AIBU or is he dead inside

[Grindinghog]

This evening I was building furniture in another room. One of the parts fell, hit me in the face/mouth and clattered to the floor.

OH asks from the other room - are you okay? I said no.

He walks into the room, I'm crouched on the floor holding my face (with tears streaming down my face) and explained that it had hit me in the mouth.

He stood for a second, then our child came in the room and he left with her.

AIBU to have expected bit more compassion? He didn't even come in the fucking room properly, didn't ask if he could help or to look and assess if there was any real damage etc.

Yeah that's not normal at all. I'm not surprised this is your 'dishes in the sink' moment. If you're meant to be in it for the long haul you are going to get old together and need to know you'll have someone by your side who can care for you when needed.

As for shielding kids from trauma - no, no, no. This is not how you raise emotionally healthy kids! You can't remove anything from their lives that might upset them. You teach them how to deal with that upset. Perhaps this is something the op's partner missed out on and that's why he's lacking in any empathy and compassion for the mother of his child.

He’s rude, he’s cold, he’s boring, he’s lacking in emotional intelligence, he’s not kind or loving… don’t keep putting yourself through this @Grindinghog. You sound so worn down.

I guess this is where we're all different.

If I'm in pain because of a minor injury that doesn't require immediate treatment, I can't stand people fussing over me. It's irritating. I'd rather just he left alone.

Someone offering me 'comfort' would be something else I had to deal with. I tend to batten down the hatches and just get on with it.

Maybe that comes from never having had anyone to rely on in times of need, I don't know, but I would rather someone took the children away and left me to it.

In our house we model having care and regard for each other. We don’t model ‘someone is hurt and crying in pain so we walk away and leave them alone’ because that’s just fucking weird.

shielding from trauma my arse.

It’s more traumatic to a small child to walk in and see your mum properly crying and not know exactly why, see noone comforting her and instead be silently ushered out the room like mum was caught taking a shit in a teacup.

Children learn how to care for themselves and others by seeing US the adults do it.

If my husband did this and had no signs of ND going on (meaning he might struggle to process and act as expected to situations without a bit of guidance) I’d know he hated me, cared nothing about me, that seeing me in pain elicited no emotional caregiving response in him and I’d be assessing my marriage and deciding what I was going to do about it. Children shouldn’t see parents acting with contempt or cruel indifference towards one another.