Hi guys,
Thanks for your replies - I'm too tired to respond sensibly now but will get back later.

Had a long day - and it was exhausting dealing with H.

Here's the run down - just so I don't forget and, of course, it will all be of great interest to readers looking for sign-posts after H and I have reconciled in about 8 months time (I'm down to relying on the power of positive thinking!).

S13 had a big sports carnival/parents' lunch at school.
I rang H and reminded him that he'd agreed to go and asked if he could bring the beer (I organised all the rest). Told him when and where S13 would be playing football.

H missed the 1st game; 2nd (and last) game started and H still wasn't there so I texted him the new location (as he wouldn't have known where to go).

He eventually turned up and saw 15 mins of the game. He'd been watching his own football team play (he's out injured this week with sore ribs) in preference to watching his son.

He looked like a hobo in old T-shirt and torn jeans/sneakers. All other parents are very smart casual.

While waiting for lunch he told me that his best mate (the one he went to live with when he first moved out of home) is no longer working in the mining industry - as it's such a horror life-style. Apparently, it's lonely work and forces this guy to go on benders when he returns home from his shift every other week because he has to cram all his socialising into short periods of time (!!!!)

SO, the much touted high-life of mining no longer seems to look so good to H.
And his mate's recent 'promotion' that H was excited to tell me about seems to have amounted to naught. And the massive salary that he's been bragging about constantly ...... The job was so bad, the mate is now driving a truck delivering veggies.

Bit of a turn-around.

Anyway, we sat down to eat lunch but H wouldn't go to his car to get the beer he'd been asked to bring. He'd forgotten to put it on ice and it was tepid after several hrs in the trunk. Who would've thought that beer might have needed to be kept cold?

H complained a lot to me about D16 during lunch and how she is not doing well at school now. Apparently she is just lazy and not applying herself to homework.
He seems very angry at her.

He seemed pretty distant and withdrawn all day and left the lunch early and very abruptly - almost as if he was having a panic attack.

It happened just as I had gone over to speak to some parents whom I'd met at the recent quiz night - people H doesn't know. He left within a minute of me doing so, almost running away and saying just that he 'had to go'.

Later as I am sitting alone amongst all the other parent couples what song comes over the PA but "Caaaan't liiiive, if living is without yoooouu. Caaaan't liiiive; caaaan't live anymooooore".

Oh great. My arms and legs went numb. Literally.

Later that day, D16 rings H to ask him to drive her to the movies. It's 6.30pm but H says that he can't drive her because he has been drinking and is over the limit.

What a guy! What a dad!

I succumbed tonight and had a look at his football team's website. The pics of their recent team dinner show a group of 20-somethings out for a booze-up wearing dresses for a lark.

What a fun night was had by all when they decided to go out on the town in drag.

H wasn't in the pic - and I can only assume was not in fancy dress BUT OMG how can he be choosing to hang around with these young guys? He's 42 years old with a D16 and an S13.

How can this be happening? He is really in a scary place.