Thank you, stranger at Chili’s!

Thank you, stranger at Chili’s for pointing out the red flag I’ve been ignoring in my relationship. I now know that the man I was with had been rude throughout the majority of the relationship and have ended it. I was excusing his behavior because I thought it was a part of his disability, but now I strongly believe disabilities do not give people the right to be rude with zero consequences. I will be referring to my ex as the man mostly through the post.

The stranger had asked me while the man was in the bathroom if I was okay. He didn’t work there, he was being a Good Samaritan and had overheard the man speaking very loudly and continuously interrupting me. I told the stranger that I was used to that treatment because I believed that behavior was a result of his disability. I told the stranger everything was okay and he walked away hesitantly.

When the man returned from the bathroom I must have had a strange look on my face, as he asked, “what’s wrong?” I told him I would tell him in the car (I didn’t tell him the reason until we left the restaurant because I didn’t know how he would react, and in hindsight I’m glad I waited) He asked if he had done something wrong and I nodded. He changed his tone of voice to the higher pitch he characteristically uses when in disbelief of the situation he’s in and questioned me some more, but I kept saying that I would tell him in the car.

After I paid for the meal (I told him beforehand that I was treating him to dinner), we left to go back to his parents’ house. In his parent’s car I told him about the kind stranger. He blew it off like it was nothing (because this happened all the time and this stranger was the first person to mention that it seemed odd and impolite). I told him that he was being rude and he still pushed it off. He has apologized for the way he talks to me in the past, but it’s not a true apology unless one makes an effort to change, and this has been a constant struggle.

We finally get to the house and greet his parents and his puppy. He originally didn’t want to go out to eat with me because he didn’t want to leave his dog alone. His dog wasn’t going to be alone, and he knew that. His reasoning is that he has sole responsibility of the dog and doesn’t think that his family members would care to let him outside. He has never owned a pet before, so he is still learning that people aren’t heartless enough to ignore a dog whimpering to go outside. Granted, it takes a little extra energy to put the dog’s leash on as they are not allowed to have a fenced in yard, but seriously. None of his family members said there was any issues with the dog once we got back.

Back to the point, back to the situation. we went to the basement to watch some television and snuggle. He had been having issues with the gas prices being high so we made a deal that if he took me home that night, I would take a ride to his house the next day. He told his parents that I wasn’t able to get a ride as an excuse to be able to spend more time with me because we hadn’t seen each other for more than a week. I’m still upset that I have to compromise on transportation due to gas prices, am I really not worth paying a little extra at the pump? I guess not. We had been arguing about this in the past too.

Before leaving, the man sees vanilla wafers on the countertop in the kitchen. He became very excited about it, and I gathered from the tone of his mother’s voice that he wasn’t supposed to eat them. He got some anyways. His mom brings up a story about how he used to hide food in his mattress as a child. There was laughter and smiles. She said she found a cow rib once and didn’t know how long it had been there, and that caused more chuckling between all of us. The man asked me if I wanted a vanilla wafer, to which I declined and told him his mom didn’t offer so no thank you. Yes that was a little passive aggressive, I take fault there. She chuckled and the man and I left soon after.

The ride back to my parents house was pretty uneventful. We talked about what we were going to do the next day. He seemed happy. He kissed me goodbye and left.

The next day started out fine. I sent him a text in binary code and he replied with a bunch of happy face emojis. Roughly an hour later, he messages me and complained that I was being rude and disrespectful to his mom the day before (yes he was referring to the passive aggressive comment) and said I crossed the line. I don’t feel it necessary to describe the entire conversation. I mentioned he had no issues with me the night before and that I feared someone else was influencing his emotions.

His mother appeared to have some issues with me throughout the relationship. She was kind to my face and talked to the man about me behind my back. I only know this because the man told me about a few instances shortly after they happened. She would make baseless claims about my disabilities and would scoff about what little she knew to be true, such as me having insomnia. After the first few times the man reported it to me, I wanted to get my story straight with his mom so she would be less ignorant about the man’s love. I was over for dinner one night and I explained all of my “ailments” with her. She has a disability herself so I thought she would understand. Unfortunately this didn’t change her predetermined and biased view of me. She would continue to make snide comments about me to the man behind my back. That kind of behavior is childish. She obviously doesn’t want to give me a chance, but that was mostly okay because I wasn’t in a relationship with her. I say mostly because the man has a toxic and codependent relationship with her. She made me cry before because of how callous her behavior towards me was. Please, be polite to everyone. I’m a human, not a punching bag. I broke down one night because of him relaying her comments over the phone. I forgot about it because I wasn’t dating her but her son didn’t seem to ever stick up for me and tell her to stop.

I message him that our relationship isn’t working. I didn’t understand how I was being rude to his mom when declining the wafers. I think she got into his head and finally got him to hate me. He is known for the large number of things he hates, and I’m in that collection now. I couldn’t deal with his mom influencing him so much. He messaged me today, trying to insult me by saying I’m immature. I let him know his insults don’t work on me anymore to which he responds with “It’s not insulting. It’s the truth.” I questioned how long he planned on staying with an immature woman but then gave up hope. He won’t change easily. He didn’t receive any help for his disability as a child and it’s affecting his life very negatively. I told him to congratulate his mom as she finally won her son back and disabilities do not give anyone the right to be a**holes. He needs to grow up and get help.

So once again, thank you, stranger at Chili’s, for helping me realize that my relationship was not working. I have been dating the man for roughly three years, I was still in college and he dropped out of college for maybe the third or fourth time at the end of senior year. He is using his parents money to keep dropping out, and doesn’t understand college isn’t for everyone. If he wants to keep wasting his parents’ money so he doesn’t have to act like an adult and grow up, I have no influence on him or his parents decisions. Goodbye, it was nice knowing you, you probably didn’t tell your mom I said congratulations but that’s just fine. Also you probably won’t read this entire post because you didn’t like reading my long text messages. Buh bye!

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