You’ve had a panic attack. You need time to rest and recover. If you don’t take it, this will happen again.

I’m a mostly single father of two kids, boys, 11 and 14. From what I read here, what happened is not your fault, and you are not a bad person by any measure. Nobody is perfect, and in fact there is no one “correct” way to have handled your situation (though there are obviously infinitely many bad ways to have done so, a category which your response does not fall under).

Developmentally, age 4 is borderline for toddler and young child. Some will still be toddlers and others will have entered well into the “pre-developmental phase.” This means there will be a lot of things that they can handle, such as “no” and other boundaries; toddlers begin to test boundaries as early as age 2 (I’m not saying anything your child did was necessarily that, nor am I concerned with whatever your response might be).

As for destroying the house, this is not okay. If any children want to play in water, quite common, they don’t have to do it during every shower or bath day. Buy them a little (big) plastic basin to splash around in, have them go to a pool or water park, get an (economic) water sensory table… There are many options that are available for children to still get to do what they want–play with water–without major risky downsides like destroying your home.

In my opinion, the only potentially really difficult thing here is to talk to their mom. She’s an adult, and she needs to start acting like one instead of just everything “yes” without restrictions or prudence. Children need their parents for guidance and socialization as well as just being “providers.” Adults know better–not always but usually. If your children wanted their diet to consist 100% of candy, I presume both of you wouldn’t just go for it.

If it helps, you can write down and practice what you want to say to your family (so that you can follow the ‘script’ and not get overtaken by rage). You’re evidently eloquent enough to be able to do so. Aside from keeping it short and focused, it can help a lot to start by writing where you’re coming from and how things have felt for you. There’s a good chance they don’t know, and they should–heck, we find out new things about ourselves when we take this time to do so, to consider and refine our understandings of ourself.

Best wishes to you, and I’m very sorry for the extreme pain. That is definitely not something to be ignored or made light of by anyone who cares about you.

When you are calmer, take time to sit down with your son and apologize for your anger and outbursts. Explain gently to him that you sometimes have bad days just like he does, and that you can get overwhelmed too, but that your anger in those moments doesn’t mean that he is bad or that you don’t love him when he makes mistakes. Take the moment to sit and breathe with him, explain that the way to calm down during and after scary, stressful, angry moments is to find a quiet place, and breathe slowly, about 20-50 times. (Or lookup “box breathing”- in for 4 sec, hold for 4 sec, out in 4 sec, hold for 4 sec. Repeat until you feel more calm/normalized/less stressed. Doesn’t have to be 4, can be 3-5 depending on what feels safe. If it brings up emotions or memories that can happen, focus on breathing to get stable first) Sit there and do it with him. Actually do it yourself too, and let him practice with you; you can turn this from a sad scary incident into a new practice(game, strategy, technique, tool, whatever you want to call it) that helps both of you, and if you make it a habit with your children they will prosper and when you aren’t present (later @ school, outside, teen years etc) they will have this tool that you made for and with them, and they would remember you for your love and care to sit with then now and it can change their trajectory for positive outcomes. It will also help you: if you get stressed you would have the same tool with you to help stabilize yourself, and then you can be more effective at doing everything that you do because you’re more calm.

This is important to do because if you establish a pattern of anger without explaining and apologizing your kids might grow up to not only have their own anger issues but also have a strained relationship with you because they aren’t sure why you get angry. They will interpret it as “mistakes cause anger”, and embody that; they may not take it out on others (they may hit themselves or internally hate themselves instead), but overall the anger issues will persist if you don’t try to acknowledge it.

I had a father who I know loved me, I know he got frustrated with issues when we were growing up. And yet I have a deep-rooted anger that he instilled in me because his response to stress and fear was explosive rage, and the result for children is 1) they blame themselves and 2) they repeat it unless they work on it consciously. He also apologized after being angry, and yet did not work in his anger, wouldn’t work on it with others. I grew to expect empty apologies from him, ultimately I couldn’t trust his words because he didn’t back them with action.

All this is to say you definitely have good reasons to be angry, thats a shitty situation put on you because your wife ignored what you said, then expected you to fix her mistakes/lack on action. I dont know what headway you can make with an adult who may or may not be receptive to your words and voice, but your children are at the age when your voice is their god. Yelling makes an impact: I carry a bellowing, rage-fueled voice in my head everywhere, I have to fight it in myself. I wish my father had the presence of mind and humility to be open to working on it - it’s ok to show vulnerability to your children (if you worry about judgments know that that comes from adults, not young children. The children are sponges just trying to learn how the world works, how to behave, how to handle the scary stressful things. If someone judges you for honestly trying in this way, fuck em; do it anyway!)

I am working through a similar problem where my partner and I are not aligned on parenting and it’s quietly undermining everything we do. When you say “I told my partner time and again I don’t agree with soaking the bathroom floor” but you can’t reach a common ground, that’s a real problem. You didn’t snap for no reason, you knew something like this would happen and you feel ignored by your partner. Stop the buildup, you can’t stop the volcano erupting if you (both) let it get to that point

Working late, heart problems when stressed, no time to work on the house, snapping at your family when they cause a bigger setback?

Dude, your job is killing you. You are being worked too hard. Your stress is too high. How many panic attacks have you had since you’ve worked there? Your family will mourn you if you die for your job. Your job will post your position on Indeed the day after.

I was in your boat. I tried working less, asking management for help, taking vacation, meditation, etc. Some of those helped a little, but it didn’t fix it. I got a job elsewhere and while it’s not perfect, my family life is better, I feel much better and my heart doesn’t hurt.

Take care of yourself. Your job won’t.

Your frustration is absolutely 100000% justified. Your kid is a kid. Your wife should know better and stop enabling water damage to the house.

You’re running on fumes. This is absolutely not sustainable, and especially not if you have a heart condition that is serious enough that your 4yo knows what to do in case anything happens to you. Clearly he still cares about you if he was trying to help.

Make amends with your son. Talk to your wife. Someone else said it too, but you have got to be on the same page to survive this insane phase of raising tiny people.

Entirely relatable right down to the sheer (temporary) hatred for everyone involved. Like, literally right now that’s how I’m feeling, because my two year old is an asshole who also caused water damage last week under similar circumstances and today, just the terror of them messing up the house and breaking shit while being “watched” by my partner who is on their phone instead of doing stuff.

The crying, the insane decision making, the lack of support, the draining weekday work, and even just not getting fulfilment in life; you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it since I think everyone goes through it and at least you didn’t get physically violent.

It’s only guilty because the kids are innocent, but they can learn that people lose their temper, have bad days, etc. We literally teach them to express their emotions and to be understanding when people are stressed; so as long as you do that for them in return, I’m sure they’ll get over your outburst

These unavoidable days suck. Faltering does not mean failing. Your kids are the age where if you fuck up, and feel bad about it, they can feel you. When they see old dad return, they’ll write it off. They might not even remember it come morning.

It has to be a frequent, recurring problem before they start to expect it or lose faith in the dad they already know.

Throw your hands up and make a face, today got the better of you. Tomorrow, it won’t.

if you articulate this to them, you’ll already be doing better than most parents & partners.

communication is super important to avoid kids getting the wrong message or feeling rejected etc. it’s hard to tell how kids might internalise things, so just being honest about what’s going on in your life (in a simplified way since 4 is so young) & admitting that you’re not proud of your reaction goes a long long way to building a healthy relationship with your kids.

i hope you can access healthcare to get your heart problem seen to, as well, that sounds super worrying. stay safe!

You had a stress reaction. It happens. The important thing is to learn from it so that you react in a better way next time. Apologize to your wife and talk to your son about why that frustrated you so much. It’s more important to deal with fuck-ups than it is to worry about never ever fucking up.

I didn’t read everything but at that heart stuff and having a little background in that - when was your last visit at the cardiologist and are you under medical care regarding that? From the story that is my absolute priority as it might well be life threatening.

Sounds like a great chance to teach the child, they got to see the consequences of a bad decision directly and it will likely be memorable. Perhaps:

• How to forgive someone who makes a mistake
• Making a bad choice doesn’t make you a bad person (and a good lesson for you to remember too)
• How to avoid repeating a past mistake
• How to try and make things right

Also, maybe grab a suction cup toy, vinyl sticker, or other device to mark the highest the shower should be filled. A visual will help them know the limit.

There are literally 100s of dads out there doing this and worse right now. It sounds like you’re a great dad almost every day. That much is obvious from the things you’ve said. This was a bad day for you. It’s okay to have bad days.

I’m willing to bet that if you’re the kind of person to think about this enough to write it out, then you’ll also certainly think about what worked and didn’t work today. You’ll come up with solutions. Either you’ll change yourself or you’ll change something about the family dynamic to ensure that it doesn’t get this bad again. I believe in you; you’ll come away from this better than before.

And never forget that parenting is hard. Much harder than any person realizes before they are a parent. It’s okay to fail at doing hard things some times. Just don’t stop putting in the effort. You’ve got this. We’re cheering for you.

From what you wrote here; you don’t feel heard, you’re working very hard (likely way too hard for your health condition), and stress is harming your condition greatly.

You need to have a chat with your partner and explore options to get you better support. This is very serious and your partner needs to be on the same page. You’re clearly pushed to the limit. Therapy could be helpful (with or without your partner), really working with doctors in any way you can, cleaning up your diet/exercising/doing anything doctors encourage - I believe it’s necessary that you start working on a series of changes that you make (and soon) for your health.

How long can this go on? Can you keep collapsing? Is it fair to your 4 year old to see you like that on the floor? How worried is everybody about you - both spoken and unspoken?

Please take a break if you can. You need to check in with yourself, regroup with your partner - with a focus on communication and your health (emotional and physical), and find better ways of coping with stress and improving your situation.

Don’t blame yourself. You’re not a bad dad. You’re a human being who has a lot on their plate. You gotta live your life for yourself and the people around you, but that means you can’t forget or neglect yourself.

Wishing you the absolute best, reaching out for support (even here on the fediverse) is a good thing - keep doing it.

Days will get better. To actually get that to happen, it is helpful to talk with your wife about how you are handling this problem with the house. Take turns. Listen. Talk about how it makes you feel and what you fear. Some people don’t think about objects and what makes them tear or makes them degrade and they need to be walked through it.

Sometimes, unfortunately, they don’t listen to us. But they will listen to a 3rd person. So you could call a handyman and ask for a quote to replace the mold/rot issue. And what happens if it continues. And make sure she does the visit with you.