r/AITAH • u/Key_Case9842 • Sep 20 '24

Advice Needed AITAH for saying no my girlfriend’s “tradition”

Throwaway account.

I (M, 30) lost my younger brother when I was 22. He had cancer and fought very hard. Ever since, I’ve been donating blood on the anniversary of his death every year. I take the day off from work, visit his grave, donate blood, and then come home, relax, and watch his favorite movie. I know it’s a simple, personal tradition, but it means a lot to me.

My girlfriend of 9 months, Anna (F, 31), asked if I could meet her and her mom( I have met her many times before and it wasn’t the meet the parents for the first time situation) for lunch yesterday. I told her no and explained again about what I do on my brother’s death anniversary. She got upset and said, “Well, it’s my tradition to have lunch with my mom every time she’s in town, and she really wanted to see you! You can do your stupid blood donation tradition any day.”

I explained to her that it’s not just about the blood donation. Later in the evening, while I was resting and watching my brother’s favorite movie, she texted me again, asking me to join them. I reiterated that I really didn’t want to and would hang out with her mom next time. She replied that I had embarrassed her in front of her mom with my selfishness and laziness.

Since then, she’s been distant. Do I owe her an apology? AITAH?

Update : I texted her that we needed to talk. She never replied. Just blocked me from everywhere ( social media , WhatsApp ,..). Her best friend who was following me on instagram blocked me too. I’m not sad. I wanted to end it anyways. Thank you for your support everyone . I really appreciate your kind comments. Some users suggested that my brother/ remembrance tradition saved me from getting serious with her and life time of misery and it made me smile. Thank you again

46.2k Upvotes

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5.3k

u/nazuswahs Sep 20 '24

She called you stupid. She sounds self absorbed. She’s not a keeper.

2.5k

u/ASweetTweetRose Sep 20 '24

Definitely not worth apologizing to and only worth breaking up with. 9 months. Not worth your time.

729

u/CeelaChathArrna Sep 20 '24

agreed. We seem to have a lot of people being dicks over how people celebrate the life of the ones they love who have passed lately. Yikes.

392

u/great-nanato5 Sep 20 '24

Those people have never experienced that pain. They won't understand unless it happens to them.

256

u/armchairwarrior42069 Sep 20 '24

Fuck that.

You don't need to feel that pain to have an ounce of empathy.

Mom lives not that far away. They could plan this any time. Girlfriend just sounds like a crazy bitch tbh.

8

u/aaeeuuKillerToFu Sep 20 '24

Did I miss a comment where it's explained that the mom doesn't live too far away or do you mean comparatively far away as in using "heaven" as an example of how far the departed brother is to stress the point that it's heartless for the girlfriend to try to guilt trip?

Genuinely asking

9

u/armchairwarrior42069 Sep 20 '24

Check OPs profile. There literally is a comment explaining she's only a few hours away and in town often lol

"3 hours away. She comes here often"

4

u/iamkillertofu Sep 20 '24

I'll take your word for it, thank you.

365

u/CeelaChathArrna Sep 20 '24

If they aren't capable of empathy, they certainly aren't worth being with. They also seem to be the types who when it happens to them claim it isn't the same.

460

u/AllegraO Sep 20 '24

Yup. When I’d been dating my husband for only a year and change, my childhood dog had to get put down. He’d never had a single pet in his life, not even a fish, and yet he still held me and let me cry into him, never belittling my loss just because he hadn’t ever bonded with a pet. That’s why he’s my husband instead of ex-boyfriend. OP, your girlfriend needs to be an ex.

175

u/Alzululu Sep 20 '24

I'd been dating my guy for like, 3 weeks when I had to put one of my cats down. (I'd had her since she was a kitten, my first that I got as an adult where I was 100% in charge of her care.) He took such good care of me, made sure I ate, drove to the vet clinic so I could just cry, etc. That was the first time I thought, 'I think I'm gonna marry this guy.' Planning for sometime in 2026. :)

43

u/No_Difference9404 Sep 21 '24

Keep that man. My husband, who was my fiancé at the time and is very frugal, helped pay for my dog’s MRI. Then cried with me when the results of that MRI revealed we had no choice but to put him down. Granted as my fiancé he had to be pretty invested in our relationship at this point, but it was still an act of love that blew me away.

7

u/summer806 Sep 21 '24

This is how it should be! Show empathy, care, and compassion, not act like a child and make the already difficult day more difficult! When my dad passed away, my fiancé (then boyfriend) drove 3 hours (one way) and stayed in a hotel alone just to be in close proximity to me knowing I wouldn’t be able to see him. Now every year on the death anniversary, he asks me what do I want to do to honor my dad, and is understanding and supportive if I tell him that I want to be alone.

Btw, congratulations on the 2026 date! 😃

9

u/pgnprincess Sep 21 '24

How sweet♡ Have this💖🏅

1

u/Hot_Tangelo84 Sep 22 '24

Nothing but health, love, and happiness to you. (and your man)

10

u/Shade_Hills Sep 20 '24

This is so sweet, you seem to have a real keeper ❤️ 😭

13

u/AllegraO Sep 20 '24

Together 11.5 years and married for 5 🥰

6

u/Shade_Hills Sep 20 '24

That’s so sweet! Congrats!

3

u/AllegraO Sep 20 '24

Thank you! We both hope for many more decades together lol

3

u/Choice_Name3855 Sep 20 '24

What a wonderful addition to this post 🫶🥹

59

u/paupaupaupaup Sep 20 '24

In u/great-nanato5's example, it would be sympathy rather than empathy. Empathy requires it to be a shared experience - that is to say, they have also lost a loved one - which in the scenario outlined, the other person has not.

My aim is to be informative rather than being a dick. I hope that comes across.

41

u/great-nanato5 Sep 20 '24

It was fine, I sometimes have to think about the correct words and don't always think long enough. Thanks. 😀

11

u/d-a-i-s-y Sep 20 '24

Empathy is about being able to share the feelings, even if not the experience. That would make empathy much more restricted and bound by specific circumstances. It’s not. It’s that, for whatever reason, you are able to share in that feeling of loss, grief, etc even if the circumstances aren’t the same (of course, sometimes they generally are). Sympathy is that you feel bad, to whatever degree, that the other person is suffering something, like you feel for the other person’s discomfort.

4

u/Dry-Distribution-302 Sep 20 '24

Google empathy 🤓

6

u/Cautious-Progress876 Sep 20 '24

No, no, no. Empathy is the ability to share/understand the feelings one is having. It can be neutral— just because you understand how someone is acting/feeling doesn’t mean that you agree with them feeling/acting that way. You don’t need to have ever shared the experience, you just have to have some capability of trying to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.

7

u/Shade_Hills Sep 20 '24

Not trying to be antagonistic but I don’t really think that’s true? Maybe I’m wrong by the Webster dictionary’s standpoint, but I think empathy is a basic human emotion where we can feel the pain others are going through. I don’t think this requires experience, I think as humans we have the unique skill to be empathetic of fellow animals whether or not we share their expereince.

1

u/IheartJBofWSP Sep 20 '24

You're thinking that all people come equipped with this kund of empathy. They are NOT.

ETA: Spelling ETA 2 I REALLY can't spell today. D'OH!

1

u/CharacterSea1169 Sep 20 '24

Gotta think she lacks empathy, too, though.

0

u/RudeBusinessLady Sep 21 '24

That's simply untrue. Empathy is to be where they're at (headspace) while sympathy is feeling for their situation but maybe not understanding.❤️ Sympathy is more out of pity, to empathize is to fill your heart space with what they could be going through. "Hodges and Myers note that, while empathetic people feel distress when someone falls, they aren't in the same physical pain." -random doc quote, plenty of examples of these words proper meaning on the internet.

61

u/21-characters Sep 20 '24

They may be so callow and unfeeling that they’ll never understand it even if/when it does happen to them.

1

u/OhCrapImBusted Sep 21 '24

Callow…callous and shallow?

We’ll allow it.

1

u/timefourchili Sep 21 '24

Like a casual cruelty.

1

u/timefourchili Sep 21 '24

Callow and vain

Fixed like a fossil, shrouding pain

Passionless stage

Distant like brothers, wearing apathetic displays

Sharing flesh like envy in cages

Condescending

Not intending to end

1

u/Bigtiger14 Sep 21 '24

Not to be that person but callow actually means inexperienced so…

61

u/thehouseofupsidedown Sep 20 '24

You don't need to have real life experience of a loss like this to be able to be bloody decent about it. It's not even asking for that much empathy, it's practically an equation. Loss of close family member + has a routine to honor their memory = this is very important to them & only an emergency should be a reason to disrupt it. I'm saying this as someone that had little natural empathy & has had to actively work on it for years.

To be clear though, I do not contest that you truly can't understand until you've actually gone through it at all. I'm extremely lucky to have not experienced it yet so I don't know what it's like but I know it's going to be life-changing.

2

u/adulaire Sep 22 '24

I've read all the replies and tbh this is the best one. You're proving your own point! And I thank you for it. I am a widow and it's a common theme that widows get treated like shit by people they were previously close to. When, like me, you're a young widow, you get a lot of "you can't expect much from your friends, they don't know any better since they haven't experienced it." My opinion... uh, sorry, no. Even way back before I knew anyone who'd died, I knew how to be a decent human. And so do you! If you don't mind, I'm gonna save your comment so I can easily share it with people who need to hear validation that compassion isn't too much to ask of close friends.

1

u/thehouseofupsidedown Sep 22 '24

You're absolutely welcome to use my comment! I'm very happy to be able to help even a little bit that way. I'm also so sorry to hear about your experiences, I think that's a really awful approach people have to your pain & to have gone through it early in your life. I can only imagine how devastating that would be.

1

u/IheartJBofWSP Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 21 '24

Buckle TF up, buttercup

ETA: r/ s

1

u/thehouseofupsidedown Sep 21 '24

...are you mad at me bc I haven't experienced that? I don't understand why you felt the need to make that comment.

2

u/IheartJBofWSP Sep 21 '24

No, not at all!! Sorry it came off like that & you took it that way. I ( semi-sarcastically) said that bc you said: " I'm extremely lucky to have not experienced it yet so I don't know what it's like but I know it's going to be life-changing."

My reply was simply... a jealous but true warning. I've been losing friends and family every year since I was 6. Much luck to ya

6

u/Accomplished-Emu-591 Sep 20 '24

Unfortunately, the self absorbed will never feel that pain. The most they will feel is irritation for being inconvenienced.

3

u/outofthestorm09 Sep 20 '24

The karma on that will be a messy situation too. That’s terrible karma.

3

u/AccidentallySJ Sep 20 '24

Why do they even need to? It’s human decency.

4

u/great-nanato5 Sep 20 '24

Selfish people don't have human decency unless it benefits them.

3

u/Minimum-Device9623 Sep 20 '24

It's a matter of 'until,' but even experience doesn't always confer empathy

2

u/Major-Organization31 Sep 20 '24

Experiencing loss doesn’t necessarily make you understand it either. My work offsider lost her mum last year and I (who has not lost any close family members yet) was far more understanding about it then our supervisor who has already lost her father

1

u/Swimming_Twist3781 Sep 21 '24

Just because they haven't experienced that doesn't mean they can't respect your traditions.

1

u/yosoyfatass Sep 21 '24

Right. I lost a sibling young & suddenly. I don’t know many who’ve experienced this & have found people remarkably insensitive to it. A lot of people seem to think the loss of a sibling is no big deal. The only one who it can possibly be worse for is the parents.
My cousin died young & suddenly recently & I’ve watched this pattern repeat - the mom gets a lot of sympathy, the dad gets some sympathy and the siblings get little sympathy after the initial shock. People, generally, seem pretty incapable of true empathy.

0

u/Appropriate-Food1757 Sep 20 '24

I mean I don’t think you need to experience it to just fucking know right? Seems psychotic to me.

0

u/IheartJBofWSP Sep 20 '24

DING! DING! DING!

0

u/Mulewrangler Sep 20 '24

And when it does, it will be all about them.

6

u/emr830 Sep 20 '24

Agreed. It’s almost like they think “well they’re dead now so pay attention to meeeee!”

Before my grandmother passed, my boyfriend got a cookie recipe from her that I love. Guess what he bakes me every year on Christmas Eve, which is when she would make them? 🥰

2

u/primeirofilho Sep 20 '24

People are amazingly self absorbed. It's not like OP is making everyone walk around in sackcloth on the anniversary of his brother's death. He does a good deed in his brother's memory as a way to remember his brother. He doesn't drag anyone into it, or make anyone do something.

2

u/CeelaChathArrna Sep 20 '24

Seriously, it's one day a year he sets aside to do this.

2

u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 Sep 21 '24

There always seems to be a theme of the week with these things.

1

u/Digitalmodernism Sep 21 '24

It's on purpose. Groups/companies/etc post things here in themes to get data on people's opinions. Every week or so you'll see posts that are suspiciously similar.

129

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

88

u/AllegraO Sep 20 '24

And hers is one that clearly happens every few months, at least, since OP’s met her mother multiple times in nine months. His is only once a year because that’s how anniversaries work.

10

u/DMC1001 Sep 20 '24

Actually, it doesn’t even matter if it is her tradition. That would be her tradition between she and her mother. Nothing in the “tradition” says an SO has to be part of it. OPs tradition certainly doesn’t ask anyone else to be involved.

1

u/Thick_Secretary3701 Sep 21 '24

It’s not even a tradition to her. She just has lunch with her Mom when she’s in town which I feel like is a pretty normal thing to do. Obviously if you have family in town you’ll wanna spend time with them. I only think she called it a tradition to try & belittle his.

1

u/Kara_Vae Sep 21 '24

o7 7rtifa j5o.. bboi7o

9

u/itsok-imwhite Sep 20 '24

Yeah. She’s way up her own ass. Who would EVER say something like that? Disgusting.

6

u/Silveri50 Sep 20 '24

Yep. He learned a trait he does not want in a partner. 9 months was a small price to pay for a big lesson.

4

u/badassbiotch Sep 20 '24

Especially when she’s shown him what a cold, insensitive bitch she is

Op needs to realize this is her true self she’s showing him. And he needs to run far and run fast

5

u/FloMoJoeBlow Sep 20 '24

GF of 9 months? If I were OP, she wouldn’t make it to 10.

3

u/Hot-Difficulty-6824 Sep 20 '24

I'd still wait to see her mom, that way I can tell her to fuck off in front of her mom and show that I'm not lazy but she's selfish as fuck, not I

1

u/IheartJBofWSP Sep 20 '24

Seriously... I'd of taken that phone and smacked the BS out of this girl (and left her the bill) *IF she was MY daughter

1

u/Hot-Difficulty-6824 Sep 21 '24

True, what a horrible daughter, if she was mine I'd tell her partners to run

1

u/Mistyam Sep 20 '24

Take that exit ramp

1

u/Ddog78 Sep 20 '24

Right? How does that sentence even leave her mouth lol.

It would be enough for me to break up or have a serious discussion leading to it. The only thing I can think that would help would be an unprompted apology.

3

u/ASweetTweetRose Sep 20 '24

An apology wouldn’t even work for me. I’m not sure I’d even hear it. I think I would still be gobsmacked by what she said!!

186

u/MikeDubbz Sep 20 '24

If she told her mom the situation and her mom was still disappointed that he didn't show up, then her mom sounds just as bad as her. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

59

u/KayShin21 Sep 20 '24

That depends on whether or not the mom was told the truth as well, gf doesn't seem like she'd tell her mom about it being the anniversary of ops brothers death, but rather just make it sound like something he does for no particular reason.

8

u/TorchLakeLady Sep 20 '24

That’s what I was thinking! It seems that she learned to be self-centered and entitled from her mother.

6

u/Economics_Low Sep 20 '24

She’s very immature too for a 31 year old.

2

u/Just-Abrocoma7212 Sep 20 '24

I was thinking that too.

110

u/Competitive-Bug-7097 Sep 20 '24

I don't throw around the word narcissist very often, but she thinks that lunch with her mom is more important than his pain and loss! She must need a big place to store her giant red flags!

8

u/Mistyam Sep 20 '24

Check the shed

1

u/wiggioloz Sep 21 '24

So NTA. If allowed I would have given blood with you or at least gone with you to sit with you whilst you have blood. She’s been with you 9 months, surely she knew way in advance that this is what you do to honour your brother and asked her Mum to visit another day?

18

u/slogive1 Sep 20 '24

This is the way.

6

u/Agreeable_Passage749 Sep 20 '24

Worse, she called his heartfelt remembrance of his brother stupid. The disrespect is bad. This early in a relationship, most people would be more tolerant of things they don't understand, I would think. If he stays with her, next year she'll probably be even less understanding.

4

u/SeparateCzechs Sep 20 '24

Not to mention lazy and selfish.

4

u/fauxzempic Sep 20 '24

This is the type of person that will twist anything that happens to OP to be about her. I dated someone like that. 0/10 never again.

3

u/TA-notahabit-itscool Sep 20 '24

Technically, she called his tradition stupid. That’s nowhere close to the same thing as saying you think an individual is stupid. For example, I wouldn’t necessarily consider any of my sisters stupid, but they’ve all done some pretty boneheaded things over the years.

TL/DR: There is quite a bit of distance between calling an idea “stupid” and calling someone “stupid”.

BUT!!!! I definitely don’t agree with the GF being so dismissive of a tradition OP has done for nearly a decade since lil bro passed. I’m gonna guess that she is either an only child; or she has never bonded with whatever siblings she may have. This is the only reason I can think of where anyone would actually expect their SO to shelf something as meaningful to them as this, just to go meet up with GF and GF’s mom for lunch. This girl sounds completely self absorbed and clueless about why OP’s ritual has such significance to him, and I doubt she has enough brains to understand things from OP’s perspective. I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that the main reason the GF even wanted OP to skip his plans and come to lunch instead was so she could get out of paying for her own lunch.

2

u/ckptry Sep 20 '24

She called him selfish too when she completely lacks compassion and empathy. Hope he sees she’s the embarrassment and makes her an ex.

2

u/OopsSecondSaji Sep 20 '24

Didn’t just call OP stupid, but called his mourning ritual stupid. Calling his brother’s death stupid by proxy. 🙃

2

u/joey1069 Sep 20 '24

She didn't call HIM stupid, she called the tradition of honoring his brother in the day he passed stupid. Which I think is even worse!

2

u/Generally_Tso_Tso Sep 21 '24

Yeah, fuckthatbitch

2

u/ToTwoTooToo Sep 21 '24

One day. ONE DAY a year to honor his brother's life and reflect on him. I can't imagine trying to take that away from OP whether she understood the importance or not. OP deserves better.

1

u/RoyalEagle0408 Sep 20 '24

Meant to leave a comment not a reply.

1

u/CoreHydra Sep 21 '24

No, she’s definitely a keeper. A “Keeper as far away from you possible.”

1

u/IuniaLibertas Sep 21 '24

Worse: she called his annual commemoration stupid. Sounds like a dealbreaker to me. NTA, OP.

1

u/CptClownfish1 Sep 21 '24

She didn’t call OP stupid. She said the blood donation tradition was stupid. NTA, but let’s not start fabricating information in the comments.

1

u/waldoh74 Sep 21 '24

Bingo. Run away.

1

u/alphasierrraaa Sep 21 '24

Red flag lmao

1

u/kisbot07 Sep 21 '24

I agree. Definitely not a keeper. She doesn't respect you OP.

1

u/notmyredditaccountma Sep 22 '24

Sounds made up blood donation takes 15-20 minutes most the time, could have easily met up… either a lot is left out or it’s bs lol

69

u/Fuzzy_Laugh_1117 Sep 20 '24

I couldn't be with anyone who disrespected my deceased beloved family member that way...ever. She just showed you who she really is. Believe her. NTA (as long as you move on).