Your wife doesn’t have to be intentionally malicious to do cruel things. And forcing you to be the sole disciplinarian in your household while she throws you under the bus to your kids is cruel.
I think you can say exactly what you put in your post. Tell her that this is a pattern you’ve noticed, name specific examples, and describe how it has harmed your relationships with both her and your children. Tell her that this bothers you immensely and makes you feel like you’re not equal partners in your marriage. And then listen to what she has to say.
I half wonder if this is some weird gender bullshit that she was raised with and she’s trying to recreate some sort of “you wait till your father gets home young lady!” template within your family. This has “father is the leader, woman is the helpmeet” written all over it.
Please, please, PLEASE don’t do this to your kids or your relationship. My dad has always been the more laid-back, easy-going parent and my mom the “enforcer” so to speak. Both of my brothers and I have a much better relationship with my father than my mother because we see my mom as the hard-ass and my dad as the cool, chill parent. They fought about this constantly when I was a kid. My dad came from divorce and has always wanted us kids to love him and see him as a friend and has made my mom the scapegoat for all the punishment. He didn’t do it maliciously, and I’m sure your wife isn’t doing so either, but regardless the outcome is the same. I fear that you will resent your wife in the future when you realize the impact that this has had on how your kids behave towards you.
You and your wife should enforce punishments/rules as a TEAM. It’s unfair for you to take on all the shitty roles of parenting and let her be the “fun”parent. As someone who grew up in that household, I can confidently say that it is not a good environment for both kids and parents in the long run.
This is exceedingly common, unfortunately. In my house, mom was the bad cop and I was out of high school before I recognized the dynamic and stopped thinking of her as the bad guy. It wasn’t as intentional on my parents parts, my mom just has a strong personality and is very straightforward while my dad is more analyzing and calming. As an adult I see it as a benefit, I can go to either of them with an issue depending on whether I’m looking for empathy or realism.
You have to sit down and talk with her about it without the kids around. Tell her about your dream and that you already notice the kids treating you like the bad guy. It’s gone on so long they initially probably wont take any punishment she tries to give seriously, so you have to do it together. She needs to bring issues to you before committing to an answer (ie no more “I think it’s okay but we have to see what your father says”) and discuss it with you as an equal partner, then she needs to voice agreement when you give whatever answer you both decided on.
You may find that your wife’s actions have an adverse effect where the children gravitate towards you for structure because they see you as the “grown-up”. The way I see it, you’ve got two options:
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The first is that you can sit down with your wife and tell her, “You need to start disciplining the children,” and tell her exactly how it affects you. You could also start having conversations with your older children about the current circumstances which focus on logical consequence on less serious things.
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You could just backing her up. Next time she tries to pass the buck if it’s not a serious thing, I would honestly, “Oh, well if your mum’s already said it’s okay, then that’s fair enough.” This has two effects; firstly, it reverses some of the concern you have of teaching your son that boys make the decisions in a relationship, and secondly it means your wife actually has to step up and do the disciplining if she wants them to behave a certain way.
My wife and I decided early on in our marriage, that we would be a “unified front” when disciplining our kids. Now granted I am the more laid back of us two, but we usually converse before any punishment is administered.
Even before we had kids, we agreed that it was more important to be a parent, than a friend to our kids.
You and your wife need to be on the same page. The next time she does something like this:
>yesterday my wife came to me saying that our eldest daughter wants to break lock-down rules to go and see her boyfriend and my wife tells me that she told our daughter that she was fine with it but that now I needed to go and tell her that she can’t but make it seem like it was my decision and I overruled her.
You either let your daughter go, OR you tell your wife to fix it. Don’t enable her bad behavior.