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.
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.