Hello everyone,
I have been with my partner for 3 years, and we live together in his flat. His flat is on the market, as we planned to sell it to buy a place together.
Our relationship recently has been very up and down, and we both have our fair share of personal issues (mine being scarred from a previous 8 year relationship and his being his childhood). I would also add that I feel that, although undiagnosed, we both have traits of ASD (I have come to realise mine more recently).
We can both be very picky about things, which leads to arguments over the silliest of things and neither of us being willing to apologise for things we feel we havent done wrong.
On Sunday, we argued about our dogs (he has a dog and I have a dog, we both already had dogs when we met). I was in bed asleep, and his dog ran in and jumped over my face, her paw scratched my eye. In hindsight I probably did make a big song and dance about it as it hurt. He then started saying that if my dog did that, I wouldn't have reacted like that. This annoyed me, as I felt he had no empathy for how I was feeling and instead made up a complete hypothetical situation instead.
When I was trying to explain my view, he wasn't listening to me and this reduced me to tears. He then said to "put away your violin" and was clapping me as if it were a performance.
In response, I said "You are messed up - what has happened to you in your life to be enjoying seeing your partner in emotional pain?" This then struck a cord with him and he told me to get out.
I packed my bags, took my dog and went to my parents. He text me half an hour later saying that he loves me so much and he is sorry that it got to this, and hopes we can talk in a few days to save the relationship. I text him back that I love him too and that we both need space to figure out what we want, as I want us to be happy whether that's together or apart.
I have had no response from him since and he has made no contact. I miss him and know we have a lot to work through if we are to stay together. I don't feel like I should message him asking to meet, as he asked me to leave originally and I feel that it should be him to make the decision to reach out to me and arrange to meet (I don't want to push him into him feeling like things should go back to normal, as it is his flat and I would hate to live there knowing I am not truly wanted there).
This relationship has slowly become quite toxic, but I still do think we have the ability to work past things if we both work on ourselves and what we bring to the relationship. He has so many good qualities and he has been a supportive and caring partner. Although we argue, we do have a strong bond.
At the moment I am prepared that this could go either way. I don't deep down want it to be over, as I would walk away knowing that our issues are partly my fault. Should I reach out to him, or wait?