What happened at the grocery store?

JJ took the kids to Stop & Shop this morning. Merryn was grumpy about something as they drove off, and when they returned, it was James' turn. He was crying on the front path and would not come inside. When I saw JJ, I asked him how the trip had gone. He said, "could have been better." I said, "oh no, what did they do?" I asked the kids, "were you listening to Daddy?" I asked JJ, "were they running away from you? Did they have a meltdown?" He clammed up & said, "it was fine, nothing happened." I said, "what? Oh, I thought you said..." He said tersely, "It was fine. Nothing" I said, "I was just conversing..."

Later, I was looking in the fridge and realized he had hardly purchased any groceries, certainly not one thing from the list I had sent him. I went to him and said, "what happened with the groceries? You got berries and bananas and apples and that's it???!" He said, "they had meltdowns so we left." I said, "were they crying there? What happened? Were they not listening?" He really wasn't giving any info. It seemed weird because he had stuff from the fresh side and stuff from the bakery on the opposite side, which doesn't seem to fit with someone rushing out of the store in a meltdown crisis. I said, "Why didn't you just tell me that before?" He acted irritated and said, "I didn't want to talk about it." I said, "Why not? You were traumatized?" He said, again very irritated, "I didn't want to talk about it!" I said, "I don't get it. You couldn't tell your partner in parenting about a meltdown at the grocery store? Or instead of giving your vague, weird explanation before ('it was difficult! No it was fine!'), why not just tell me then that you didn't want to talk about it so I'm not feeling like you're acting kind of weird? I wasn't judging you, I just didn't understand what happened at the grocery store."

Actually what I felt in my gut was that JJ just didn't feel like buying the stuff on the list I had sent him. Because he has frequently balked when I've asked a favor of him. He doesn't like to be asked to do things, it seems. Like the previous day, I had asked if he would take a paper about our daycare benefit to the daycare when he was picking up the kids and ask someone to sign it, or leave it with the note I had already attached to it on the person's desk. He acted like that was somehow a major imposition. With the grocery, I had said, "JJ, I think we need groceries. Would you go soon?" I felt like he didn't like me asking him to go; instead, he wanted to go on his terms. So this grocery thing kind of felt like he was resentful that I'd requested that he do it, and I felt--I could be wrong--but I felt that he didn't get the stuff in the list to be kind of petty, and then sort vaguely blamed it on the kids. And then gave me this smoke and mirrors answer about meltdowns that he "didn't want to talk about." This might sound like a stretch on my part, but it's actually a pattern I've noticed...if I make a request for something, he seems offended by that, and sometimes just won't do it, or acts kind of passive aggressive in response.