Hi, so I’m posting from an alt account because I think my husband follows my regular one and I’d like him not to see this for obvious reasons.
Some background: We’ve only been married 2 years. We have one child together who is nearly a year old, but she’s his 7th child total. I didn’t know about all of his kids prior to agreeing to marrying him (one reason I’d consider divorce even though it’s technically a small issue?); I was only told about the three youngest, who are 9, 5, and 4. He has joint custody of all three but none live with him or have seen him on anything other than FaceTime for 3 years.
Now that that’s out of the way, I want to say I have talked with him about this topic on multiple occasions. It never results in anything but him saying that he “won’t parent out of a book,” “doesn’t need to read parenting books,” that I only want to use these gentle techniques because I’m a first time parent, or that “the people writing these books don’t even follow their own tips” (which he couldn’t possibly know??). This is becoming a more pressing issue as baby grows older though, because it’s easy to AP with a newborn. The reason I’ve bought books to read is because the toddler stage is a lot harder, especially because I was raised by traditional parents. I’m having to rewire my brain so that I can be the best parent I can for my baby. This is also the reason that my husband needs to give the books a chance because he was parented in the same manner as me. Also— another reason it’s becoming more pressing is that BM of his youngest child is pregnant for the 4th time in a row and needs him to get the 4 year old. I worry from what I’ve seen on r/stepparents and also my irl experience that if my baby is parented in a gentle way and his is parented in a traditional way, that the 4 year old will begin to hold a lot of resentment towards him. I think she’d wonder why my baby gets someone who is nice and gentle and why her dad is so strict. I know in theory, I should share the parenting of his other daughter, but I think that would be hard on her right off the bat and cause a lot of disagreements between my husband and I as well. I know this post has been a total mess of my thoughts, but if you’ve stuck with me this far, thank you. What do you think? My worry with divorce is that there’s the chance he would get custody and then I wouldn’t even get the chance to step in and save her from his (what I deem hurtful) parenting practices. I’m the SAHM for my baby, but he’s the provider and I’m worried about custody for those reasons. He wouldn’t even know how to get her to sleep at night or what she likes to eat, much less be patient enough with her. Last question, if anyone else has dealt with this, what’s your solution?
Oh, and here’s the shortest list ever of things we do agree on:
- No physical punishment (like spanking etc. although I can’t get him to stop saying that “popping” is different when it’s not..)
ETA: traditional not tradition in the title, sorry!
Some background: We’ve only been married 2 years. We have one child together who is nearly a year old, but she’s his 7th child total. I didn’t know about all of his kids prior to agreeing to marrying him (one reason I’d consider divorce even though it’s technically a small issue?); I was only told about the three youngest, who are 9, 5, and 4. He has joint custody of all three but none live with him or have seen him on anything other than FaceTime for 3 years.
Now that that’s out of the way, I want to say I have talked with him about this topic on multiple occasions. It never results in anything but him saying that he “won’t parent out of a book,” “doesn’t need to read parenting books,” that I only want to use these gentle techniques because I’m a first time parent, or that “the people writing these books don’t even follow their own tips” (which he couldn’t possibly know??). This is becoming a more pressing issue as baby grows older though, because it’s easy to AP with a newborn. The reason I’ve bought books to read is because the toddler stage is a lot harder, especially because I was raised by traditional parents. I’m having to rewire my brain so that I can be the best parent I can for my baby. This is also the reason that my husband needs to give the books a chance because he was parented in the same manner as me. Also— another reason it’s becoming more pressing is that BM of his youngest child is pregnant for the 4th time in a row and needs him to get the 4 year old. I worry from what I’ve seen on r/stepparents and also my irl experience that if my baby is parented in a gentle way and his is parented in a traditional way, that the 4 year old will begin to hold a lot of resentment towards him. I think she’d wonder why my baby gets someone who is nice and gentle and why her dad is so strict. I know in theory, I should share the parenting of his other daughter, but I think that would be hard on her right off the bat and cause a lot of disagreements between my husband and I as well. I know this post has been a total mess of my thoughts, but if you’ve stuck with me this far, thank you. What do you think? My worry with divorce is that there’s the chance he would get custody and then I wouldn’t even get the chance to step in and save her from his (what I deem hurtful) parenting practices. I’m the SAHM for my baby, but he’s the provider and I’m worried about custody for those reasons. He wouldn’t even know how to get her to sleep at night or what she likes to eat, much less be patient enough with her. Last question, if anyone else has dealt with this, what’s your solution?
Oh, and here’s the shortest list ever of things we do agree on:
- No physical punishment (like spanking etc. although I can’t get him to stop saying that “popping” is different when it’s not..)
ETA: traditional not tradition in the title, sorry!