We had a beautiful marriage until our two kids started growing up. We didn’t fight but now we do. We didn’t go to bed angry but now we do it at least thrice before the week ends. We didn’t talk back at each other. When we didn’t agree on something, we didn’t talk about it angrily. We are no longer a husband and wife as we used to be at the initial stages of marriage. We are parents now and being parents is breaking all the rules of marriage for us.

One thing we discussed extensively before marriage and after marriage is children. We wanted a boy and a girl so we agreed on two. I asked, “What if we don’t get both sexes after two attempts?” He answered, “Then we will make a third attempt and see. If we fail, we end it there.”

We talked about each other’s role in raising the kids. The school they’ll attend if we have the money and the one they’ll attend if money becomes a problem. We talked about everything before these two children arrived. God being so good, we didn’t need to attempt it thrice to get both sexes. Currently, the first, the boy, is nine years old and the second is six years old. These two have become the bane of our problems and the funny thing is, they don’t even know about it.

He talks about raising disciplined children and I agree with him but the method is what I don’t agree with. He wants to raise our kids the way he himself was raised. What he calls strict isn’t necessarily being strict. Being strict is not anger or screaming orders or shouting at kids when they go wrong. You can be strict without raising your voice. I was raised in an environment of fear, that’s what our parents called strictness but when I grew up, I’ve learned it’s not the best way.

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So my husband would scream at the boy because he got an assignment wrong. He’d like to teach him with a cane next to him. He doesn’t hit them with the cane but threatens them with it at any given opportunity, instilling fear in them. I talked to him about it when we were alone. “Fear doesn’t raise disciplined children. It rather turns children inward and makes them timid,” I said. He responded,  “Do I appear timid to you? That’s how I was raised but look at me now. Our parents aren’t stupid.”

Now the children run to me at any given opportunity. They don’t want the help of their father. When it comes to homework, they run to me. When they need something, I have to force them to go to their father. Sometimes they don’t. The boy will tell me, “You can tell him when he comes.” If I don’t, he won’t say it. Clearly, we are failing as parents but my husband thinks that’s the way to go.

We are at each other’s throats almost every night because he accuses me of spoiling the kids. “Why won’t they run from me and come to you when you’re the one enabling their weakness.” Sometimes he puts it differently; “You’re the one pitching them against me. I don’t know what you tell them but whatever you tell them about me is working.”

I don’t tell them anything. They see it. They feel it. One day he tried to play with them, but the kids found it so strange they disengaged. He had to dictate the rules of the play and pull them along before they could follow through. That night we didn’t fight. I only asked him to do it often and he told me, “When they behave very well around here, I’ll be on the floor for them every day.”

To him, a reward system is what makes children disciplined. Give them this when they do this but give them that when they flout the rule. I agree with him on that but playing with your children too should be based on a system of reward.

I served them lunch one afternoon, my husband looked at the meat on their food and took one piece each from their food. He screamed at me in front of the kids. “You see why I blame you for spoiling them? How can kids eat all that? Are you rearing them to be sold on Christmas day? How much chop money do they give you to be enjoying this much? You’re spoiling these kids!”

I didn’t talk back. I was watching the kids and smiling so they don’t get triggered by fear. The boy took his food from the table and went to his room. The girl stopped eating and watched while her dad berated me for giving them too much meat. When they were asleep and we were in our room, we had a fight. I didn’t mean to fight but he saw my questions as me questioning his authority so he stood up and screamed, “This is my house and I’ll rule it the way I see fit. You won’t destroy my children for me.”

Maybe the kids heard us fighting. Maybe they didn’t. We were loud. We were confrontational. I wanted to be heard because I’ve been relegated to the background for a very long time when it came to the kids. In the morning, my boy couldn’t look at me in the face. On the way to school, they sat quietly, looking at the road while I drove them to school. When I tried to engage them, their answers were straightforward and single-worded.

I don’t know when this will stop. I’m not comfortable when I’m away and they’re home alone with their dad. I’m always in a rush to get home to be with them. They are very playful and loud when their dad is not around but once he enters the house, they go quiet and sober. He calls it discipline but to me, it’s only fear that will make kids dread the presence of their father.

I want to bring a third party into this but knowing my husband, that will bruise his ego. Instead of seeing it as an attempt to solve a problem, he’ll see it as an attempt to usurp his authority as the father of the house. I keep asking myself, “Where’s the lovely man I married? The man who never lifted his voice when we were alone. The man who loved me so much he listened to every word I said. Why can’t he listen to me now? Why can’t he trust me and leave these kids to be kids?”

He Called Me On The Phone So I Could Hear The Other Woman’s Voice

Maybe I’m wrong, is that what happens in every home? Too much meat makes kids indisciplined? Hugging and cuddling your kids make them weak? Talking to them lovingly and respectfully will make them cowards? So much that they can’t stand up for themselves?  Soft words can’t create strong kids, is that the case? What’s the way forward for us as a couple if we rule out the intervention of a third party? Tell me something.

—Vera

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