Being in a relationship requires mutual respect and understanding.

A man shares how he was very understanding of his girlfriend’s daily routine of expecting him to wake her up for work.

But when she was repeatedly disrespectful towards him, he decided he had enough.

She was late for work and got fired.

Could he be in the wrong?

Let’s analyze the situation.

AITAH for refusing to wake my girlfriend up for work, which led to her getting fired?

I [26 year old male] have been in a relationship with my girlfriend, Jess [28 year old female] for three years.

Jess and I live together.

Jess is not a morning person.

This is primarily due to the fact that she’s up until 2 or 3 am every day on her phone despite having to wake up at 8am.

I’ve tried to get her to start going to bed earlier so she could wake up on time, but she says that would leave her no time to do her own things.

Seeing as she only works until 4 pm, this is patently false, but I decided not to press the issue.

He tried reasoning with her, but she kept going to bed late.

Generally, I have to wake Jess up.

I wake up at 5:00, run for an hour, get home at 6:00, shower, eat breakfast, and use my computer a bit.

I’ll start waking Jess up at around 7:30.

He “starts” waking her up at 7:30. It’s not an easy process.

I fully understand it’s ridiculous to have to wake a 28-year-old woman up, but I honestly don’t mind, or at least I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t for the fact that waking Jess up is a nightmare.

I start by gradually turning on the lights at around 7:30, starting with the bedside lamp.

Then I begin gently trying to wake her up.

If she gets up around this time, she’ll go to the bathroom, and then I’ll go back to the room to find her asleep again.

This sounds like a nightmare.

The worst part about waking her up is she’s so ornery in the morning.

She’ll use expletives directed at me, insult me, and then later when I bring up her words, she’ll just say “I was sleepy and out of it. What do you want me to do?”

Well, last Friday she pushed things a bit too far.

I was waking Jess up as usual, and when she walked past me to go to the bathroom, she made this exaggerated dry-heaving sound at me.

Then she said, “You smell. Take a shower.”

I had already taken a shower and always kept good hygiene.

She wasn’t demonstrating gratitude for what he did, and he was growing tired of it.

That evening I told her that our deal with me waking her up every day was done.

I was done with her tantrums, done with her insults, and done with her frankly stupid facial expressions with how out of it she was.

I told her that I was not moving a finger to make sure she got up for work on time.

She was naturally upset about this, but I said she could wake herself up.

Today was Monday, and lo and behold, she overslept and was over an hour late.

Being over an hour late is simply absurd.

Since she had already been written up twice during her probationary period for her job, this was an automatic firing.

Around noon she called me incoherently yelling about how I got her fired.

I had to hang up on her to get back to work.

When I got home, she immediately started shrieking at me more, and then demanded half my salary until she found a better job.

I feel like making her go cold turkey on waking up might have been too sudden, and apparently she really liked the job she had.

Should I have at least tried to wake her up?

He did wake her up many times, and she didn’t appreciate it.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this case.

A reader wonders if he’s happy.

This commenter shares their thoughts.

Another commenter chimes in.

This person shares a similar opinion.

Another blunt suggestion.

I agree.

Counting entirely on a partner to wake you up for work is a recipe for disaster.

What if she were single?

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.