Today we went some distance to a school sports event ds was taking part in. They lost but good game and ds enjoyed it. Afterwards there was some food laid on for the players but dh asked if ds would rather wait and come with us for us all to eat together on the way home which dh had planned to do in about twenty minutes. Ds said ok, fine, said goodbye to team mates and teacher.
The conversation went like this.
Dh;Shall we go to main food joint and we can all choose there?( mainly McD, think there is salad bar and jacket potato place too)
Me; Yes, fine.
Ds; Yes please , Mc Donald's?
Dh;Junk food?
Ds ;There's not much else in that place, KFC a bit further on?( near home)
Dh;Ok if thats what you want?Dont you want to go shopping too?
Me; Happy either way we can shop if you want to for a while.
Ds ; not really, just want to eat. Can do for a while though.
Dh ; well we can't all just do what we want all the time can we?
Dh, suddenly indicates left off motorway. This is towards original place planned. Says 'Well I'm stopping here look there is a KFC here anyway.' Then continues to drive past KFC part to area closish to original venue planned.
Ds; Can we go there (KFC?)then?
Dh ;Stops car far from KFC near to original planned place (McDs) says'Do what you want, Im going to the toilet we can just go home as far as Im concerned '
'I'm not going to KFC ds can go there if he wants give him a fiver it's over there ( quite far, across roundabouts etc, not accessible by foot)
Me; Let's just go and eat together at main food place, ds is hungry.Its not fair to wait any longer.
Dh; shouts ; Bugger off then, we can just go home if that's what you want.
Dh walks off with car keys. Says meet you here in 15 mins. I say ok shall we get food or are you shopping now. Dh seems to mutter F off and storms off leaving us in car with no keys.
I get back in , say come on ds let's go get something, what do u want, ds shouts ' I don't care ' and bursts into tears and breaks his heart..have never seen him do this and he is a very placid child who just tries to please.
I feel incredibly let down by dh behaviour with this... All we did was try to agree a plan , ds did nothing wrong and dh just made it impossible no matter what ds said. I think he's been incrediblybadly behaved and really let ds and me down. I am shocked at how unreasonable difficult and rude he has been. I am so angry I have not spoken a word to dh since. After dh came back to the car he rapped on the window and barked' What are you doing I thought you would be ready by now' . When we got out he said to ds' You can't go out like that, with a bright red face'.
I took ds via the loos to McDonalds and was furious but just refused to react or argue. We (ds and I )got food. We went back to car and came home. I have apologised to ds on behalf of his father but can't explain it.
What is this all about? Is he an unreasonable bully? Is he on the ASD spectrum, because it is really hard to communicate with him, he just doesn't follow the flow of conversation then loses his temper..so is either being deliberately difficult and obtuse, or he has some sort of problem.
I know he has been completely unreasonable out of the blue and ruined everything.. But what do I say now. Do I tell him to apologise to ds and me? Do I tell him to get out?
Please can I have some advice. LTB may be the right advice, but these are sporadic incidents and ds will still be seeing his father regularly (and always wants to spend time with dad)if I do LTB so it won't necessarily solve the problem. As in, I have to make or try to make dh change this behaviour and apologise and display to ds he was in the wrong...if I don't address this properly now, even LTB isn't going to be enough.