This sounds very familiar to me. Has he been assessed for Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) in any form? What is ringing bells for me - the insistence on everything being spelled out, on promises being kept, on people being held accountable for what they do or say (except when it applies to him perhaps). Also familiar - yelling makes it worse, not better. Talking to him makes no difference. Talking inappropriately but not 'getting it' when someone tries to correct him. Being upset about what he perceives as unfair, or double standards.
You've had some good advice - get the book. If you follow it, it can make a HUGE difference. However, husband will rapidly find himself even more offside with MM if he can't change his attitude and method.
You could talk to husband and say, "Is this working? Did it get your point across? What, specifically, did MM learn from that exchange?"
If husband then snarls at you, "Well, smarty, tell me how we DO get through to him!" then tell him - AFTER you've read "Explosive Child". The only problem is likely to be - dads like this don't learn to change their methods very easily, especially when it looks like they're giving in to the boy.
"Explosive Child" methods DO at first look like you're letting the child get away with bad behaviour. It also requires consistency, but it DOES work. However, all it takes is ONE parent blowing up at them, to undo all the good you've done that day.
What you may need to do, is ask husband to give you some time (say, two weeks) in which he doesn't interfere at all or explode at MM at all. In that time, you use the methods and see what improvement you can see.
What I did -
1) I read the book. I'd been reading about it on this site for some months before I managed to get a copy from the library. It took me a week, on and off, to read it. During that week, even before I actually changed my parenting (I thought), difficult child 3's behaviour began to improve.
2) I tried to get husband to read it. he DID try, but just couldn't 'get into it'. So I wrote a summary of it and husband read that. I also explained it to him. Doing this actually helped me make sure I really understood it too.
3) husband observed while I put it into practice. If husband did something which set it back, then (once husband was calm) I would talk, privately, with him and we would go over how the Explosive Child method recommended handling it.
Over time, husband has learned a great deal and found good results. But because I began it first, and because husband still blows up at difficult child 3 sometimes, there is still some friction there. difficult child 3 has a very short fuse where husband is concerned, is very prickly and feels husband is "always yelling at me".
I also make a point of presenting a united front to difficult child 3. Not easy, if I'm disagreeing with husband.
Something that is helping - if either of us as parents does the wrong thing, we will apologise to difficult child 3. The outcome - difficult child 3 is also learning to apologise.
If MM has a form of Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), then he will need to learn the right way to behave not by being told, but by being treated that way. And when you think about it - we don't treat our children the way we want them to treat us. Instead, we tend to treat our children as subservient subjects. We tend to be very reactive to "rudeness" and yet our reactions to our children would be considered rude, if we flipped the situation (only we get away with it, because we are the adults). So we hear ourselves say, "You can't talk to your mother like that." And "You must do what I tell you, because I said so."
You describe your son as "extremely ADHD. On top of this, you have other children who seem similar. husband seems very rigid, you have a diagnosis of anxiety and possible bipolar. Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) is often misdiagnosed, as ADHD and as bipolar.
I'm not saying that it IS definitely Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), because not only can we not diagnose on this site, but it would be irresponsible of anyone to make a diagnosis without even seeing the people concerned (even if I were qualified). I am just a parent with a child (several of them) who DOES have a confirmed diagnosis on the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) scale. There are also some clinicians who think ADHD should be considered to be on the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) scale.
Something to think about - have a look at the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire on
www.childbrain.com. And don't let the 'autism' tag scare you - you are not changing what your child is, merely how it is described. Your child is already who he is. You are already who you are. How you are described may change, but you will still be the same person.
We have found, in our experience, that autism is a diagnosis that can scare people unnecessarily. There are a lot of really positive aspects to autism and Asperger's. But living with it, especially in triplicate (quadruplicate?) like we have done, is challenging. Different. Stimulating. And at times, rewarding.
difficult child 3 now belongs to a drama class for local kids with learning difficulties. This covers a wide range of problems encompassing Downs Syndrome as well as autism and Asperger's. The abilities of these kids also covers a broad spectrum - one of difficult child 3's classmates (older than him) has only just learned to read. difficult child 3 was reading as a baby. But the love and loyalty they show to one another is just beautiful. With these kids, you get honesty and frankness.
I'm glad you're here. Sorry you need to be, but here there is help. For your husband too, if he wants to lurk or post here. Mine does, he gets a lot out of it.
Again, welcome!
Marg
We still try to talk thru situations, get him to see that his behaviors and reactions are inappropriate (usually really exaggerated emotional responses to relatively minor problems). I suspect we're always going to be trying to talk him through things. My kid is going through that super-superior teen phase where he knows everything and adults are dumber than dirt so we're still not making much progress but... hope springs eternal. 
