Trigger warning: pregnancy loss and mental illness.
Every now and then the prolific Am I The Arsehole reddit forums throw up something less ‘He’s the asshole, dump his ass, sister!’ and more ‘have you seriously considered getting the police involved because this seems like it would be better dealt with by the law than anonymous internet users?’
For instance, take the man who’s asking if he’s The Asshole by asking his sister to take down her pregnancy announcement on Facebook until he and his wife have made theirs. Sure, pregnancy announcements can be a major deal, particularly for couples expecting their first child, but on the surface, this subreddit seems just a little petty.
But that’s not the half of it – for starters, OP’s sister isn’t actually pregnant at all. According to the 26M, she made a fake pregnancy announcement in a fit of jealousy after learning that OP and his wife were expecting.
‘Today, Anna called me and told me she won't take the pregnancy announcement down because of the attention she received from it and how it made her feel good,’ he explained. ‘She told me to make our announcement and then she would announce that she lost her baby a week later.’
Woah. As someone pointed out in the comments, ‘as a woman, she should know better’. Pregnancy loss is a worst nightmare faced by millions of women a year – recent efforts to destigmatise talking about it and the long lasting trauma it can leave behind have dominated headlines and could hopefully lead to real change. That OPs sister could fabricate such a tragedy to support her own narrative seems unhinged. And it gets worse.
‘UPDATE,’ he wrote, ‘My wife called me in tears because she realized that the ultrasound picture that [my sister] Anna included in her post is OUR baby's 12-week ultrasound that we shared with our immediate family.’
Some might be incredulous as to why OP could possibly question if he is the asshole in this situation. After Anna stole the expectant couples spotlight to shine it on herself, was prepared to lie about baby loss to cover her tracks AND publicly passed OP’s wife’s ultrasound off as her own with seemingly zero remorse, surely there was only one possibly ass-y culprit?
According to OP, his sister suffers from bipolar disorder and has used it to justify her actions over the past few months.
‘I asked why go through with all the lies rather than just take it down and move on from it?’ he wrote. ‘She said, "Because I'm bipolar, I might not have a baby and it's not fair to me. Stop being so narcissistic and just let me have some of the spotlight that I deserve but probably will never have."’
As if a fake pregnancy loss wasn’t messy enough now it seems that OP is having to navigate a serious medical diagnosis in how he deals with the situation, but feels as though she’s using her condition as ‘an excuse to pull off a big lie such as this.’ Even his parents, apparently, have urged him to let his sister have her way.
But reddit wasn’t quite so understanding, with loads pointing out that diagnosis of a mental illness isn’t a get out of jail free card.