Consent isn’t just about sex.
It’s also about getting permission before entering someone else’s space or exposing their personal information.
A woman wiho feels violated after her sister shared intimate details about her life without her consent turned to the “Am I The A**Hole” (AITAH) subReddit for feedback.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and include a wider variety of topics. But there are no designated voting acronyms or an official judgment.
Public-Performer9497 asked:
“AITAH for wanting to hold my sister accountable for publishing information about my private trauma where my baby boy died without asking me?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“This is just a long and complicated story, so please bear with me.”
“9 years ag,o I lost a baby boy in childbirth at 41 weeks who was stillborn. This was after a complicated and pretty traumatic pregnancy due to genetic complications from me and my husband, leading to concern about the baby’s viability and needing amniocentesis to confirm the baby was OK.”
“We both carry a recessive gene that is fatal and has no treatment, and there was a 25% chance that the baby had the disease, and we would have to decide to abort or have the baby and watch it die over the first few years of its life.”
“We ended up finding out he was genetically healthy around 20 weeks, the rest of the pregnancy was relatively normal, and then the pregnancy unexpectedly ended in a full-term stillbirth. This really f*cked me up, like to the point that it still makes me very sad after 9 years.”
“My subsequent IVF pregnancies leading to two living children have been very high stress, filled with anxiety, and emotional. Motherhood/family is very important to me, I think in part due to losing my first child and just wanting to be very present and involved with my girls.”
“Fast forward like 4-ish years, and my sister, who I was always pretty close to, published an article in an internationally read magazine—the online version, honestly not sure if it was in the print version—and in the article she wrote about her own experience with postpartum and as a mother to her son.”
“But she included very private details and information about my son who died and my stillbirth—medical information and other things I would never have agreed to share. She did not ask my permission and did not give me any warning ahead of time.”
“I basically woke up one morning, and a bunch of friends had reached out asking if I had given her permission to write about me and my son. They were surprised that I would give permission, knowing this has been a very painful experience for me and knowing that I am a private person.”
“I had no idea what they were talking about, read the article, was very triggered reading it, and, long story short, had an emotional breakdown. It was the idea that all these strangers were reading about my private life and had access to information that I would never have shared with them.”
“It made me feel first of all like I was back in the moments after my son died and secondly like I was being continually retraumatized by all these people reading about it without my consent.”
“Acquaintances/work colleagues/etc… who I never told about this experience started asking me about it and trying to talk to me about it—people who I would not have shared with about my private life in that level of detail.”
“I told my sister I was very upset by this, and I thought it was objectively wrong of her. We had a huge fight and essentially have not spoken since this happened.”
“Our last communication was that she would ask my permission if she were ever to write about our overlapping experience again. This also really pissed me off because it made me feel like she was centering herself in my life and trauma and kind of trying to take ownership of something that literally did not happen to her.”
“My perspective is that she did something pretty awful and that she has not apologized or taken any mitigating steps to repair. She did technically apologize—she sent a note with flowers that literally said one line—’we are sorry for your pain’.”
“I don’t consider this any type of apology as she is not taking responsibility for her actions. I don’t know who ‘we’ is, and it is not enough of an apology to make up for what she did.”
“Fast forward to this year, and she has now published a book also based on her postpartum and motherhood experience. I knew that she was publishing a book, but I assumed per our last communication that she would not include information about my son’s death or anything about my family in the book.”
“Well, I was wrong. A friend sent me a screenshot of one of the reviews in which my stillbirth was mentioned. The review says, ‘I also recoiled in the way she described her sister’s stillbirth, and just hope that her sister was part of the process and agreed to having something so tragic and personal exposed in such a callused and frankly self-absorbed way’.”
“Well, I was not. And I am very angry again at the inclusion of my life and my son’s death.”
“She has also been on podcasts where she lies: 1. she claims she is very close to her siblings—I have not spoken to her in years and plan to never again 2. she was asked if there has been ‘blowback’ about what she included where she claims that all the ‘main characters’ read many drafts of the book and were happy for her to tell her story.”
“Well, maybe I am not a main character, but I did not read a draft and did not give permission or consent for what was included.”
“Directly following this question from the podcast host, the host then says I felt so bad for your sister with her stillbirth, and then my sister just makes up a statistic that late-term stillbirth happens to 1/100 women.”
“Stillbirth which is after 20 weeks is a chance of 1/160. Like just for the record, what happened with my son at that late stage of gestation is a chance of 3 in 10,000 births.”
“I feel strongly that if you are going to act like an expert on a subject, you should not make up data like that, and I feel like hearing something like that is wildly invalidating for women who have lost their children via stillbirth or any other traumatic incident.”
“She also lies about stuff in the book—not lies that have any real impact on the world but things that are not accurate. She says she held my son in the hospital and, while I was very out of it emotionally, I am certain to the point where I would die on the hill that she never held my son.”
“She says she held him while he was ‘still warm,’ which also seems impossible since no one held him directly out of my uterus, and he was dead and logically could not be warm.”
“I know these things only matter to me and don’t matter to the general point of her book’s narrative. But, when the only way you get to be a mom to your son is through those very few memories you have, it feels like a really big deal for someone to do this.”
“OK, so what do I do?”
“My personal sense of morality is literally screaming for consequences. The first time this happened with the magazine article, I spoke to a lawyer and considered legal action.”
“I did not take that route because it is quite expensive, and there is not a possibility of putting the worms back in the can, so to speak. This information is out there and I cannot do anything about it.”
“I originally determined not to take legal action because I took my sister at her word that she would not do this again.”
“Am I an a**hole that I want there to be a consequence?”
“Would I be the a**hole if I tried to take legal action? Is there a perspective where I am the a**hole for being angry about this? Do people think what she did is not such a big deal?”
“My family is kind of split on this, and my parents are very complicit in her behavior and actions and have been very supportive of her and the book. I also feel bad that this has destroyed our once very close family, and my parents are getting older.”
“OK, there are so many details, but that is the basic outline of events from my perspective.”
“My underlying offense is that information was published about my private trauma without my consent by an author who is writing about the female experience and the need for consent.”
“I just cannot stand the irony of this situation and the enabling of someone who I think has done me serious emotional harm.”
Some Redditors weighed in by using the voting acronyms from AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Overall, decided the OP had not done anything wrong, while they took exception to her sister’s actions (NTA).
“What your sister did—twice—was a complete invasion of privacy and a violation of trust. She used your trauma to build her narrative without consent, and now she’s monetizing it.”
“You’ve clearly communicated boundaries, and she blew past them again. A half-hearted ‘we’re sorry for your pain’ isn’t accountability.”
“You’re entitled to want consequences. You’re not being dramatic or vindictive—you’re protecting your peace and honoring your son’s memory.” ~ Savannahgill11
“NTA. Honestly just go public and have her cancelled. ‘She’s not close with me. Her blatant lies about my happiness to be included in her book are unsurprising as she gaslit me when she included me in an article prior’.”
“‘The only reason I had hoped to give her the benefit of the doubt previously is she feigned ignorance about my discomfort. That’s right, we’ve had this conversation before, and instead of an apology, I received flowers with a note: “We’re sorry for your pain”‘.”
“‘At this point, I consider the act to be intentionally malicious. The audacity and egocentrism that one would have to suffer from to want to profit from their sister’s trauma after knowing their suffering’.”
“‘I’ve been considering legal action, and while I’m prepared to, if required, I will settle for others knowing the truth. That way they can decide if they want to support this person and their morals’.”
“Talk to a lawyer obviously first… but I doubt she would try to do anything… she would look worse.” ~ ApricotBig6402
“NTA. It’s very personal stuff that you already talked about it once… To me, it seems like she thinks she got away with her first publication and took it to the next level…”
“I would not waste another minute to take legal action… I’m sorry… family or not, I don’t think it’s fair to exploit someone else’s experience for personal gains.”
“I would make everything possible to turn this into a petty revenge reddit story where she ends up having her books taken off the market because that’s what she actually deserves.” ~ Rimma_Jenkins
“It is and was NOT her story to tell. PERIOD. I’m so sorry you went through this… And I’m so sorry she’s exploiting your pain for financial gain.”
“I would pursue legal action. I hope you do. I think she needs to learn a lesson or two about staying in her own lane.” ~ Negative-Pilot3034
“I would contact her publisher and tell them the things she wrote about you and tell them that 1) your sister did not have permission from you to write about you and your son and 2) that some of what she said is lies.”
“Then tell the publisher that you will be hiring a lawyer to deal with it. Then, follow through with the lawyer. NTA.” ~ theworldisonfire8377
The OP provided an update on their situation.
“The book is called The Motherload. Thanks to all of your comments, I no longer feel bad about the potential impacts to her.”
“Her Instagram and the article that I mentioned have been linked in the comments as well by some other posters. There is also quite a lot about her and her husband here on Reddit.
“I am considering my options, but I will likely use a lot of the ideas you all mentioned in your thoughtful comments.”
“Thank you for the bizarre feeling of community, solidarity, and support through the kindness and thoughtfulness of online strangers.”
The OP’s experience was theirs to share. The fact their sister did it twice without her consent might not be something this relationship ever recovers from.