My wife let me sleep in today since work last week kicked my ass and i've been staying up late and getting up early to keep up with everything.
I woke up to a bunch of yelling and my soaking wet 4 year old jumping into bed crying. Turns out my wife was bathing the boys (4,1) and the little one was done, so she decided to let our toddler stay in by himself for a little bit. She said she told him to pull the shower plug and he said he would. We recently moved and don't have a bathtub at the new house so he likes to fill up the shower until right before it flows over which i hate but my wife lets him do. It get the floors soaked and the trim all around the shower is rotting and growing mold. I've asked them both so many times to stop, and explained to my son that I'm working on getting a tub put in but it'll take time.
Well it turns out he did not pull the shower plug, and 10 minutes later my wife went in there to get him and he was trying to dry the flooded bathroom floor with toilet paper. He immediately knew he fucked up so he ran to me because I'm his safe space no matter what, always. I've never yelled at him in an aggressive tone, I've never hit or spanked him, when he's in trouble i talk him through it in a calm tone, even if i had to put on my stern voice.
I was not a space space today. My wife called me downstairs in a hurry and the water from the bathroom was coming through the dining room ceiling out of the hole cut for the chandelier light. I know the run of wires there is knob and tube and there was either smoke or steam from the water hitting the bulbs.
From there i lost it, i couldn't even look at my son for half the day. Even when i wasn't doing anything and he asked me to play i told him no, when he kept asking i yelled back something about being in no mood and for him to stop asking. I snapped at my wife pretty bad, i told her they have no respect for the house and id been telling them to be more careful for months. I went in on her for leaving our toddler alone in the shower for so long and how she didn't take the plug herself. I said something about them ruining our house, which i do think they need to do less reckless stuff in the house and have been trying to think of a nice way to frame in a conversation, instead it came out in a fit of rage.
I ended up having a heart fit and chest pain and i yelled at them both to leave me alone. As I'm clutching my chest falling to the floor, my toddler just wanted to help me because its happened before and we talked to him about what to do, and he was doing exactly what we told him, but i told him to leave.
I feel like i really fucked up today as a father and a partner. It was a very stressful situation, and i think my frustration was justified, but i cant stand how it came out and how i handled everything today.
I feel like i spent the whole day hating my family whom i love very much.
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!)