'AITA for how I talked to my daughter about bullying? My husband thinks it was too much.' UPDATED

"AITA for how I talked to my daughter about bullying?"

So I (34F) have been married to John (36M) for about 12 years, and I have never seen him flip out about this like something before. We have a daughter - Fiona (14F) and a son, Will (10M).

During lockdown, John has been working 12 hour shifts as an essential worker. A few days ago, I got a message from one of the girls at Fiona’s schools mother. She let me know about her daughter being b-llied by Fiona and her group of friends and sent screenshots of what they’ve been doing to her.

I was devastated, to say the least. I was bullied relentlessly as a teenager and Fiona and I are very close, so it just came as a huge surprise. I messaged the mum back apologising, thanking her for telling me and saying I’d speak to Fiona.

This was not long after John had left for work so I decided to tackle it immediately rather than wait until when he got home. I called Fiona in, showed her the message and screenshots and she went instantly on the defensive, complaining that they didn’t want to be friends with her and that she was weird and deserved it. She kept shrugging it off, so I decided a different approach.

I told Fiona about how the bullying I experienced when I was younger affected me. How it pushed me to some horrible places and to do some terrible things, and the depression I lived with for a very long time. After I’d finished talking, Fiona said to me “whatever” and stomped off, but then a couple of hours later she came back to me sobbing and apologising.

We talked some more, she let me know how she’d also been struggling with mental health and didn’t know how to handle it. After a couple of hours, we had both cried a lot, but I let her know she was still going to be punished - which she understood and accepted.

When my husband got home that night, I filled him in on everything that had happened and he absolutely lost it at me out of nowhere. He couldn’t believe that he I had shared my struggles to Fiona and that I had tried to manipulate her by using my feelings into controlling her.

He told me that I should have just punished her and told the school and let them handle it, and that she was just a kid and didn’t need to be guilt tripped. He said that I had traumatised her. Before I could get a word in otherwise, he stomped out to the living room, where he has been staying in for the past 3 days.

Fiona and I have been really connecting since our talk, but John still is not speaking to me - except for in front of the kids. I genuinely don’t feel like I did anything wrong, it’s not like Fiona doesn’t understand mental health. But Johns reaction makes me feel like maybe I’ve been a huge AH, and I could have somehow damaged my daughter forever.

So, AITA?

TL;DR: found out my daughter was bullying a girl, punished her and informed her of my bullying story, husband thinks I’ve traumatised her for life. AITA?

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your input. I plan to sit John down tomorrow, show him your comments and discuss what made him react this way. Hopefully I’ll have a good update within the next couple of days.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

vortex_time wrote:

NTA. You helped your daughter understand the issue from the other side, and she responded to your honesty by opening up in return. Did your husband's parents guilt trip him when he was a kid? I wonder why this, in particular, has become the focal point for his pandemic stress. BTW, this might also be a good topic for r/ parenting, depending on the type of feedback you are looking for.

ABalmyBlackBtch wrote:

NTA. This was handled so well. Idk what your husband is experiencing right now but I definitely think he needs to talk through some things because that reaction doesn’t seem healthy.

Guerilla_Tart wrote:

NTA!! The way you handled I thought was really well done. You spoke to her about it and she shrugged it off, but giving her that example of what you went through I felt helped get the message across better and actually help her understand. Part of me feels like you could've done it with your husband, but seeing he was more mad at how you did makes him the TA not you.

kit235 wrote:

NTA bullies need to know the impact of their actions. Your husband being worried about it possibly 'traumatising' her doesn't recognise that kids who are bullied are traumatised! You did the right thing.

A few days later, OP shared an update.

Thank you so much for all your advice, I was really starting to doubt myself because of Johns reaction - at first I thought he was being ridiculous, but as the days of silence carried on I began to get more and more worried.

I definitely agree that I should have waited until John got home to discuss the issue, looking back I don’t think it was fair that I approached Fiona without speaking to John at all, but at the time I just wanted to take the bull by the horns and get it over with.

Anyway: the update:

So last night the moment John got home I demanded that we needed to talk and I was not going to take the silent treatment anymore.

I guess he could tell I was serious because he huffed but he sat down with me at the table. I explained to him that I made this reddit post and he read through all the comments. And then he got really quiet. A lot of you in the comments suspected that something had happened in John’s past, and you were completely correct.

John admitted that he too had been a bully when he was younger, to the point where one of the victims moved towns. I’m not excusing his behaviour at all, but his parents were(are) horribly toxic. It turns out that when his parents were notified about the bullying, his father encouraged him to take it to physical violence and that he was “finally a man."

He said that it was the only time he ever felt loved by his dad. Hearing the way I described my experience to Fiona brought up a lot of repressed guilt and sadness in him, and he was lashing out because he couldn’t handle the memories it was bringing up for him. He apologised and was grateful for everyone’s comments, and that he acknowledges he was being an AH.

We booked in a couple of virtual therapy sessions for him, and extended the same to Fiona in case she wanted to speak to someone. I’m confident we’ll be able to move on from this and become stronger as a family and hopefully be more aware of our actions in the future. Thank you all again for your kind words and insight.

The internet was invested in the update.

bored_german wrote:

I hope Fiona actually learned from this. Taking your mental health struggles out on an innocent person is unacceptable and will get her in a lot of trouble once she's an adult.

PrincessCG wrote:

Fellas, is it wrong for your child to have empathy to see it from someone else’s POV?

Also, I don’t get why it should be a united front on the bullying convo. OP handled it correctly. What exactly was the husband going to input considering he was a previous bully?

damnitgravy wrote:

Maybe it's because my dad was away for work a lot and so mom handled a lot of stuff on her own, but I don't understand why (apparently) everyone thinks she should've talked it over with the husband first? I mean, given what he finally admitted, he probably would've advocated for a 'kids will be kids' perspective and done nothing.

OP was right, some things can't wait and should be handled in the moment. And any reasonable person would've agreed with her actions. She handled it very calmly, and reminded her daughter that other people have feelings too.

People are too quick to label things 'traumatising.' To the point where the word has been cheapened. The daughter knowing how badly she upset and hurt her victim is not going to 'traumatise' her. How else is she supposed to learn empathy if someone doesn't point it out to her in big, neon letters? She clearly wasn't getting it on her own.

crafty_and_kind wrote:

If “being forced to confront the implications of an extremely damaging thing that you have done” is traumatizing, then I guess I believe sometimes people need to be traumatized 🤷🏾‍♀️.