Possible divorce/separation

[eli1118]

I am meeting with a catholic lawyer tomorrow b/c my husband of 12 years continues to push and call my son names when he doesn’t do advanced math the way he wants it. My son is 7 and is doing 4th grade level math and math olympiad problems.
He is expected to do it 5 days a week for 45 mins to 1 hr. When my son refuses he will do more math all day.
Any suggestions? Has anyone gone through the same thing?
I have offered that we take parenting classes etc. He says no…I’m the one with the problem.
I have been going to counseling for a year and tried reasoning.
My son and I are tired.
Prayers appreciated.

 

[EasterJoy]

Do you think your husband is OK mentally?

If this is just a matter of having grand ideas about wanting your son to succeed, you might (just might) be able to take your son to a local graduate school in mathematics and have someone there explain to your husband that he’s doing everything he possibly can to make sure that young man will never ever pursue a career in mathematics, that a love of math will rarely survive such an ordeal. There you may find some adult mathematicians who either were treated like that or who know sad cases of students who were, someone your husband just might believe.

He might listen to them. Considering his aspirations for the boy, I somehow doubt that he’ll believe any “lesser beings” in the math world, though. Yes, you do have to protect the boy from that kind of treatment, unfortunately.

 

[mum4boys]

How will divorcing your husband fix this problem? He will still be the father of your son.

 

[Xantippe]

“My son is 7 and is doing 4th grade level math and math olympiad problems.
He is expected to do it 5 days a week for 45 mins to 1 hr. When my son refuses he will do more math all day.
Any suggestions? Has anyone gone through the same thing?
I have offered that we take parenting classes etc. He says no…I’m the one with the problem.
I have been going to counseling for a year and tried reasoning.
My son and I are tired.”

I remember your previous postings. My husband has a doctorate in math, my dad has an MA in math and did a lot of home tutoring with me when I was a kid, I’ve done a lot of extracurricular work with my big kids (8 and 11) and what your husband is doing sounds totally inappropriate. (My dad did go a little too far with SAT math tutoring when I was a 7th grader, but I was five years older than your son is.) My kids have done a lot of Kumon workbooks over the years, they’ve done the county fair math bee (my daughter has won 1st once and my son has won 2nd twice, my daughter’s done a Texas state math contest (UIL) in our town once or twice and my husband has been having our daughter do math contest problems from a book. If the kids want spending money, they know they’ll get 25 or 30 cents a page per Kumon workbook. Here are my thoughts:

1. A real math prodigy is a real math prodigy. You don’t make math prodigies artificially, which is what your husband seems to be attempting. At the higher levels, math is very intuitive.
2. Two grades ahead is not all that surprising or ambitious. My oldest (who is not that mathy) has sometimes worked two or three grade levels ahead, with us putting in a fraction of the time that your husband and son are putting in, which suggests that it’s a strain for your son. The amount of time they are putting in is inappropriate, especially if it’s on top of a normal school day and homework.
3. Interestingly, my husband (the one with the math doctorate) doesn’t know his math facts as well as I do (I’m a liberal arts person).

I agree with Easter Joy about getting your husband to talk to actual math people and asking them what their childhood math involvement looked like. I think it very unlikely that it looked like what your husband is doing.

Something is wrong with your husband. I know people throw this around, but is he on the autism spectrum? Or is he mentally ill? I can’t imagine inflicting this on a 7-year-old and not realizing how very wrong it was. It would be different if the kid were lapping it up, but he’s not.

Can you get him to talk to a third party about this?

 

[Xantippe]

What does he say when you ask him, “Why are you doing this?”

Here’s one extreme solution, which I do not necessarily suggest–it’s just that you have so few good options. If your husband tries to keep your son up past his usual bed time, tell your husband that if he insists, you will call the police and report him for abuse. Let him explain his math program to CPS.

This is a nuclear option and it will involve people in your family life that you don’t necessarily want there, but separation or divorce will do exactly the same thing.

 

[1ke]

I am meeting with a catholic lawyer tomorrow b/c my husband of 12 years continues to push and call my son names when he doesn’t do advanced math the way he wants it. My son is 7 and is doing 4th grade level math and math olympiad problems.
He is expected to do it 5 days a week for 45 mins to 1 hr. When my son refuses he will do more math all day.
Any suggestions? Has anyone gone through the same thing?
I have offered that we take parenting classes etc. He says no…I’m the one with the problem.
I have been going to counseling for a year and tried reasoning.
My son and I are tired.
Prayers appreciated.

This has been going on for over 2 years. Many here have continually suggested that you get away from him and get protection in place for your son.

So, my advice is: don’t look back. And make sure the lawyer gets your son protection from your husband’s obsessive craziness.

 

[Catholic1954]

Keep your appointment; you must protect your son and yourself.

 

[EasterJoy]

How will divorcing your husband fix this problem? He will still be the father of your son.

The relentless daily pressure rises to the level of emotional abuse. It is a serious issue, and if less drastic means to make it stop fail, she’s going to have to resort to severing the common conjugal life, because her son is defenseless, otherwise. Let’s hope that can be headed off at the pass, but this has been going on for some time, and it is her duty to see that this level of pressure is stopped.

 

[eli1118]

Thanks to all. this has really helped. I feel guilty but know I need to protect my son.
I will keep you posted. I meet with the lawyer today.
Prayers are needed and appreciated.

 

[EasterJoy]

Thanks to all. this has really helped. I feel guilty but know I need to protect my son.
I will keep you posted. I meet with the lawyer today.
Prayers are needed and appreciated.

I like to tell people that guilt feelings are not a conviction. They’re like a smoke detector for your conscience. Of course you’re going to question yourself when you take such a big action–that is the right thing to do. When you assess yourself and realize that failing to protect your son from abuse is simply not an option and that your husband is not leaving you another way to protect your son than this, I hope it will help you to turn the blare of the “detector” off. Don’t beat yourself up for feeling guilty, but also don’t feel as if turning off those guilty feelings is wrong. When you have the situation assessed and are taking the action you ought to be taking, you don’t need guilt blaring in the background any more. Learning to ignore those is OK; they’ve done their job, but their job is done.

You may go through all the feelings that come with grief and loss, because this is a sad situation and your family is going through a real loss. Just because something is the right thing to do does not mean it is going to feel good. Please plan to have support around you as you go through this, OK?

You may, however, get your son out of that damaging environment and feel a great sense of relief. That is OK, too. It is not wrong to feel relief when a great crisis has been settled, even when it took loss to get there. So if you feel relief and everyone around you is feeling sadness, or vice versa, be ready for that. It is to be expected that any of these feelings might be felt by any of you, and that is OK.

Finally, expect that your husband is probably not going to have an epiphany soon about the necessity of the steps you are taking. He may be very angry and very frustrated, and he may try to turn you away by being accusatory, blaming, and conciliatory by turns. He may give you a lot of emotional difficulty through this. Please have someone in place to help you sort that out. It is part of the work to be done. It may not happen, you can handle it if it does, but as you start your journey through this have the supports in place to help deal with what may come with what you need to do, so that everyone in your family can come through it as well as possible.

Hang in there!! You can do this!! Just do not try to do it alone, or in one day.

 

[EasterJoy]

Learning to ignore those is OK; they’ve done their job, but their job is done.

I don’t mean to take the batteries out of the detector, but I trust you know that! I mean that when you have examined yourself on a point that bothers your conscience and satisfied yourself that your guilt feelings are misplaced, in that event you can put them aside until they have some different question or some additional evidence to bring to your attention. Keep the smoke detector; just don’t feel a need to soak down the room with water every time it goes off “to be on the safe side”. You were given a conscience to help you discern how to serve God, not to make you miserable while you are doing it.