I've posted about my dh before, he is very difficult to live with, I struggle every day, but for now, I am staying. (Previous thread, "living with a 12 year old", in anyone cares to remember).
So, my problem is summer holidays are approaching and the children are expecting a summer holiday. I spent our last summer holiday googling divorce lawyers as I hated every minute I had to spend with him. He alternated between speaking in a baby voice and pretending everything was fine and trying to suck up to me, and being a nasty bastard and telling me off, snapping and complaining at me. Our last day, we were waiting in the hotel foyer and he went to get the suitcases from the luggage room, leaving his plastic bag on the table with a t shirt in he had bought that morning, that he had been carrying. The taxi arrived, and I got the kids, got their bags and my bag and went to get on the bus. He brought the suitcases out and then got in. Then he noticed he didn't have his plastic bag and went ballistic at me, shouting at me in front of the kids and the driver, why didn't I pick it up, he was doing the suitcases , what was the matter with me, etc. I defended myself and said I was getting the kids on board with their stuff etc, I wasn't carrying it, I hadn't noticed it. It was a small thing, but the shouting was just ridiculous. He then of course, did his usual of sulking and not speaking, and I was so upset I was almost crying.
So, given that he is only able to be in a nice mood when everything is going his way and nothing is expected of him, the holiday problem is worrying me. When we go to an airport, he constantly walks off, leaves me to sort out out young doc, with their trunkis, not helping with escalators or buses to the plane unless I shout him back, constantly, every five minutes. He was nasty for no reason when we were going through customs, speaking to me so dispicably with such a nasty look and tone, that I don't want to do this anymore. He's done it every time for years, he just can't help himself. I don't want to be travelling with him in that way, and I don't want to be stuck in a small hotel room with him and two doc where I cannot escape and be in my own. I have to ask him every time to help with one kid while I do the other, help one kid get their meal from the buffet, etc etc.
I know it sounds bad, but at hipome I can disappear off to my bedroom, or leave him sulking in his study while me and the kids do other stuff. I can get away basically but on holiday I am stuffed. I don't know what do do, I am thinking a drive to a holiday in France, or Devon or somewhere, in a villa where there are several rooms, so I can leave him to it if need be. He's bound to kick off and sulk at some point, I am just thinking how can I manage this bad situation. Other than LTB, preferably, as I don't feel I can do that right now.
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So...what to do...holiday related....
pinkpeter1 · 30/03/2016 22:09
Good grief - this is a depressing thread.
The shit you are prepared to live with day in day out is just not OK.
Not for you or your poor DC.
he is very difficult to live with, I struggle every day
You wrote this in your first sentence.
Nowhere in the vows of marriage does it say your partner is allowed to abuse you day in day and you have to put with it.
Your DC are very very likely to grow up being in relationships where they are an abusive victim or they are the abuser.
You see it on these threads every single day!
This thread has made me very sad 
pinkpeter1, I understand that you take your vows seriously, and I respect you for it. However, this is not just about you and him. Your children have not made any promises to sacrifice their happiness to him and his moods (and neither, actually, have you), and they are being let down by him. They are learning all the wrong things about parenting from the pair of you. You owe it to them to do the best you can for them. That means protecting them from the people who are in a position to do them the most damage.
Please get advice about the financial side of things, go to women's aid and put the wheels in motion to reclaim all your lives from this hideous, manipulative monster. Even if you don't tell him yet, start planning your escape. This is no way for any of you to live.
My DF was very similar with sudden, explosive rages and tantrums although for other reasons than just being a randomly abusive bastard. My DM managed his meltdowns by controlling everything to the last decimal place and doing a stepford wife act. If we went on holiday she would pack by stealth - he couldn't see her do it or know it had been done or show the slightest stress about it or it would set him off. She would arrange it so that he woke up the morning of leaving without having done a thing, and all he would have to do was shave, dress, drive (that often caused a rage) and she would hand him the correct paperwork pre prepared from her handbag at exactly the right moment so all he had to do was hand it to the right official. Kids preprogrammed with threats, instructions, activities that made no mess, no noise, needed no interaction of any kind and ensured they made no demands whatever. They had trained bladders that lasted for hours and hours to avoid anyone saying they needed a loo at an unscheduled moment and kicking him off that way. Kids also drilled in 'this is DADDYS holiday, not yours, so we do what Daddy chooses and no one shows so much as a cross look never mind protests'.
She managed him like this for years until he left her. She still hates holidays, they were some of the most stressful times of the year to keep him at least managed. With even all this he would still kick off, her aim was just to reduce it as much as possible and to avoid the first kick off of the day as once he was wound up the next trigger would cause an even bigger one and so on, escalating.
My siblings and I never reacted when he kicked off, since we were too scared to and it made things worse. We all spent years with a therapist after leaving home, eating disorders, self harm, one diagnosed MH condition resulting from childhood trauma and another who had post traumatic stress syndrome from witnessing all this, and very distorted ideas on relationships that took decades to untangle as adults. My DM still feels she did the right thing. My DFs current partner actually does not enable or pander or manage his life for him, they laugh at him when he kicks off and walk away. This actually seems to be making for a better marriage. I still start to physically shake when I see him start to get irritable or see a trigger I know will annoy him.
Behaviour serves a need. There's always a reward in it for the person doing it. If your focus is on managing your dh's behaviour to make things bearable rather than getting rid, all you can do is work out what need he is meeting, what reward he gets. For example is it that the behaviour works to make you come and do something for him that he didn't want to do in the first place? In which case if you just want to avoid the kick off, do everything yourself, act as if you lived alone and only one adult was there to manage the house and don't put that pressure on him in the first place. If its that his emotional skills are so poor that he doesn't cope at all with the slightest frustration or being thwarted (even by a bloody sheet in the wrong place) it's avoiding frustrating him. But frankly I wish you'd stop worrying about how to enable him to be abusive less painfully to you and thought instead about enabling yourself. No marriage vows are about putting up with this kind of behaviour, it is his job to sort himself out, he's abandoned all responsibility and he doesn't see there's a problem, never mind has any will to change himself. He's supposed to be your partner, not your child.
You are worth so much more than this. 
Just huge hugs.
Yes you need to end it.
You certainly weren't be any worse off, you will get Child Maintenance, you have a minimum 50% claim on the marital home.
You will have him out of your life and that is priceless.
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