From illness to menstruation to other situations, we all know that sometimes it’s messy being a human.
But some people are disillusioned over how much control someone might have over their symptoms, especially women while menstruating, side-eyed the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
While staying over at her boyfriend’s house, Redditor Outlandishnesslcy103 accidentally got blood on her boyfriend’s mattress and was working to get the stain out.
But when he stopped talking to her, claiming that she should have been able to control this, the Original Poster (OP) wasn’t sure what to think.
She asked the sub:
“AITAH for getting period blood on my boyfriend’s mattress? Now he won’t talk to me.”
The OP slept over at her boyfriend’s house while menstruating.
“I (24 Female) woke up this morning and got my period a week early. I had spotting yesterday but chalked it up to missing a birth control pill and went to bed without a tampon/pad.”
“I was sleeping with my boyfriend (23 Male) at his apartment. His mattress and sheets are stained, and I am working to get them out.”
The OP was surprised by how badly her boyfriend took the accident.
“He is mad and hasn’t talked to me for a few hours, saying that he doesn’t believe the stain will come out.”
“I obviously feel bad, but there’s no way I could’ve predicted this. And as a woman, this feels like it’s pretty low stakes.”
“Does my boyfriend have a right to be mad?”
“AITAH?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some reassured the OP that she was NTA and that this could be easily fixed.
“NTA. This could have been handled with maturity, or humor, or maybe even both. And a little hydrogen peroxide.”
“That’s the easiest fix. Taught my teen all about it so she can make sure her underwear doesn’t get stained either.”
“This man is ridiculous. Being with a woman comes with certain situations, like unexpected periods, lost hair ties, and stolen hoodies. If you don’t want those, don’t date women.” – wavesnfreckles
“I diarrhea pooped in my bed and my husband was laying next to me. Not a little splat of poop or even a solid turd, I obliterated that bed with runny poop.”
“I immediately got up and ran to our shower, dripping a trail of poop drops along my way, and my husband hearing me crying got up and realized what had happened.”
“Right away he went to the shower and gave me a kiss, held me until I relaxed, then went to scrub the poop out of the mattress and put the sheets in the wash. He changed the sheets and brought me clean pajamas and a towel. Then he changed our baby and made him a bottle and tucked me into our clean bed.”
“This all happened at four in the morning, and he had work at nine.”
“Just letting you know what kind of people exist out there so you don’t have to put up with this prissy a**hole.” – Reasonable_Turn_5976
“Nope, you can’t control when you get your period and I feel he shouldn’t be mad about something like this.”
“This boyfriend is probably one of those guys who think you can hold your period like you can hold your bladder. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard stories of guys saying, ‘Why didn’t you just hold it?'”
“I’m over here thinking we need better health, hygiene, and sex education classes if parents aren’t going to teach these things.” – Aimless78
“Cold water and hydrogen peroxide, and those stains will come right out.”
“This is what I told my bf after we woke up to find our cat had puked the bloody remains of his midnight kill all over the duvet.”
“He was like: how do you know that?! Have you been watching murder shows or something? Me: Sigh, basic female knowledge, hun.” – First_Pay702
“Peroxide gets rid of bloodstains. Dumping gets rid of manbabies.”
“You’re NTA, but a man who gets mad over periods is a man who can’t be relied on when a relationship inevitably goes through worse times. Cut your losses now. Adulthood is full of messy situations, and a partner should be a help, not an added problem.” – SeePerspectives
“If he’s this immature over a natural, uncontrollable part of your body, how is he going to handle anything harder down the road?”
“Bloodstains come out. But that kind of attitude? That stays. Relationships require empathy, not silence and pouting over a mattress.”
“You deserve a grown adult, not someone who ghosts you over biology.” – ConceptMajestic9156
“Does he realize you’re a female? Does he understand this is part of being a female? I’d have a hard time if my partner got angry over something that is biological and not always predictable. NTA, but he definitely is.” – Ok-Butterscotch-6708
“Let’s say he got married. Can you imagine how he would be with pregnancy?”
“This post just reminds me of a lot of guys I know as a religious 20-something-year-old. Some of them are so uncomfortable with female anatomy that they avoid learning anything about it (well, other than what they need to know about it for sex). But it’s also so important to their life plan to become parents.”
“The guys I’m talking about have been sheltered a lot. They haven’t considered that pregnancy usually involves post partum blood clots, labour shits, getting stitches in your vagina, and so on. They certainly haven’t considered what their wives will need from them as their bodies do all these embarrassing, scary, and painful things that are necessary to have a baby.”
“They can’t even handle thinking about periods, how are they going to handle thinking about any of that? It’s ironic that in my experience, the less mentally prepared a guy is for supporting a girl through pregnancy, the more likely they seems to be to want to be a dad.”
“Anyway, I wonder if OP just thought he could go through life never interacting with periods? Some guys seem to think that and then also say they want to be parents. I always wonder how they think that’s going to work out for them?” – ElevatorLiving1318
Others shared far less toxic reactions to situations like this that had happened.
“I had a hookup from Tinder bleed on my literally three-day-old mattress, and I laughed and said, ‘I guess this is your mattress now.'”
“Anyway, we’re getting married. NTA, OP.” – RushPrimary2112
“I have the world’s most heavy and unpredictable period. Masculine men don’t care about bodily functions. Toxic baby people do. NTA.” – Codeofconduct
“A completely opposite situation for me was when blood dripped on the carpet because of postpartum bleeding. I was so distraught that I thought it wouldn’t come off.”
“My husband was so chill that he simply went to the bathroom to get a wet cloth and bleach. Then, he started scrubbing, and it was gone in less than five minutes.”
“OP, NTA.” – stranger_iceee
“My husband and I were long distance when we were dating (eight hours away), and on a visit to him, my period came early. I used to be a pretty bad cramper, and I didn’t bring more than an emergency pad. He told me to take a nap and asked exactly what I needed him to get. This man was NINETEEN.”
“Fourteen years later, and he still takes excellent care of me.” – considerthelilies
“The first time you ask your boyfriend you get your pads or tampons is always incredibly revealing. The first time I asked my current partner, I honestly didn’t know how he’d take it because despite being a fully tattooed, gangster tough guy, he’s kinda shy.”
“I got a Facetime from him standing in the feminine hygiene aisle with an arm full of products and a very shy-looking young girl that worked there. He was like, ‘This girl says she can’t tell me which one to get because she doesn’t know about your flow. Are you regular? Do you like the colourful ones? Why is this box so expensive?'”
“I’m pretty sure that girl had to give a guy with gold grills and full face tattoos the run down on tampons, bless her heart. But he came through and actually cared enough to make sure I got the right kind instead of just grabbing any box. To be fair, I still stand in the tampon aisle like a lost dog sometimes, way too many options.” – xombae
“I bled out while 29 weeks pregnant all over our car. My husband never once complained. He cleaned the blood and kept me calm because I thought either myself or our daughter was dying.”
“He would never in a million years dream of getting mad at me for a period accident.” – Superb-Mousse1672
“I discovered I had a bleeding disorder after I had my wisdom teeth out, and woke up glued to the bed in a slowly growing pool of blood. My wife managed to care more about me than the stain.”
“When any two people live together for longer than five minutes, things are going to happen. Someone is going to s**t themselves. Someone is going to puke all over dinner. Someone is going to have a period leak.”
“Someone will sneeze a huge snot rocket onto the screen of the TV from eight feet away and splatter George Clooney right in the noggin while watching ER. Don’t ask.”
“People are messy. It comes from being mostly water. We are all essentially an overheated soup can ready to explode at any moment, honestly. Unless he plans to live the rest of his life alone, he best get used to some shit. Being in a relationship isn’t really for the squeamish.” – lpmiller
“I was married for 12 years, and guess how many disgusting things happened to our bodies during that time? A bajillion! Blood, p**s, s**t, vomit, injuries and surgeries requiring bandage changing and care taking, squeezing blackheads out of each others’ backs… everything you can imagine.”
“That’s what partnership is (plus all the fun stuff). OP needs to ditch this child immediately.” – CubbyRed
The subreddit could agree that bodily functions could be gross to experience and gross to clean up, but they aren’t worth actually getting upset about and certainly not something to shame.
If the OP’s boyfriend was already shaming her and being critical of her during a routine menstruation cycle, he likely was not grown up enough to face other more critical symptoms of a long-term relationship, like illness or even a pregnancy.
Since they were both still young, the OP had plenty of time to find a partner who valued her during every phase and ruined bedsheet.
Her current boyfriend, on the other hand, was still young enough to grow up.