Thanks for the birthday wishes and ankle wishes everyone.
These are trying times... my accident coming at the same time as his mom's chemo is testing my bf to the MAX (and he's not handling everything very well). He's being rude to me, having angry outbursts, and generally being a horse's a$$. This morning we had apologies and a bit of a breakthrough, but all in all, it's not going well. He is an acts of service guy, but he wants to do the service HE wants to do, and does NOT want to hear what I want. When I express what I want, he interprets that as a criticism (he actually told me this last night) of him for NOT having thought of it already.
So, for example, I asked him four hours ago to please bring me something to eat. I'm in bed with my leg propped up. He has not gotten around to it yet. I'm going to conduct a real-time experiment and ask him again, and I'll report the results momentarily. Okay I just asked him very nicely if he was going out (there's really nothing edible in the house except apples). He said in that almost-at-the-end-of-my-rope-but-I'm-trying-to-hold-onto-it tone: "I'm going to the CPA's to drop off some stuff, then to the cleaner's, then to the barbecue place to get you a sandwich, then back here, then to mom at the nursing home."
So I said, "Will you bring me an apple from the kitchen before you go?" Instead of walking 30 feet to the kitchen and getting me an apple, he kept on doing chores, and then his cell phone rang. "Hey, buddy, how ya doing?" Very upbeat, cheerful, "public" voice-- "everything's fine, I'm cool, life is throwing stuff at me, but I'm managing." Now he's taken the phone outside, so the apple is forgotten.
BUT he is showing his love for me by cleaning the bathroom all morning and scrubbing out the tub with bleach. He told me he was doing this for me.
