Communication is vital.
That is always the reason kids get in trouble with parents when they’re running late.
You have to communicate.
It somebody vanishes, others tend to worry.
And that can lead to a lot of chaos.
Case in point…
Redditor Rnevermore wanted to discuss his experience and get some feedback. So naturally, he came to visit the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit.
He asked:
“AITA for calling the police on my fiancée?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“Last night my (35 M[ale]) fiancée (38 F[emale]) left in the evening to give a friend’s son a ride back to his home.”
“She implied she’d be home before 9.”
“She left at around 7:45.”
“10:15 rolled around and she still wasn’t home.”
“I texted and she apologized to me, saying that her friend’s son was actually in the next town over (maybe 30 minutes away) and she was coming home now.”
“11:45 rolled around and she still hadn’t come home, so I called her to no answer.”
“Texted her to no response.”
“I was getting very upset.”
“12.30 rolled around and still no response and no answer to my phone calls.”
“I was extremely angry.”
“1:30 rolled around and my anger had completely transformed into worry.”
“Not answering my calls and texts not read.”
“Around 1:45 I called the police.”
“I have always heard that the first 24 hours of someone being missing is the most important, so I didn’t want to delay.”
“I asked them to let me know if there had been any traffic accidents involving her car, and the operator told me that they would put out the word and send some cops to check along the route she would travel.”
“I called all the hospitals in the area to check if she has been checked in.”
“And I waited outside watching the road for her car for three hours, partially because I didn’t want the kids to hear me on the phone with hospitals.”
“And secondly because I was sick with worry.”
“At 7:00am she came home.”
“She apologized for being out and said she had no excuse.”
“She was driving home and felt tired like she was falling asleep at the wheel, so she pulled over to the side of the road to sleep.”
“When she did that, she found that her brand new phone had stopped working.”
“She says she napped anyway because it was the responsible thing to do.”
“And then came home at 7am to bring the kids to school and get to work on time.”
“I immediately called the police and told them that she had come home safely and gave them the case number and told them to stop searching, which they did.”
“My fiancée brought the kids to school and left for work.”
“I set out to start cleaning (cleaning de-stresses me sometimes), and I got a call from a policeman asking where she worked.”
“I told him, and asked why, and I was informed that it was their policy to check on the person’s wellness after a missing person is found.”
“I asked them to not go by her work but to give her a call instead.”
“He said he couldn’t promise.”
“My fiancée is relatively new to her job.”
“A police officer showed up and asked to speak with her.”
“She is now enraged at me for calling the police and ‘sending a cop to her work’ and making her look bad.”
“She is saying I overreacted and that she wasn’t missing and that I was punishing her for doing the responsible thing and not driving while drowsy.”
“She is saying that she is never going to leave the house again except for work, because she is afraid I’m going to call the cops on her again.”
“So did I overreact?”
“Should I have waited two days like she suggests?”
“AITA?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed some options to the question AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Many Redditors declared OP was NOT the A**hole.
“Uh no, her whole story is a big fat lie.”
“She told you she would be home by 9, but somehow was wrong about where the kid lived?”
“Did she not know the town beforehand?”
“Did she just start driving 30 mins and then the kid goes ‘oh no wait, I actually live in XYZ, not XXX!'”
“That part of the story doesn’t even make any sense.”
“So she ended up changing the time.”
“Then she ‘got tired’ and pulled over and napped on the side of the road?”
“You do realize that if police were looking for her on roads where she claimed she would be?
“And she was napping in her car on said road, they would have found her, right?”
“And then her NEW phone just happened to not be working?”
“Despite the fact that that simply does not happen, and even if it wasn’t working PROPERLY, she still could have called 911.”
“That’s not even mentioning the fact that I don’t know a single woman, myself included, who would pull over on the side of the road and sleep IN HER CAR WITH NO PHONE.”
“Edit: Please stop telling me that you are a woman and that you’ve slept on the side of the road in the middle of the night.”
“That’s like bragging about keeping your front door unlocked and then saying ‘well nobody has ever broken into my home so it’s obviously fine!'”
“They say ignorance is bliss, but ignorance in the case of refusing to acknowledge how frequently women are assaulted/kidnapped/etc is disgusting.”
“From a fellow woman, it’s not something to be proud of.”
“I read the news constantly. It’s insane how often terrible things happen to women.”
“You should not advocate for women further putting themselves in danger or act offended that other women are so cautious.” ~ Cynthia_Castillo677
“Especially the timing— who sleeps from midnight to 7 AM in the car on the side of the road??”
“A woman too? Not a two hour power nap, but all night?”
“And she came back conveniently in time to pick up kids and go to work.” ~ Monster-Death-Truck
“It keeps bouncing in my head that this is literally a woman we are talking about.”
“As a woman myself, I don’t even feel safe walking to my car at night, even outside my own house!!!”
“And you’re telling me this woman pulled off on the side of the road and slept for 7 hours with a ‘broken phone'”
“Yeahhhhh that doesn’t sound right.” ~ Cynthia_Castillo677
“I just need to say (I’m a woman) I once pulled over at a freeway rest stop between Santa Barbara and Los Angles because I was literally falling asleep at the wheel – I was so exhausted.”
“My eyes kept shutting and my head kept dipping and I knew it was dangerous to keep driving in that condition.”
“I slept from 2 pm until 8 pm, woke up when it was dark out, then got back on the road.”
“I was so tired that I didn’t even care about my safety, I just locked the doors and shut my eyes and I was OUT for 6 hours.”
“That being said, I don’t believe OP’s fiancée’s story whatsoever.”
“No way all of those various excuses actually occurred on the same night and I would hope the cops would have found her car on the side of the road if she really was sleeping in it.”
“Something is definitely fishy.”
“OP isn’t TA but is being extremely naive if he believes her story.” ~ Jcaseykcsee
“When I was a manager – 4 of my 6 direct reports (including myself – so 5 out of 7 of us) were single women who lived alone.”
“I kept a paper calendar on a counter in the office for people to write their schedules on – arriving late, days off.”
“I didn’t really care how people managed their schedules as long as work was covered.”
“But someone complained that I was micromanaging and I told the team – ‘if you haven’t put down that you’ll be late or out and you aren’t here and we haven’t heard from you/can’t reach you.'”
“‘I’m calling a wellness check.'”
‘”It’s what I would want you to do for me and what I’m going to do for you.”‘
“‘If you want to opt out, that’s fine.'”
“‘Send me an email so nobody asks me why we didn’t look for you when you didn’t show up for work.”‘
“‘Because otherwise, I’m going to look for you.'”
“People raising issues when we’re not where we’re supposed to be is caring. OP is NTA.” ~ Netlawyer
“NTA… but you know she’s lying, right?” ~ Kezibythelake
OP responded…
“I do suspect that the story isn’t truthful, but she doesn’t really have a history of lying to me.”
“So I’ve been trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
Reddit responded…
“Hi friend, I’d like to introduce you to two concepts that you’re going to need as you evaluate this relationship and have this happen again, repeatedly, with varying levels of f**ks given to make a believable lie.”
“This one isn’t even close to believable, so I doubt you’re going to just not notice her future bulls**t. She lays it out on neon lights.”
“Occam’s Razor: Twenty things all went wrong simultaneously?”
“Nah, broski, the razor says that if one simple answer covers all those bases, that’s the answer.”
“Sunk Cost Fallacy: Yes, you’ve put a lot into this relationship, and yes, you’ve got a lot of history together.”
“That changes exactly nothing about the current state of things, and the current state of things is shi**y.”
“This fallacy says to stop while you’re already not ahead and prevent yourself from bleeding out resources to try and save a thing just because you already put so much effort into it.”
“Think about it: even if you already paid for your house, you’d still get the fk out of it if it is on fire.”
“NTA, but you might be the fool.”
“Up to you to decide on that one.” ~ trashlikeyourdata
Well OP, Reddit understands why you were worried.
There seems to be a lot to unpack here.
It’s time for some therapy and good luck.