Relationships require a lot of sacrifice to make them work. While you shouldn’t track and enumerate the things you do for each other, you should feel like the things you do for your significant other is reciprocated.
But responsibilities often get in the way of things you want to do for each other. Redditor Dry_Abbreviations413 found this out the difficult way when their girlfriend lost her dog.
The original poster (OP) wonders whether he was wrong, and so asks the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) board about his situation.
He asked the question:
“Aita for going to bed and not helping my GF find her lost dog? (Well, not help her look all night)”
OP explained the situation:
“My gf and I are in our late 20s and we have been together for just over a year. She has this dog, a chihuahua, that she got years before we met.”
“This dog is very important to her, and I have grown accustomed to the dog and I enjoy it’s company as well.”
“I need to preface the actual event by letting y’all know I work at 5 am. I have to be out the door at 430, I usually am waking up around 4 AM. Because of this, I like to be asleep by 10 PM at the latest.”
“Last night, GF’s dog got out of the yard. I’m not quite sure how, but it’s a tiny dog so we are assuming it went underneath the back fence.”
“She started panicking and her and I drove around from 930 to around 11 pm, calling neighbors and trying to find it. Well, at 11 PM, I told her I’m sure we will find him, but I’m going back home and going to bed as I had to be up at 4 am for work.”
“She got very upset with me, she started crying even more, claiming that I don’t care what happens to the dog and I don’t care about her since I wasn’t willing to spend all night looking for the dog.”
“She even suggested I call off work or go into work late.”
“I told her that I sympathize and I’m really sorry, but she’s being ridiculous thinking that I should skip work in order to spend all night looking for the dog.”
“I apologized again but told her to come home with me and we can look tomorrow after I’m off. She didn’t want to and I went home and went to bed.”
“I woke up at 330 to the sound of GF getting home and her crying. Still no luck on finding the dog I suppose. She then told me she was questioning everything with me since I didn’t support her when she needed me.”
“I told her the bills need me to be at work; and we are gonna be in a lot more trouble if those don’t get paid.”
“I’m at work now typing this, and she’s upset still. I got a call from her mom reiterating how I’m an a**hole. But idk if I am or not.”
“And if you’re wondering, as of the time of this post, no we don’t know where the dog is.”
A number of commenters asked if it would have been so difficult to go to work tired, so OP gave a response.
“A lot are asking why I didn’t just tough it out and go to work tired, I work a physically demanding job where I also operate machinery.”
“It would have been a safety issue if I went in to work without sleeping for the past 24+ hours.”
Judgement on the AITA board is passed with one of the following acronyms:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
While commenters determined OP was not wrong here, his girlfriend’s reaction was also very understandable.
“NAH. I get your gf being upset and would be heartbroken if it were one of my dogs missing, but it sounds like the entire financial burden is currently on your shoulders which means you need to show up at work and perform well (meaning sleep is important).”
“You did stay up and extra hour to help look, so, imo, you did the best that you could in the situation, but I also feel like your gf isn’t in a good headspace to recognize that.” – the_last_basselope
“NAH. Just a rough situation for all involved. You have a point when you say the bills need you to be at work. She has a point about you not supporting her in her time of need.”
“In your shoes, I would have stayed up all night and toughed it out at work the next day – but some people can do that and others really have to have some sleep before they can be functional.” – GloryIV
“NAH I get it, her instinct is you should have supported her and helped her.”
“You’ve both got different priorities, to her this sounds like a family emergency, but to you, it’s not your dog. I don’t think you were the AH for going to bed.”
“Also I need to know if the dog was found and ok?!” – lonelyJ28
“NAH the gf could (and did) keep looking and you helped her look for an hour and a half. If she looked for that long and didn’t find the dog, it doesn’t sound like the dog wanted to be found/could be found.”
“With a dog that small it’s probably easier to look during the day anyway or hope it comes back on its own. It is emotional though so I get why she is upset.” – Exilicauda
Though not everyone thought it was so cut and dry.
While some felt OP was wrong, others also singled out the girlfriend.
“People love their dogs like family. I got my first dog as an adult and I would probably have a breakdown if he went missing.”
“I wouldn’t stop looking until I found him and I would probably be a little disgusted if my partner didn’t want to help me look for him.” – Antelope4U
“The softest YTA ever. Only because I imagine she feels the 3 of you are some sort of family and this was a family emergency.”
“I know it’s stupid because it’s a dog but certainly she feels that way – it’s totally fine if you don’t feel the same. Honestly in this kind of situation, if that happened to my gf I would have gone to work tired or called a sickie.”
“Because it genuinely is an emergency, even if you’re not looking for the dog all night your girlfriend at least needed your support. And it’s perfectly valid for her to question what kind of support she expects in these kind of situations.”
“Sorry dude.” – blacklabyrinthx
“AITA judgment is irrelevant. She’s going to break up with you over this.”
“Unless you were on some kind of final warning for missing work you should have called out or at least taken a half day. You chose not to do that.”
“I don’t know that it makes you an a**hole or not, but your gf is going to leave you over it either way. So congrats on the impending singledom I guess.” – Sassrepublic
“NTA. You didn’t cause the dog to escape. You helped search for the dog for 1.5 hours.”
“I understand why she’s stressed and upset over the dog’s absence. But you shouldn’t have to risk serious injury to yourself or a coworker due to tiredness just to search for the dog.” – SoValkyrieMama
Eventually OP gave an update, letting us know the status of the lost chihuahua.
“So I’ve been home from work awhile now, thought I’d inform y’all how this is going since there’s still comments flowing in. So.. DOG IS FOUND…”
“But (yeah sadly there’s a but) she was wounded by what we think was a raccoon. Not anything life threatening, but she’s walking weird and is pretty scratched.”
“GF taking to vet tomorrow. A neighbor found the dog screeching in their yard last night after the attack, it was after 2 am so they decided to take him in and call us at a more reasonable hour.”
“Which wasn’t until afternoon so that was strange?”
OP doesn’t give an update on how his girlfriend now views the relationship, but he didn’t say they broke up yet. Hopefully they can talk this over and work things out.