Relationship help?

Hi 👋🏻 So my partner/baby daddy has OCD and went for counselling a few years ago, but since becoming a dad hasn’t had any more therapy and it’s been getting noticeably worse and affecting his mood. Our son is now 2 and throwing tantrums, testing boundaries, and making messes around the house (all normal and obvious behaviour, he’s still learning). The problem I’m having is my partner just can’t handle it. Every time the kid drops something or doesn’t immediately do as he’s told he starts yelling and shouting, and then gets even worse when I ask him to lower his voice. Our son’s getting really scared so comes to me for hugs every time and I say things like “it was just an accident and we can clean it up, Daddy just has a little voice in his head that makes him think things are worse than they are” to try and explain it. Trouble is, my partner thinks I’m undermining him and telling our son he’s a bad dad, when I’m just trying to explain his reaction and let our toddler know he didn’t do anything wrong. Does anybody have any tips on how to better manage his angry reactions to everything? I’ve tried taking the kid away until he calms down but that makes him worse

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He shouldn’t use his mental health as an excuse to yell at his kid for making mistakes and being a kid. If he’s running to you for hugs, he feels unsafe. You don’t need to “manage” his angry responses. Anger has no place in raising a 2 year old. He should go to counseling or he would be on the way out the door.

I have contamination OCD, and it’s the most stressful thing to go through at times. Sometimes my husband does something that I deem to be a major risk to our baby, (when actually, people who don’t have OCD would consider normal) and it’ll make me mad and I’ll have a go at him for doing something that to me, is clearly reckless. I wouldn’t react that way to a baby or child, although inside I’m screaming, I have a niece who is young so doesn’t understand how important it is to wash hands regularly, cough covering mouth etc, but I wouldn’t shout at her. He needs help with how to deal with it, because it is the most overwhelming, scary thing to deal with. I can understand how it drives him to shout, but it’s something he needs help with to cope better with his fears and feelings. Try not to be too hard on him because I’m sure he really doesn’t mean to upset your son, it’s more not knowing how to cope with the intense and immediate surge of anxiety. X

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