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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Awful evening...wwyd?

404 replies

eveningfromhell · 26/10/2017 23:39

At a friend's wedding with boyfriend of several years.

He has some health issues and is uncomfortable standing or sitting for prolonged periods.

At about 9 he said he was going to go up to bed. I asked him to stay another half hour. He agreed.

About 40 mins later I said did he want to go up. He refused. I asked a few more times, same answer. Finally about 11, he was clearly in pain. I asked him to go, he said no again. Wouldn't discuss it. I said I'd had enough of this, picked up my drink and walked outside.

2 mins later he stormed past me and up to our room, collected his stuff and is now apparently sleeping in his car overnight.

I have tried to get him to come back in. He won't. I've had to leave him outside as he said of I kept on he'd drove home ( I'd then be stuck here). He shouted at me for making a scene (when I was crying, asking him to come back inside). He's annoyed that I prevented him from going to bed when he wanted to.

I feel like utter shit. I feel like a bit of the love I,had for him has just ebbed away. I'm also now sat alone in a £150 a night room.

OP posts:
TheNaze73 · 27/10/2017 07:28

He’s actually created this problem by enabling your controlling behaviour. Saving face with the b & g seems more important to you than his well being? He should done what he wanted in the first place & not let you railroad him.

QuiteLikely5 · 27/10/2017 07:32

I think the pair of you need to grow up

Original poster
eveningfromhell · 27/10/2017 07:36

No scenes in front of anyone. I cried on the car park (a long way from the room where the reception was, indeed some distance from the hotel itself. I didn't pass another guest or member of staff on my way back to my room either. So no scenes made in front of anyone.

OP posts:
Original poster
eveningfromhell · 27/10/2017 07:39

I didn't make him sleep in the car. I actively discouraged him.

Not sure what to do this morning. Can hear people getting up for breakfast. I suppose I should get dress and go see if his car is still there.

OP posts:
thegirlupnorth · 27/10/2017 07:41

Organise getting yourself home and out of his life ASAP, he sounds pathetic.

Qvar · 27/10/2017 07:41

His child DIED and people are calling him a drama queen????!!! Wtf Mumsnet?

He has chronic pain. His child died this year. And you pushed him to stay at a wedding he wanted to leave.

Yes, he’s being unfair and irrational, but OP so are you, with far less excuse.

Do as he’s asked and leave him some space to calm down. If I was grieving my child and had to deal with your “wahhh nooooo don’t leave me on my owwwnnn” nonsense I’d probably sleep in the fucking car too

fufulina · 27/10/2017 07:43

All sounds familiar to the early days of my relationship with now DH.

Don’t do what I did and ignore it when someone shows you who they are!

snowglobe67 · 27/10/2017 07:45

Hmm he does seem to have overreacted but he's probably tired and in pain.

Looking at it from his perspective op you wouldn't let him go to bed when he felt he needed to then 40 minutes later you asked him to go. Makes it sound a bit like you feel you have the right to tell him when he can and can't go to bed op?

Imagine this as a reverse with a man telling a woman she couldn't go to bed until he said so..... There'd be a chorus of " controlling bastard!!"

iMatter · 27/10/2017 07:45

Go and see if the car is there.

Probably best if he's gone. That's going to be one shitty journey if you have to go home with him.

Hopefully he went home and got some sleep in his own bed.

A night in a car is going to make everything so much worse.

BakedBeans47 · 27/10/2017 07:47

Jeez. The fact the poor guy lost his child and finds seeing them at weddings adds another layer to it, doesn’t it? Did you not think at all that that could have been distressing him?

Jengnr · 27/10/2017 07:47

He sounds like a dickhead. There is nothing unreasonable about asking somebody to do something. If they don't want to/are unable to they can say no.

There is plenty unreasonable about sitting there for two hours to make a point then going for the high drama of storming off and sleeping in the car.

Cut this one loose OP. Every time you go anywhere you won't dare to ask him things in case he reacts like this again.

Get the train home. Let him sort himself out.

Bedtimebunny · 27/10/2017 07:48

You have plenty of empathy? why else would you be worrying about him in his car all night?

I don't want to be ln my own on a hotel room after a sleepless night.

^because this..

You repeatedly meniton how you've helped him physically (carrying boxes etc for his move ). I suspect what he wants is a bit of emotional support and consideration.

Nipperknight · 27/10/2017 07:49

I understand you OP as my husband has chronic pain.
It’s tough when you want them to be there and enjoy things like the average couple.

However I have to remind myself, that being in constant pain is draining. His brain can only deal with so much and if he is trying to pain manage towards the end of the day the likely good is he has less self control over his emotions and responses. Which is probably why he behaved as he did.

I think you should apologise and have a chat.

LaContessaDiPlump · 27/10/2017 07:49

There is something deeply awful in attending a wedding when your relationship is struggling, op; you're there to celebrate love, but it makes you reflect on the lack thereof in your own life. I am have been to some really miserable weddings for this reason. It took me a while to realise that my sadness was disproportionate, that it was exacerbated by the setting.

I hope you're ok today (sort of).

Ceto · 27/10/2017 07:50

But you don’t seem to see that asking someone in awful pain (you’ve said the only comfortable position for him is lying down) to bear it for an extra half an hour is actually quite a big deal.

I seriously question whether he really was in awful pain: I don't see how he could possibly have stayed for another two hours unnecessarily if he was, let alone slept in the car. A few weeks ago I was at a reception related to my DH's work - I don't have a back condition or anything, but with hours of standing around my feet, legs and back became increasingly painful. Eventually I reached a point when I muttered to DH that I was going to have to go - fortunately we were staying at a hotel nearby - and duly did so. If he'd asked me to stay another half hour, I guess I could have done so; but I would have been straight out of the door as soon as that half hour had passed, because I couldn't conceivably have borne any longer. I certainly physically could not have borne to stay for two hours just to make some passive aggressive point. And there is no way I would have made my back worse by deciding to sleep in the car, even if I ^was* having a massive strop.

LEMtheoriginal · 27/10/2017 07:54

I've "put my back out" a couple of days ago. I've been swallowing naproxen and diazepam like smarties and still it was agony. I could just about manage to sit on my soft comfortable sofa for a couple of hours as I had some work to do but otherwise I have been lying down.

To sit at a wedding (God save me) with people I don't know well would have been impossible for me yesterday. Not uncomfortable - impossible.

To ask him to stay longer when he may well have already got to the stage he needed a rest was selfish. I doubt the bride and groom gave a shit if you were there or not if you were unable to find someone to chat to they clearly aren't close friends.

Yes it's frustrating but when he said he wanted to go to bed wtf did you try and stop him? He has over reacted but in all honesty you have shown a serious lack of empathy and your posts are all a bit "me"

Ceto · 27/10/2017 07:55

Looking at it from his perspective op you wouldn't let him go to bed when he felt he needed to then 40 minutes later you asked him to go. Makes it sound a bit like you feel you have the right to tell him when he can and can't go to bed op?

How do you get this from the OP, snowglobe? It's not that she "wouldn't let" him go to bed, she asked him to stay for half an hour. He's an adult, he could have said no. And when she's asked him to stay for half an hour, what's wrong with asking him whether he wants to go when that half hour is up?

It sounds to me as if the reality is that he wanted OP to feel bad, and every time she asked whether he wanted to go to bed he just said no in order to make her feel even worse. I get it that pain may have made him irrational, but if he was in that much pain it's a pretty stupid way to behave.

SparklyMagpie · 27/10/2017 07:56

Have you gone to check if his car is still out there?

Devilishpyjamas · 27/10/2017 07:57

I think there is something wrong with this relationship.

You should be able to ask him to stay half an hour.
He should be able to say yes or no with no drama.
You should not be feeling you are responsible for his happiness.
He should be able to decide when he needs to sit and be the one in charge of deciding when he needs a chair etc.

The loss of his child is a whole massive other thing that can rock the most stable of relationships.

If he’s still there and still sulking (hopefully he’s gone), then suggest he heads off and you can have a talk in a few days (you don’t live together do you??? Bit more or a problem if you do). If he’s gone it’s easier. Have a relaxing bath, have a look around the shops before taking the train home. Magazine and nice coffee or lunch somewhere. Carve out some time.

May be worth thinking about your own tendency for drama as well. You both sound a bit that way inclined. Life is much calmer if you can drop the drama!

Mrscog · 27/10/2017 08:00

I don’t understand this at all. None of it. In a normal relationship one of two scenarios would happen:

  1. DP1- I’m in pain and I’d like to go up now
DP2 - oh, I’d like to stay a bit longer. DP1 - sorry I’m in too much pain but you stay if you like DP2 - ok great! Or no it’s ok, I’ll come up with you.
  1. DP1- I’m in pain and I’d like to go up now
Dp2 - oh, I’d like to stay a bit longer. DP1 ok, fine by me 30 mins elapses DP2 - I’m ready when you are DP1 -great, let’s go!

Based on this I think regardless of his issues he didn’t behave responsibly or fairly to you. He’s an adult, he could have gone up anyway, and he shouldn’t have agreed to something he was going to resent.

FinallyDecidedOnUserName · 27/10/2017 08:07

Is he still in his car OP?

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 27/10/2017 08:09

Exactly, Mrscog!

AJPTaylor · 27/10/2017 08:10

talk about drip. if this thread is true yabu and insenstive of the highest order.

Longtime · 27/10/2017 08:18

I agree with Mrscog. I think you are getting an unnecessarily hard time on here OP. And as foe the poster who said we expect to lose our parents, how’s that for empathy?! OP lost both her parents in her twenties! Surely no one expects that? I’m 54 and lost my df this year. I’m still dévasted even though he was 80.

Hope all works out for you today OP but I do think you need to have a serious think about contuining this relationship.

PricillaQueenOfTheDesert · 27/10/2017 08:19

I hope we hear the outcome of this. Sorry if that sounds selfish, but I hate when threads don’t have a proper ending.