Tent lodger?

[Feelingtents]

I've been dating someone for just shy of 6 months. At first everything was great we got on so well and spent most of our free time together. He said and did all of the right things and we seemed like a great match.

I introduced him to my kids and we have spent days together going to the beach and theme parks.

I've noticed recently that he's started to get more and more short tempered with me.

Fast forward to now. I booked and paid for us to come away camping for a few nights. (not our first time camping together) The first full day here the weather was forecast to be awful. The night before we talked about going sightseeing because of the crappy weather.

The day arrived and I needed to take an important call at 9.30. I had to drive to an area with better signal to take the call.i left him in bed and said bye. When my call finished about an hour later, I called to ask if he'd like me to pick him up some breakfast. He was really angry for waking him up despite having slept for over 12hrs.

When I got back he had a face on. He tried to make breakfast for us both and got irritated that the eggs stuck to the pan, so he hurled the pan out of the tent and stropped back to bed. Where he stayed till after 6pm.

I sat there like a twat reading my book trying to be as quiet as possible. Around 4.30 I went out, leaving him in bed and found a nice place to get something to eat. I'd only been gone a little over 30mins when I got a message from him saying thanks for taking the powerbank with you. After he'd ignored me all day he was now in another strop because I'd took the power bank to charge in the car.

Fast forward to today. We had a lazy morning he didn't get up till after 9 and has had over 12hrs sleep. We went to the beach this afternoon. He went for a dip in the sea and when he got out, he laid down on the blanket. I tried to have a chat with him but he scolded me like a child and said can't I get any peace, you've just woke me up again like you did the other day.

I packed up my stuff and came back to the tent. I've been left him to it on the beach

I'm sick of it being made to feel like I can only talk to him when it's convenient for him.

Am I being an inconsiderate twat and should I have just let him sleep. Or is he being a nob?

This would be a huge deal breaker for me - his short temper and they way he is speaking with you is borderline abusive. I know this from previous experience in the past

Please break up with him x

It sounds like you have fallen down the rabbit hole and are trying to make a go of it with the Dormouse. My advice to Alice would be to leg it back to reality asap. A hibernating mammal is only an attractive proposition to another hibernating mammal.

Why the fuck haven’t you dumped him??? 6 months in it should be absolute heaven! What a dickhead. Life is far too short.

No, he is not good enough for you. Lucky escape!

Whose car is it? Whose tent is it?

If they are yours, I'd have no hesitation at dismantling it around him, packing up and driving home.

If they are his, totally worth the taxi fare, yes even in the back of beyond. Find a pub or other landmark to agree the taxi will pick you up. Give the taxi controller some background if they are reluctant to come and fetch you.

Once you have the immediate problem solved, write it off as an expensive mistake. Take some time to work out why you have left it as long as this. Hope you are away from him by the time you read this. Good luck.

There are worse things in life than being single.

It is so, so sad that you are even wondering if you're in the wrong here. You have been together 6 months and are on holiday. This is the best he is ever going to be, and it is what your life will look like for years if you stay with him.

OP, I hope you are ok?

This is the real him. The nice guy at the beginning never existed. Guaranteed if you dump him the ‘nice guy’ will reappear to lure you back in….don’t be fooled otherwise this will be the start of you and your DC’s dreadful life.

Dump him asap and don't let your children see this behaviour and think it's normal 💐

Just pack up and leave , and just shy of six months is too soon to be introducing boyfriends to your kids , especially when they are knobs like this one

👆

I hope your kids aren’t with you?

If it’s your tent and your car I would pack up and go. He can find his own way home.

I would have packed everything up and gone home while he was at the beach. Hope you dump him.

But why should meeting someone their mom or dad is dating be stressful for children? Surely it is much more stressful for them to know their parent is in a relationship, but they don't get to even lay eyes on that person for literally years....

My daughter is and always will be the most important person in my life. I am sure the vast majority of parents feel the same. Therefore, I highly value her opinion on anybody I choose to be in a relationship with, and would certainly be introducing her to them as soon as I felt it had the potential to go anywhere, to check that she liked them, that she felt they were somebody she could get on with, etc....

Obviously you shouldn't bring someone back after a couple of weeks and start insisting your child calls them "dad", and has a faux parent/child relationship with them. But the odd meal or day out, so that they can get to know each other naturally and organically......

No secure, loved child is going to be traumatised by that, whether or not the relationship works out in the long term....

Children are quite capable of understanding what dating is, and that not all relationships lead to marriage etc.

I say this as somebody who didn't introduce her partner to her daughter till I had been seeing him for a year - but that was mostly just for logistical reasons as he worked away a lot at the time (also he is shy and was extremely nervous about meeting her). It meant that, when it did happen, everyone was much more awkward than they needed to be and the whole thing was this big stressful event. If I am ever in that situation again, she will be meeting anyone as soon as I decide that they have the potential to be a serious addition in my life. She is sane and can understand that doesn't mean they necessarily will be......

I do feel that the emphasis on here on not introducing kids to new partners for absolutely ages, is often driven by a potentially damaging over-protectiveness, as if children have absolutely no emotional resilience or ability to grasp even quite simple concepts. Plus perhaps the idea that it is somehow wrong and selfish for a woman to be dating at all if she has children. And it really isn't. Yes, your children should always come first. But it doesn't mean they have to be the only focus of your emotional life - in fact it's not really fair on them if they are.

In this instance, OP's kids were not damaged by this man turning out to be a knob, as I don't believe they were present on the camping trip in question (she certainly doesn't mention them - forgive me if I am wrong). If he had behaved badly in front of them, hopefully she would have removed them from that situation promptly, and that would be an opportunity for them to learn about the importance of good boundaries. There is no reason to think they would be permanently damaged by seeing a man their mom is dating behave like a bit of an arse. Most kids see their own parents being arseholes at one time or another - as long as that isn't the majority of their experience, they survive it and hopefully learn from it. It's all part of growing up.

Time to throw this one back in the sea OP, he doesn't want to be with you so he's 'sabotaging' the relationship because he's too immature to break up with you so the way to go is making you feel miserable and lonely so you break up with him.

Make him happy and dump him because he doesn't have the balls to break up with you.

Being treated like that is just going to erode your self-esteem, it’s bad for you and it’s bad for your kids and it sets you up for yet more dysfunctional relationships in the future.
Your kids need a happy mummy, not one that’s walking on eggshells.
He is not an emotionally healthy adult and he will just bring you down. I know it can be very difficult and I know sometimes being a single parent can make you more vulnerable to this stuff, but this is so many big red flags, it might feel horrible for a while while if you split up with him and I’m sure you also have lovely times together but I promise you will feel so much better afterwards and you really want to get in a place where you can’t believe you ever took shit like that.

He’s an arsehole. Kick him to the kerb.

Ditch him. He sounds awful.

I don't know what your "AIBU" actually is - unless it's "I've legged and dumped him, do you think that was unreasonable?"

Do you even need to ask? Dump this loser. he has shown you who he is and he will always be like this.

Why are you even asking this question?
Jeeeesus I'd rather be single than put up with that shit

Pack your stuff and go! He won't get better, he's shown his true colours and it'll only get worse. Sorry treading on egg shells around him and leave. Sorry he has messed up your camping trip!

It sounds as if your camping trip has given you a vision of your future with him!

Pack up anything you can't live without, get in the car and leave him there. I think you know this is a deal-breaker.