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.

Some posters rabid hatred of people who don't drive is really odd. Learning to drive is hideously, sometimes prohibitively, expensive. As I said upthread, cheapest instructor in my area is £40 an hour. £80 for a two hour lesson. Even just one lesson a week would be £320 a month. A test is £120. And if you don't pass first time (which many don't), you then have to pay that again. And that's before you consider the cost of buying/running a car.

I myself didn't pass my test until I was 26 as I simply couldn't afford it before then. With the cost of living crisis, I know many people who have sold their cars as they can't afford to run them any more. Yes it's sometimes annoying being a taxi for friends/family members that don't drive (which is why I used public transport/taxis or paid for petrol when I didn't drive), but is now really the time to make a stand over it? Christ, someone has DIED and people are berating OP for not driving?

Truly awful cruel behaviour. It wasn't up to him to decide if it would have traumatised your dd. Then to complain all the way there and refuse to pick her up after her dad has died. I could never get over that, this will be etched in your daughter's memory for a lifetime. I'd be finished with this guy and never speak to him again.

I'd find it very hard to forgive someone behaving like that op. I get that his own experience may have coloured his thinking and made him overreact wanting to protect your dd from what he thought would be a traumatic experience. But to then leave you all to make your own way home afterwards? Unspeakably cruel.

I hope your dd benefited from seeing her father one last time. It will probably give her a lot of comfort in the future having been able to do that.

I did wonder if there was something behind him saying DD shouldn't see her dad die. Trauma can do a lot of damage and people can lash out when triggered, not that that excuses things, just may explain his actions if that's not how he is normally. Your DD has anxiety and it seems like she trusts him or did, as she wont get in a car with a stranger? One of my DC will only get in a car if me or his dad are driving, it would be massive if he trusted someone else in the driver's seat. Though I couldn't see him ever getting passed something like this and I couldn't see myself getting past it either.

I can’t stress enough don’t marry this man. How he can be so horrifically uncaring at such a vulnerable time for your daughter. It doesn’t matter if he was frustrated he needed to find his humanity at this point. You know it’s not okay. So don’t let others twist it.

What a cruel thing to do to a child who is losing a parent.

To only be able to think of himself when a girl is desperate to see her dying father.

What a scumbag that man is.

Think about getting away from him.

I'm sorry for the loss of your children's father.

Also, my mind is blown at the amount of people picking on you for not driving.I always find that so bizarre.

WTAF have I just read?! Are you the boyfriend?!

What is wrong with a 25 year old getting a lift off someone anyway? Even though the daughter is actually 16?!

Is there an age limit to getting lift from your mum's partner?

My neighbour over the road has a fella who she has been with for 5 years - and he doesn't live with her, he lives 15 miles away and stays a few days a week, depending on his work rota. He often takes her 14 y.o. son, and 9 y.o. daughter to places/hobby groups, and out for little trips out when the mum is at work - she works 20-22 hours a week for the NHS. (Sometimes she works weekend days.)

He is like a dad to them. (Their own dad died 6 years ago.) THIS is how a man should behave when he's dating a woman with children, not treat them like they're a bloody hinderance!

!

End it, he has shown you what he's like as a person. If you die before him, he's also 'fortunately' shown you how he'll treat your children. For this reason, you need to leave him and put your children first.

Let him him die alone without anybody visiting him.

You’re not reliant on him, you have legs, trains, buses, taxis plenty of options. The fact you said you’re reliant on him is a clear indication he obviously has driven you around a lot and he’s fed up.
However he totally picked the wrong moment to bring this up, he should have waited to say something to you after dropping your DD off if he knew it was to say goodbye to her dying father. I personally would of just called for a taxi rather than let the situation escalate

Well, hold on a minute.

If he threw a strop about driving and being dictated to by a “little girl” to protect her from a terrible experience then WHY did he drop them off to make their own way home (a thirty minute drive away) after her father had died? Especially since he’s aware the daughter has severe anxiety about getting into cars with strangers?

This doesn’t add up as the behaviour of a loving, caring step-dad. So let’s not kid ourselves.

That's awful and unforgiveable. If he was tired of driving to the hospital, he should have had let you know sooner, so you could make alternative arrangements to get there. It was cruel of him to take his anger out on your duaghter. If he genuinely thought she'd be traumatised by going, he should have let her know his concerns in a calm way, but still support her decision.

I'd not be able to be with someone who spoke to my grieving child like that.

He is cruel.

It won't get better from here.

Some posters rabid hatred of people who don't drive is really odd.
I've only ever encountered that here, never in real life?!
I don't drive, have no desire to so I will never drive a car. My parents never drove either. Many of my friends grew up with nobody driving in their home.

I understand it is a necessity for those who choose to live rurally bit again, just a choice, not a requirement in life.

I agree that a very young woman with MH issues should have been spared seeing her dad dying and deceased. But that wasn’t my decision to make and it wasn’t your partner’s either! It was your daughter’s decision in conjunction with you, her mother. Your partner’s role in this was to say to you, “I’m sorry about your ex. What can I do to help?”

Any general issues around driving etc could’ve been discussed at a later date. He may have a point, he may not. But it wasn’t ok to loudly raise the topic on the day your ex was reaching the end of his life.

He’s behaved poorly and it speaks volumes about how he regards you and your daughter. This man is not a keeper.

Well, you know now what will happen if you ever seriously need him again in extremis don't you?

I would never forgive this - never be able to forgive this. He did well driving her up until the end, but my goodness he fucked it up royally then.

I wonder if his 'worry' about her seeing her dying father was about his own distress rather than hers. But for him to leave her crying and desperate when it comes to her father dying - No. Just No. This is the time for someone in his position to make sure the practicalities run smoothly, not to make a scene and make things more difficult for a child losing her father to death.

She will never forget this. Neither will you.

On another note, goodness me, so many people not reading that you already have a driving test booked!

@Ifinkyourefreaky how much involvement with your DC so far (apart from the last few weeks)?

Will your DS be moving in with you now?

My DP of 7years

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'

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.

yes he has been traumatised by watching a relative die many years ago.

@Ifinkyourefreaky
So I just went thourgh the entire discussion and copied the parts I think are critical, I feel people are piling a little too hard on him, but just a liiiitle bit.

Let me be generous and try see things from his side, you two are together for 7 years, don't live together, I assume he gets no saying on how your children are raised, maybe he feels he's not really that important, after all one could argue he's not really part of the family, just someone you keep on the side

Now, he has being taking you to the hospital for 6 weeks, is that really the only way he has helped your family even though he seemingly isn't part of the family?

I'm asking because honestly, either there's more to this and those 6 weeks are just the last straw that breaks the camel back, or he's pretty immature and unreliable, like, yeah 6 weeks doing that would be annoying as fuck, but the situation is a pretty big deal.

I would argue his feelings might not be necessarely invalid if not three points

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'

He gave his opinion which is fine, but he was too insensitive as he should have told you in private instead in front of DD

he said to her he shouldn't have to be dictated to by a little girl.

He fucked up and made the situation about himself, she's not dictating him, she's calling him out on being insensitive

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.

He begrudgingly helped you and then left you alone in what is one of the worst moments in your children life.

Even if his feelings are valid, feel threated that your children will never see him as family, that he's not important enough in your life, whatever argument one can make on his side, that simply wasn't the moment to bring them.

He basically made a horrible situation worse by lashing out, probably not on purpose, hopefully, but when it comes to your children that bridge might be burned forever.

I do feel the relationship might be salvageable, but you'll have to sit with your children to see how they feel about him now, and sit with him to have a long talk on how he feels about you two and why he lashed out.

But I feel there's high chances the relationship is doomed cause your children might just not forgive him.

Almost anyone would help someone to meet their dying parent, fact that he lashed out at the worst time possible only tells me either there's a loooot more behind this situation or perhaphs he's not mature enough to understand it was time for him to shut up and help as much as he could, later you two would talk about the relationship and how you all made him feel.

I mean, really, either you're not telling us something or he's not the man you thought he was, there's not exactly a lot of conclusions we can take.

Well you sound lovely.

I feel sorry for the guy - he has no link to the dying ex-partner, so in fairness, why should he have to have anything to do with him on any level - they arent mates/brothers/close confidants.

because I would hope he cared for his SD (to be) and that would extend to knowing when something was important to her doing what he can to not only make it happen but do with care and compassion

That would be the end for me OP. He's shown you who he is. Your poor DC.

Please do not continue any relationship with this man. I am staggered at his reaction, regardless of what he went through with a relatve's death.

No engagement and definitely no marriage. Please.

His mask slipped in a crisis. Ignore this at your peril.

I'm not defending his behaviour in the slightest and I think he's acted appallingly, but the fact that you don't drive shouldn't make you reliant on him. I can understand him being annoyed, in all honesty.

If he threw a strop about driving and being dictated to by a “little girl” to protect her from a terrible experience then WHY did he drop them off to make their own way home (a thirty minute drive away) after her father had died?

Exactly! This man cares only for himself. He was probably upset the attention was on the dying man. Disgusting.

Wrong timing and completely insensitive. Your DD will never forgive him.
However, he has been treated like a taxi by the sounds of it and I'd be pissed off ferrying everyone around too. There is probably too much resentment on all sides for this relationship to continue.

First reply nails it, what an awful man.

I have to agree, although I'm not speaking from experience as you are.

My friend's 16yo DD watched her grandfather die (at home), having spent all of every weekend at the grandparents' home with her mum as his illness progressed over months.

My friend thought it would be a good thing for DD to be there with her grandad in his last weeks, days and hours but it absolutely traumatised the poor girl and her mental health has been shot to pieces by it.

She's now 18 and still struggling immensely, with therapists and psychologists being absolutely adamant that it was the trauma she was put through that triggered the issues.

My friend's husband (the girl's dad) argued vehemently that their DD shouldn't be spending so much time there towards the end and it has definitely soured their relationship now seeing how badly affected their DD is.