more of these comments.

As you can see, they were damaging to your relationship with your DS12 and to his respect for you.

My plan going forward is to directly address these comments (hard for me to spot because he does not raise his voice or seem angry). He hasn't done this in a while. If he tells me I need to relax, I'll reply with "It bothers me when you tell me I need to relax when I'm expressing my point of view."

I'm feeling negatively toward my husband right now and would prefer to be left alone this evening to think and (ironically) relax. I'm feeling stressed by my sons behavior this week and the work ahead to change not only the dynamic w our son but also with my husband.

Is it ok to need time to myself when my husband technically did nothing wrong this afternoon? Do I tell him I just need some time to myself?