Dating Disasters·
SHARED PROTECTION COST
Two partners clash over who pays for contraception protection, revealing how a simple cost debate can strain trust when bodily discomfort and fairness collide.
Who should cover the cost of protection?
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She stopped taking birth control because it was making her body feel wrong, then her boyfriend told her that if protection was needed, she should be the one paying for it.
The relationship had already reached that point once before. After the poster stopped birth control because of the negative physical effects, she and her boyfriend talked it through and agreed they would switch to using protection instead. That seemed settled.
Then, about a month later, the topic came back up.
The poster said she brought it up again because she wanted to be responsible moving forward. Her boyfriend agreed to using protection, but with a catch. According to the post, he said that if she wanted protection, she should be the one buying it.
That was where the argument started.
The poster said she felt that was unfair. Protection affects both of them, she pointed out, and she was already the one dealing with the side effects from birth control in the first place. In her telling, she told him, "I don't think it's fair," and pushed back that "he should be willing to buy it too, or at least take some responsibility here."
The boyfriend did not seem interested in making it a shared issue. He brushed off her concerns and made her feel like she was turning something small into a bigger deal than it needed to be.
That left the poster second-guessing herself.
The whole question, as she put it, was whether she was overreacting by standing her ground. She asked plainly: "AITAH for refusing to buy protection and telling my boyfriend it's his responsibility?" She also said his response had left her "making me feel like I was being difficult over something small."
What makes the post tense is how ordinary the disagreement is on paper: who should buy the protection. But in the middle of it is a bigger issue for the poster, she had already changed course because birth control was affecting her physically, and now she wanted the cost and responsibility of the next step to be shared.
The boyfriend's position was simple: if she wanted protection, she should buy it.
The poster's position was just as simple: if it affects both of them, he should help cover it too.