DP not wanting to drive my DD to hospital to say goodbye to her dying dad

[Ifinkyourefreaky]

My ds 25 and dd 16 dad died yesterday, he's my exh. His diagnosis was 6 weeks ago and he went downhill rapidly. My DP of 7years had been doing lifts to and from hospital as he's the only one that drives out of us all.
My dd lives with me and ds lived with his dad.
My dp was already in a mood with me yesterday morning and then last minute through in that we needed to get my dd to the hospital ASAP before her DF died as she really wanted to say goodbye to him and he had only a couple of hours left if that.
My dp didn't want to take her said she shouldn't be there to see him die it will scar her for life, It resulted in her crying and shouting 'I need to see my dad to say goodbye' and he said to her he shouldn't have to be dictated to by a little girl.
He relented, complained on the way to hospital that he's just a taxi driver for everyone and he doesn't have to be doing this ect..... He dropped us at the hospital....30min drive and told us to find our own way home.

I'm I being unreasonable to think that if he was annoyed/angry he should have just kept his mouth shut and sucked it up for one more day, as he made the whole thing so much more traumatic for my daughter.

I kept saying to him, this is not the time for you to be venting at us now can you please stop.

I can't speak to him or see him right now, I'm so angry with him. He doesn't live with us BTW.

He left them to make their own way home, immediately after the trauma of witnessing the death.

That’s punishment. Not care.

I agree with this. I would have sorted a taxi or some temporary accommodation closer to the hospital and made sure my kids never had to see this cruel and childish man again. You need to protect your children from this.

If my OH intervenes when I am supporting my DD when her father deteriorates and she needs my help it will be last thing he ever does in our relationship!

What a total knob!

When the anger dies you need to talk calmly together. There are probably feelings and emotions tangled here..your husbands step daughter, his step son,his wife’s previous partner. He chose a terrible time to express his feelings.i think people who advise people to leave their partners too easily are unwise.

He took them - that was the crux, to be there at the DDs dying fathers final hour.

The OP's continual drip feed along with the fact her current DP is sick of being a taxi service at the drop of the hat is probably precisely why he told them to make their own way back.

But yeh why let facts get in the way eh? 🙄🤦‍♂️

@Ifinkyourefreaky Has he messaged you at all since to a) see how you are (esp. DD) and b) say sorry?

Right so that changes things somewhat. He has been chauffeur for you all and he also was reacting to an event that traumatised him and didn't want your DD to be the same.
I think you're in a stressful situation and he's stressed too and you're overly reliant on him just to ferry you all around. Everyone is being unreasonable but it's understandable

Even when I go with her, she still has the anxiety of being in an unfamiliar car with a stranger. I know it's extreme and she's getting help with this

Sorry you are all going through this. I don’t think I could ever speak to him ever again after treating my children this way. He’s just proven how little compassion he has and given you an insight into how he can be when times are tough and you need his support. Because you don’t live together you don’t have to see him again so if I was in your situation I’d just end it and move on with your children. If you do decide to stay with him I feel you won’t ever forget how awful he has been at a time of need, no matter how hard you try and the relationship is tainted now. Take care OP X

He did not have a point. There was a family crisis and a child was losing her dad. Her dad had hours to live, if that, and the DP chooses THAT MOMENT to create an argument and be nasty to the child whose world is being shattered as they spoke? Oh my god, I could never look at him again. Never.

Millions of reasons, I know very few people who drive mostly due to cost (many household cannot afford a car let alone two).

I didn't drive for years as I struggled to find an instructor that wasn't an ass to disabled people.

So you think it's perfectly acceptable for a grown man to belittle a distressed teen for wanting to get to the hospital to see her dying dad one last time, to rant in the car all the way there despite being asked not to, then to ditch them there in a strop to make their own way back just because he's fed up of having to drive?

Fuck me. Raise your standards.

I assure you, he really won't be asked to do this!

'Now' being quite crucial when someone is about to die.

Crikey some people have no heart...

I would never forgive him and I doubt your DD will either.

Hard agree. I think any feelings I ever had for him would die if someone behaved like this about a family death.

What kind of utter arsehole kicks off about driving two family members to the deathbed of their parent?

He has really shown his true colours.

Her daughter's dad was dying, what is wrong with you??!

At this point OP has the choice between supporting her daughter or staying with this man.

The daughter will never, ever forgive him, and if OP sticks by him she'll probably never forgive OP either.

Regardless of any backstory, you simply do not treat someone who is still a child in this way. You just don't.

The relationship would be over for me. His actions were cruel and callous.

I'm sorry, but in 6 weeks he only drove you and / or your children 14 times?

I know I'm not taking into account the time wasted, but 6 weeks are 42 days, I thought he did that way more times.

Yeah either there's details missing or he's really not the man you think.

The only possibility I can think of is if his trauma was really fucking up with his mind all this time, since your ex was dying after all.

But even if that was the case he should have talked to you instead of bottling it all up until it exploded, which it did in the worst time possible.

I'll repeat what I said before, the relationship maaaaaybe is salvageable, but you need some deep and long talk with your children and later him about how all you feel so you can rethink the relationship.

Maybe he really isn't all that bad, but he did lash out at the worst moment possible, which can easily have ruined the relationship even if there was no malice behind everything.

I'm not sure it's quite that. It's a valid point that he's probably fed up of driving people to/from hospital to see a man that he isn't related to and probably couldn't care less about. But it's the way he dealt with not wanting to do this, and the moment he chose to do it, that is getting people's backs up. I don't think many people would choose the day their soon-to-be step daughter's father was dying to decide they no longer want to drive her anywhere and to be disrespectful by saying he wasn't going to be dictated to by a little girl. But, even if this was his breaking point, he could have said, "I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable driving to the hospital for this, given my own experience, so I'm going to call you a taxi." (I know the OP said her daughter has anxiety about getting in a car with strangers, but surely that would have been a better solution than starting an argument, ranting on the way to the hospital and then leaving them to find their own way home?)

Despite the fact he did drive you all, he wasn’t a good solid friend in that moment. Don’t marry.

Interesting how many psychopaths there are on this thread. I often wonder if it's that there's a high proportion of them on Mumsnet, or if it's representative of society in general.

This man's behaviour, traumatising your daughter like that, is beyond despicable.

This^

You're using him for the cumbersome dad duties, but he's not their dad. He doesn't even live with you.

He has been very helpful with the hospital drives thus far. It's not a nice job for him to do, he's in no way obliged by family ties and responsibility to do this and it must be very awkward and uncomfortable for him to hear your possible future stepkids and possible future wife lamenting the man you might end up replacing.

The atmosphere was highly charged: People get quite heightened when death is imminent. He did relent and drive you all, even though he then dumped you all there.

I think I'd actually let this one go, if he is otherwise a decent chap.