Again, I strongly recommend you buy and read the book “Love and Respect.” In each post, more of the problem is revealed. Please do you and your husband a favor and read that book.
Many of you are right when you suggest he has always been like this I have always been able to get what I wanted right from the courting stage - if I wanted to go to restaurant or whatever I would get the final say but with the parenting I would prefer that they saw him as a force to be reckoned with NOT a dad who just cant be bothered to get involved.
So you chose him because he was easily persuaded into giving in to your material demands, but now it irritates you that he is easily persuaded to give in to your children’s material demands?
This is totally unfair to your husband. You chose him, married him, made babies with him, and have lived with him the way he is for years. Now suddenly you want him to change something you accepted, and even encouraged, for years. You call him spineless, but you wanted this behavior from him in the past. I’m not saying this dynamic is acceptable, I’m just saying you’re being really unfair to him in now calling this bad, and him spineless, for only doing what he always did. That’s just mean.
You didn’t choose a man who was “a force to be reckoned with.” Therefore, you didn’t get one. This may not be fixable. I feel sorry for your children, too, when they have difficulty transitioning into a world where they can’t wheedle whatever they want out of someone. Because their father is this way, I think their transition to adulthood is going to be much more difficult.
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