Hi, this is long.
I have previously had a brilliant relationship with my parents. I'm married and have 2 children. We have always been very close. My DH has no parents and they have treated him like a son. They have looked after our children - we have never paid childcare. We recently had a week off work to renovate a room in their house. We do a lot for each other. I speak to my mom every day and my dad every couple of days if we haven't seen them.
We usually holiday together and have done for years. Dad used to pay for the holiday and now we do (power shift?). We do all the work, cooking etc. We also do all the driving once we have arrived. We often do the same things on holiday - throw backs to when we were kids, but it's a very democratic and organic process deciding what we want to do and we don't have to do things all together.
Anyway- this year may half term we were on holiday- dad was celebrating a big birthday while we were there. Other family has come along to stay nearby. Everything was going well, we had had a nice day. It was his birthday the next day. We sorted dinner and my teen was being a bit rude/cheeky to me (as is often the case, testing boundaries!). He has been at the accommodation all day with my husband and the rest of us had been a couple of places (ie I hadn't been nagging him all day!) I told him he had been rude and he took that on the chin because he knew he had. My dad said "oh will you give it a rest" I said "if you don't like it go somewhere else" - there were numerous other places to be other than sat at the table with us. He had already finished his food.
Well this lot the touch paper and he got his car keys and drove off. He had left his phone behind and we all sort of carried on as normal. My mom did ask him not to go but he left anyway. He was gone a couple of hours and by the time he came back we were all in bed- small accommodation you could hear everything. He came in and seemed even more angry than when he left. He went into his bedroom and demanded that my mom pack his case. She was begging him to stay. My DS who had been cheeky was sobbing and begging him to stay. My mom said she had chest pain and he ignored her. He was packing his things and I slipped out of the chaos and sat in his car. I hoped that then I could talk to him and apologise (even though I didn't feel what I had said had warranted that reaction- we are normally people who say what we think!) He locked me in the car and I couldn't get out. I could hear my son sobbing and begging.
I have never seen him behave like this before he was so so angry. I saw my husband standing in his was asking him to stay and talk. My Dad said he didn't want to hit him but he would if he didn't move. Again this couldn't be more out of character. I was very very worried. Someone let me out of the car and I went in to try and get him to talk but he was fighting us to get out. All I could think of what if he crashes and dies my son will be affected forever.
The neighbours started shouting for us to keep the noise down and my dad started shouting for help. The look in his eyes was wild and I really felt like I didn't know him at all. My mom was still begging him to stay.
We let him leave. He drove 200 miles home.
There was an aftermath of trying to contact him and make sure he was ok. Mainly other family members. He would only really speak to my son. My other younger son was in bed and terrified of the whole thing.
I text him the next day but he was accusing me of assaulting him and was still clearly angry.
He hasn't spoken to me or my husband since. This shows no sign of improvement. He thinks we did a terrible thing trying to stop him from leaving. I did send him and email explaining how worried for him we were (this seems to make him angry that we were worried) that we only tried to stop him from leaving because we love him etc, etc. That resulted in him blocking me.
For clarity my husband stood in his way and held his hands up to his shoulders and stood his ground. I hugged him to stop him leaving. Arms round his waist.
Please help me fix this. I miss him so much. It feels like a dream that I'm going to wake up from. It was so out of character. I have thought some kind of medical issue but then why would he be carrying it on! I have told a few friends who know him (who have been on holiday with us and them) who can't believe it either!
Thank you so much for reading.