Noddy24 wrote:PP--
I think all the jargon you need here is "Communication". Passive Aggressive is a term of value in a clinical situation, but you're not running a clinic, you're part of a home.
Does your new husband, your kids' stepfather, have any children of his own? Does he have any experience with kids?
Further questions:
How did your daughter react when her stepfather turned off the lights? Did he turn the lights off absent mindedly or with malice aforethought?
Were you dragged into the middle of this drama?
Like other posters, I'm concerned with the eight-year-old. Whose car window was broken? Did you disagree with your husband, his step father about disclipine at the time of the original incident? What about the recent broken window?
How do you think your husband is involved in your son's bathroom dogging behavior? Was this a once and done thing or has it happened frequently? Is he always dogging one particular boy or does he act this way with all the kids?
As for the six-year-old: Was the oral surgery connected to cavities and decay? What did the oral surgeon recommend for the post-op diet? Did you and your husband discuss care and feeding on the post-op diet?
Are you really asking whether or not your husband is abusive toward your children? Or whether his expectations are unrealistic? Or whether his presence is causing their misbehavior?
Your question as phrased is difficult to answer.
Blended families are frequently ungodly amalgamations. I know--I lived through one. Coming to solutions involves asking the right questions.
8 y.o is S(ignificant)O(ther)'s son. The car was SO's Isuzu, which is supposed to be for sale, and parked on the street. The kid threw the rock "on accident." He has a few behavioral problems, a few birth defects he's outgrowning or not, too...
I don't think SO is abusive, but he's a bit more controlling... in what seems passively aggressive to me... When asked about the lights, he claimed to be unaware she was in the room, although he walked right past her... He said we always forget to turn off the lights, so he has to always do it for us...
The peaches are going to wind up a fight, I can feel it coming on. My son wanted some more today for breakfast, and I told him he could, to ask his stepdad to open the can for him, and I heard SO snort and offer my son either orange slices or papaya instead. (His son was coming out, and he
really doesn't want him eating canned food when there is fresh available. I can understand that, although don't believe that a wholesome diet is going to improve his son's problems, or eating canned fruit is going to impair his son any more than him eating frozen waffles (which my kids like) has. The solution this morning was to send my son off to shower while his son ate breakfast, then his son went to bathe and I opened my son a can of peaches. I rinse them, putting the juice in a glass, so they aren't
that sugary and I only buy the ones that say lightly sweetened if they are significantly cheaper than those described as naturally sweetened. I don't see what the big deal is feeding kids what they like for breakfast, kwim? My kids have experienced the move as some sort of loss, even though they have very nice rooms here, our house is gone, our neighborhood is gone, they have to put up w/a step brother who has impulsive tendencies, is wild, is loud, is hard to live with... My 6 yr old hardly eats dinner, and can be very picky. SO insists we all eat together at dinner, and it's a challenge to cook, let me tell you... SO hardly ever bought~prepared red meat or pork or chicken, only fish and vegetables and grains for him and his child. We've suffered through all white meals, things like potatoes with tofu and cauliflower when we were assimilating. Perhaps he would add tomato soup, even though I repeatedly told him that we never buy it, can barely stand it even when it's served w/grilled cheese sandwiches. He would always act genuinely surprised we didn't like it, especially if we ate even a tiny bit to be polite. Otoh, he feels like he is suffering through a meal of kalua pig and cabbage w/rice, or beef and broccoli w/rice, which we think of as about the best... He usually does the shopping b/c I buy more than the budget allows, but then he buys what he always has, our preferences bought through his lens of what is right (like health food store vegan frozen waffles instead of Eggo, and blueberry, even though one of my kids won't touch a blueberry waffle if her life depended on it; so she only eats cereal.) Food is going to be the hill we die on, one of us, I can see it coming... And what is weird is that SO and I thought we were pretty much on the same page food-wise; we've been eating together for years now...
Oh, the dentist told me me my son should have soft foods for the rest of that day. The root canals were b/c an old filling fell out and decay had set in underneath... probably b/c the filling had been loose for some time or perhaps the old dentist's error in cleaning the cavity (new dentist b/c we are now covered under SO's insurance plans; same pediatrician, though...)
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