Man snaps at his son's mom after she gets mad at him for hiding chronic illness. UPDATED.

In general, freaking out at someone over their own health issues isn't going to go over well. Particularly if they're in the throes of a flair-up.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a man asked if he was wrong for snapping at his child's mom and saying he might die before their kid graduates. He wrote:

"AITA for telling my BM that I’ll die before our kid graduates high school?"

Alright it’s probably a weird story but I really need the second opinion. Me (23M) and Kate (22F) are parents of Mark (4M). We split up before he was born, and to be honest I’m not very involved with the parenting besides being generous with child support and occasionally having Mark over. I have a chronic and terminal condition that recently landed me in hospital.

I had a really horrible flair-up and had to be admitted to ICU. To make it worse, it happened during the time I was supposed to have Mark over. I was unconscious and on life support and so I couldn’t answer Kate’s calls. When I woke up, I checked my phone and saw all the missed calls and messages. Kate was very upset as I basically ghosted her, and she sent a lot of rude and judgmental messages.

So I snapped a pic of me in the hospital bed with all the tubes attached and sent it to her with the caption “sorry was busy trying not to die.”

Kate obviously freaked out and apologised, and I, being high on meds, told her that “it’s okay just a normal day having X”.

Turns out Kate didn’t know about my condition. We didn’t really have a relationship, she was just a girl from my school whom I hooked up with and it didn’t end very well. And we don’t have much contact aside from Mark-related stuff. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her, probably forgot or something. Obviously, it made her freak out even more.

Kate called me and started crying and yelling at the same time, basically having a breakdown over the phone. She said I should’ve been upfront with her about it back then, that it’s my fault if Mark ever gets sick (it’s not genetic nor a transmittable condition so he’s okay btw). She also said it’s unfair that we made a baby who will lose his dad at a young age, and this is where I might have been TA.

I said “you know what would be more unfair? F#$king dying before my only son graduates high school.”

It upset her even more and she said that I’m the AH for making her and Mark go through this.

I said it’s not my fault, she said it is because if I was upfront with her, she wouldn’t have hooked up with me. I told her it’s too late and she called me an ah, hung up and told everyone I was an AH to her.

The internet jumped in with all of the thoughts.

Atavast wrote:

Everything sucks here. It sucks that you're dying, it sucks that you irresponsibly had a kid, it sucks that the kid will lose a parent, it sucks that you're fighting. I don't think you have a social obligation to disclose your medical history to a casual hookup, but you absolutely should have disclosed it either during the pregnancy or at latest after the birth in order to plan for the future.

Joy_to_Troy wrote:

YTA. You completely ghosted Kate when you were supposed to be taking care of your child. If this condition is something that impacts your responsibilities, you should disclose it. Additionally, she completely has the right to be upset that you fell through on an agreed upon visit with your son.

By responding so callously to her reasonably demanding an explanation, it seems like you are just trying to make her feel bad for rightfully questioning why you failed to pick up your son. Also, I don’t know what the disease is, but someone you have a child with is no longer a “random hookup.” They deserve to know information that may impact the life they equally brought into the world with you.

DamnitGravity wrote:

As someone with a medical condition I forget about until it's a problem, I wanted to weigh in here.

When these kinds of things are just part of your life that you don't think about and are as natural to you as breathing, it's understandable that you're not going to tell every single person you meet or hook up with that you have said condition. From your post, it sounds like you and Kate were a short-term thing that neither of you intended to be more than a teen romance.

Therefore, not telling her about your condition is perfectly fine and understandable. You weren't intending to have kids with her, so why would you have told her? But when you did have a kid, that's where it becomes a bit of an AH move to not say anything. Even if you're not in the kid's life, and it's not genetic/transferable, the fact you have a medical condition that will impact his life is important to share.

If nothing else, then because you're a part of his life, and if you could potentially one day drop down dead, think of how that's going to affect your kid. If he doesn't know that daddy gets sick sometimes, it's gonna be a massive shock and trauma, compared to if he knew that dad has a medical condition that may mean he's not around for the future.

Your ex also should have been made aware because of situations exactly like this. I understand sometimes forgetting your condition because it's just a part of your life, but you're also aware you have it, and that it is terminal. It's not like you had a stroke or heart attack unexpectedly.

You knew this was a consequence of your condition. She deserves to know that there may be times where this exact situation may happen: it's your turn with the child, but you have a medical emergency and can't take him. Also, consider this. What if you'd had your child, and this had happened? If you'd had an episode that required hospitalisation.

How would you have dealt with that? How would your son have reacted, seeing his dad like that? What kind of trauma could you have inflicted, had you collapsed in front of him, needed an ambulance, no one is explaining to him what's going on, what happened to daddy, if he's going to be ok, and who's going to take care of him in the meantime. I'm going to have to go with YTA, and you've been very irresponsible.

I know it's hard when this is just your life, and you fear you won't see your child grow up, but you should have told her so that you could work together to try and ensure your condition has as little horrible impact on your son as possible. And please don't give up hope. My cousin had a degenerative disease diagnosed at 25 and told she would only live to 35.

She died a month after her 60th birthday, having seen her children grow up, graduate school, go to university, start their own businesses, and meet their girlfriends. Medical advances can occur very quickly, and research is always ongoing. I hope you are able to have far more years than you're currently expecting, and get to see all those important milestones.

MissKhary wrote:

YTA for leaving out critical information that the custodial parent needs to ensure the safety of your child. What would have happened if Mark had been with you when you had a flair up? You absolutely had the obligation of providing this information.

Ladyughsalot1 wrote:

YTA. You didn’t tell the mother of your child you have a chronic condition?

You are “generous” with child support?!

After receiving plenty of feedback, OP jumped on with an update.

EDIT: Alright I went through the comment section and I’ll try to add more info here. My condition got more serious after Mark was born, I won’t bore you with the full medical history, but it evolved into a more deadly and horrible thing after I caught COVID. Mark wasn’t planned and we were on BC but a condom failed us.

Kate didn’t want to terminate because she’s actively pro-life. She knew that I’m not in good health as we went to the same school, but she didn’t know that it got worse. She also knew I had COVID. I’m not very involved with Mark because I originally didn’t want him, but she was dead set on giving birth and I couldn’t completely abandon the kid.

Hopefully, OP and Kate are able to cool down and have a more constructive conversation about what this illness means for their co-parenting down the line.