Had a fight with my SO last night that got heated

Good Morning Reddit

My SO and I are in our 30s and she has two 1st grade aged children from a previous marriage.

The fight began over some disciplinary action over her oldest. For context, the oldest has been getting increasingly violent with his siblings, and we both agree that it's not normal kid stuff but more concerning. It is the kind that makes you worry they'll grow up to be a domestic abuser or even worse.

The situation was, he was sent to his room for the night because after a discussion about how to behave, he went to his sibling and was physically hurting them including holding their mouth shut so that they couldn't tell on him.

I got home and she explained what happened to me and I agreed that grounding for the night was appropriate. When dinner came around, we sat down to eat and I said "want me to bring something up to him" And this is where it began. She asked me why, since he was grounded for the night. I was a bit taken aback because she was sitting there telling me she was not going to give her young child dinner as part of his punishment. I said I was not okay with that to her. She got very, condescending -- "oh, so you're going to have him sit down here?" "No, I was thinking he could just eat in his room" "so he can make a mess in there then?" "Well I could sit in there with him" "this is supposed to be a punishment, and you sitting in there was a privilege"

We settled on he could sit in the hall to eat. She wanted me to clarify that I talked to her and told her I was going to bring him dinner, so that he understood expectations and that there was no confusion about punishments. (I think I got that right, I was confused then and confused now) I felt weird saying that so I just said "hey, I got you some dinner, could you sit over here in the hall and eat it"

Back downstairs, she got more and more frustrated with me. I started to say "look, I agree with grounding him for the night as punishment, but...) and she cut me off saying I said it three times and I don't need to say it again. I said, what am I going to say? She said you don't agree with not giving him dinner.

She started getting very nasty, saying that I didn't see what happened -- I just waltzed in from work and decided to just start making decisions. These are her kids and she parented them just fine without me and that she's been dealing with the aggression issues for years. And she's so done with it and he needs to learn a hard lesson and face consequences. I said, "yes, I understand all that but can you acknowledge why this makes me uncomfortable" and she goes "I don't care what you think!" She went on to explain that at dinner when I said I was going to bring him something, that was her allowing me to be part of the parenting but that from now on if I wasn't going to back her up then I can just stay out of parenting all together.

She was practically shouting at me at this point, telling me I had a sour attitude and I ruined crafts after dinner because she could feel I was mad at her. And then started laying into me how shocked she was I wasn't more protective of the other child (she started crying at this point) and how what if she was 5 minutes to late or he really hurt her and we were in the hospital. She then told me she did not want me to sleep in the same bed tonight and she stormed off.

She came back downstairs a half hour later and had calmed down a lot. And we were able to talk about our concerns with his behavior in a good productive way and I didn't end up sleeping in the guest room.

But I don't know what to do or say to her. I have a bad feeling in my gut she is showing me her true colors. I felt like rather than discussing things with me, she just went on the attack. I don't want to fight, and I can recognize I wear my emotions on my face so I could seem mad. But in my mind, her behavior last night was absolutely ridiculous. I never raised my voice to her, I never spoke down to her and just tried to lay out what I was feeling and why. What do I do reddit?

TL:DR girlfriend became angry when I disagreed about how she was parenting and almost had to sleep in the spare room because of it

Submitted December 14, 2021 at 03:41AM by Corrannulene https://ift.tt/3DQMN3r