To think his behaviour at the zoo was OTT?

She isn't a safe person for him.

Wait wait wait. Why doesn't it go both ways?

As an autistic person, if what you're expecting to happen doesn't, it can be excruciatingly awful. I've mentioned this example on here before - as a middle-aged woman, I have, more than once, broken down crying in the supermarket when I've really wanted a particular thing and they haven't had it. Do you think I choose to feel so bad that that happens? It feels terrible and is really humiliating.

The thing about masking is that it is much, much harder in emotionally heightened situations. It's hard to explain but when something goes awry (not everything, and if things are going really well generally then a setback can be easier to handle - though not always and it's hard to predict) it truly does feel like a need has been violated. It's such a horrendous feeling, and knowing that many neurotypical people think you're basically a big child having a tantrum and should learn to act better makes it worse.

OP's partner handled it badly by lacking the insight to understand that she can't predict a flare up. That is ridiculous and illogical and doesn't bode well for his suitability as a partner. But expecting an autistic person not to be upset that a planned activity is suddenly cut short (especially a "bigger" thing like this) is just unrealistic. It might mean they are incompatible, but it doesn't mean it's the autistic person's fault or that they are unlovable. I am a loving, faithful, affectionate, committed partner; I will also sometimes cry or shut down if something I was looking forward to is suddenly cut off. Does that make me worthless and unsafe as a partner?

Reported for rank anti autistic ableism.

Autistic posters on here should not have to come on here and see this shite. Vile.

That's my point, if he is a person who is going to react badly when op is ill (and an endo flare is horrible, not trivial) then he isn't a safe partner for op.

I don't think people realise how desperately hard having autism is and how it can make people feel.

If his partner cannot/will not care enough to realise that this isn't something that can be controlled because of what she wants to do, then she is not a healthy person to be in a relationship with.

It is clear she didn't want to spend all day at the zoo, hadn't realised how big it was

Turns out the zoo is huge and endless. We finally finished walking round the first side after 4 hours!!

This clearly isn't someone who wanted to see the second side, and then at this time suddenly conveniently feel ill.

I don't think people realise how desperately exhausted and sad masking can make autistic people feel.

If a partner cannot/will not accept that an autistic person processes differently, and demand that they mask their feelings and reactions to make them feel comfortable, then they are not a healthy person to be in a relationship with.

But surely that has to be balanced as well against his need to complete the day and masking isn’t just something you can switch on abd off

it needs an open discussion about how to cope in the future and what strategies- do you go back and rest and he continues. What would happen with children because they might not want to go back

are you in lake Garda as that wildlife park is huge

I don't think people realise how desperately ill endometriosis can make people feel

If her partner cannot /will not mask enough to make her feel cared for when she is ill then he is not a healthy person to be in a relationship with.

When I have been unwell, I don't generally want other people to cut short their day because I am unwell. I would generally either go and sit myself down somewhere or if possible take myself home. Because there's no benefit to me of them losing their day out just because I'm losing mine.

I'd also definitely want to see the whole zoo and if I had known at the beginning I wasn't going to see the whole zoo I would have e.g. picked a route to see the animals I had most interest in first. So it would change the way I would approach the whole day. Obviously you can change approach part way through, but I don't think it's unreasonable not to want to stop immediately i.e. without a chance to see the last animals you had a particular interest in. Obviously people may have an entire opposition to zoos or may have no real interest in them, but given that everyone decided to go to the zoo, presumably that's unlikely to be the case.

What a lovely disabilist post. There are lots of positive and lovely things about people with autism (I have autism and so does my son) - we just don’t do well with sudden changes in routines and sudden changes in things we’ve got planned - which is what I expect happened here. Yes he should have been more supportive and he did leave eventually - it obviously just threw him. Sometimes we need longer to process things.

Would a solution have been that he got you home then went back to see the rest?
I wonder if you can discuss a strategy to deal with this in the future?
I often do a bit of an activity then go to a cafe and rest (due to my disability) while DH (autistic) takes his time. I realise with Endo you probably just wanted to get home though.
Or maybe with things like the zoo there is often an option to go back the next day or similar?

Maybe they're actually unwell? I have to veto stuff or drop out last minute because of "women's problems" which is why I'm awake at 6am in pain
I'm on leave from work today and now looking like I have to cancel a contact lens appointment, a blood test, a meet up with friends...
Endo goes from 0-100 in minutes

I meant I have no interest in zoos personally but presumably it wasn't cheap to get in and I'd probably want to spend the day there as well in your DP's shoes or at least get a late lunch before heading off.

Can I ask are you the kind of person who always curtails or vetoes activities because of headaches/feeling sick/women's problems.

I used to have a friend like that and it's tiresome always having to accommodate someone else's feeling ill all the time.

I'm a geek who loves museums, I like to read all the displays and look.at everything, so going with the kids even can be frustrating as they want to press the buttons and go to the next thing. Obviously, I accommodate my kids as I want them.to be happy but sometimes DP will take them.to the gift shop or cafe while I read a few more things OR if it's close by, I'll go back on my own to finish looking another time.

Personally I feel.yiu could have offered to.go back on your own but idk how poorly you were. The upshot is despite his frustration he did come with you, he is allowed to feel a bit annoyed at the situation imo, it's human

Autistic people can't just temporarily stop being autistic. We can sometimes mask but it doesn't always work. It's hard to describe to a neurotypical person just how unbearable it feels when plans are thwarted. If it's not something related to a special interest, the awful feeling subsides after a short while, but we genuinely can't help our immediate reactions. It would be even better for us than it would be for you if we could put autism on pause in these situations, so it follows that we're not reacting this way on purpose.

For me, the difference would be how he acted afterwards once he had calmed down. You haven't given much information on this but him blaming you for not letting him know about the flare up in advance seems like a bigger problem in terms of his insight into how his autism makes him think than his initial reaction at the zoo.

By masking?

My son is autistic and he always needs to do everything/complete things before he can leave.

Look not all people with ASD blurt out whatever random thought they might have. They can learn what is appropriate behaviour. I know many people on the spectrum - maybe my choice of career - and they do learn appropriate behaviour.

Ahh, yep, I recognise this! My DH is autistic and really struggles when stuff doesn't go to plan, I'm AuDHD, and I do struggle too, but I think am a little more flexible than he is. I also think I've learned (through female socialisation mainly) not to externalise how I feel if someone with me is ill or tired or something and that changes our plans. I will cope in the moment and then have a shutdown later - the anxiety and awful feelings that come up when something is changed at short notice get squished because I am absolutely able to objectively see that another person's health and wellbeing comes first. But my experience of classically autistic men is that they don't/can't filter so much - maybe partly wiring and partly male socialisation.

It sounds like he was able to externalise, cope and then step up though, which is a good thing. I completely get that an autistic reaction, to a non-autistic person, can seem childish and OTT, but it's sometimes better to self-regulate through getting the feelings out and then you can reorientate, rather than trying to fake being supportive and sulking, or bottling it up like I often do and then ending up having to go to bed for 4hrs!

Interestingly it sounds like he was quite tired too but maybe didn't realise it. That may have contributed to how he reacted too. Autistic folks often have poor interoceptive awareness, which means we are not always able to discern when hungry, tired, thirsty, etc. If you combine that with the laser focus monotropism that many of us also have, it can be a pretty bad recipe for getting very focused on a thing (such as seeing an entire zoo) and ignoring all bodily needs to achieve it. Because we can tune out messages from our own bodies until they are literally screaming at us, it can feel baffling to that a neurotypical person would need to stop a thing they really want to do because of pain or fatigue. Like, where's your override switch? Oh wait, you mean not everyone has one?! 😂

Think he is reasonable in wanting to visit the whole zoo.

you say you thought you would see a bit and then spend rest of day doing something else, but had you actually discussed that before you went? or was it your presumption?

obviously your health deteriorated and you wanted to leave, but had you not been feeling unwell why would you have wanted to leave before you’d seen it all if your partner was particularly enjoying it?

maybe you could have left your partner to enjoy the rest of the zoo and reconvened later.

I just want to add to my post and say that if you do decide to stay with him things will probably get easier. In your example after 20 odd years dh knows that I wouldn't nope out of a day out unless I was feeling really ill so straight away he would show concern and make sure I was OK. I also know dhs triggers, I know what is likely to unsettle him, know when he will be feeling overstimulated, basically I know when he needs me to show care to him.

It just took us longer to get used to each other if that is the right wording than it might do in a neurotypical couple. Having a 'firm talk' would have done nothing at all to help the situation. You can't firmly talk someone out of a disability.

For me my stomach swells so I look 6 months pregnant
I get pain that is uncontrollable despite dihydrocodeine, naproxen, morphine etc
I have to be on all fours and focus on breathing through it or vocalising the pain

It can be on my period or not and I can go from fine to "please call an ambulance" in minutes

I don’t really see why this was an issue. If this was my DH and me, and one of us wanted to leave, the other would just stay and we would meet at the hotel, or in a cafe later.