Massive argument with boyfriend - was I unreasonable?

[SarahLooo124]

Hello,
We've been together 4 years, hardly argue and overall very happy together.

Last night, he had to go to hospital (nothing serious, but he felt some pain in his stomach area); I'd never been to A and E before so I didn't realise just how long waiting times were apart from what I hear on the news.
So I waited in the car as he said he'll be about 2 hours and i wasn't allowed to sit in with him (fair enough)<. 6 hours later, it's 11:30pm,I'm still waiting in the car, haven't eaten since breakfast, and my phone was about to die.

I quickly rang him asking how long he'll be and he said he doesn't know. For some reason I snapped on the phone and said (I admit in a bitchy way) that he'll have to come back on his own tomorrow then as I can't wait in this car any longer.

2 minutes later, he comes running to the car saying he was just about to see the Dr but he had to tell the Dr he had to go and the Dr was worried about his stomach. He called me an autistic bitch because I didn't just get out the car and walk to the cafe in the hospital and that I make everything complicated and he feels like my babysitter. (I'm not autistic btw).

I snapped back that it was his idea for me to come and that he said I could wait with him, and if I'd have known it'd be sitting in a car, I'd have waited in the house.

This was in quite shouty voices.

But I feel absolutely awful that he has to go back tonight. I look back and think I could've just carried on waiting in the car but in the moment, I just snapped.

I know now. Should have read on.

nah, it's just straightforward piss-taking @Onwards22

I would LTB for calling you autistic. I am autistic and if this is creeping in as an insult like gay did then it's totally unacceptable.

Erm ... except he wasn't receiving emergency medical attention.
Because he was not undergoing a medical emergency.
I think the triage nurse would have informed him if he was. Hope she's on shift tonight, she'll probably give him some excellent & pointed advice.

And able to go to work today ... despite planning to represent himself to triage this evening ...

Did you also miss he's at work today, but planning to return to A&E again tonight? This is not a reasonable man ...

He may well be a massive cheeky pisstaker as far as his use of A&E is concerned, but that puts him in the same boat as a fair chunk of the population!

It doesn't necessarily make him controlling, or mean that the OP had no choice but to sit in a car for 6 hrs. The OP is her own person and needs to take responsibility for her own decisions.

I think the takeaway from this experience is that you and your boyfriend may both be slightly lacking in the resilience department. That's OK as you are young and you are still learning how to thrive in adverse situations.

Have a chat about it - work out how you can both avoid a drama becoming a crisis next time: don't go to A&E for non-serious issues but work out what other support you could get to help with pain, make sure your basic needs are planned for in advance (food, sleep, water, boredom), in stressful situations only talk about the way you feel, never accuse the other person about (eg I feel ovewhelmed with all the complications on top of my pain - not You have to make everything so complicated).

And why do YOU think he left when he did? He didn't have to leave. What was she going to do about it? So could it be because he was fed up waiting too after 6 hours?

Which is why I said I hope she’s not controlling.
Not many people will wait for 6 hours and then leave immediately because someone tells them too, just to return and do it all again the next day.

If he too was fed up and wanted to leave, then he definitely wouldn’t choose to do it all again would he?
And why would he then say all the nasty things he said to her?
He’d be relieved.

And yes they had discussed which tells you he had been in pain. But obviously he realised it couldn’t wait and decided to go there and then.
I spent days thinking I should go but not doing so until eventually I went.

Stick to the facts and stop filling in gaps with your own story.

The facts are he felt he needed to go to A&E at that time (no one can say otherwise).
The nurse said it would be a couple hours wait.
OP didn’t want to get a bus or taxi home.
After 6 hours OP didn’t want to wait any longer so told him to leave.

Oh I agree @Octomore

I'm unsure if OP's simply a passive people-pleaser, which she can work on herself with counselling or assertiveness training - or if she's the legendary (if inaccurate) boiled frog who doesn't yet know she's living with a coercive controller.

OP, apologies, not talking about you behind your back! - here's a present you can buy yourself - www.amazon.co.uk/Woman-Your-Own-Right-Assertiveness/dp/0704334208

You look after yourself, @SarahLooo124

Take care and have a think about this relationship; and about how the events unfolded and made you feel, and how you felt limited in how you could react to them and why.

Best wishes

Stick to the facts and stop filling in gaps with your own story.

Yes @Onwards22, you should definitely do that, but I'm bored now so am probably going to drop out of responding to you. Try not to miss me too much.

And able to go to work today

@KettrickenSmiled please could you tell me where OP said he was going work today as I can’t see anywhere where she has mentioned his or her work at all.

I apologise if I’ve missed it but I would hate to think posters are filling in the gaps with their own story to fit their own agenda.

In your partner's shoes, I'd be looking very closely at the nature of the relationship. He was in pain and probably frightened and the waiting time was out of his control. You start harrassing him on the phone about the waiting time and eventually prodded him to leave in a hurry Now he has to go back and do it again.Let's hope he doesn,'t become an emergency in the meantime.
And let's hope he can find someone more caring to accompany him to the hospital

Jesus fucking Christ, you’re like a dog with a bone not a penis on this thread. Give it a rest @Onwards22

@Herejustforthisone someone tagged me and so I was replying.

It’s weird that you tagged me yourself to get my attention and hope for a reply, instead of just ignoring my posts.

I hoped you might stop.

Snapping at somebody in pain in A&E does sound a bit much. I also think there is some history here, as what he called you and said he felt like looks as if it has been on his mind before.

I can't see the entire picture as I am a stranger on the net, but I can't see what he did wrong and I can appreciate how upset he was. What he called you was unacceptable, but yeh, anger brings out our worst.

And you have never been to an A&E in your life? That is difficult to believe unless you are extremely young and never had but the mildest childhood sniffles.

You were both unreasonable. This sounds like a situation where you are both just point scoring. Why did you tell him he’d have to go tomorrow, why not provide a solution that would work for you both (especially when your partner is in pain)? Having a temper tantrum because you had to wait does nothing than make you both feel bad, maybe planning for you to go home and pick your partner up could have been more useful?

Don’t carry too much guilt though, your partner should never call you autistic, it’s abusive and wrong. Also, why on Earth would he get up and leave when a Dr is finally seeing him. Your partner has then wasted not only your time, but that of the receptionists, doctors and those others waiting.

Both of you should have been prepared for long wait at A&E and worked around this. Perhaps a solution focussed approach to stressful events in future will make a lot of difference and stop you both taking jabs at one another. If you feel bad, apologise, if you feel you want an apology for his reaction, let him know. You were both unreasonable so should both be apologising to one another IMO.

2 minutes later, he comes running to the car saying he was just about to see the Dr but he had to tell the Dr he had to go and the Dr was worried about his stomach. He called me an autistic bitch because I di

This seems far too much of a coincidence to me, that he would be seen just when it was his turn with the doctor.

When people are under pressure is when you see their true selves. I wouldn't want to be with someone who snapped and called me names, when I had done a nice thing by taking them to A&E.

In that situation, as soon as I realised how long the wait would be, I would have told anyone waiting for me to go one home. Not leave you outside for six hours.

He is not a keeper. Find a partner who cares for you and treats you well, no matter how much stress they are under.

YABU
However, he shouldn’t have called you that.

This whole story is ridiculous, and neither of you sound like fully functioning adults.

First of all, calling you an autistic bitch? My relationship would be over if my husband ever called me a bitch or used autistic as a slur, never mind both at the same time. So at this point the rest of it feels kind of irrelevant.

But if you're happy to be with someone who would talk like that, then you need to develop some life skills.

It sounds like you live together - is that right? So why aren't you insured to drive his car? That needs to change because (as you found out) you never know when you might need to drive it.

Most importantly, start taking some responsibility for yourself. If you're scared of the dark didn't get into a position where you're sitting alone in a car in the dark. You know the sun goes down every evening and I'm sure you had an idea at what time it would be dark. Do something before that!

You hadn't eaten since breakfast? Eat lunch! And if you're hungry, get yourself something to eat.

If you're in a situation where you don't know how long you're going to be somewhere, don't let your phone get to 2% with unnecessary things like YouTube. Do something about your situation before it gets to that point!

OK, the nurse may have said the wait would be 2 hours. But of course that is an approximation. There's no way she could have guaranteed that, just because of the nature of A&E. And isn't that a 2 hour wait to be seen? You didn't know what would have happened at that point. Treatment could have taken hours. He might even have been admitted. So it was up to you to be an adult and take control of your situation.

He used the A and E as doctors appointment. Rediculous!!! It is for emergencies only my God.
He was U and an ass to you

I would have left after 2 hrs max. Yabu for staying that long. Yes you shouldnt have snapped. But he just left you there. Like a dog. Knowing that you would wait around.
Sorry but he seems like a knob

In the last update OP says she literally couldn’t think of any alternative to sitting in the car park waiting for him for six hours.
She took it completely literally that she was to wait for him (presumably for however long that took 6 hours…, 3 days.. I’m not sure) she took no steps to feed herself, or go home and only realised the situation was getting increasingly dangerous and impossible when it was 11 pm and dark and her phone was about to die therefore leaving her that bit more vulnerable and cut off and understandably panicked.
I strongly suspect OP is a vulnerable adult around thinking, planning, and problem solving perhaps undiagnosed and the bf knows it hence the slur and comments about babysitting. Not sure that paints him in a good light tbh!
I don’t think it’s a general lack of assertiveness/passivity because by her own admission she called him and snapped at him after 6 hours. No judgement here (I couldn’t have waited ten minutes sat in the car tbh and would have taken myself straight home) but if she could do that (call him and express herself later on ) why couldn’t she have called him hours previously and told him she was hungry and locking the car, leaving him the keys and going home to eat and wait for an update.
Again no judgement. These are genuine questions. The possibility of a coercive situation has been raised as has resilience and general passivity and people pleasing. All good points but this question of genuine additional needs is my concern.

OP sorry for addressing other posters first but I feel this might have got missed in the fog and thread has got a bit nasty

I respect that you’ve said thanks to everyone and bye essentially, but it would be remiss of me to not ask you given what I just said above.
Do you think you might be a vulnerable adult?
Also I don’t think you were particularly unreasonable to your bf, only to yourself, it’s the reasons behind that I’m more concerned with and that’s my point really

You were completely unreasonable. The man was in a&e. If you needed to go home, you should have found a way home. Asking him to drive you home was ridiculous.

neither of you sound like fully functioning adults

This is it in a nutshell.

In that situation, as soon as I realised how long the wait would be, I would have told anyone waiting for me to go one home. Not leave you outside for six hours.

This is ridiculous. The OP is not a child, so why would she need to be told to go home? Yes, he could have told her to go, but the OP is responsible for her decision to wait, not him.

As a PP said - the sun goes down every single day at a predictable time. How incapable would someone have to be, to be taken by surprise by the fact that it was getting dark several hours into the evening?