I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible, but buckle up.
J has moderate OCD and he's very, very close to this family. VERY close. We've had multiple fights over the years because he prioritizes spending time with his family over my needs. I'm talking like ... he once wasn't sure if he was going to come to the hospital with me because his family was having a fun movie night and he didn't want them to be upset that they cooked too much food and then we didn't show up.
He has video game nights semi-regularly with his brothers, and he sees one of them almost every week to play games (the other brother is always invited but never comes to weekly hang outs). His youngest brother is very flaky and hard to make plans with, so when J manages to get a date set for their video game night, it's really important that he doesn't have to change it. It's always a weeknight because weekends are too busy.
When J goes, he's usually not home until 12:30 or 1am, which is usually fine, and I usually have no idea where he is or when he'll be home, which is irritating but I can deal with it normally.
My work schedule now involves a lot of 13 hour days, and I don't always know which days are going to be 13 hour days until 1-2 days before. This week, I found out on Monday that I needed to do a 13 hour day on Tuesday (yesterday), and technically today as well. However, today I also had a medical treatment scheduled, and we were scheduled to meet with our venue coordinator at 7pm. I figured out that to get my experiment done on Wednesday, I had to come in no later than 6:30, rush a lot in the morning, and then hope my undergrad could come in later in the evening (since we'd be at the venue). So I knew I'd be waking up around or before 6am Tuesday and Wednesday, working very late Tuesday, and I knew I'd be tired from Tuesday and from my medical treatment (which leaves me extremely fatigued for about a week afterwards).
Monday night, J reminded me about game night, and I asked if he could be home earlier than usually, and/or update me so I'd know when he'd be home. I've only just gotten used to falling asleep with him in the living room, but I still can't sleep if I don't know when he'll be home. I can't help it. He got angry and refused to give me an estimate of when he could be home, and did not commit to updates.
Yesterday, we talked a little during the day at work, and apologized for fighting. I ended up working from 7am until shortly after 9pm and was absolutely exhausted; I hadn't heard from him at all at that point, but I really knew that the only way I'd be able to get everything done on Wednesday would be to go to bed as soon as I could. I called and asked if J could stay at his brother's place (if I know he's not coming home, I can sleep). He said no. I then begged him to come home now because of how tired I was. He angrily replied that it was impossible, and that he couldn't have this conversation with me on the phone while he was with his brothers.
He texted me shortly after I got home, saying, "I managed to get a ride," which made me feel a little better, but he never came home. After the point at which he would have been home if he'd walked or taken public transit, I texted him again, and he replied saying he hadn't left--he was waiting for his sisters-in-law to return and drive him home. I was so angry I was gasping because of how much I was crying and I could barely type because I was shaking so much. I didn't hear from him until he walked in the door shortly before 1am.
He was absolutely enraged at me for ruining his evening and trying to force him to cancel on his brothers. It turns out (and how could I have known?) that the youngest brother had been over 3 hours late to game night, and when I had called, they had just ordered dinner. The sisters-in-law then went to a concert together and weren't clear about when they'd be back. He told me that he was NOT going to reschedule plans he'd made months in advance (he HADN'T made those plans months in advance, though), and that he could NOT leave after his brother paid all that money for food. He said the T would have been unusable because of the concert, and laughed like I was crazy when I said he could have walked or gotten a cab.
Basically, he was angry that I'd made his night not fun because he spent it mad at me for trying to ruin his plans with his brothers.
I was so angry. I could barely talk from being so tired and so angry. After fighting for a short while (might have been 10 minutes? I don't remember), I told him to find somewhere else to stay. He got really nasty after that ("Oh, okay so I guess I'll just sleep on the streets!"), so I got dressed and told him I'd just sleep at the lab. I walked to work, and my best friend texted me to find out if I was okay (I'd been updating her throughout the night). She's on a night schedule right now and so she picked me up from work and let me vent and sleep at her place before driving me back to work at 6 this morning.
I've had about three hours of sleep (one at her house, two during my medical treatment--you can nap during the infusions), and I canceled our venue meeting because I cannot drive in this condition. But right now, I'm just so done. It's been 2 years of him insisting I'm making him pick between me and his family, and I'm tired of that bullshit claim. I'm at the end of my patience. I cannot believe that he would care so little about me being able to SLEEP during a hellish week because it interfered with his gaming night and inconvenienced him. I cannot believe how resistant he is to letting me know when he'll be home, or agreeing on a time I can expect him home if I need to get up early the next day. I cannot believe that he cared more about not disappointing his brothers than he did about not leaving me sleep deprived and distraught.
I've been working on finding counseling, and I should be starting by the middle or end of the month (there was a waiting list). Our couple's therapist, whom we only saw a few times last summer (when we were fighting over his family--shocking), might not have a time that works for us, which is why we stopped seeing her before. And he's so resistant to finding his own counselor, I'm not sure he would do it. He refuses to see anyone who's not a psychiatrist (especially refuses to see a LICSW) even though he doesn't want medication.
The big question is: if this is how he always is about his immediate family, how much longer can I deal with it? And really, the answer is, "Not forever." I'm not sure how long we can realistically put the wedding on hold privately before having to formally and more publicly postpone it. And I don't want that to be seen as an ultimatum or threat. I just can't keep having this fight, and I'm still in shock that he was so angry with me and so unconcerned about why I needed him to come home.
Sorry for the novel. I'm still really sleep deprived. I'm just dreading going home.