'Volatile and aggressive': Internet backs woman for causing fire hazard in BF's parents' home
A woman's revelation that she gets diarrhea every time she visits her boyfriend's parents' house has prompted serious discussion on the Internet. The scenario was posted by Original Poster (OP) u/AmITheeA** in the popular Reddit group 'Am I The A**hole?', where it received more than 16K upvotes and close to 4K comments.
In the Reddit post titled "AITA for lighting a match at night and 'scaring' my boyfriend’s dad so badly he woke up the whole house?" A woman started off by saying that she, along with her boyfriend were staying at his parents' house and gave some background information. She said, "His dad is very particular. He has moments every day where he corrects or instructs the other people in the house on how he wants us to behave. I don’t really have a problem with it, but he has a few rules that do make me a little uncomfortable."
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'I always get diarrhea here'
She continued, "I don’t need to get into why, but I always get diarrhea here. I’ve been visiting them a few times a year for almost a decade and it just is what it is. My boyfriend and I used to stay in a room downstairs with a bathroom and it wasn’t a problem, but his brother moved back home and now we don’t have our own bathroom. I don’t want to advertise the fact that I have diarrhea to everyone in the house and I’m not allowed to use the bathroom fan at night, so I usually use Poo-Pourri or Just a Drop. When we got home the last time, my boyfriend got a text from his dad asking him to ask me to stop using 'strong essential oils' as it was making him feel sick. I was so embarrassed and I honestly have been kind of dreading coming here again."
OP discussed this with her mother who suggested her to use paper matches to mask the smell. "I got some paper matches and they actually work pretty well." She continued, "Tonight I woke up from my sleep because I had diarrhea. I lit a match when I was done, ran it under water and folded it up into some aluminum before throwing it in the garbage. I fell back asleep and was woken up a while later by a big commotion. My boyfriend’s dad smelled burning and thought the house was on fire so he woke everyone up in a panic and searched the house to see what was burning. I didn’t immediately equate a match with a house fire and I didn’t smell anything when I woke up so I didn’t bring up that I had lit a match. It wasn’t even clicking for me that the match was what he smelled until my boyfriend asked me if I smelled anything when I got up earlier to use the bathroom."
"Long story short, I just got chewed out by his dad for 'lighting matches at night or lighting matches in general as a guest in their home' and even his mom was upset because I could have 'started a fire' and 'nobody would know'. I apologized and everyone went back to bed but then my boyfriend lectured me for like 15 mins about 'embarrassing him' and 'playing dumb' about not knowing what his dad smelled and not using 'common sense' and then he told me to 'go to sleep' and 'try not to wake everyone up again'," OP added.
OP concluded the post by saying, "I'm honestly so pissed. My boyfriend is sleeping soundly and I’m just laying here getting madder and madder. I want to wake him up so we can leave because I feel so uncomfortable. I really don’t want to face everyone in the morning. I don’t feel like I did anything wrong, but I don’t know if I’m thinking rationally because I’m tired and I can’t fall back asleep. What do you think, am I the a**hole?"
'An incredibly stressful environment'
Almost 4000 people left comments on the post. One user commented, "I think you get diarrhea at these people's home because it's an incredibly stressful environment where you are walking on eggshells the entire time to tiptoe around his extremely volatile and aggressive father. I mean Jesus Christ, have these people never owned a candle? NTA."
'I get sick there because of the food'
OP replied, saying, "The stress probably doesn’t help, but I get sick there because of the food. They do things like leave meat out on the counter all day to thaw and they don’t put all the leftovers in the fridge and if they do it’s not done quickly enough and there’s just a lot of cross contamination and stuff with raw meat. None of them get sick I guess because they are used to it, so it’s not a priority for them to change the way they do things. My boyfriend has tried suggesting different food safety things to them, but they aren’t interested. I always try to be polite when I’m a guest in someone’s home and it’s important to me to make my boyfriend happy, but I’m just so over this trip and I want to go home. Sorry for ranting to you and thanks for your comment."
'Have you ever swapped your meal with your boyfriend?'
Another user advised OP saying, "Given that no one else ever gets sick, have you ever swapped your meal with your boyfriend? I have seen a series of posts with a similar issue. The poster discovered that her sauce (I think it was the sauce anyway) had been tampered with. I believe she also learned from her boyfriend's reaction that he was fully aware of this. Maybe the food is off and you are just more sensitive, maybe it's innocent. But each and every time? And only you? Given that they do not seem concerned with your comfort elsewhere, consider the possibility this might be deliberate."
'Stop covering it'
A third commented, "Girl at this point I'd be taking the loudest smelliest dumps. You have tried everything to cover it and they've bitched about it so stop covering it. When FIL bitches about that just say, 'well Im not allowed to use the fan. Im not allowed to use a smell masker. Im not allowed to light a match. And Im not allowed to cook food that doesn't make me ill. So Im not sure what else to do.' Cuz the real solution is to just not go back but Id love to hear what FIL's controling ass solution will be. Ban the bathroom at night probably,"
While a concerned user wrote, "NTA. But in the first paragraph you said 'I don’t really have a problem with it' sweetheart your whole body is saying otherwise. There is no reason you should have diarrhea every time you go over there. While I agree you shouldn’t light a match at night you still took the precautions to assure it was fully put out. Also, is the dad a blood hound? Lol How is he smelling this whole later through bedroom doors while dead asleep."
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