A
female
age
,
anonymous
writes:I hope I didn't destroy my relationship with the man I want to spend the rest of my life with!!He has epilepsy, brought on by a blow to the head when he was in high school. He is on medication for it and as long as he takes it, he is fine. I hadn't heard from him since last tuesday or wednesday and he wasn't answering phone calls or emails from me or anyone else. He was suppose to be coming for the weekend and never showed up and never called me. We live approx 3 hrs apart. A female friend of his who lives a lot closer to him called me and asked if he was here. I told her no and why? She said that she hadn't been able to reach him since earlier in the week also. When he didn't show up here, I looked up his mom's phone # and gave her a call. She hadn't talked to him since Tuesday. Something was definitely not right. I thought about, what if he had collapsed in his front room or bedroom and no one was around to find him. I called the local police dept and asked them to do a "welfare check" to make sure there was nothing going on. Well I didn't confess right away to it, but I finally couldn't keep it to myself. My conscious was getting to me and I couldn't sleep! I called him back in tears and confessed. He couldn't understand why I would of done something like this and I told him because I was worried. No one could reach you and you hadn't talked to your mom since Tuesday and that was unusual. He told me that he needed time to think because of layoffs at his job and whatever else. The last time he did this, after I asked him to just let me know that he needed time to himself and I would be more than happy to give it to him. He did this instead. I don't want to lose him, but he doesn't know if he can forgive me. Did I do something that bad that it should warrant a split up? He told me that he never thought I would do anything like this. He could see if he was elderly and no medical alert, calling the police. He just told me that he would talk to me another time, but not tonight. I pleaded with him to understand and told him that I don't want to lose him over something like this. I've never been in a situation like this. I only dated my ex off and on and then married him. I'm just very scared!! Please Help me! Thanks
View related questions:
a break, my ex, split up Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, boo22  +, writes (2 November 2009):
Brilliant advice from R&B2 in my opinion.
My father died of a huge epileptic seizure, probably due to the fact he stubbornly refused to take his meds if it meant interfering in what he wanted to do.
He was stubborn and pig headed as R&B2 describes. This guys really got a nerve in my view, putting all this guilt at your door. He does he think he is?
I'd be very grateful knowing people cared so much for my safety. He should be too.
He's very sure of your affection and knows he can treat you this way and you come running back looking for more.
I'd be furious with him, and reading him the riot act, the self absorbed ahole!!
A
reader, anonymous, writes (2 November 2009): If I were you I wouldn't call him, let him call you even if it takes a couple of weeks. Then when you do talk to him stand up for yourself.
Tell him I know if I weren't in your life you would be just fine, but when you are in an intimate relationship like we are, I have to feel I am part of a team, if you don't do what you say you will do and you are part of this, part of this team, then I have to believe that something is very wrong with you and since I care about and love you I had to check on you.
Perhaps you want to be left alone with your life and not have people in it who care, but don't punish me for doing so....I have had about enough of that.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (2 November 2009): Well, stop being so insecure and stand up for yourself. Ask him what he means by you "pulling something like this."
Put the onus on him and say, well you do have a life threatening condition if you were to have a full blown seizure. You acted out of character and did not call or show up for our planned weekend, you had cut off all communication either via email, by phone or text to people who you regularly communicate with and one of them called me to ask where you were. All that added up to a major concern that something had happened. If you would prefer that I never care about you again and you just die in your own spit with no one giving a shit, then just let me know and I will take myself off the list of people who care about you.
Turn around and exit. Don't let him blame you for him being irresponsible, uncaring and first class ahole.
You don't need someone like this in your life. So what you have special needs children, you can find a man who loves the whole package and is more considerate of you.
He doesn't appreciate how lucky he is to have you, so give him the gift of you being gone.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (2 November 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank-you guys for your support!! It makes me feel a bit better. I did reach his mom, but she hadn't heard from him for at least as long as I had. When he has been at my house, he has had very light seizures in his sleep. Come to find out, he was taking the generic version of the prescription drug and it wasn't working fully. The doctor put him back on the name brand and he is fine now. Nothing is 100% though as most of you know. I don't want to lose him because he typically treats me so good. I guess if I didn't love him, I wouldn't care. I just pray that he will come to his senses and wake up. He told me that if I did something like this now, how would it be after we are married. He never thought I would"pull" something like this. I am very scared right now!!!I have special needs children and my ex couldn't handle the idea of this, so he left. I know I am a very insecure person and I have a hard time not thinking that he might dump us/me.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (2 November 2009): Well, I know something about this, so I will tell you my experiences with an epileptic boyfriend.
I dated my ex for over 2 years and he was diagnosed with epilepsy right before we started dating, we met at work and had been friens first. The way he was diagnosed was when he had a seizure while driving and he was taken to the emergency room. He was diagnosed with simple partial seizures and was put on medicine and the doctor took his driving priviledges away for 6 months.
During the years that I dated him, he went off his medication for almost a whole month and didn't tell me, he had a major seizure during the night while sleeping and his rooommate found him, he called 911 an ambulance came and he refused to go to the hospital. He called me in the middle of the night to tell me he had a grand mal seizure, he couldn't remember what day it was and he kept asking me if he had his daughter the next day, what day was it was he supposed to go to work the next day. I did not get out of bed to go see how he was, but I did go over and check on him the next day. He would go on to take his medicine on a regular basis, but during the years I was with him he had several other gran mal seizures, they always occurred during his sleep and I never was with him when he had a major seizure. He often forgets to take his medicine, he also drinks to the point of getting drunk which is not the thing to do when one has epilepsy because within 3 days of a major drunk, they are more likely to have seizures.
Anyway his condition is pretty well controlled, but there is something about him that is very perplexing, he does forget committments unless reminded about them on occassion because he has the simple partial seizures during the day, part of that is some memory loss and it is real and not faked as an excuse.
Not hearing from him for several days when he was supposed to call did happen a couple of times, one time he did not show up for work, his boss called me at home because I worked at the same place, she knew we dated and she got my phone number from my boss. I called his roommate, no answer, I called his roommates girlfriend at work and she hadn't heard from her boyfriend either the night before and when I told her about my boyfriend we both panicked and went over to their house to check on them. By then my boyfriend had already left the premises and was on his way to work. He told me he had a flat tire and had to fix it, but then I was thinking why didn't he call his boss to tell her and he was like three hours late. It turns out that he had a seizure and didn't hear his alarm and he didn't want to tell me about it.
So there is a certain amount of denial and stubborness that goes along with this illness. He has told me once that he was going to stop taking his medicine because he "didn't need it" because he hadn't had a seizure in months. But he had some other kind of episodes where he would feel awful and panicky and couldn't remember where he was or why he as there, he has called me from the mall before to ask me why was he there (how the hell should I know) so I asked him to take me with him to the next doctors appointment to tell the doctor some of the things he told me and some of the seizures I saw and what seemed to trigger them.
Bottom line is I do understand why you panicked from not hearing from him and then when other people said they hadn't been able to reach him and called you, you wanted to check on him but couldn't because you don't live where he does, I get it, but because he is a stubborn epileptic in denial of his condition, it may make him feel badly. He truly may have forgotten to come see you, I don't know what kind of seizures your boyfriend has, but still it isn't an excuse for his neglect or his behavior and you should be able to talk to him about it and clear it up.
Talk to him about what kinds of seizures he is having and what he experiences after an episode. Memory loss or temporary memory loss is very common.
He may be difficult to work a plan with, you know of him calling you and checking in....if he is stubborn like mine was he won't be willing to do it all of the time, I think he feels badly that I have to be concerned with it, and I get upset with him when he would flake out on me because like you I didn't really know if he was being mean or what.
I would just give him some time to cool off and then explain the sequence of events and why your were concerned. Personally, I think he should be happy that you are watching his back, but he may not be able to accept that help from you. A lot of people with serious illnesses are like this. My sister is a Type 1 diabetic and she gets very contentuous with family trying to take care of her even though she has to rely on them during an insulin reaction, she gets mean during them, says awful things, kicks, bites hits and doesn't have any memory of what she did during them. She hears us tell her about it and she suffers a tremendous amount of guilt about it especially because she has children and she is afraid of hurting them or causing them to get hurt. My ex has a child as well and worries about the same thing and hates that his child's mother uses his epilepsy to degrade him in front of his child, like you are sick, how can you take care of my daughter....blah blah.
So, it isn't easy to be in a relationship with someone like this. The only solution is really to do what you have to do and just let them be mad, tell them to go F themselves and then move on. Trust me, he will be back to his old self again, and this won't be the last time an issue like this will come up.
...............................
A
female
reader, happytochat  +, writes (2 November 2009):
I think your bf is being VERY unreasonable. He is your partner- he cant just dissapear off the face of earth like that. Fair enough he needed time to think- but all he had to do was send you a short message saying he would like some time alone for a while. But he didnt do that. So it was natural of you to be worried and react to the situation the way in which you did.
What concerns me more is that he has cut contact with you for a period of time before and you asked him to just tell you in future that he needs some space- he agreed...but this time he didnt do it either.
honestly, he sounds very insensitive in my opinion. he isnt considering your feelings. only HIS. maybe he felt a bit embarrased that the police came to check on him...but at the end of the day he should be happy that he had you watching out for him. he shoudlnt be pushing people who care about him away, because if something seriously did happen to him one day no one will know, no one will be there for him because he makes them feel bad for just caring about him!!!
...............................
|
