Girlfriend Asks If She Was Wrong For Choosing To Take A Medication Knowing That Her Boyfriend Was Allergic To It
She just wanted to get better, but he wanted her to listen.
Dragana Gordic / Shutterstock via Canva A 22-year-old woman got into a fight with her boyfriend and decided to ask Reddit about whether or not she was really in the wrong — like her boyfriend thought she was.
She claims that over the last few weeks, she’s been really sick. So sick that the other night she and her boyfriend had woken up because of her coughing fit.
When she went to the doctor, she was prescribed penicillin, but because of her boyfriend’s penicillin allergy, they got into a bit of an argument about what they should do about it.
Her boyfriend didn’t want her to take the medicine and asked her to go to her parent's house.
“The doctor said that there was some inflammation in my throat, so he prescribed me with penicillin over the next few days,” she wrote in her post on “r/AmItheA--hole.” “I had no problem with taking this but I did know that Jake is allergic to penicillin.”
According to the CDC, and to answer one of the commenters’ questions, it is indeed possible to have a penicillin allergy — in fact, approximately 10% of all U.S. patients report having an allergic reaction to a penicillin-class antibiotic in the past.
Photo: Reddit
While we may not know the extent of her 27-year-old boyfriend’s penicillin allergy, it’s not impossible to believe that he is deathly allergic to it in the way that he claims he is.
“He told me that it couldn't be in the apartment and I can't take it around him because he was deathly allergic to it,” she continued. “He said I should get rid of it and take pain meds to get better on my own instead. I suggested that I could go stay at my parent's house for the next few days whilst I'm taking my meds.”
He claimed they would talk about it when he got home later, but she didn’t want to wait that long, so she decided to go to her parent’s house and take the penicillin to embark on her journey toward livelihood. However, things took a turn when she fell asleep safely at home.
She woke up at 5 AM to a ton of calls from her boyfriend and their friends.
“When I got to my parents, I stayed in bed for the rest of the day and fell asleep at some point. I woke up around 5 AM to loads of calls and texts from Jake and some mutual friends asking where I was,” she wrote.
Being concerned for her safety is one thing — if the last time Jake had heard from her was outside of the pharmacy, he could have been worried that maybe she hadn’t made it home, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
Photo: Reddit
“I waited a while before calling Jake back and he asked where I was and when I answered he angrily told me that it was disrespectful of me to leave without waiting for him to discuss this and that I was making a big situation by ignoring his calls last night,” she explained.
Starting off the conversation with anger and blaming isn’t really the best way to show your concerns, but she didn’t think what she did was a big deal. After all, she did tell him that she would just go to her parent’s house and take the medicine she needed.
“He said that he didn't remember me telling him this and that he was calling friends all last night asking if they knew where I was and that it was suspicious that I had been distant with him for the past few weeks just to [disappear] last night,” she continued.
She argued back (rightfully so) that it wasn’t her fault he forgot what she said the night before. She also explained that her distance was because she was sick, and had been sick for weeks. On top of that, she questioned how his allergy could have possibly been so bad that he couldn’t be in the same room as it, but he wasn’t having it.
The commenters on Reddit weren’t having it, either.
When he decided to back away from the conversation and claimed that he would talk to her when he was ready, he made the entire situation about himself even though it should have been about her and how sick she was.
“[Your] boyfriend is controlling as hell,” one user wrote. “I’ve never heard of a penicillin allergy so severe that being around someone else on the meds would affect them. If that were the case, he should have been fine with you staying [with] your parents. It’s not his place to tell you you should go without, so there was nothing to ‘discuss.’”
To this person, it seemed like her boyfriend just wanted to create a lot of drama and make a big deal out of the situation and blame her for the outcome. “It sounds like he just doesn’t want you to have something he can’t have,” they wrote, and thousands of others agreed.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.