My wife can’t let things wash over her, she takes teenage ranty comments personally, and I’m in the wrong for being not backing her up and being too laid back about things.

If I feel my wife is wrong I tend to just shut-up and let her get on with it. And often don’t say what I really feel.

There are constant references to ‘well when I was her age we wouldn’t have been allowed to do that’. Yep, well that was 35yrs ago – times have changed somewhat.

It’s all a bit Kevin & Perry, but it’s starting to get serious now. My wife feels she’s being pushed out by my daughter and me (which is not the case). It’s creating arguments between me and the wife and the atmosphere in the house is terrible at times.

She’s not a feral teenager either. Doesn’t get into trouble, participates in sports etc, sociable with her friends – IMO just a teenager. A decent kid.

I’m not sure how to approach things anymore.

put a sofa in the mancave and hide for the next 8 yrs?

YABU, take your wife’s side, she’ll be there after your daughter’s left.

being even handed means they’ll both think you;re on the other ones side, ime.

(I don’t have a solution)

Extend the patio by 12 feet.

Your daughter can’t win, even if you are not in full agreement with the wife, you should be seen to be with her.
Things have changed, but your daughter doesn’t tell her mum the rules.

Sounds a bit like teenager needs a role model and you’re taking a back seat and your wife is being heavy handed? Somewhere between is a happy medium.

I’m no good with that crap, which is why I never had kids.

Bet your wife feels really secure in this relationship. Not one of your comments held her in a positive light. Nothing about her trying to maintain discipline. Nothing about her trying to keep standards. Just everything being normal and you not wanting to rock the boat.

You refer to ‘your’ daughter. Is she from a previous marriage or is she more yours than hers?

Parenting isn’t always about being your childrens best friend and going with the flow. Sometimes its about being unpopular and working together. A flippant remark from your kids here and there isn’t the end of the world. A partner stabbing you in the back and not being man enough to deal with it in a grown up manner and blaming the other partner is though. I would look at why you aren’t backing your Wife up in these situations and basically fueling your daughters ‘kevin & perry’ moments.

I’m having to learn when to shoosh up, then head back later for a calmer discussion and talk, not ratchet up the argument with ours…
It is a tough one to work out ‘right’ answer – do you allow them to be rude or dictate, or do you stand up and say ‘not in my house’?
It is that taper off in control until they are 18…

No

OP – you need a calm discussion with your Missus. Go away for the weekend or something and get out of the house for a wee while. Then have a chat about your joint approach in a relaxed atmosphere.

* Full disclosure, non-parent, but have seen what feels like much the same with sister, her husband and their children and it ended badly*

In front of your daughter, you should actively support and agree with your wife, even if you don’t really, otherwise your wife feels like the dragon who has to set all the rules and never gets any support from you, and your daughter gets mixed messages about what is expected of her from her parents.

If you think your wife is over-reacting in some situations, you must discuss it with her, but these discussion must take place when your daughter is not there.

TLHobo makes sense – I’d be very reticent to not back up the other adults unless they were batshit mental. You can play peacemaker but maybe try agreeing a deal with your wife first and one that doesn’t chuck her perspective out the window in favour of being a liberal hero. Good luck fella!

Start leaving the toilet seat up! 😆

No

You haven’t met two of mine in full flow have you yet? #everyonesonthespectrum

Having thought more, I am also of the ‘back up in front of the kids, we agree…’ thought, discuss with your wife later without kids around if needed…

Family counselling if its really getting bad? Perhaps you need someone from outside to look at the dynamic? There may well be things where you have misunderstood the importance to your wife or vice versa – and 35 yrs ago or now – no odds. Politeness is politeness

Otherwise I echo IHN above

I agree with supporting your wife. Then, when you have her alone, discuss things with her – but don’t say ‘you did x wrong’, say “I was thinking about x and perhaps we could tackle it like this…’

Can’t say I am looking forward to the next ten years – having two 7 year old girls myself I know I am in for some fun and games. We already have the problem where I see my wife handle things in a way I wouldn’t and she sees me doing the same – at the end of the day, we (as the adults) need to understand that we aren’t all the same and in the heat of battle we don’t always make the best choices.

Good luck.

You need to back your wife up, then discuss with your wife what the rules should be. You can always go back to daughter afterwards and say “we might have been wrong, how about if …..”

My lad is same age as OPs daughter. No real issues yet, very strict about backchat though.

LittleMissMC is apparently just like her mother was and will be a nightmare.

What IHN said is what I was going to add. (Also not a parent.) You have to provide a united front or she’ll play one against the other and your wife will feel like she’s losing both of you.

If you have to disagree with your wife, do it a) when she’s calmed down and b) out of earshot of the daughter.

JoeG – Member

Start leaving the toilet seat up!

Yep, it doesn’t matter how much they hate each other, given a common enemy and they’ll unite.

I hardly see my 16 yr old as she’s always in her room either doing homework but mostly on social meeja.

When your wife is in a calm cheerful state of mind get her to read this:

My wife can’t let things wash over her, she takes teenage ranty comments personally, and I’m in the wrong for being not backing her up and being too laid back about things.

If I feel my wife is wrong I tend to just shut-up and let her get on with it. And often don’t say what I really feel.

There are constant references to ‘well when I was her age we wouldn’t have been allowed to do that’. Yep, well that was 35yrs ago – times have changed somewhat.

It’s all a bit Kevin & Perry, but it’s starting to get serious now. My wife feels she’s being pushed out by my daughter and me (which is not the case). It’s creating arguments between me and the wife and the atmosphere in the house is terrible at times.

She’s not a feral teenager either. Doesn’t get into trouble, participates in sports etc, sociable with her friends – IMO just a teenager. A decent kid.

I’m not sure how to approach things anymore.

I don’t know how old your teenage daughter is, but even if she’s 19 she’s still a child in many ways, despite what the law says. You can’t go head to head with her, you need to be the adult. If you’re not appearing to engage then your wife may be feeling like she has to shoulder the burden of discipline and ends up being too heavy handed.

I’m a decade away from teenage times but I’ve become quite a fan of the wise advice on this site:

http://www.ahaparenting.com/

You can’t control children, let alone young adults. Your wife needs to work with your daughter and you need to make her feel she’s going to be supported (so her actions need to meet with your approval).

Here is a suggestion. Sit around the dinner table together (All of you). Be clear to the daughter that you and the wife are a team and unless the wife, as someone above said, is batshit mental you will side with you wife. This gives your wife the support she needs to be in control (Maybe even you take some of that off her back). It also gives the daughter no reason to play the devisive game (Its no coincidence that she is winding your wife up and not the ‘cool’ dad). Then point out to the daughter that she should grow up a little and point out that she is causing a wedge between her parents. Then also mention to the wife that maybe she needs a little bit of relaxation. Offer some help with the things that are stressing her out. Point out that she is causing you and your daughter to be unhappy and that if you help, maybe she will be able to relax a bit. Maybe even your daughter will start enjoying her company a bit more and offer some help.

My family is nowehere near perfect but we try to encourage discussion and the kids know that popular or not, me and my wife will always try to support each other

In front of your daughter, you should actively support and agree with your wife, even if you don’t really,

see im not sure i agree with this. my missus has some real blow ups with our lads and a lot of it could be avoided if she spoke less confrontationally. same with the lads tho. i have these chats in private trying to promote better ways of speaking to get a better result but at the end of the day theyre all a bit fiery and probably wont change. but if i really do think shes in the wrong ill say so. if i was just to stick up for her no matter what then i wouldnt have the respect from my lads, which i also feel is important.
ill always say what i think and i dont think theres anything wrong with that.

best of luck mate.

I have twin teenage stepsons, I feel the pain of anyone having to try and balance the needs of discipline and maintaining support for one’s partner.

FWIW, my missus and I agreed that we’d adopt the good cop bad cop approach, but I’d be good cop and she’d be bad cop which played against our natural inclinations. We had tacit agreement beforehand that one would always support the other behind the scenes, so this approach worked reasonably well, it allowed me to build bridges and practice resolving conflict and allowed my missus the opportunity to confront poor behaviour.

Neither lad is in jail, so I can only call it a success.

Much typing, much deleting. Hobo’s first post is all you need.

“see im not sure i agree with this. my missus has some real blow ups with our lads and a lot of it could be avoided if she spoke less confrontationally.”

This.

Women like confrontation and argument. 99 per cent of the crap she give’s your daughter will be purely for her own entertainment.

The solution is for her to be calm, consistent and reasonable with you and your daughter. Someone else can explain how to achieve that.

My daughter is nearly 14.

I should add that in no way do I leave discipline solely to my wife. We generally agree on what is right and wrong and how we want things/behaviour to be, it’s that our approaches are different. And the direct ‘you must do this, you must do that’ approach that was fine when she was a lot younger doesn’t work all that well now – it needs a different approach.

I’m certainly not a chilled/new dad type – my daughter and I have our own bust-ups, especially over home-work several times a week.

It’s the small things that get blown up – crockery being left around the house being a major source of angst for example! I’ll get my daughter to come from wherever she is and put it in the dishwasher, I’ll get her back time and again depending on how many items I find.

My wife’s approach is to yell a instructions upstairs, not make sure it’s been heard (daughter often has headphones in), yell same instruction 30 mins later, repeat until an argument ensues.

I was bought up in a pretty strict controlled manner, and I don’t have a close relationship with my parents now – we get along, but that’s all. I don’t want our daughter to feel that way about us in 10, 20, 30 years time.

And the lifestyle my daughter leads is one we have created. We allow her to do sports 4 nights a week. The rest of her time seems to be filled by homework.

Good god man. Never let them devide and conquer.

Mine ours is nearly 16, but she’s pretty decent generally. If she is arguing with my wife, and I think my wife is wrong, I keep quite, unless the wee one is rude or raises her voice to her mother, in which case I deal with that aspect robustly.

Fairness is key.

Hold a Pie Bake Off and pledge your support to the winner.

If it’s a dead heat then hold a Tidyupthehouse Off.

Jeepers outofbreath – what sort of women do you know?

We made a pact many years ago that even if we disagreed we would never argue over the kids behaviour. It was always a solid view from both of us and our way was the only way.

I have some sympathy for the OP. When MissJ was a teenager we had similar problems – we agreed to lighten up on the small things (tidy room etc) in order to concentrate on keeping open a dialogue, but MrsJ just couldn’t overlook things and “family dinners” lasted 5 minutes before she’s start up complaining about a messy room. So probably I looked like I didn’t back her up, but at the same time she hadn’t kept to what we had discussed.

When your wife is in a calm cheerful state of mind get her to read this

I would probably think alerting your wife to the fact you have asked a group of random Internet stranger’s on a bike forum for their advice would stop her calm cheerful state of mind.

captainsasquatch – Member
Your daughter can’t win, even if you are not in full agreement with the wife, you should be seen to be with her.
Things have changed, but your daughter doesn’t tell her mum the rules.

Totally agree.

Look if your wife is wrong and over the top then you shouldn’t back her up it will fuel her fire and could make things worse. You then run the risk of completely alienating your daughter.
You need to act as a mediator if my wife is going over the top I tell her, likewise if she’s right I back her up.
She does the same with me of course!

Someone once said your children will always be your family but your wife may not!
Don’t lose your daughter.

I have some sympathy for the OP. When MissJ was a teenager we had similar problems – we agreed to lighten up on the small things (tidy room etc) in order to concentrate on keeping open a dialogue, but MrsJ just couldn’t overlook things and “family dinners” lasted 5 minutes before she’s start up complaining about a messy room. So probably I looked like I didn’t back her up, but at the same time she hadn’t kept to what we had discussed.

^This!

We can have had a lovely day out, sit down for tea and my wife starts an argument because my daughter has shovelled up a bit of mash with her fork in her right hand. Boom – day ruined for the sake of something trivial.

Really? It sounds like your wife has got problems not your daughter.

No pudding?

I would be interested to know if those who felt their wives were undermining the situation are still married…