My husband believes we should always have a united front with our 5 yo daughter, and back each other up in front of her - even if we don’t agree with the way the other parent handled the situation - then the parent who disagrees can later express that out of our daughter’s presence.

I agree to an extent, when it comes to things like “can I eat x” or “can I do Y.” In more serious circumstances, however, when I disagree entirely, I have expressed that and my husband thinks I’m wrong for it.

For example, he spanked her and I have repeatedly expressed that I do not agree with spanking so I told him not to hit our daughter. I said it in front of her. He claims he uses only three fingers to give her a swat on the bum and that is wouldn’t hurt. I didn’t physically witness it this time because I was in the other room, but it sounded like more than that.

On another occasion, he told her twice not to hang on our dog (we have a 160 pound dog and sometimes she’ll kind of lay on his back) and on the third time he yelled at her “get off the fucking dog” and I calmly asked him not to curse at our daughter (while she was still standing there). This cause him to blow up on me and told me not to disagree with him in front of her so I told him I wasn’t going to stand by while he cursed at our daughter. He then turned to her and said “see, when you don’t listen you cause me and your mother to fight.” He pulled the same BS after the spanking incident. I then said do not say things like that to her, and told her she is not the reason for fights. He thinks I shouldn’t have said this to her.

He’s incensed and thinks I should back him up no matter what, then pull him aside and express why I disagree. I think placing your hands on a child and cursing at them are abusive, and I don’t want to stand by and let my daughter think I am condoning it and not willing to protect her.

Should I be expressing my disagreement in private?