My wife and I have been married for roughly 2.5 yrs and have been together for much longer. We have an amazing 1.5 yr old. I work full time from home and my wife is a stay at home mother, what I’ve always dreamed to be able to do. She is an amazing mother to our kid.
As of the last 6 months, we have been getting into huge fights almost every single weekend. At first, i listened, knew there was some things that I could do to improve situations going forward to avoid confrontation, but at this point it feels like “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type situation.
She gets very over stimulated with our child, which I think is very understandable. I wish I would be able to pitch in more during the day, but I have to work. During the week, she doesn’t seem to be as irate with me, but just very difficult to be around her. On the weekends is where we begin to have problems.
The last example was we had a fantastic day in the morning and early afternoon. We both worked together with our kid to do the usually two naps, I played with him otherwise so she could take a shower and wash her hair, it’s hard during the week for her to have time. By dinner I was playing with our kid while she got dinner ready. We play while she does that to not bother her (this was a huge fight at one time when I thought we could cook dinner as a family but we got in the way). Half way through dinner I could tell she was getting irritated, so i proactively said I will give our kid a bath and she could have a moment. After his bath, I came back and she was livid and screaming her head off at me telling me I don’t appreciate all the work she does. I should have been cleaning the play room, etc while she was cooking. I told her that I typically do that once our kid is a sleep but that didn’t suffice. Nothing seems to calm her down, I tried to do what we have talked about in the past but it just kept going.
These fights are not just a simple back and forth, but my wife becomes EXTREMELY irate, screaming her head off at me. She always proceeds to say “you have 2 min to fix this and make me happy or you have to leave.” She will proceed to speak over me telling me that I am an idiot and not a real man (different choice of language and words, but that’s a generalization). She will sometimes put a timer on and say “when it’s up and I am not happy, you leave”. She will also tell our kid “daddy’s being so mean to mommy” and other such things and it just seems so inappropriate and childish.
I hate the fighting in front of our kid, it breaks my heart but she will not hold off for us to talk. She will even keep him up for multiple hours to keep coming at me and screaming. I have no clue what to do, but don’t feel like this type of fighting is “normal”. Has anyone gone though this? I tried to say we should do counseling, but she just tells me a real man of the house would control his wife and make her happy and not need someone to help. I am beginning to feel helpless and just want the best for our kid.