D H would say that two adult males cannot share the same territory ~ that one of them will have to be dominant male.
Hubby's and Ache's relationship is... well, complicated. They love each other, no question about that. Hubby has always tried his best with Ache and Ache greatly admires his dad and wants to please him. How all that plays out is another matter all together.
My hubby is very much one of those alpha male types. He is jovial, affable, laid back when you are in his good side, but he is also a very much take charge guy and dominating personality. And if you gross him can get very domineering. He can run his mouth and make you feel small and stupid. He is physically big and uses very domineering non-verbal language when he is angry. He doesn't much show that darker side in public, but those with close to him have seen also that side. And some of it does leak out, I have been asked couple times during our marriage by someone who has either have own experience of abusive husbands or who work with domestic violence, if husband has ever hit me.
He hasn't. But early into our relationship I was afraid of that few times and I did consider leaving him for that. Instead I decided to oppose those behaviours of his I found threatening and see how that would go. It worked for me. I started to tell him very clearly, if he was behaving in the way that I did find unacceptable and tell him to back off (often physically, he does have this very irksome manner of getting just half inch too close to you and forcing you to look up to him to intimidate when angry.) I started to point out to him, if he was interrupting me and talking over me. I refused to raise my voice to be heard but instead refused communicating with him, until he did keep his mouth shut and let me say my piece and listened to that too. And I did walk out a lot. He did learn and I'm not afraid of him.
Hubby doesn't lose his temper easily but Ache can provoke anyone to insanity and with him hubby has gone much farther with abusive gestures especially when Ache hit his teens. I have seen hubby hit a wall next to Ache, being rough with him and hubby has told me about two incidents when he has slapped Ache to face. Extremely vile and hurtful stuff has also been said between them.
I have told before that we really screwed up in our attempts to discipline Ache when he was still at elementary school and how that turned to abuse. We were so desperate with his truancy and the danger he put himself into. He was for example drag searched from the river after his jacket was found from there and someone thought they had heard the splash after he had once again run away from school. And that was far from only search and rescue mission he launched. One time he was missing close to 48 hours and it was already close to freezing at nights at the time. We simply decided it was a battle we had to win. We never had much problem getting him to school, he didn't openly defy us like that. The problem was that at times we didn't even get back to our car after escorting him to classroom at the morning before we got a call that he did run. We couldn't stay there with him at school (he did have an aide at one point though, but he easily out run her) so we decided to make him staying at school the battle of wills that we would win. How foolish of us to even think like that, but we truly were desperate.
We took all his privileges away, stripped his room to plain mattress, took him off from all his hobbies and sports, left him with nothing and that only made things worse. We couldn't deny water (we did take away milk from our already underweight child because he liked it so much though, can you imagine?), food, roof or appropriate clothing so next step was to start to punish him other ways. First by making him stand in the corner, then with hard chores and in the end we decided that maybe he needed a spanking. While I'm just as much in the blame of all that mess and we decided to go there together, hubby was the one actually spanking or actually more whipping Ache. And just couple weeks later it ended to emergency room and Ache having a very typical upper arm/shoulder abuse injury. And him lying so well to the nurses and doctor that they actually didn't check the boy like they should had and that's why missing that he was black and blue. CPS was not notified nor the police called. But at least we wised up and understood what the fools we had been in starting a war against our own, 70 pound child. And totally aghast over what we had done and how cold and callous we had become over his needs and feelings. We did love that kid but when we started to think raising him as a battle we were engaged at, we also started to see him as an enemy and we started to treat him like an enemy little by little. Dehumanize him, consider his actions and words acts of terror against us and totally missing the fact that he was our little, beloved boy who was hurting and totally alone and helpless in this world.
We did make a total 180 degree turn after that night we spent staring the roof in our bed, Ache sleeping between us and moaning in his sleep when his shoulder hurt despite the pain medications. And things did get better when we stopped looking Ache as an enemy and started to see him as someone we were responsible helping instead. But while Ache said then and still does that he has forgiven what we did, though I doubt that he still gets that it was 100 % our fault and not something he did. But it is not like those memories of hubby hurting him and Ache provoking him to hit harder would go away from either of them.
It is just huge amount of baggage between them and complicates their relationship. Adding to that their personalities really do not match. As I said hubby can be domineering and even openly aggressive and tends to have very dominating body language. Ache will yield and cover, but he may strike back behind your back. And he never actually gives in. He may look like that, but the moment you turn your back... And now that he is growing up he isn't so likely to even pretend to yield any more. And when hubby tries to dominate him by getting too close, it is hubby who will be looking up. And while Ache is lanky and still weights less than hubby it is very clear who would win the fight if Ache wouldn't let hubby to win.
Till last fall it was volatile between them and there were few times I was actually worried it would get physical between them, but like I said, after that hubby has really stepped up to the plate and doesn't let Ache to provoke him. That in the other hand has not made Ache to try to provoke him less.
Sorry for the vent, while it was over a decade ago, it is still very raw. maybe because we did not get caught, we were not punished by some outside element, just by our very bad consciences.