I had plans with my partner to go to a garden store and then plant some flower afterward. We had planned it a week in advance, and I put it on our shared calendar for my only day off last week. We use a shared Google calendar, however both people have to sync the calendar after making an entry for it to show up. So I will verbally announce when I put something on the calendar to him so he can sync it.
We are both disabled so leaving the house like this is difficult to plan, as our disabilities don’t work well together. So while going to a garden center might be easy for most, for us it is very hard to accomplish and takes time to recover from afterwards. But gardening is important to me and having flowers to look at out my window is necessary for my mental health.
The day before the outing I reminded him about it and asked if he was still okay with going, since he has been pretty busy lately. He said yes and we went to bed.
We both woke up the next morning and began getting ready. One of my disabilities is a bladder condition for which I take medication. That day, the flare was pretty bad, but i took my medicine and communicated to my partner that the flare was bad but that I was ready to go whenever he was. I then mentioned that I needed him to deal with a squirrel in the back yard for me (we have a live trap out to catch our cat who escaped, and the squirrels keep getting stuck in it trying to eat the cat food). He walked away, I assumed to do that.
I put on my shoes, filled my water, and sat down in a chair by the front door. It was time to leave and my phone began buzzing with the calander alarm signifying this. My partner walked in the room and pulled out his phone, then called up a friend and made plans with this friend in front of me to go get lunch and hang out. I was astounded. He asked what time he should be back to go to the garden center and I said we were supposed to leave at 2. He said it is 2, so what time should he be back. I said we were supposed to leave at 2, so he shouldn’t leave for the friends house at all. He got upset and called the friend to cancel, making a big deal out of it, then left to get himself lunch. He came back 20 minutes later and ate in silence. When he was done, I asked him if we could please discuss what had happened. He said no and began working on a project on the table. I told him how what he had done made me feel and he got very angry with me, saying he had no empathy for me and that I needed to get over myself. I said if he would rather be with his friend that is fine but he should have told me instead of calling the friend in front of me. He said I should have interrupted his phone call to remind him. I said he was an adult and didn’t need reminding.
At that point he left the house in our only car to who knows where. I began crying and had a meltdown (I’m autistic), which led to me banging my head on the wall until it bled. I informed him of this over text and he left me on read. He didnt treat my wound until he got home 10 hours later. At that point my hair was clotted with blood and all the doctors offices had closed. He didnt treat it until I begged him to because it hurt too much for me to touch it.
It’s the next day now and I’m at work and my head hurts very much. I don’t know if I can trust him and I don’t know why he acted like this.
Can anyone help?
Tl;Dr, my partner and I got in a fight after he made different plans in front of me at the exact time we were supposed to leave the house for our plans. This led to an autistic meltdown where I was injured and he did not treat the wound until hours later.
3 comments
Did he forget? Or was he making plans for after you you finished your trip to the gardening center?
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It sounds like you need a care taker. Expecting your partner to clean up your self inflected wounds because you can’t, is a lot. The conflict you were in isn’t great. You were both actively trying to hurt each other. That isn’t great conflict resolution skills. It’s not wildly inappropriate for someone to leave if there is heated conflict.
The part that stood out to me out of everything is your outburst and harming yourself. This is very dangerous for you and even if you are feeling hurt in a relationship – harming yourself even more surly can’t help the situation.
I know it’s part of your unique challenges, I really feel for the struggles you are going through, and would suggest scaling down the relationship, treating this person just as a caregiver for a while to soothe the emotions and get a bit more emotional space.
Is there anything you can do to make some $$ to start saving up for a better environment? You are capable of writing this whole Reddit post, so you definitely have some skills you could put to use!
One day at a time and again. Anything to calm your environment, emotions, and reduce your triggers hopefully will help your life move forward.
Hopefully some more people will comment with resources you may have access to locally!
>I began crying and had a meltdown (I’m autistic), which led to me banging my head on the wall until it bled. I informed him of this over text and he left me on read. He didnt treat my wound until he got home 10 hours later. At that point my hair was clotted with blood and all the doctors offices had closed. He didnt treat it until I begged him to because it hurt too much for me to touch it.
You absolutely cannot expect your partner to clean up your self-inflicted injuries in a healthy relationship, I’m sorry.