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.

This!

What the fuck is wrong with you?!

Your poor daughter being treated like that and still being expected to have this man in her life. Put your child first and end this relationship. He is callous, cruel, spiteful and abusive to your grieving child and you intend to fucking marry him? Raise your standards and have some self respect for the love of Christ!

Blimey

Having read though all your posts I think yes he has handled it badly but maybe he thought you were doing this as a team and then when he's expressed he doesn't think it's a good idea for her to go and see her dad dying he's been yelled at and basically told to just do it. Like his opinion counts for shit all. He's actually sounding like he wants the best for your DD and thought that was not seeing her dad die/dead. Even though ultimately it's your choice it does actually sound like he's feeling he wasn't heard and then just gave in and drove you anyway. He probably feels quite used and like an uninvolved part of the family.

This. Even if this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, he should have waited to speak to you about it. But I also think in future maybe you should learn to drive.

What a horrible man

Have you read the OPs posts at all?

So you realise you are in another abusive relationship?

Please google the Freedom Programme, and do it. Protect your DC.

From what you have said, your partner clearly has issues surrounding seeing someone at the end of life and expressed that at the most inappropriate time.
Unfortunately I think he's made one of the hardest moments of your daughters life, even harder. I'm not sure she will ever truly forgive him for that.
Has he apologised or addressed it at all?

I think you need to consider whether to stay with him or not. Will your children be able to forgive his outburst, or will they hold it against him? Will they hold it against you if you stay with someone who can treat your daughter that way when she really just needed help?
Can you forgive him for causing more pain?

What an absolute cunt. That would be it for me, I simply wouldn’t accept someone being such an abjectly heartless bastard.

I’ll thank you not to be putting words into my narrative that I have not and will not use to describe anyone, not that I am given to swearing, invective or hyperbole

FYI, my original comment wasn't aimed at OP. It was at another poster.

Hi OP! Losing a father (at any time of yer but particularly around Christmas) is a tragic and life altering event and your daughter needs care, love and support. In your partner complaining and refusing to drive your daughter to say goodbye to her father, do you really think your partner provided any of that in that moment? Has he supported you or your family in other ways during this difficult time? Does he even listen or ask what else he can do to help? I suspect not to the extent you would like. I understand that this may be slightly inconvenient for him (I am being very polite here, I would use harsher words in real life) but this was a time that he could have really stepped up to show how supportive a partner he could be to you and your family during difficult and highly emotional circumstances and he has failed. I get he has given a number of lifts but it seems to have been done so with a lot of resentment and it will be worth thinking about what kind of partner he will be in the long run and if that is what you want.

As an aside - I remember my (emotionally/verbally abusive) dad doing something similar and the extra anxiety over how unwilling he was to drive coupled with having to rely on him at the time, still stays with me. I would have loved if someone stood up for me then.

You can't seriously be considering staying with him? Your poor daughter!

This was totally unnecessary behaviour, and will be far more traumatic for your dd than it needed.

To behave so inconsiderably is very nasty behaviour, is there a reason behind this?

Just at the moment I'm reliant on him.

I'd be getting a taxi or uber

Your poor DS and DD. I lost my dad at a similar age so my heart goes out to them.

While it can be frustrating being the only driver, these were exceptional, heartbreaking circumstances and to behave like that is extremely cruel. I wonder if it was related to his own traumatic experience of seeing a dying relative and it came out in a very dysfunctional way? But even if this is the case, it doesn’t help your DD and I would be seriously concerned about how he might respond to her grief going forward. For me, personally, there would be no way back from this and no way I would have him around my children again.

Edit: I’ve just read through all the updates (including the one where you talk about returning the favour) and reread your OP. LTB. You cannot afford to give this man even 1% of your attention right now. Your children need you.

Wow..........

You’re supposed to marry someone who loves you and is kind to you (and if you have kids, loves and is kind to them).

OP I echo others - your previous abuse has made you wonder if kicking off at a soon to be bereaved teenager is acceptable behaviour in your partner. Of course it fucking isn’t. I don’t care if he’d driven her to the hospital 200 times - she’d just got The Call and the only reasonable reaction from a future stepdad is to take her ASAP and probably give her a hug and tell her how very sorry he is that this is happening.

Please do dump him and give this poor girl a chance of expecting better for herself before she falls for shit behaviour from men herself. It’s the best present you could ever give her to show you prioritise her and will not put up with someone who treats her poorly. 💐

My first reaction on reading this was 'my God, what kind of person does/says that??' DP's behaviour seemed monstrous and inexplicably cruel.

On further reading I started to see things more from his point of view. You don't live together. Your DD has severe mental health and anxiety issues, not an easy situation for a new partner, but you've been together 7 years so he's taken that on board.

He has been putting his own life and convenience on hold to drive your family back and forth to the hospital (does he wait in the car/waiting room while you visit?). Which is a kindness towards your ex, even if he is doing it for you and DD. And he does this despite his own traumatic experience of watching a loved one die. A trauma he obviously hasn't processed, because he chose the worst possible time to explode into rage and frustration.

Paradoxically, to me that shows he's probably a decent guy. A cynical bastard would say all the right things, while wriggling out of doing the hard yards of caring for you and your daughter. I know that scenario and have learnt to judge people by what they do, rather than the (kind, noble, sensitive, reasonable) things they say.

Sounds to me like, in this situation with your ex, lots of feelings have come to a head for him that he just can't cope with any more, and he's put a bomb under everything. I agree with PPs who say that it'll be hard to come back from. Just a really difficult and sad situation for all of you. I wish you luck OP.

Just to add we recently had a scare with my dad and my DH drove us all to the hospital even though we can drive too, because he realised that driving while very anxious/upset is horrible and possibly dangerous. That’s decent behaviour.

Exactly. Off topic a bit, but I'm always amazed at Mumsnet privilege. You have to be very well off to learn to drive, unless you have someone willing and able to teach you in their car for free.

It's also quite difficult. There's no way I'd manage it with perimenopausal brain fog meaning I can't remember anything and a long term inner ear issue making me very travel sick.

But the time to put your foot down or complain isn’t when someone’s father had hours to live.

Yes, I’m a bit lost for words too. Like a pp I’d drive a stranger to hospital if their parent was dying.

OP says he'd only driven them to the hospital 14 times in 6 weeks. That's only just over twice a week.

Really not much at all in the circumstances.

However, even if it had been the daily visits I'd assumed were a given, no matter how tired he was of driving them, to cause an argument at such a time is outrageous behaviour.

yes! this has been one of the most controversial, anti man threads on here for a while, so many red herrings, white rabbits, McGuffins, points completely skewed,
missed, ignored, falacious reasoning and the usual poor comprehension skills all fed by one of the most insidious, invidious drip feeds on here ever - providing an outlet
for posters this morning who have completly run out of Maxwell House Ha!

lets hear it for @OnlyMabelInTheBuilding who actually cut through the Gordian Knot

I'd be taking a long hard look at this relationship, yes he's done the trip twice a week for the past few weeks, but really his response was awful and very childish.
Do you really want to be with someone like this, who behaves so badly when the chips are down and it really matters.