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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Get a plastic bathtub for him like you probably have for the baby just bigger. Our three years old still bathes in a big bücken which we used to use for cleaning the floors, but slowly it's getting tight.

Or if not a hard plastic one then one which you can blow up.

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.

They're too young to remember, so I wouldn't worry. But next time something happens, you can demonstrate how to deal with adversity. If a glass breaks, or something catches fire, or the shower overflows, you can freak out and yell, or shrug and tell them 'accidents happen.' Just clean up and move on. It's not the end of the f'ing world.

This way, they grow up to be a lot more chill, resilient, and capable to handle adversities in life.

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.

Good day and bad day happen man. Kids are dumb :) but thats because they are kids. The key is to have more good days than bad days.

Don’t be hard on yourself but also keep in mind a kid is a kid.

In our house my kids can do pretty much anything they wish so long as they have a plan and don’t make a mess. I think your guy had a plan that just fell through.

I would sit with your family and talk through your feelings and apologize though. Turn a shit day into a lesson

A child, or even an adult, can drown in an inch or water, probably less.

Leaving a 4yo alone in a tub or shower is, basically, neglect. That shit needs to stop.