Just a thought that hit me while I was reading this thread. I found that some of the things my son has been doing while we all heal from this mess...snappy anger, etc, my girls would start saying..he's acting like "D and having a man fit over nothing". I put a stop to that for several reasons and put a stop to insults and bickering...or at least the beginning of a stop.
Our new house rule, if you are going to insult someone (which realistically, it happens people and we shouldn't but it happens) you have to say something nice about them first. That makes my kids stop and think up something nice, and by the time they have done that they no longer wanna insult the other person. Usually. Secondly, I invoked a ten second rule. If someone in our house is angry or upset, including me, they have to wait ten seconds before responding to anything, even if it means they stand and count out loud. That makes them THINK, instead of react, and therefore ponder whether what the other person said is worth reacting to, ponder their reaction and resulting words. Its a work in progress, and I have to keep yelling TEN SECONDS! or NICE THING FIRST! constantly, but we are getting there. Some of the nice things that come out are hilarious, and we all end up cracking up instead of continuing to argue. I have tried very hard to impress upon them that every action they do, everything they say will have an effect somehow on this world, and they need to not be rash and irresponsible with themselves and their own actions/reactions and words. Teach them this and maybe, as Hopeful said above, they will see through Daddy's headgames. Trust me, kids see and hear everything, and they understand far more than we like to admit.