To think his behaviour at the zoo was OTT?

[Rizzo8]

My partner and I are on holiday and decided to go to a local zoo. I thought we'd spend some time there then have the rest of the day together to do something else. He is high functioning autistic and acts accordingly at times, so that point matters.

Turns out the zoo is huge and endless. We finally finished walking round the first side after 4 hours!! Around this time I had an Endo flare up and started feeling unwell. I was done and ready to go but partner got annoyed saying the zoo was expensive (it was) and he wanted to make sure he saw everything! He said it was important to him!

That its the same if he goes to a museum, he needs to see everything but has never acted like this. And as this can't trump me feeling ill so in the end he relented. He was nice and comforting eventually, but not before pouting about having to leave. I couldn't believe how childish this was.

AIBU? It really had me thinking twice about things.

This, why are so many posters writing as if she was writhing in pain on the ground in front of him and he ignored her?
She got what she wanted/needed as they both left. I think anyone would be slightly annoyed a day out had been curtailed.

@Rizzo8

I see. I guess you could be better prepared (although, obviously preparing for these situations shouldn't just be down to you); I think it would be difficult for him to mask forever.
Now you both understand the extent of each other's difficulties more fully, you probably need to discuss how viable your relationship is.
Whatever happens, I sincerely hope your operation helps 💐

In his defense zoos are fucking awesome, I'd be gutted if I only only got to see half, especially if I was leaving the best for last.

PS
@Rizzo8
Why didn't you just go back to the hotel by yourself, as you said you could?
Didn't he want you to do that for some reason?

If you read the post, he initially told her no because they spent money and only relented after while.
The initial no, when she stresses she in pain is the issue here. When you have this illness it’s unpredictable and you already feel horrible enough as it is, you don’t need extra guilt

He insisted we leave together.

I think I should suggest I'll be ok if he wants to complete the day by himself. I suspect the point is he wants to do it as a shared activity.

As a side note, the zoo was an additional activity we went to do after another main activity in the morning because it was closeby. I therefore didn't realise leaving after 4 hours would be an issue. Now I know it is.

@Summerlilly exactly. As a person with this chronic condition, I carry around guilt about not being 'normal' and also felt guilt for not being able to complete the visit.

This is an excellent post

I don’t understand why OP couldn’t go back on her own. If you have a chronic illness you need to handle it yourself and not drag other people along.

Yes, I'm the same (although it's tendinitis so the link to more-than-normal walking or climbing stairs is not a hard one to make).
Even on three day visits, I know I would be pushing it mightily to expect 2 demanding days in a row just to work, now.

Can you both accept and see that you each have this likely guilt/need?

I think we probably need to have a conversation about it. I hope so.

I don’t buy it. Your OP said clearly he wanted to stay and it was important to him. But as this desire “can’t trump me feeling ill” in the end he “relented”.

As posters have criticised you for spoiling his fun you‘re now claiming he insisted on leaving with you.

Clearly not at the start. If he did eventually it was only because you went on about being ill until he “relented”.

@Mirabai this isn't accurate at all

I tried to push through for as long as I could and longer than felt good to me, so that he wasn't disappointed. Maybe 'relented' was the wrong word. He realized I couldn't carry on because I was clearly exhausted and uncomfortable.

I find with DS that if there's a risk of plan A being unpredictable, having plans B and C can help him adjust more easily.
Warning/ countdown times can help with transitions too.

I haven't had endo, but I did have unpredictable, debilitating period pain in my youth. Curl up on whatever scuzzy floor I happened to be on and wait for someone to find me because I couldn't move pain. Not pop a paracetamol and head off home on my own league.
I can see how there is a clash of autitstic rigidity of planning and medical need here.

Is it possible to have a background contingency plan where if an episode occurs, you give him as much warning as you can, there's maybe an intermediate stage such as resting at an avaliable place like a bench/ cafe for a fixed "adjustment time" such as 10 mins and that gives him some chance to adapt to the change of plan if you have to abort mission?

It is easier having these discussions away from the moment.

He's not going to find the unpredictability of endo attacks easy, but ultimately he did catch up and adjust in the end.

We've had issues with DS1's autism and DS2's asthma attacks. On a bad day we've been close to calling 999 while DS1 is chuntering on about DS2 faking it and ruining his day. It does not help an already difficult situation when autistic rigidity clashes with serious medical unpredictability.

And that’s fine so you go home and frame it in a way that gives him permission to enjoy the rest of his outing without feeling bad for you.

If he’s insisting he comes with you it’s because he feels he ought, you need to make it ok for him to continue.

I don't have ASD and I'd be disappointed to leave a zoo after four hours..

We have membership to one and still not sure we've managed much less. I see it as a whole day activity as did he and I don't think there's much wrong in trying to achieve that.

He did come home with you. It can't be helped but neither can disappointment.

You are just going to need to be very clear when you can't manage anymore.

I don't think anyone is massively in the wrong and it's just one of those things where you have to pick yourselves up and accept things can't always go to plan.

I think @JMSA meant she didn't know what endometriosis is.

That's quite positive then. He wouldn't have enjoyed things as much without you so obviously values your company, and it sounds he would have felt bad about you returning alone, especially as you felt you were about to drop and were having difficulty moving.
I'd certainly be worried about letting someone go off by themselves if they told me they felt that.
Ultimately, he stepped up and did the right thing and was nice and comforting once he understood.
He obviously didn't understand the unpredictable nature of endo before and you didn't realise leaving before seeing everything would be an issue for him.
These things happen; I suppose it depends now on whether you both want the relationship to continue.
Hope it works well in the end for you both.

@Rizzo8 I thought we'd spend some time there then have the rest of the day together to do something else
Did you communicate this expectation clearly beforehand? Did you say "I'm only up for about 3 hours of zoo and we'lldo something else in the afternoon" or did you expect your DH to intuit this.

We're a neurodiverse family and our default assumption would be that we all wanted to see all of the animals. We wouldn't dream of planning to only spend a short time somewhere like that. But sometimes we've had to cut a day out like this short if one of the family is feeling unwell or can't cope/gets overwhelmed. We deal with that if it happens. None of us can control our health and well-being perfectly.

It sounds to me like there were two parallel things going on - you didn't want to spend so long there anyway and weren't appreciating something that he was loving, even before you started feeling ill - and that was down to poor communication and poor planning. If zoos aren't your thing perhaps it would have been better to plan to spend that day apart. Separately you then had a health issue that turned you from wanting to leave to needing to leave, and probably that was communicated poorly too but once your DH understood that you actually needed to leave that's what happened - but obviously as you'd already been negative before you started feeling ill it would have taken a while to realise. You then are pissed off with DH for communicating that he was disappointed at not being able to enjoy the thing he was expecting and had paid for - you wanted him to pretend he didn't care? That's unreasonable.

It's offensive to describe autistic people as behaving like babies. Do you use this kind of insulting terminology about other disabilities or conditions? If not, why not?

I think a relationship where both parties resent each other's disabilities is not a good relationship.

Excellent post. It's utterly debilitating pain and it's hard to understand unless you've experienced it, it quite literally takes my breath away at its worst: I can't think, I can't communicate, I just have to breathe through the sheer agony across my entire abdomen. It's hell.

It's not an excellent post. It's ridiculous. There is nothing at all about the Ops posts that would make anyone believe that he would leave her passed out screaming on the path or in the ambulance alone because he hasn’t seen everything in the store. He left with the OP brought her back to the hotel where she slept. He wasn't thrilled about it but he did it.

My autistic dh actually saved my life by insisting I went to the hospital when I had sepsis when I just wanted to be left alone to sleep, I literally wouldn't be here if he didn't recognise that I was really ill. The idea that people would slag him off and assume that he stand around and watch me scream in pain because he sometimes struggles with plans changing or transitions is really insulting tbh. The ops boyfriend did the right thing, he just struggled a bit getting there, needing more time to process a situation really isn't the crime some are making it out to be.

I wonder if this comes down to how he was brought up as much as autism.

As a HF autistic person it is possible that his childhood consisted quite a lot of being expected to tolerate things he was struggling with, and not being "allowed" to just quit. Maybe he had a lot of experiences of being expected to just keep going so he unconsciously expects this of other people now.

My autistic teen would struggle with a change of plan but would still very much say "of course we have to go if you're ill". But that is how he's been treated (within reason, when we can) through his life. This might be an angle to explore with your partner, rather than just looking at what happened on the day. Of course there are layers with the autism around difficulty changing plans, monotropism etc but maybe you can both reflect more empathetically if you look further back.