Mum died last year. Step dad made life miserable when I was growing up (heavy drinker, explosive rages, selfish behaviour, etc). Whenever there was a blow up, mum always took his side in the end, which caused some major rifts between us. Since she died he has been leaning heavily on me. I have continued to notice things that really bother me - he talks at length to other people about their lives, but never asks me about mine, when he is stressed or anxious he is poisonous to me, finding endless things to criticize and put down. If he does praise me, it is because I do so much for him and he could not cope without me. I have walked out a few times when he has been particularly bad and that does seem to have decreased the verbal snipes.
I was supposed to go on a longed for holiday but had a problem and had to change plans at the last minute. I organized a week away by myself so I could have a total break, then offered to take him to a UK cottage for the second week. Ended up booking something more expensive than I would have otherwise because of his needs. He was not happy from the minute we got there, and after I overslept a few mornings (he gets up really early and goes to bed early, I am a late person and took some medication because I was ill which made me sleep later than usual) he had a tantrum and wanted to go home. I tried to talk to him and point out we still had time to go to the beach for a nice walk - but he dug in and finally said if I would not take him home, he would refuse to go anywhere for the rest of the week and would stay home reading til it was time to leave. As he had the car keys it would be a toss up if he would let me use it. So I ended up packing up at lunchtime on my third day there and driving 5 hours home while feeling ill.
I am furious. He has called me today like nothing happened but I just cannot get over this. I know he is selfish and self centred but this just seems to be an extreme level. I do not know what I want to do next. I can't in good conscience walk away from him totally. But I feel like I want to really cut back on how much I see him and what I do. With anyone else I would have a conversation about why I am not happy, but his ability to have a rational conversation is really poor, he just gets angry and starts shouting. At the same time I feel guilty for not helping him with stuff. What would you do?