DH is an aggressive and dangerous driver

[Oysterbabe]

DH's driving is awful. I don't think I've ever been in a car journey with him longer than 20 minutes without him getting into some kind of altercation with another driver. Any slight perceived error on their part and he's flashing his lights and gesturing, he can't just roll his eyes and let it go. I find it absolutely mortifying, he's an embarrassment. He's had 2 very minor scrapes in the last year, both his fault that he still blames on the other driver.

Yesterday I think was the worst incident so far and has sparked this post. On a roundabout a car just stopped in front of us. I'm sure they had a reason, but I'm don't know what it was. DH stopped, no collision, all fine. Except he was furious, 'why did they just stop?!?!' We followed them on to the motorway at which point he overtakes them at speed, pulls back in front and starts erratically braking 'let's see how they like it' I was so angry and also terrified and shouted at him and told him he can't behave like that with our children (5 and 7) in the car. It doesn't matter what I say to him, he can do no wrong and doesn't change.

I don't know what I can do really. I want to ban him from ever driving the children anywhere but don't see that I can do that. Yesterday felt like the last straw, this has to stop somehow.

After reading your follow up posts, anyone who puts their child in harms way to prove a point is totally selfish AND a bad parent.

And yeah, there needs to be cameras fitted front and rear in the car. Although in this instance, not for the usual reasons.

My ddad was like this. The moment I passed my test, I never got in a car with him driving ever again.
Dh did it a couple of times when we were younger. I literally burst into tears at the memories it created in me.

Two words: Kenny Noye

Let's hope your husband never meets a similar man

You don't know who's in the other car. I work in the motor trade and I can tell you there's a lot of people driving around with knives and baseball bats in their car, I've seen them

He'll mess with the wrong person one day and get a shock

As a matter of interest what did he say after he got his wing mirror kicked off by another driver?

That's such an extreme incident. Not saying that the kicker was justified in doing that - we're talking about not responding to triggers in that way, after all - but I wonder what led up to that and whether your children were there?

This was before we met so I'm not sure exactly what led up to this happening. One of his friends was talking about it as a funny story.

Yep.

He's an angry bully who's a bastard to his parents. What is he teaching your dc about relationships and about men?

Oysterbabe

What do you get out of this relationship with him now?.

How do you feel about reporting him to the police?. Where is your own red line here for such?.

Someone asked if he get angry at you and the kids too.

Your response was:
"Not really with me. I think it's because he knows that I won't immediately roll over and say whatever it takes to appease him like his parents, I'll always hold my ground and call him out if I think he's wrong".

I think you've become inurred to his behaviour. He likes the above from you as he sees you, a supposed "strong woman", as an additional challenge to bring down. Surely it would be better for these children also to be with you the majority of time (do you also think that such a man would actually want his children around half the week; I think not) than to be with him as they are now 100% of the time. What are you both teaching them about relationships here?. He is not going to change, all you can do is change how you react to him.

You do realise Oysterbabe that his dangerous driving also reflects badly on you as well by mere association. If I came across your H I would be looking at you in the car as well and wonder why you are with such a person to begin with.

[Sigh]

I just can't bear aggressive men. At 54 I just don't care any more about the reasons behind it.

I think the most practical way forward is just to refuse for you or your children to be in a car with him any more. I'm not minimising the difficulties around that but that I think is what I would do. I'm not sure if I'd have the guts to tell the police but at the very least you can protect yourself and your children.

Who gives a fuck what you'd look over and think?

What was the point of your post?

'Get into relationships like this'
because they are not like this to start with. they may not be 'perfect' & you know that but put up with it (as you perhaps were conditioned as a child or have low self esteem anyway) but abusive behaviour (as this is) always gets worse when you are trapped - typically when you have a child / a 2nd child / are ill etc.

'why you stay':
for me it was because I knew my kids wouldn't be safe with him 1:1. So I felt I couldnt risk overnights, EOW etc. The bar for preventing that legally is really high. I was going to struggle to prove that he would stop in the middle of an A road to argue, push the pram out first, drive erratically, forget to change a nappy, feed them etc but I knew he would. It'd take ages to prove anyway by which time my kids suffer. So, I stayed until I knew they could manage okay.
We were together until the youngest was 10. (both my kids have ASD) Ironically, although he lives 8m away, they never stay with him, or spend much time there.

There can be lots of reasons.

@Oysterbabe I was married to a man like your H (not the driving particularly but the anger) and I always thought I was strong because stood up to him, I didn’t just let him get away with like his mollycoddling mother, I wasn’t a doormat etc.

Except I was because I stayed and his behaviour never, even changed (well it did change, it got worse). I thought I was strong by staying but it took a lot more strength to leave and it was the best decision I ever made. No more eggshells, our house is calm, my kids are so much happier (to my shame I didn’t realise they were unhappy - we were all on eggshells around him, waiting for the next explosion).

I’m now in a new relationship and I never have to “stand my ground” because my new partner is an emotionally mature man, not a toxic man baby. Highly recommend.

I wouldn’t let him drive the children or me and I’d insist he seeks help if he wanted me to stay with him.

There is a significant risk of him injuring or killing someone soon, himself included, and yes, he also risks coming up against someone angrier and harder than him.

I’ve told this story before on here, but there is a junction on Spring Bank in Hull that I had to use on my commute that was always a pain. It’s a busy two lane road intersected by other streets and while most junctions are traffic light controlled, sometimes with the weight of traffic you don’t even get to move or barely move on your green sequence. I was on one of the intersecting streets waiting to turn in so had a perfect view of what happened. A man in a car was going mad at a big black Merc saloon with tinted dark windows in front of him; blowing his horn, frantic wanker signs, because the Merc had crept forwards then stopped when the lights turned instead of keeping going and potentially blocking the junction like lots of do, so angry man had only moved a few feet on the green as often happens there. Like on a stylised film, all four doors of the Merc opened simultaneously and four very similar looking blokes got out on that busy road and calmly walked to the man’s car. They were very sharply dressed and in smart black wool overcoats (this must be over 15 years ago), all four had bald/ shaved heads, clean shaven, and while not big fathead bouncer types and in their 40s to 50s, they looked fit and hard as fuck. I never saw what happened as the light turned green for me and I was off but I suspect angry man got the fright of his life.

When I told DH that night he said he wondered if it was X and his lot. A well known “businessman” who was not to be messed with. He said they probably just scared him, made him apologise and feel 2 inches tall as they wouldn’t want to waste time with police involvement by smashing up a silly twat like him over road rage in front of 100 witnesses. If it had been me in that car though, when all four doors opened and those four got out and walked towards me, I’d have had a heart attack. It was surreal. I’ve never seen anything similar before or since.

Oh dear. That’s really not good on so many levels.

Often people let their rage out when driving precisely because they’re cocooned in a protective cage and it doesn’t register how dangerous it is.

He's never going to listen to you on this as there’s a lot of male ego tied up in his perception of driving skills although just might listen to a trusted (male) friend who can tell him pointedly that he’s driving like a twit.

How a different approach. Buy him a present!

Sign him up for your local IAM Group. “As you love your driving, here’s an Advanced Course so you can get a Certificate…”

Once he starts to learn anticipation & observation, his road rage will diminish and/or he’ll quickly be put in his place by genuinely skilled drivers.

He might actually enjoy it too!

I don't think you can duck out of this one.

Yes, it may be that you will eventually separate. But then he will expect to have time with the children and the problem of his driving remains. (You won't be around to attempt to moderate his behaviour.)

You have to put safety - yours and that of the children - first. So I think refusing to get in a car when he's at the wheel is a start. You drive. Alternatively, on the basis, this is a one-car household, you walk/take public transport rather than be driven by him.

Just what I was thinking. Carry on like that and he'll get filled in one day. Plus loads of people have dashcams and there are plenty of "look at this eejit" channels on YouTube where clips of people behaving like him get uploaded.

More worrying is the way that he is apparently quite happy to put his own children in harm's way to make a point. He's making a point all right. But possibly not the one he thinks.

He's a prick OP.

His sad little ego. So have you tried to address this via that? When we are in the car and a knob like your H tries to "assert his authority" whole car comments now how big his willy must be or, more accurately, how little you must have in your life to be such a road knob.

But it's not just his driving, it's his "right of way" and being a stubborn prick with his kids with cyclists, pedestrian crossings, prams, it's part of some immature god complex, it must be, amongst other things, so tedious.

Decent men try to help situations so we can all share this planet equally.

We live next to a "I know my rights" knob. Everyone has deserted him so he gets to play with his little motorbikes alone now.

Your H belittles his dad.
He puts his kids in harm's way

As you don't sound like you want to leave him you can only hope dashcams and cameras stop him before he hurts someone.

Then all his rage will be in the house only.

Why his parents don't tell him to fuck off us beyond me.

Do you find this attractive OP?

I would be telling him that he was far from attractive every time he was an aggressive car knob. I would be ever so sarcastic "does your willy feel bigger now dear". "Oh they must be thinking what a prince amongst car drivers"

We see some amazing drivers, calm, considered, see a hazard on the motorway and put hazards on help make others around, behind them fully aware and slow in time. They are the princes on the road. We always say "oh well done blue car beautiful driving" the aggressive, selfish knobs we just think god your life must be so small and who the fuck has sex with you.

Perhaps comment on others amazing driving, others kindness and actions that contribute to public spaces not make them worse. I mean that is if you prefer those type of drivers.

Well I would say at the very least he needs some help in managing his anger. He’ll meet the wrong person/circumstances one day.

Then what. She leaves him and he gets at least 30% custody where he has free reign to endanger them as much as he wants without anyone to even try to step in? Seriously. It's not the 80s anymore. The courts prioritise a father's right to custody over the safety of the children.

The thing is one day he will behave like this and piss off the wrong person. Remember Kenneth Noye?

Not sure how you deal with this other than anonymously reporting him though.

No advice but I’ve wanted to write a very similar post for years. My DH is exactly the same, with our DD in the car. It’s quite scary at times, others times just mortifying.

It could be argued that it is better for the children to be solely with their mother part of the week than to be around their father all the time as they are now. Also do you think that such a man, who is selfish to a fault, would want his children around for long periods during the week anyway?. Oh he could well demand 50-50 but that is a mere starting point.

I'm a bit like your DH but I can roll my eyes and say "god what a dick" and move on.

What does your DH say after he has lost his head? I'm usually along the lines of embarrassed and shamed, still mad at them as they were wrong (I'm rational with it mostly so they will have "started it") but my overriding factor is that I wish I didn't lose my head so easily and even while I do it, I think "why am I doing this?"

If he has those thoughts, there is hope. If he is just an angry bear I would talk to him about how it makes you feel and ask him to go on an advanced driving course if he is so good...

I mean brake checking people is just so dangerous. It's never neeeded and if this is his go to, it's scary!