what's 'normal'

Seanymph

Prior to this week marisco since the day I met him we have never gone a day without speaking.

not even during his staying at friends in france.

He has had one night out without me. But I dropped him off and picked him up.

If he is held up at work he texts the time he will be home, or calls - if there is a traffic hold up of more than 10 minutes he notifies me.

I know every day where he is working - he has a mobile, and if I call he returns my call within an hour.

I have never not known exactly where he is - or he me. If I'm more than half an hour over when he's expecting me he is upset (happened a lot when we owned horses! I'll be back at 5 would turn into me wandering in at 6) - we have always been very 'in touch'.

He's not as keen as me to talk all the time - and sometimes is a bit jerky - but then I'm sure I am, you just don't see it with yourself do you?

But not being in touch - no, this is new.

Mojisola

Seanymph wrote: »

Prior to this week marisco since the day I met him we have never gone a day without speaking.

I have never not known exactly where he is - or he me.

But not being in touch - no, this is new.

Then I would be worried.

floralaura

Maybe obvious, but has he been using the bank account? Do you know he's 'OK' in the sense of he's still used that etc over their during the past week?

Seanymph

No, I don't have the log ons for the French account, I have no idea if he's ok florallaura.

I have no phone number for neighbours (we write) - the car he is in is registered to here, so I'm assuming that if he's been in an accident the police would have contacted me.

But no, I have no idea whether or not he is 'ok'.

We had a builder there who I KNOW he was seeing this week - we have communicated with this builder for the entire project by email - he could have asked him to drop me an email one evening to say he was fine.

The neighbours ARE online, so he could have emailed me from there - but I dont' know their email addresses.

So no, I have no idea if he is fine.

RedBern

Come on, you've managed to hold it together all week, so you can do it for another few hours. However,you need to sit down with him when he does get home and explain calmly why you're so upset (perhaps give him chance for a cup or tea though ) and see what his explanation is. Book him a doctors appointment though, and the idea of a diary is really good.

troubleinparadise

No, you have no idea if he is fine - but equally you haven't heard that he has had any misadventure either.

My bottom line with my then teenage children who had gone AWOL was that if I hadn't heard from the hospital or police for starters then I'd downgrade my worry levels a bit... That sounds flippant, but it gave me a way to manage my panic slightly.

Head injuries can have effects for a long time afterwards that might resolve, or might be permanent. I'm not sure that there is anything medically that can be done, but a change of how the two of you approach your everyday life might be needed. And if he won't acknowledge any changes, that isn't unusual either. Denial or lack of insight, it can be difficult to achieve that acknowledgement.

It may be that whatever chat you have when he gets back will allow you to raise this issue, and your understandable worries for and about him. This might be a breakthrough moment.

RedBern's advice is good - let us know how you get on.

Seanymph

troubleinp I wasn't worried about his being - that's why I didn't mention it.

I feel fairly confident he will, sooner or later today, arrive home.

My issue is whether I can reasonably throw things at him for being an uncaring git.

or whether his injury has altered his thinking in such a way that I have to be reasonable in my expectations, and address this life change as a couple.

I don't want to be married to someone who goes off radar for a week at a time and thinks that's reasonable - not even using the excuse that I've said 'I'm fine, have a lovely week' as a free pass.

I do however want to support my husband in his recovery or changed reality through an injury, IF the injury is causing the lack of thought.

RedBern

Seanymph wrote: »

troubleinp I wasn't worried about his being - that's why I didn't mention it.

I feel fairly confident he will, sooner or later today, arrive home.

My issue is whether I can reasonably throw things at him for being an uncaring git.

or whether his injury has altered his thinking in such a way that I have to be reasonable in my expectations, and address this life change as a couple.

I don't want to be married to someone who goes off radar for a week at a time and thinks that's reasonable - not even using the excuse that I've said 'I'm fine, have a lovely week' as a free pass.

I do however want to support my husband in his recovery or changed reality through an injury, IF the injury is causing the lack of thought.

I wouldn't throw anything - you might hurt his head;

If, when he arrives home he can't see why you're upset, and insists that he's done nothing wrong, then I think you have a problem. If he refuses to see a GP, you have a problem. It may be that he's not in a good place himself, and is worried but not wanting to worry you (blimey even I'm making excuses for him now!). Give him a chance to explain.....

itsanne

Seanymph wrote: »

Ah, but this is page 2 itsanne

I started trying to decide if he was uncaring OR if it was the injury.

We are all coming around to the injury - let's hope so for his sake But that wasn't were I started - it's talking about it and people sharing their experiences that brings us there

I did read the whole thread . I made a mistake, though, in writing a brief response because of lack of time at that moment - and I'm a very slow typist. I assumed you are so close to the situation that it is difficult to tell which is at the route of the problem, but with everything that has been said I think it's likely that there is a problem as a result of the head injury. If that's the case the possibility of him being uncaring is not something to be worrying about because his actions, or rather their lack, are likely to be the result of his injury, not lack of care for you.

In your situation I'd be very worried too. It's somewhere between a rock and a hard place . All I can suggest in alleviating that is that if anything untoward had happened you would almost certainly have heard about it already. In that case, the chance of something happening now is very low - he's managed fine (in safety terms). You've managed with the worry until now - it's not much longer to go. It may be harder to manage your annoyance when he returns and doesn't understand why you are so upset!

You're right in recognising that it can be difficult to see what is "normal" when you're in the middle of things. It's amazing what we can come to accept without constantly questioning it, and it's only later that we realise that things weren't so "normal" after all, although normal is a relative term. Good luck to both of you in finding the way forward.

Tiddlywinks

I think your OH may have taken your 'don't worry go and enjoy yourself' comments very literally and wont realise he has done anything wrong.

I know someone who didn't buy his wife a Christmas present because - after an argument in November - she told him that she didn't want anything from him. Roll on Christmas morning and she gave him a beautifully wrapped pressie and smiled expectantly... only to find he hadn't bought her anything. She still wasn't speaking to him when he came into work on 2nd January!

He just didn't get why he was in trouble because he had done as he was told. This guy is not a numpty in any other walk of life - he just doesn't 'get' the nuances of daily relationships.

Do you think your OH may be in the same position?