Every once in a while, a post appears on the internet that is so devoid of empathy, so completely lacking in basic human decency, that you have to read it three times to make sure it’s real. This is one of those posts. A man is here to ask if he’s the ahole for being “sick of” his girlfriend… who is clearly, actively, and agonizingly suffering from severe postpartum complications.
Our story begins with the narrator, a man whose 39-year-old girlfriend gave birth to their daughter six months ago. He describes his life since then as a “continuous, torturous cycle” of her visiting her OBGYN, being told she’s “fine,” and then having the audacity to complain about the “EXPERT OPINION.”
He’s annoyed that after her first few checkups, she insisted he come with her. Why? Because she was angry. Angry that her OBGYN, after the three-month mark, found it “unnecessary” to even examine her for tears she claims to have and just told her to do her Kegels.
Now, let’s just pause and look at what this “hypochondriac” is complaining about. She claims she feels like her “uterus is falling out.” She says she “can’t jog because she pees herself the entire time.” She says “blood clots the size of our baby’s head” keep coming out of her. And she has the “worst back pain she’s ever experienced.”
This is not a list of minor complaints. This is a list of screaming, red-flag, five-alarm-fire symptoms. This woman is describing, in textbook detail, what sounds like severe pelvic floor prolapse, catastrophic incontinence, and a host of other debilitating postpartum conditions. And what is her medical team doing?
Her OBGYN, in response to this horror show of symptoms, is telling her it’s all “a natural part of recovery.” That her “baby’s head” sized blood clots are just a “particularly heavy period.” That the only thing she needs a doctor for is to go back on birth control. I am screaming.
This poor woman is being gaslit by her entire medical team. She even yelled at her OBGYN once that her urine was red, and the doctor replied, “yes, that’s what happens when you’re on your period.” The condescension is so thick I’m choking on it.
And it’s not just the doctor. Their lactation consultant also got in a “fight” with her. This poor woman, surrounded by “experts,” is being told that her suffering is all in her head. That it’s “natural” for women to “suffer back pain” and she should just stop describing it “as if it was a kidney infection.”
So what’s a woman to do when she’s in so much pain she can’t function? She quit her customer service job, because she claimed the pain made it “unbearable.” And this, right here, is what her boyfriend is really mad about. Because now, he has to pay for everything.
He is sick of footing the bill for Ubers and medical visits. He’s angry that “millions of women” go through this and “still manage to work high powered careers, have more babies… and not go to the doctor every week” just to be told they’re “fine.”
This man is literally watching his partner’s body fall apart, listening to her beg for help, and his only takeaway is that she’s lazy and expensive. He is not her advocate. He is not her partner. He is her angry, resentful accountant, tapping his watch and complaining about the cost of her suffering.
Recently, she wanted to make another appointment because she feels like something is “tearing” down there. And he finally “exasperated enough,” snapped. He told her he was “sick of her” and “tired of hemorrhaging money” for these visits.
So, AITA? Yes. Yes, you are the ahole. You are the biggest ahole I have seen on the internet this week. Your girlfriend is not a hypochondriac; she is a woman being horrendously failed by her medical team and, most of all, by you. She needs a new doctor, and frankly, she needs a new partner.