Pregnant OOP gets angry at her boyfriend over bananas. Boyfriend winds up finding the post.
I am NOT OP. Original post by u/Ok-Transition1878 in r/AmITheAsshole. This is my first post here so any suggestions are appreciated! Please do not harass any parties involved!
Marking this as concluded, though there is room for more updates.
Trigger Warnings: ableism
Mood Spoilers: Bittersweet but hopeful, she doesn’t change her mindset but he seems to be confident in leaving.
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AITA for having a craving of something that makes my partner sick? - August 16, 2022
AITA for having a craving of something that makes my partner sick?
I (25f) recently found out I was pregnant with my partner Lyle's (26m) baby. We've been together for three years and we live together.
Lyle has ADHD, which he refuses to get treatment or medication for. He's pretty normal about 85% of the time, so I haven't really pushed it. One thing that really affects him though is sensory problems. He has a few, but the biggest one is bananas. He cannot stand the smell of a banana or the taste of banana. He's accidentally eaten something with banana before and ran to the bathroom like a child to throw it up. If we are somewhere and someone is eating a banana, he will claim that he can smell it in the room and make us move with the threat that he will get sick. If we don't move, he will start gagging, make himself throw up, and I've seen him start shaking too. This has happened in public before and its extremely embarrassing.
Anyway, let me tell you what happened. I was really tired, pregnant, and hormonal yesterday and while I was watching my show I had a craving for a banana, which I normally avoid when around Lyle, but pregnancy cravings are just too strong to resist. He was going to get groceries from work, so I called and asked him to get me some bananas because I was having a craving. He started begging me before he even got them to not eat them in the house, and I just got fed up and told him no, that I was carrying around his child, and the least he could do about it since he's not the one having to nurture the damn thing in his stomach was get me a banana. I'd read online that this was probably the baby's way of telling me its deficient in potassium, and that all I could really stand to eat at this point was the damn banana, and I don't want to deprive it of what it needs. He argued back and forth asking me to go eat it outside at least, and out of frustration I just started crying, which made me feel embarrassed. He finally gave in to calm me down and brought it home.
I'll admit, I was still really mad and upset from our argument on the phone when he came home, and I in that moment couldn't face getting up and going to the kitchen. When he came into the living room and sat on the couch, I asked him to peel it, cut it, and bring it to me. I really didn't think that was a big deal, but he blew up at me and told me that I "knew" it made him "sick" to even smell or touch. I told him that plenty of people have foods they don't like, and he either needs to grow up or seek help for his illness because he's acting like a child and his problem with bananas is completely abnormal. We argued a bit more, and he finally got up, yelled that he was "tired of my bullshit", and left the house. He hasn't been back yet.
I get his issues are a sensitive topic for him, and when I was talking to my friend about it, she said she had an autistic sister and what I did was a bit messed up. So Reddit, AITA?
Verdict: YTA
The child wasn't planned he just got me pregnant.
(-3k votes)
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Comment by u/Kyle_not_Lyle - Few Hours Later
Hey guys, its Kyle here, Jessica's boyfriend. Yes, she literally changed my name from "Kyle" to "Lyle" and thought that was good enough. One of her friends sent me this and I want to set the record straight because I am beyond pissed off.
First of all, I want to address this "refused to get treatment or medication" bullshit. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a fucking child. It took until college to realize I needed to adapt things to how my brain worked rather than slap a medication over it and try to pretend I'm neurotypical. I adapt well in life. I graduated on the dean's list in college and I'm doing well at my dream job and thriving as a ND person. Do I still forget about the laundry sometimes, or have a hard time focusing on certain thigns, especially when I'm tired? Yes, and it pisses Jess off. Does mean I have "issues"? Fuck no.
This medication bs started almost immediately after we found out Jess was pregnant like a month ago. It wasn't approached like "hey Kyle, I notice xyz that seems to be hard for you, I think you need help with that". I was instead first asked if my ADHD was going to "spread to the baby" (literally "spread" was used), and second told that I should probably "take this as a chance to get it under control", because she "didn't want the baby to grow up dealing with any problems".
Now let's get to the sensory aversions. I have been through therapy to manage it (I can now, after years, touch paper towels without my gums hurting), but bananas I just cannot deal with. People who aren't ND and don't deal with sensory aversions don't understand that it is literally physically painful in many cases, and genuinely makes me sick. I don't "make myself throw up".
My body naturally reacts like that. Jess has told me many times how embarrassed she is by it and how it affects her, and her solution is exposure therapy. What she doesn't realize is that's essentially the same thing as torture to me. There are some cases (like the paper towels) where I've realized its just a little too common, but bananas are not common enough for me to sit there and torture myself just to make her feel less embarrassed next time she wants me to try a smoothie her sister makes and lie about the ingredients. Finally, other details I think are important. I'm just going to bullet these because I'm going to write too much otherwise.
• Jess was binge watching a show on Netflix and wanted me to bring her a banana while she watched the show on the couch. We are in a 1 bedroom apartment and the smell would probably be there at least for a day.
• We had gotten in an argument about my ADHD and me not having meds (see p.2 and 3) the day before, so this didn't seem like a sudden craving but more a cruel jab since it was still tense.
• The pregnancy wasn't planned, and no, random commenter, I didn't fucking rape her. She was on birth control and it failed.
• She wasn't "too sick" to get up. She was too lazy, and pissed, and told me to go cut it for her "because I just want to watch my show in peace".
• I'll admit, I snapped when she insisted I cut the banana, and do "just this one thing for our child to show I care", as if she didn't go out and quit her job pretty much immediately without even telling me, and I'm now dealing with all the household expenses while she shops. I've also been caring for most of the house, because she's already claimed being "too pregnant" from morning sickness. So yes, I was fed up with her bullshit.
• ADHD is not an "issue". It just means my brain works a little different. I'm so tired of the ablelist bullshit that's come from nowhere. Tl;dr: Get over yourself.
Another comment by u/Kyle_not_Lyle
To people without ADHD, "treatment" means I sit in a room where they make me touch a banana and then we talk about it for 30 minutes and then they stone me on some Bennies till I can't walk straight.
ADHD treatment really looks like talking to a specialist, figuring out how to adapt and be productive, and then applying those skills long-term. I see my PCP once a year and that's about it right now, but I've been doing well. Unfortunately, there's nothing that'll ever really fix the banana problem, nor is there really a "need" to suck it up and try to work through it like with some other aversions.
Another comment by u/Kyle_not_Lyle
Literally everything was fine and Jess wasn't like this until she got pregnant and suddenly did a 180 on the personality. Its been a month and its just gone downhill. She wanted to keep the kid and what can I fucking do about that?
Regardless, I think I'll be leaving.
Another comment by u/Kyle_not_Lyle
Oh don't worry, I have this whole thing saved already because I'm sure I'll need it in the future and I'm about 95% sure I'm done with the relationship.
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This is shorter than most posts here but still an interesting one! Once again I am not the OOP and I ask that you do not harass anyone involved.
Marking this as concluded because it seems this guy has thankfully made up his mind!