A woman asked Reddit if she was overreacting for breaking up with her boyfriend after he declined to drive her to an abortion appointment. The overwhelming opinion from other Redditors was “no,” especially after they looked through the entire text message conversation she had with her partner and the details made it so much worse.
Plenty of people can understand when someone is too tired to safely drive. It’s another thing to refuse to go at all, laugh when your girlfriend says she’s upset about it, and then blame everything on her parents.
The night shift vs. the morning abortion appointment
At first, this man’s transgressions don’t seem too severe. According to the Reddit user, he’d had a 12-hour shift at work the night before the appointment and found himself too exhausted to drive when he woke up. However, his girlfriend was still upset at his refusal.
“Took two steps out of the bedroom and hit me with the ‘I think I’m too tired to drive you,’” the OP wrote. “Now usually I’m a problem solver but this morning I really didn’t want to argue with him or anything so I just said ok, grabbed my things and started leaving. On my way out he said sorry and asked if I wanted him to call his mom to drive me, I said no, clearly crying at this point.”
Her parents were able to take some time off work to support her at the hospital, but she was hurt enough by her boyfriend not making it to want to break up. The boyfriend probably could have salvaged the situation, but fumbled the text conversation hard.
‘You had to get surgery?’
The first thing that commenters took issue with was the fact that this boyfriend didn’t seem to know much about the procedure. He was surprised that it was “taking a while” and when informed that his girlfriend was at the hospital for four hours, he asked, “you had to get surgery?”
An in-clinic pregnancy termination procedure is often called a “surgical abortion” despite the fact that medical professionals consider it minimally invasive. Still, preparation and the checkup afterward can take quite a while, even if the procedure itself can be done in as little as five minutes.
The partner of someone getting an abortion should probably know this basic information.
“If he thinks you getting a surgery that is both physically and mentally taxing isn’t a big deal, he is seriously emotionally twisted,” said u/RadalieRambles. “He is just as responsible for this pregnancy as you. He is a terrible partner and completely insensitive.”
‘You’re 100% being unfair to me’
Things didn’t get better from there. When the boyfriend asked if the OP was mad, and she suggested that she was ready to dump him, his initial reaction was literally “LMAO.”
He then apologizes but also says the OP is “100% being unfair” to him. Commenters were ready to toss the whole man out by this point, declaring disrespect.
“When you said we’re done and I needed you and you weren’t there and his FIRST reply was LMAO, you should have dropped him immediately,” said u/RugbyKats. “Absolutely zero respect for you. That’s atrocious behavior.”
The Reddit user didn’t say anything to her boyfriend for a while after that as he begged her to respond and said he felt “really terrible.” He then accused her of making the appointment at “such a bad time for me” and complained of exhaustion from work.
In the weeds
The OP then pointed out that he was able to drive himself to get weed after a similar shift “a week ago” and asked him why he didn’t seem to care that she was crying on her way out. He didn’t respond to that last part, notably.
“I don’t know how I can stay with someone who doesn’t seem to care about me enough to drive me to my abortion,” she said as he continued to make excuses about the weed trip.
The best he can come up with is that he wasn’t “in a right state of mind” when he woke up the morning of the abortion, which could be fair, but he keeps talking himself into a deeper hole. He claims she didn’t talk to him about driving to the appointment, which the OP denies.
“I told you I would likely need you because I wasn’t sure if my parents would be working or not,” she said.
The boyfriend brushes off either being very wrong or caught in an outright lie, going on to suggest it’s her fault for not making the appointment for when he’s “not at work,” and scolded her for not taking a day off work for the abortion.
‘You did not just say that’
The situation almost recovers when the OP admits that she “could’ve made a better appointment and just take the day off work” and he admits that he should have just stayed up after his shift and apologized some more. Then he fumbles again.
He puts the blame on OP’s parents, saying “they shoulda offered to take you in all honesty.”
“You did not just say that,” she writes.
The text images end there, but it’s pretty safe to assume he did not recover based on the Redditor’s replies to other comments confirming that she planned to break up with him.
“I knew I was in the right when I posted I lowkey just wanted to be able to show him this and all the responses,” she said in one response.
The “Am I Overreacting” forum doesn’t have an official judgment function, but it’s pretty clear that commenters are on the OP’s side. The top comment, with over 6,000 upvotes, simply says, “Abort him.”
“Definitely not overacting,” says u/Asleep_Temporary_219. “He’s acting very immature. I get that you’re tired but you have responsibilities. I can’t count how many times I’ve came home after 12+ hours and couldn’t hold my eyes open but I stayed up and did what I needed to do for my family, that’s just part of being a man. You have to make sacrifices for your loved ones.”
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