Me [31M] and my partner [32F] had been together for 2 years, when this event happened. I'll be recounting a lot of detail as I am trying as neutral a retelling as possible (although I cannot guarantee it is fully neutral), and there was a lot going on, so apologies for the length.
To give context, she hadn't been doing very well stress-wise because of a work situation. She had spent the last half a year undeservedly taking repeated pay cuts and under threat of being fired due to an awful boss, and only recently had found another job and finally given her notice. We had also recently had our biggest argument yet and some of those wounds hadn't healed fully – even if we had talked it out and come to a resolution, with both of us verbalising acceptance of our role in the argument, we had decided to start couples therapy to ensure that the kind of dynamic that caused it wouldn't reoccur.
I had recently come by a decent windfall from my job so decided to plan a way to cheer her up, and maybe help us rekindle some of the love. There is an expensive restaurant that both of us love, and that had special meaning to our relationship as it is the place where we ate for our 6-month anniversary and our 1-year anniversary. This place is ~£300 per head, so not something we did often (we had only done it twice), and especially not something she could afford while switching jobs. As such, I offered to pay for both of us. I also paid for transportation and tickets for an event (chosen by her) during the day, so that this became a fun daytrip event + dinner date. All in all, I was going to spend almost £350 on her, but if it helped her feel better I didn'tcare. This was really the first time I had ever spent money on her other than christmas/birthday gifts – we had always split everything to a fault, and she had always refused any offer to gift her dinner or anything (except for the aforementioned dates) as she was dead set on never allowing anyone to ever have any reason to assume that she was taking advantage of my money, due to past relationship trauma when she had been taken advantage of.
On the morning of the day, something felt off to me very quickly, but it took me a while to understand what. We were going by train, and walking from my place to the train station at normal pace takes around 15 minutes. We woke up 90 minutes early and started getting ready, but she was visibly worried that we might be late, unusually so. Around 45 minutes before the train time, I realised I needed to use the toilet and was worried I might take a while – seeing her so visibly worried, I suggested that if I took longer than 20 minutes she can start walking towards the station and I'd run after her soon after. I ended up taking ~10 minutes so she didn't have to, and all that was left was for me to put on my shoes and grab my stuff
As I start to do so, she unlocks the door and tells me she's going to start walking and I should catch up with her as soon as I was ready, as otherwise we wouldn't have time to walk to the station, and she didn't want to run the whole way. We still had 30 minutes, I was almost ready, and it would take us half that to walk to the station, so I became visibly sad as I wanted very much to walk together – it was a date after all. I told her as much, and when she insisted multiple times on leaving early without me, without waiting even the one minute for me to finish putting on my shoes, I insisted that she wait. Visibly stressed, she waited at the door, holding the door open the whole time, half in half out, as if pushing me to hurry, which didn't feel nice.
Anyway, I finished putting on my shoes, grabbed my bag and on we went. However, this is where the big conflict happened. She, visibly stressed, immediately started walking ahead at a very fast pace, faster than I could without running. I had never seen her act this way so, confused, I asked her three different times to please slow down, to walk side by side with me, and tried to reassure her that we had enough time, but she would just answer with e.g. how she was walking at a normal pace, how we'd be late, and how the sidewalk wasn't wide enough for us to walk side by side anyway. We had about 25 minutes left at this point, and about 10 minutes left on the walk.
Tired of this, and feeling ignored, I stopped in my tracks and told her, in no uncertain terms, that I wanted this day to be relaxing, to be fun, to be a day we enjoy together, and not stressful. I insisted we had time for the train, and reminded her that even if we were late the next train was only 20 minutes later, and not the end of the world. I then begged her (with copious use of the word "please") to slow down and walk with me.
Very begrudgingly, while still arguing with me the whole time, she stopped and waited for me to catch up. As soon as I did, she started walking at the same fast pace of before, not looking back, not walking with me. I begged one final time, to which she just answered how she was walking at a normal pace, and I was the one being too slow. Hurt, feeling unheard and ignored, I lashed out. With a loud voice I said "If this is how the day is going to be then I don't want to go any more" and turned around, heading to my place.
She was caught by surprise, and after processing what had just happened started crying, screaming, begging at me to come back, to not do this to her. After a few seconds, she ran towards me and tried to physically stop me, begging me to turn around and go with her. At one point, she apologised for not listening to me, leading me to calm down a bit, stop, and try to have a calm conversation – I apologised for turning around, and told her that I had felt very hurt by the fact that she kept ignoring my requests. We hugged, and then it took her ~15 minutes to stop crying, with me consoling her (she can be quite sensitive, but it has never been an issue – I actually find it cute). Once she did, we talked about it again, and she repeatedly insisted that I should never have done what I did. I agreed, apologised, and tried to explain again why I did it, that I had felt hurt because of being ignored. She does not apologise, and insists that that wasn't a justification for turning around and abandoning her. At some point, with me slightly upset that she hadn't apologised, we make up.
Due to how long this took, we missed the train and caught a later one. We had fun at the event, and while waiting for the dinner reservation we decide to sit down at a park bench and enjoy the atmosphere. At this point, she brings up how she is still upset by the morning's events, and how abandoned she felt. I apologise, and try to explain again how I felt, and what led me to feeling like I didn't want the day out anymore, causing the unfortunate emotional decision to turn back. During this discussion, I mention how I counted that it took us less than 13 minutes to walk to the train station the second time, at a normal pace, and how there had been no reason to be so hurried the first time. She took this poorly, and started insisting that I was incorrect – it had actually taken us 15 minutes. I got visibly upset that she was ignoring everything I said and focusing on my measurement was wrong. I argued that 13 vs 15 minutes doesn't even matter, yet she kept insisting I must have measured wrong and it was definitely 15 minutes. Emotions from the morning flooded back into me again and, feeling hurt and unheard, I accused her of not listening to me and not even trusting me when I say I measured 13 minutes. I then stood up and told her I needed some space, that I was heading to the restaurant and if she still wants to come she should meet me there later, and started walking away.
After calming down, I stopped and sat down in front of a tree that was on the route she had to take to get to the restaurant. I waited for her, and at some point she showed up. She gave me a lecture about how it was incredibly embarrassing to her that I had raised my voice to her in public, how strangers had seen the whole thing, and that she had again felt abandoned. I apologised and tried to explain my feelings again, but realising we would be late for food I didn't insist. We made up with a long hug, and went to the restaurant.
Dinner was excellent, we had a ton of fun, and we went home. When we got home, the mood seemed positive – good food seemed to have healed the wounds from before somewhat and we were both laughing together and having good banter. We got into bed and started cuddling, touching, and kissing. At some point I made a move for more intimacy, which she verbally rejected. Noticing that I was confused, she brings up the earlier arguments again, about how some part of her is still hurting and she doesn't feel comfortable doing it. Respecting her boundary, I stop what I was doing, prepared to follow her lead instead, and verbalise that it is fine if we simply cuddle or even just go to sleep. However, smile gone from her face, she distances herself a bit and starts recounting what happened during the day, and how I shouldn't have acted like I did. I apologise multiple times, and bring up the reasons that caused me to lash out like I did. At this point, in addition to telling me that my reasons don't justify my actions (with which I verbalise agreement), she explicitly mentions that I shouldn't have felt the way I did, because she didn't do anything wrong. I become visibly upset, and argue with her a bit, at which point she tells me, word-for-word, that my feelings weren't valid. Very upset, and too tired to argue back, I just withdraw and tell her that I just want to sleep, and we can continue the conversation the next day.
We get ready for bed, and as we are about to fall asleep I felt a wave of sadness and start tearing up a bit. She noticed, and asked me why (I don't cry often). At first I didn't want to verbalise why but she insisted. At some point, I say (while still tearing up) that I had really wanted the day to just be a fun, happy, date, that I had wanted to treat her, and that it ended up being one of the worst days we had had together. I continue crying, and at first she expresses empathy and tries to calm me down, but after a bit she suddenly vocalises that I shouldn't be crying since it was my fault that it had turned out that way anyway.
Completely dumbfounded at the shock of those words, unsure how to react, I got visibly angry and told her that she had also treated me poorly by ignoring me and refusing to apologise, to which she answered that she had done nothing wrong, and I was overreacting. I blew up, and started acting like an asshole. I screamed at her that my feelings were as important and valid as hers, about how she had not apologised for an iota of what she did. She told me that there was nothing to apologise for, turned around, and stopped engaging. Still screaming, I told her I needed space. Ignored again, some part of me decided that it was reasonable to break up with her on the spot, and I kicked her out and said some awful things in the process (since at first she didn't want to leave), such as how she was an awful person, how she was incapable of empathising with me, and how I never wanted to see her again.
Understandably, we haven't really spoken since, other than to resolve the logistics of breaking up. The breakup is final – neither of us wants to give it another chance, which is probably the right thing to do at this point. We're clearly not good for each-other.
I know I acted like an asshole at the end. I felt at a breaking point. I couldn't handle the fact that, in addition to being ignored multiple times throughout the day, she was denying validity to my feelings and blaming me for everything that had happened. All of this on a day where I was treating her to one of her favourite restaurants, which just made the hurt harder to bear.
Throughout the day I was expecting her to explain why she had been feeling so stressed – maybe the work stress was getting to her; or maybe being treated for something relatively expensive for the first time brought back some bad memories; or maybe she just didn't sleep very well that night. Who knows – I was expecting her to explain what had happened,and give an apology for ignoring me in the morning. I was prepared to accept an explanation and make up with a mutual apology (I did apologise for turning back multiple times, after all). But instead she chose to constantly blame me, invalidate my feelings, and put all the blame on me, which just made me feel miserable.
We had had arguments before, a couple of them big, but in the end we always talked them out, resolved them. Most important nothing had ever made me feel this hurt inside, so desperate for space. In a way, I didn't know how to control myself in that situation because I don't think I've ever felt so hurt. Nothing justifies what I did at the end, how I screamed at her and said some awful things, and I have signed up to therapy to try and figure out where that came from and what I can do to ensure it never comes out again.
I know I acted like a terrible person, and nothing justifies how I reacted, but I wanted to see what people here think of everything else that went down. Am I the only asshole? Was she right, and I overreacted massively?
tl;dr: I was treating my 2-year partner to a expensive food date to try and cheer her up, and we ended up having a fight because I felt like she was ignoring me and refusing to walk side by side with me. She refused to apologise, and exclusively blamed me for the whole thing, which intensified the fight until I blew up leading to us breaking up. AIT(only)A?