I was angry this morning with DH. To fully explain I have to give a little background (sorry this may actually get quite long).
I normally get up at 6, walk the dog, sort out some washing, school snacks and get myself ready before I wake up DS at about 7.15 and then DH at 7.30 - because he refuses to have his own alarm and will not get up until and unless I wake him. DS has to leave the house by just after 8 to make it to school on time.
This morning I was running late as we'd only just got back from holiday and I was tired after the long journey (when I had done the vast majority of a 13 hour car drive as DH doesn't like to drive). So I got up at 7.10 and as a result struggled to get all sorted in time. DS was asleep and hiding under the covers and when I checked on DH at 8 he was in bed reading. I asked him to get up and help me. I reminded him of the time and said DS had to be out of the house in 5 minutes and needed to get ready and could he help make some kind of breakfast (sandwich) that DS could eat on the way to school. Not great but there clearly was no time for proper breakfast at home. When DS finally struggled out of bed the set of school uniform that I had laid out for him to wear didn't have pants. I asked DH if he could please find a pair of pants (no pants left in usual drawers as just returned from holiday). DH response was that school clothes are my responsibility. He also would not make sandwich but said DS should eat cereal at home. I said no time (which there wasn't, clearly!) and grabbed a cereal bar and a few raspberries in a Tupperware box to eat on the way. We were a few minutes late for school but not too bad, teacher was fine when I apologised.
I was highly unimpressed about the whole situation and rather than letting this pass I decided to send DH an email (talking would just have resulted in a shouting match). I kept the tone of the mail calm and said that he needed to reflect on not being selfish and that reading in bed at 8 o'clock when we had a joint responsibility to get our son to school was not on.
So that's the background. Now what I'm really upset about is that when I came home from work DS told me 'daddy is upset with you about this morning'. I said, oh so what did daddy say. DS at that point didn't want to elaborate, probably feeling caught between his two parents. I thought about what best to do for a few minutes, then decided (rightly or wrongly) that it was better to have it all out in the open and asked DH in DS presence what he had said to DS about this morning and that really this was between us. He said (again in front of DS) that he told DS after school that I had been totally unreasonable in the morning, had stormed out of the house in a self righteous manner and that I had an anger problem.
At that point I had to bite my lips not to cry. Not out of anger but out of sheer sadness that he cannot be a father first. My overriding ambition is always always not to let children know of parents' rows and certainly not making them take sides. It's a terrible position to put a child in and no child should have to feel they have to take sides when their parents have an argument.
This is not the first time DH has behaved this way. He doesn't get these parenting principles and seems to think it acceptable to involve children in our differences of opinion. (And that's leaving aside the issue of not getting out of bed in the morning and helping me get the household organised).
What do other MNers think? AIBU?