For leaving my boyfriend in the frozen isle

[Sadly11]

I came to stay with him for the week to spend Christmas together (3 hours by train) Yesterday we went food shopping because he didn’t have any food in. He’s always been very clear that food shopping is super triggering for him so normally he orders online but this week he hadn’t and we were starving.

On the way he even joked that this could end badly and we might break up. Haha. Because nothing says comedy like foreshadowing your own relationship ending in the frozen isle

Anyway, we get there and he’s acting manic. He kept grabbing my chest, pulling my skirt up (not fully but still uncomfortable) he’s making gestures with his penis and making inappropriate comments, there were kids around. People noticed. Embarrassing doesn’t even cover it. I told him to stop, and he countered with loudly accusing me of being embarrassed of him which just drew more attention.

I tried to soldier on because maybe this is his coping mechanism. We’re almost done, he asks a question about which salmon we should choose. I zone out. He snaps at me, says you’re supposed to be helping, you know how hard this is for me. I remind him I have been helping but he keeps pushing. People are staring again so I say I’m not having an argument with you in the fish aisle, I will walk out if you don’t stop.

Then in the frozen aisle he snaps again at me because I said I don’t want ice cream and earlier I had said I wanted ice cream. so I just walked out. Left him there with a trolley full of food and walked back to his.
Back at his house he shuts himself away on the sofa. I went to bed alone. Today I try to talk to him, he wants to be left alone and doesn’t want to talk to me, apparently walking out was the worst thing I could have done. I abandoned him in the most triggering environment possible, what I did was shocking to him, he doesn’t want to talk to me, doesn’t want to spend Christmas with me anymore and when pushed if he wants to break up says he said he hasn’t thought about it and just wants to be left alone.
oh and it gets better, it’s my Birthday tomorrow, we had plans for him to take me to dinner, he said he won’t kick me out on my birthday (how lovely) but will continue sleeping on the sofa and I should let him know when he should drop me back off at the station.

He’s currently asleep now on the sofa. What a wonderful birthday present. He’s essentially broken up with me the day before my Birthday. I don’t know the area, it’s far too late to make any plans for either my birthday or Christmas. I don’t know when I’ll go home, I have a parcel coming to his house tomorrow morning and I’m pretty certain I’ll never be back so I think I need to stay here for that and then do the 3 hour train ride back on my Birthday, alone, to then spend Christmas alone. Plus I haven’t slept yet and my eyes are all swollen and puffy from crying so I don’t know if I fancy doing the journey back in this state.

I posted earlier to warn you that you have NO IDEA what is going through his fucked-up head. What appears on the surface is the tip of the iceberg. You may feel you're not in danger, but you might be. The guy's a nut job. Get out of there.

You’re still missing the point. His mindset is irrelevant. Yours is.

And, no, for people with a solid sense of self, good boundaries and self esteem, this simply isn’t true: When someone holds that line and repeats it enough you do start to doubt your own judgement even if you initially felt sure.

So, yes. You really need to drill down into why you react to this man the way that you do (as I’m sure this can’t be the first time he’s done something shitty or insane) and work on yourself for a bit. Do not let anyone ever treat you like this again.

I would heed this OP, get a premier inn or other budget room tonight.

I think it's in your best interests to admit fault. Agree it's best he ends things.. After all you let him down..
Then at least you can get the hell away before he gets angry... Which I bet he will if YOU try to end things.
He sounds unhinged. Very.

He’s contorting himself to produce maximum emotive impact there, and it’s completely transparent.
It’s super-manipulative language, and clearly this man has hit on good way to make vulnerable or suggestible women excuse behaviour no adult should even want to engage in, never mind expecting support and indulgence for such ridiculous and sketchy ‘get out of jail’ fabrications.
His principal motivation, apart from viewing women as handmaidens, even as sexualised mother figures (🤮) is to manoeuvre himself into a lifestyle in which he is free to transgress all behavioural convention, and to shirk all responsibility for his outlandish carrying on. He likes to see his victim pained by his unreasonable demands.
He’s got an imaginary Blue Badge, granting himself exemption from standards of decency, on account of his supposed mental affliction.

It’s such a pile of tripe, OP.
How a man in his forties has managed to get away with this personality is a great mystery. Is he employed? (Imagine his file in the HR cabinet)
I hope you know that nothing you have written about happened because you put a foot wrong. (The theory that it was all a setup drama is worth considering, given how little sense any of it makes, otherwise.)

We don’t need men so badly that any old bloke will do!
You sound very sweet and affectionate, and there’s surely a man out there (and a good bit nearer home) who would cherish you as an equal, rather than see in you a useful mark for ridiculous puerile psychodramas, not to mention an unpaid charlady. A lover should be a source of happiness and fulfilment, and this guy certainly blew that basic test.
Get yourself home asap, and congratulate yourself on the Great Escape. You’ll be ok; a damn sight more ok than you'd ever have been by staying with this creep.
Happy birthday! 💐🌤️🍾🍰🎉

Thirded. I don’t like it one bit,

My response exactly.

What a drama llama manchild.

I agree. There'll be time for introspection later but for now, the concern is putting distance between OP and this man.
He’s been shown to be both extremely volatile and at the same time carefully manipulative and eager to transfer blame, and it’s no wonder a person would find her head spinning in shock.
As the Man said, ‘Anger is an energy’, and OP should use her outrage about this mistreatment to boost her right out of this twisted orbit.

From your replies I think you know you won’t fix him.

I am concerned that in his behaviour, he also knows you have a parcel coming and a birthday and Christmas that you would want to be lovely ( wouldn’t everyone?).

Abusive people sometimes rely on key dates to flip and be the most attentive person in town. Can’t say he will, but you could set a clock timer on my relative doing this!

Be ready for a potential incoming love bomb especially if you’ll be asking him to take you to the station.

Lots of luck.

Where are you? I’d recommend getting a lift of a kind Mumsnet stranger than this guy if a taxi isn’t an option. You say he isn’t ND. I tell you now, he fucking is! None of what you’ve written is appropriate behaviour. You’ve made the right decision. Just stay safe until you can leave.

Exactly my point.
Just because he’s quiet now doesn’t mean he’s not planning to burn the house down overnight , or any other escalation of his behaviour

Don’t text him anything. It doesn’t matter if he won’t speak to you because you are not going to speak to him anymore anyway. Just once you’re far enough away text that he doesn’t need to think about if he wants to end it or not because you’re ending it yourself and then block him.

I can’t even imagine going out with some dweeb that gets ‘triggered’ in a supermarket never mind all the shit you’ve gone through

This will be the best Christmas ever as you don’t have to spend it with such a fucking pathetic loser

seriously, get some self respect. I’d rather never have sex again that touch this bloke.

Wow. This is quite a wild one!
Hope your parcel arrives bright and early!!

I’m positively certain he won’t flip, like I’ve said he’s dying on that hill that I’m the villain and he’s done nothing wrong and no chance I’m apologising

This is seriously concerning for both of your mental health, that he behaved that way and that you are more concerned about your parcel and your birthday rather than getting away from a man who is clearly seriously unstable, I'd have left and gone home.

When you get home are you going to let him know that the relationship is over and then block him? Because from your posts it seems to be all up to him. And his behaviour is so disturbing that it is worrying that you didn't do everything in your power to leave his house straightaway, no matter how difficult with transport.

This.

It’s reading like the beginning of a crime drama. He’s acting insane.

One explanation for that aisle episode might be that he just finds it totally unacceptable that any woman (more likely ‘any female’ ) should dare to disregard his strict instructions or detailed requirements.
His instinct is to inflict maximum humiliation on her, in public, as retribution. We’ve a sterling word for all this, and neurodivergence doesn’t come into it.

If every expression of aberrant or peculiar behaviour must now be ascribed to neurodivergence, then the day is not far off when nobody is responsible for their actions, and new, micro-categories of said divergence will be created, and we’ll have another divisive form of tribalism blocking social interaction and impeding common purpose, just as we have inflicted on ourselves with the counterproductive category mania within the sexuality rainbow, or whatever it’s now called.
ND or not, in my book not a lot can excuse this 40+ man’s behaviour to OP. Harm caused trumps psychological reason for aberration, in terms of accountability, short of full-blown psychosis. (On my planet!)

> rant ends <

If it does not, there'll be another day and night added to this ill-advised visit.
#ParcelofDoom

Wow I've just got the worst 2nd hand ick of my life! Hes beyond cringe and pathetic. I honestly thought you were going to say he's 18.

He's a nasty little boy, please please don't message and and massage his ego. He doesn't deserve anything.

Coming from someone who broke up with their own pathetic bf on her 30th birthday, take it from me, you're much better on your own on your birthday than with this loser.

This was mental! It really did escalate quickly as the saying goes. I find it crazy he’s the one contemplating ending it with you and not you ending it with him when he sounds like an overgrown child. OP you deserve better.

If someone told me - friend, partner, anyone told me that food shopping is triggering, I would drop that person in ONE second. I don’t have time to deal with stupid shit like this. I don’t care what your trauma or issue is around bloody food shopping, I just don’t want stupid people like this around me.
why did you not run a mile when he told you that?

Why on earth did the silly child not do his usual online shop ?!!!

Is he much older than you OP?