To have ditched twat DH at the airport and gone on holiday without him?

[AskingForTacos]

I’m 32 and have never had a holiday abroad. It’s a combination of things really, growing up I had 2 disabled siblings and it wasn’t practical or financially possible to travel. Had a couple of caravan holidays in the rain but hated them as it unsettled my siblings and everybody was stressed.

Became a single mum at 21 (DD now 11), so once again couldn’t afford holidays. Met DH 4 years ago and we have a 2 year old DS. DH has been well-travelled over the years, but hasn’t had a holiday since meeting me as we’ve been saving up for general life expenses. The end of last year I have a bereavement and became quite sentimental, emotional about my children and general life experiences and sort of had a “grab life by the reins” moment and told DH I wanted to have a sunny family holiday together, and he agreed. We’re both a bit tight and I also don’t cope with overly hot weather (anything above 25 degrees is too much) so have chosen to go in March and set off early this morning. And before anybody asks yes I’m going to pay the fine from DD school.

Flight was with Ryanair. I had a checked bag for mine and the toddler’s stuff, DD had a 10kg carry on. Mine and DD’s bags were full but within guidelines. DH travels light so decided to just take a personal bag and filled it to the brim. He even ordered some sort of zip extension thing from Amazon to make it close more than it naturally should. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

Me, DD and the baby sail through the gate and he gets stopped. I asked, in fact, begged him to just pay the extra charge so we could be on our way, we could afford it. It could’ve just been chalked up a lesson learnt, but no, he had to be a dick about it. He was abusive to staff and called a girl who only looked about 20 a “jobsworth bitch”. At this point, he was told he would not be travelling (rightly so). He changed his tune then and tried to pay the fine but they weren’t having it. It was like an episode of Airline circa 1999. He then started an irritating speech about how it’s disgraceful etc etc and tried to get us all escorted out with him. I initially was going to go with him because I was stressed but DD was absolutely devastated as she’s been looking forward to the holiday for months. She started crying and I decided me and the kids would still go.

We arrived a few hours ago and are settled in our hotel but I’m on edge. I’ve spoken to him on the phone and he thinks I was a cow for leaving him. He’s coming out tomorrow on a different flight (from a different airport...) and I’m dreading it. On the phone he said we should’ve all gone out tomorrow together. It’s only a 7 night holiday and who knows when the next one will be so for me every second counts especially as we wanted a combination of excursions and chilling days in the resort. If we flew out tomorrow we'd only get 2 resort days not to mention paying for all new flights. He’s not physically abusive or anything like that, I’m not scared, I just can’t be arsed listening to the moaning. Was I wrong to go without him?

It never ceases to amaze me what behaviour women tolerate in the name of "keeping the family together".

Decent?

I don't think I'd go that far...

Oh come on. He a horrible grumpy you know what. Autistic? But only comes into play when it's service staff he's regularly being horrible and rude to. OK then. So sick of seeing people self diagnosing themselves with autism, adhd, depression etc to excuse their awful behaviour. Some people just aren't very nice. End of story 🙄

Hope all goes well and you all enjoy it

Good luck @AskingForTacos

I think you’re handling this really well, OP. I hope you and the kids continue to have a great time and that your DH gets to see the GP when you get home.

The thing is, I imagine it’s also very possible to both be ND and be a bit of a knob.
Obviously not in all cases before anyone jumps on me…

I agree. Autism and ADHD get thrown about all the time and used as an excuse to justify shitty behaviour. My DC are both diagnosed with autism and one of them quite high on the spectrum but they don’t use it as an excuse to abuse people!
This grown adult man now has crocodile tears because things didn’t go how he wanted them to after he threw a strop after he realised Ryanair wouldn’t bend the rules for him and had to learn the hard way. He was tired and crying because instead of just being compliant with Ryanair rules he decided to have a hissy fit and then had to spend more money on a separate flight and find his own way to the hotel via public transport in an unfamiliar country. He now feels like the badly done to victim when he was the one who created this mess in the first place! I’d say it is definitely more of an NPD trait than autism. He has absolutely no diagnosis of autism whatsoever and has just come up with his own ‘diagnosis’ to try to justify his own shitty behaviour!

As far as I can see he’s just after a sympathy vote to manipulate op back on his side against those god awful Ryan air staff after OP refused to pander to him too.

And further more every time he kicks off in the future and is abusive he will blame his (undiagnosed) ‘autism’ to manipulate op and anyone who will listen to feel sorry for him!

Ryanair have come out of this really well. Good on them for refusing to allow this abusive man to fly after he intimidated and was abusive to a young employee just doing her job. I hope they have banned him for good.✈

Whether they're crocodile tears and convenient timing self-diagnosis or not, there's no merit in not giving him the benefit of the doubt while you're away, and I hope that he'll take himself off, if he feels his anger is getting the better of him.
Hope you can put things to the side for now. If he's speaking from the heart, there'll be plenty ahead back home to navigate your way through.
Hope you can relax and enjoy. Sounds like your DD is having fun anyway xx

Nobody acting like a twat should expect more sensible people to back them up.

Man's an idiot.

Your update sounds positive OP.

It sounds like a showdown I had with my DH about 7years ago. So much stuff and when it came to a head he came out with a lot of what your DH has said but in his case it was ADHD. Since then and us working with his ADhD our lives have been so much happier. He still has an occasional outburst and struggles but we can manage these episodes so much better, I don’t blame him but I also don’t take shit and it’s not an excuse for bad behaviour. We are both on the same page, I know when to pull him up and when to just leave him. What ever happens we calmly talk things through and make sure that our DCs are not affected. As our DCs are getting older they have learnt about ND they know it’s never an excuse for bad behaviour but they also understand that sometimes people can’t control the way they are at times. I think it’s very important they understand this and never ever thing they have done anything wrong,

Yes this 💯
Sounds more like NPD - using crocodile tears - very manipulative.

Does your DH ever call his boss a 'jobsworth bastard' when he gets angry at work?

Are you still banging on? 😂

Ah so is this why I keep hearing people say things like woman footballer rather than female footballer, among many other examples? Because I could not understand it at all, you would say male footballer, "the first signing of a man footballer this season" sounds mad, as does woman footballer/author/painter/pianist to me.

No, like I said in the post you quoted it's when female is used as a noun that it get red-flaggy.

So 'x is a female footballer' is fine, or 'I mainly read female authors' also fine.

Talking about females eg. 'Females behave/think like this' - red flag.

I was going to pile in and say I used to work at an airport - once in a restaurant and once at McDonald's.

It amazed me how utterly miserable some people were going on holiday.

I remember some man stating me in the face saying you will bring my food over to me, when his burger was two minutes late.

I'd never been treated that way before, with such contempt, just for existing. It was intimidating and I felt miserable, not least because you can't stand up for yourself because you are staff and have to be polite.

I couldn't turn to him and say Really? You're going on holiday. Cheer up your miserable that.

I just had to suck it up. I quit that job at McDonald's not long after.

On the other side I had a relative who stopped flying abroad. I suspect autism too for many reasons. The wife never went abroad much.

In regards to symptoms (I think I have mild ASD).

1. Noise cancelling headphones like loop switches are an absolute game changer. Noise is extremely over stimulating and I really recommend these. Total game changer.

1. Use the special assistance gate for young families and those with disabilities. It's much much quicker and stress free than the main gate.

1. Start packing for any holiday weeks ahead. Have it all packed the week before. Spend the first 24 hours of the holiday doing all the orientation stuff and booking activities etc. Makes it much less stress free.

I was thinking this. I've dated a couple of abusive narcissists and the DH's behaviour sounds quite familiar. It's extremely convenient timing for him to start wondering whether he might be autistic, it puts the sympathetic attention back on him. I also have an ex who suddenly wondered whether he might have a condition (not autism but a different neurological condition that would have affected his mental health) just as he'd done something awful, he also started crying about it.

I'm wondering whether he wanted to sabotage the holiday because it wasn't his idea, it wasn't his suggestion, it was something really special for OP and her DD. Again, sounds exactly like something my abusive exes would do. It didn't go according to this plan as OP got on the flight anyway so now he's somehow made himself the victim via another route.

Obviously nobody here can know whether he has autism but I would be extremely suspicious.

I’m not justifying being rude to service staff .

But not everyone travelling through an airport is going on holiday. The people you complain about “ being miserable” might be travelling to attend a loved ones funeral , to get cancer treatment , to be a witness at a trial or to attend a work meeting where they have to sack many staff.

You don’t know what’s going on in peoples lives to judge them for not acting happy enough.

NeedLess to say, there’s no excuse for rudeness.

Ditch him for good. What an embarrassment he is to you and your children.

Autism doesn't make you call service staff abusive names - doing so is a choice. I'd take his very conveniently timed self diagnosis with a large pinch of salt - it keeps you in your place and absolves him of accountability for his own behaviour.

OP when he booked his new flight did he get a return? His original return flight with you all will have been cancelled.

If he hasn't, don't sort it for him. Just ask the question and leave him to sort it out, if necessary.

Oh here we go with the ASD excuse for being a nasty, disgusting arsehole. I have a formal diagnosis of ASD and I have never treated people the way you say he does. He might be autistic. He might not. He IS a horrible twat whether he has it or not. If you don’t nip this in the bud this will be your life. Every time he’s verbally abusive to someone you won’t be allowed to be pissed off because ‘it’s not me it’s my autism’ 🙄.

I’m really pleased that your dh broke down. It shows he can have insight into his behaviour and adjust, whether or not he is ND. I’m hoping there’s a brighter future for you all out there, especially for the sake of your dcs.