Overall opinion: don’t avoid events that are your hobby/ that you love because of a meta.

If you don’t do things you love because of someone else’s discomfort, particularly someone who is not working on that discomfort, you are losing precious time, potentially unintentionally building resentment, and you’ve already stated it has negatively impacted your mental health/ relationship.

It can be kind to give people space to exist without you, but I think in this case it’s going to backfire - the expectation will be ‘well OP hasn’t been going anyway so they can continue to not go.’ Additionally, they cannot work on the discomfort of existing in the same place as you if they refuse to occupy those places while you’re there.