DH has done something unbelievably stupid, dangerous and selfish. Really don't know what to do

[ThatBloodyCat]

I am reeling so much that I don't know where to begin. Not quite sure why I have name changed, but I have.

DD who is 9 was off school today because she was unwell - she has some sort of virus, I think, and has had a really bad headache. DH was able to work from home to stay with her, and he was due to leave the house at 2.30 to get a flight. We had discussed she would be OK for 30 minutes by herself and I would be back at 3pm.

She is a sensible child, and we have left her alone before, but always in a controlled fashion - short periods, no dangers around, she knows exactly where I am going, has my number, and usually is watching a movie. We have electric gates which phone to our mobiles, so no danger of anyone calling to the house unexpectedly. I fully understand that not everyone would be happy with this approach, but me & DH have discussed it, and are comfortable with allowing her to learn a bit of independence but making sure any potential risks are mitigated.

I popped back into the house at 1.55 and found DD in the house by herself. We have a gas wood-burner type fire, which was lit. I asked where DH was, and she said he was at the gym, and had left at 12.45. She asked me if she could have some lunch as she was starving, and hadn't had any breakfast or lunch. I asked why Daddy hadn't made her lunch and she said she didn't know. I tried phoning DH, and no answer on his phone. I kept trying, and eventually phoned the gym and asked them to tell him he was urgently needed at home. I eventually made contact with him after trying to reach him for 25 minutes.

When he came back (after being gone for 1 1/2 hours in total) he told me I was completely over-reacting. He said he was going to give DD lunch when he got back (at 2.20pm), apparently the fire wasn't a risk because it has a glass front on it and is enclosed. Apparently it didn't matter that he was uncontactable, because I had my phone with me.

I am absolutely furious at his selfishness and recklessness.

I just don't know what to do. I told him I was going to report him to the police for child neglect. I worry though that if I involve any agencies such as police or SS it will have a devastating effect on our children.

He has since sent a text, very contrite and saying he realises his choices were poor, but tbh this is his form all over. Completely selfish, and only apologises after the fact, and after initially trying to minimise. When he came back from the gym he told me I was completely over-reacting.

I want him to change, and not to be so bloody selfish, but I know that not only is that not going to happen, it's also not for me to try to force it. So thinking aloud, my choices are either give him a complete bollocking over it, try to get him to realise why it was dangerous and unacceptable, but ultimately in the knowledge that he won't change, and that not reporting this is effectively condoning his behaviour - or - take action which in all probability means the end of my marriage and family life as my DC currently know it.

I just don't know what to do.

It's selfish and unkind and unfqtherly and all the rest, and I would be outrqged if my Dp did this- but the child was not in danger.

I think he has been incredibly selfish & self centred.

You had both discussed a plan, at length re the half hour she was going to be alone for. ANd then he takes it upon himself to leave her for another 1.5 hours, where he was uncontactable & he decided this all on his own. He didn't even let you know that he would be uncontactable ICE.

Why did he not call you to talk about the gym visit? Because he would know you would strongly object to it. So in order to do what he wants, he doesn't include you in the decision.

It's also very selfish & lazy to not fix your DD something to eat before he went. Lazy Dad.

What other parents may or may not do in the situation is really beside the point. As far as you knew, you both together, had come up with a plan to cover the half an hour changeover. And he takes himself off out, without his phone without any consultation with you. Didn't even let you know that he would be off the phone for 1.5 hours. The time to have the "you are unreasonable & I feel it is OK to leave sick DD on her own for 1.5 hours while I go to the gym" conversation was BEFORE he went to the gym.

This comes down to trust. How can you trust him with your DC if this is how he makes decisions? He knew you would want to have an input in this decision and he excluded you from it. So he doesn't value your opinion & thinks he knows best.

How can you trust him? I'd be fucking furious too. I wouldn't report him, but I understand why you are questioning your relationship & where it goes from here.

I am pretty sure that if your daughter were to talk about this to a teacher at school, you would be reported to the social services and investigated. The teachers are legally obliged to act on any concerns they have.There is no law about what age you can leave your children but if there is found to be a risk of harm to a child of whatever age, so going up to 16, you can be prosecuted. You might like to tell this to your husband. I don't think that you are overreacting at all, maybe reacting in the wrong way with the threats but if you can't get through to him how serious a failing this is, will you trust him to look after them again?

I think ss might have better things to

I would say the onus is on you to deal with the selfish twat

My 9 year old could make a snack but it would consist mainly of pickled onion monster munch and chocolate hobnobs....

There was nothing snide about my judgement. You put your issues on a public forum and I gave my opinion which I happen to believe was balanced. I wish you and your family well and hate hearing about couples divorcing or falling out over issues they may not need to.

You do seem to be determined to see the worst side of what has happened, instead of putting it down to a thoughtless moment, forgiving your DH and weighing up what could have happened with what did happen - which was ultimately that everything worked out well and your DD is O.K.

Police possible social services really?

If you want your relationship to end, carry on turning molehills into mountains.

"I am pretty sure that if your daughter were to talk about this to a teacher at school, you would be reported to the social services and investigated"

What are you basing this on??

It's reckless because the child is

a) 9 years old, and only on the cusp of being old enough to be left home alone

b) sick

c) nobody knew she was alone other than a man with his phone switched off

If anything had gone wrong - she vomited, she got scared or upset, she got into trouble trying to make food, she fell, her condition worsened, any of the million things that could befall a sick 9 year old alone in a house, there was NOBODY to help her.

The person who was meant to be responsible for her had deliberately put himself out of contact and informed NOBODY.

There is no such thing as zero risk. There are risks everywhere, all the time, and we deal with them because mostly they come to nothing.

But we do not leave sick 9 year old children with no backup when they are alone.

That is reckless. And neglectful. And utterly shit parenting.

He sounds like an utterly self absorbed selfish arsehole. If he doesn't understand that its an unkind thing to do to leave a sick 9 year old alone then that's incredibly unappealing. Wouldn't class it as neglect exactly, just grade A selfish twattery.

I don't understand this concept of not being in danger (perfectly happy to accept I have a distorted perspective here). We are all in danger, all the time. Living is dangerous. Having a parent present is not a protection from many dangers, but for many others it can be pretty useful! So I'm guessing not in/in danger refers to unreasonable or specific risks.

Also, unless I'm misunderstanding you OP, you're upset about potential danger but also about a much wider picture of disengagement and unsupportive behaviour. Luckily in this case various potential bad things didn't happen. I think the thread could be less useful to the OP if it gets obsessed with debates about danger. Obviously it is important to decide if your husband can be trusted to keep the dc safe, that goes without saying, what doesn't is that you shouldn't be expected to say that minimising, lying, and generally unloving behaviour is ok because it wasn't 'dangerous'.

OP, I think a lot of your reaction was probably shock, finding out that your dd was not in the situation you thought she was, and no-one had bothered to tell you. The idea that your dc could be alone and unattended when you think they are being cared for is quite scary, it is very different from coming home when you knew she was alone.

I'm shocked at how many people think it's ok to leave a 9 year old when they are poorly to go to the gym.

I have left my 10 year old a couple times to pop to the shop or do the school run ( when she's home poorly and I have to take dd2 ) but that's because these things are unavoidable, buggering off to the gym and leaving a ill child alone is just selfish ( missing a gym session to look after your child won't hurt ).

If my dh di this I would be very angry, I wouldn't phone the police ( that's OTT ) but we would be having serious words about where his priorities lie.

Agree with above.
It's shut parenting.... You both agreed she could be left alone whilst too unwell to be at school!!!
The problem imo is that some people assume situations won't change, yes a 9 yo is very safe watching to in a room by herself. If she's hungry, makes some toast and burns it, sets smoke alarm off, is clueless as to what to do in this situation.

Leaving a 9 yo is ridiculous because in the event of an emergency they NEED you!!!!

He is is totally out of order but you are to blame here too. If she is too ill to be at school then she is too ill to be left alone for half an hour.

I'm shocked at how many people think it's ok to leave a 9 year old when they are poorly to go to the gym.
And being out of reach and completely unfed too.

I'd be furious. And if I was to separate, it would be worth reporting to the police or SS to support supervised access only.

"I'm shocked at how many people think it's ok to leave a 9 year old when they are poorly to go to the gym"

There are two separate things. Nobody thinks it was OK to leave her to go to the gym when she was poorly - particularly when he didn't give her anything to eat. Everybody thinks that's selfish and unkind and unfatherly.

The separate issue is whether it is reckless and dangerous to leave a 9 year old home alone for an hour for whatever reason.

it never ceases to amaze me the untold dangers our children are in the instant we dare to take our eyes off them. the house fire/freak explosion/choking incident all of which wait until we're out of view and then our children become victims to these dangers which wait for us to not be there. except it's not actually like that....

Actually I think it's very simple. Either your dd is ok to be left alone or she isn't.

You agreed that she was ok to be left for half an hour later in the day. the sudden emergency was no less likely to happen just because you'd agreed it, and while I wouldn't personally have left my child home ill so I could go to the jym, she really wasn't in danger from a fire which is enclosed and isn't likely to expload and as it's not an actual fire but a gas one is far less of an issue anyway.

The resentment you feel towards your dh is a separate issue and should be dealt with as such. But don't use your dd as the tipping point for something which you already resent him for.

And stop over protecting your dd. At nine she should be able to use a kettle and toaster unsupervised, and unless there is a medical reason why she has choking fits she needs to learn to be more careful when eating. But at nine there is no valid reason for being quite so overprotective over her use of the toaster.

So unless I missed something, judgments about the DH are being made not on his prior 9 years of (what appears to be) generally good parenting, but on his one lapse of thinking through. Suddenly he's not a loving father who probably genuinely underestimated the wisdom of his actions for an hour or two, but an self-absorbed arsehole who couldn't care less if his daughter died from choking.

As regards risk; the less risk children are exposed to, the less they can deal with. And the less you feel you can leave them to deal with.

And no one is condoning the DH going to the gym, but one lapse that hasn't ended in crisis is no reason to brand him as worst father of the year FGS.

as for people saying that the op could use this as grounds for demanding supervised access only, in just over a year this child will be travelling to/from secondary school on her own. Hopefully she will actually be travelling to/from primary on her own by the end of y6 in preparation for secondary. While out and about she will have traffic to contend with, strangers, people who might be rude, potential other older children giving her a hard time, the dangers are countless and yet anyone refusing to allow an eleven year old to go to school alone at secondary would be told that they are over protective and that they are setting them up for ridicule from their mates.

I wouldn't go out purely on the grounds the child was ill and might just not want to be alone. on that basis the dh was selfish. I have had to pop to the shops when my ds (he's now twelve fwiw) was ill and even then I've gone straight there and been back within an hour, but the reason I was quick wasn't because of the dangers it was because he was ill and needs a bit of tlc.

And those talking about the parent not being contactable,well, it's only in the past twenty years that mobile phones have been a thing. and realistically it's only been within the past fifteen years or so that not being contactable has been considered unacceptable,and children have been left since the dawn of time and the dangers haven't increased during that time.

Some serious lack of perspectives on this thread......

Well your dh sounds like a selfish dick given what you have said. It sounds like you have bigger issues snd this is just the straw that broke the camels back.

But I don't think your dd was in any danger.

Ds2 was off school poorly Monday, I went out for a run leaving him home alone. However I had fed him and left him tucked up in bed with a warm drink and his mobile and I had mine with me and was contactable. He was fine. Door looked but he had the key and knows what to do in an emergency etc.

It's crap that he hadn't fed her abd that he went to the gym knowing he was then going off to catch a plane for work. Also leaving the fire on was maybe not a great idea.

Either your dd is ok to be left alone or she isn't.

I've come across simplistic black and white thinking before, but this is my favourite.

By this argument the choice to leave a child alone for half an hour in a pinch would justify fucking off on holiday for a fortnight and leaving her by herself.

Hint:

1.5 hours is longer than 30 minutes

Hint:

Being alone when a parent is contactsble should you need them is significantly different from being completely alone with the phone you should call in an emergency switched off.

it never ceases to amaze me the untold dangers our children are in the instant we dare to take our eyes off them.

Is that actually what you think?

That people imagine that dangers appear from nowhere when they aren't there?

Hasn't it ever occurred to you that there are plenty of dangers around all the time, and that the reason we supervise our children is not because of a superstition that we stop dangers, but the reasonable belief that our age and experience put us at something of an advantage should a problem arise?

By the logic of some of these posts I should leave my 2 year old alone in the house because she's probably just sit there playing with her toys.

Nobody who truly loved their child the way a child deserves to be loved by a parent would pull a stunt like this.

He is an absolute fucking no mark of a parent to even come up with the idea of leaving a sick child alone so he could go out enjoying himself.

I think the fire thing is a red herring probably best kept on to keep her warm and its not an open fire. Also my daughter would have fed herself if she was hungry, my son can go for hours and forget to eat so I would slso not go too ballistic about that, with a virus she may not even have been hungry.
However, he is a bit stupid leaving her alone when he had agreed to stay with her. You are right to be cross but just make sure that if you leave her with him again he knows the rules. Often I think the Dad who is not the usual carer makes a mess of it or does it in more relaxed way, but this does seem rather selfish, he does not seen to have taken on board that the whole point of you leaving him WITH her was that he would be WITH her not at the bloody gym. If it is any consolation my dh is obssessed with the computer and his life revolves around it. It sounds like your dh is same about the gym, like a golf widow but gym instead. My friend said I should relax at least he was not in the pub every night.

In the discussion about whether the child was ok for 30 min, the OP went to the house earlier, presumably because she was worried and would rather not leave the child alone, while her "DH" took the completely opposite stance and thought it was ok to leave for much longer, with no contact and no food.

So he chose the gym over minding his sick child? And wasn't he meant to be working?

He's got his priorities twisted.

I am assuming that this is not an isolated incident

Give him the bollocking of his life.

He didn't feed his sick child, left her alone without telling you, and without being contactable, and with a lit fire.

He is so far out of order I wouldn't know where to begin with such an epic bollocking.

I would not have left my 9 year old alone for such a long time.

But come on, she is 9, unless she has problems with her esophagus, I dont see how likely it is that she should choke on her food?

My 9 year old boy can make himself sandwiches, toast, youghurts with cereals, cereals with milk, scrambled eggs, egg and bacon, etc. I would not let him use the cooker when I am not in the kitchen, but he knows that he is not to use it without supervision.

I think you need to teach your dd to be a bit more independent.

I am utterly gobsmacked that a 9 year can go hungry in her own home because she does not know how, or is not allowed to make herself something to eat.