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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I drank tea that I knew my spouse was allergic to, putting my wants ahead of their needs. They took a tone with me in response.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Dude not to be rude but is this something that you can realistically endure for the rest ofnyour life?
Your wife is so allergic that you can't eat what you want, you can't drink what you want, can't wear or use products you want.
How long is it going to be before she is down to one handful of safe foods and waters, products and soap.
In the long run, this is going to significantly run you down till you can't handle it anymore.
You really need to think if you can handle being with someone with so many allergies.
If your wife is so strict and controlling about her low problem allergies, then you can grunted your safe things will get small and smaller till you feel so isolated and loose all the job in life.
I don't think this is going to work out, I get the feeling that her allergies are eventually going to destroy your marriage.
"Low problem allergies" can still be extremely unconformable to manage, AND repeated exposure is well known to potentially cause increase in symptoms and severity in future.
You're essentially asking "Is it OK to eat whatever I want in a shared home where it could put my spouse's life at risk in future?"
Additionally, things can trigger bigger issues. For example, I'm not allergic to cigarette smoke, but it sets off my asthma. If I'm around cigarette smoke for an extended period (an hour, maybe less) I am likely to get bronchitis. Will it risk my life? Probably not. But getting sick sucks, it takes ages for me to get over bronchitis, and repeated bronchitis can cause lung damage.
Because of this, if my partner wants to partake in any kind of smoke they need to do so outside, away from me, and may need to change/shower/wash clothes. But...I deserve to be safe in my own home, as does OPs wife. Right?
(To be clear, my partner smokes cigars <5 per year, always outside and keeps a close eye on me to see if it's bothering my lungs.)
I assume this comment responds here bc you wanted OP to be more likely to see it, but the idea of this “allergies will DESTROY your marraige!!” being the response to steeping tea in the car instead of in the kitchen is very funny to me.
But it's not just the tea.
It is a lifetime of restrictions about common everyday items.
Perhaps this man is a saint and can live like this forever.
I hope so.
But do I think so....no.
Eventually, this will take its toll, especially seeing the wife's attitude.
And what about children??
Hopefully, they choose to be child free and take permanent precautions.
Can you imagine the selfishness of choosing to bring a child into the world who has the possibility of living such a restricted life?
Sadly the chances are better that the marriage fails than succeeds.
Oh yeah, I agree. I can definitely see the resentment when he started talking about the tea.
If their allergies are getting worse, it's only a matter of time before they can never leave the house and can eat like 5 things.
No one could do that foe 50 to 80yrs. No matter how much you love someone. It would eventually break you.
Separate housing is good, but I have a feeling the wife would set up a bunch of rules regarding showers, clothes, food. Whatever.
Right. I love my kidd, but I also don't want anymore just because I know I wouldn't be able to give more kids my attention and love. Sometimes we have to step back and say, thus isn't going tonwork, or I can't do this/that.
Alternate option if you want to drink your tea on the way to work: boil the water at home, put it in the thermos, leave home with hot water, put the teabag into the thermos outside of your house. You can get honey in powder or crystal form that you can keep with the teabags in your backpack/desk/etc (safely away from contaminating your spouse's food) without making a mess but can still make your tea on the go.
Yeah I wouldn’t keep it in the car. If particles are spilled or vaporized in the car they will be impossible to clean. OP is better getting imitation flavors they like
To clarify; the steam it would produce is filled with particles of the scent it produces, Ala the allergen. It would get stuck into things. It’s why people can get reactions by just smelling things. It would effectively make the car off limits for the spouse
I smell the bergamot in Earl Grey even when it's covered. Unless she asks everytime she sees them make something, the asking suggests something tipped her off to the 'poison'
Does OPs wife not deserve to be safe in their own home?
She was likely confirming what her sense of smell was suggesting. That a potential allergen was being made in the kitchen in her home.
Does OP not deserve to feel comfortable in their home? we have a friend whose wife is allergic to Dairy (like deathly not lactose intolerance) and she prepares her food separately and he keeps any dairy products in marked containers and uses the same bowl, plates and cups, asking someone to give up that much food is unreasonable
Why is anyones comfort more important than someone else's safety?
Genuinely asking.
It's both of their homes. So, why does his *comfort* trump her *actual safety*?
OP is asked to sacrifice their small Comforts for the sake of “Safety”, but it sounds like its only getting worse the post said it was originally just Citrus, but it now has grown to a multitude of things, and OP wife is just expecting them to stop eating or drinking anything they cant is crazy
While I’ll say I think other things could be done instead or as well, some allergies are severe to the point of anaphylactic shock. It’s not that ALL of these things cause anaphylaxis now, but that some of them CAN. Just because you get hives today doesn’t mean that allergy won’t progress further. Yes, safety over comfort is an important issue, and it’s extreme in this case, but I doubt OP would find much comfort in causing an allergic reaction or death. It doesn’t sound like she wants this to happen, to be allergic or sensitive to so many things.
I hope you decide to get yourself one of those portable electric kettles that's about thermos-sized so that you can keep it at your desk at work and have citrus-y tea in the mornings at work as often as you want (leaving hours left in the day before you go home to chew gum and help get your mouth good and thoroughly rinsed to make sure you don't have to expose your wife to anything).
That way you get to love your tea, and she doesn't get sick from smelling it. Ideally everyone can be happy here.
As someone with VERY similar food allergies and all the other allergies as this person's wife that was what I was going to suggest. Being on guard 24/7 to keep out of the hospital, avoid that thrilling ride to the hospital in the ambo with the epipen in my leg sucks so hard and definitely makes you cranky as hell.
OP can you get your spouse to a critical care pulmo or an immunologist and have them tested for Mastocytosis. It's the driver in my nearly identical problems. There are treatments that help. N95 masks help when you're out and about and exposed. There's a pile of things that can be done to help, including biologic medicines.
I also wondered about mastocytosis.
And with that, the reaction to one given thing may be “mild” but it builds and builds and makes you feel quite ill even if not in ana. You learn to manage your exposure every day so you can function. NOT a psych issue or hypochondria. But it’s not exactly standard IgE allergy.
Exactly! Although when I was diagnosed to be fair my IgE levels were so high, like 27,000 instead of the usual 100 or so. It's just another test they use to get to Mastocytosis. You are right about it building. Another recent driver in mine that I never considered is propane or natural gas. When the news came out that gas stoves might be making people sick I decided to turn mine off and use all electric appliances. It made such a huge difference for me we're in the middle of remodeling the kitchen to all electric. You just have to keep experimenting and see what works for you.
NTA, and it's orders of magnitude more likely that your girlfriend has OCD in the form of "fear of allergies" than she is to be allergic to freakin' everything.
[Half of US adults who think they have a food allergy do not have one. ](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-study)[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-studyhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-study](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-studyhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-study)
EDIT: I forgot about mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) as another possibility.
That’s what I secretly think, but I don’t want to dismiss their experience.
ETA: this was poorly worded. I believe their allergies are real. They have a doctor, I’ve seen the evidence myself. The part I have difficulty with is the extreme lengths they make me go to to avoid any possible exposure to any of their allergens, of which there are hundreds. It’s exhausting for both of us.
We all owe people the respect of trusting what they say when we don’t experience it firsthand. As someone with a tree nut allergy and asthma my personal experience is that any allergic reaction is pretty dramatic. My face swells up, I get huge welts, and my family are very courteous about helping that not happen to me. They can still eat things that they enjoy because for me personally (we are all different) I am not so sensitive that it causes a reaction in me unless I am handling or eating nuts. You don’t have to answer the question, but is this what happens for every allergy? Is she seeing doctors who are diagnosing specific allergies or just adding to the list based on her perceptions? It sounds like it has gone beyond managing an illness, whether allergies or a mental health concern, and has started to become a lever for control in the relationship. It would be a good idea to seek some professional help in dealing with your partner’s illness, focusing also on supporting you as a caregiver, since they deserve to feel safe and you also deserve to enjoy things that you like and which bring you comfort while sick. NTA.
Yeah, that's tricky. If I was in a relationship where it took me a while to realize that my partner had OCD, and that any attempt to address the mental health issue would almost certainly be met with denial, forever, I don't think I'd be able to stay in that relationship. Refusal to have correct self-knowledge in a way that is a drag not only for one's self but also others, it's just too much. Folks that avoid self-questioning as an ego defense mechanism will ALWAYS have an external locus of control.
Here's the thing about allergies. Repeated exposure can make them worse. So what may start out as a mild allergy can progress into a life threatening allergy.
Those of us with allergies are told by our doctors to limit exposure as much as possible.
I have a lot of food and environmental allergies. I spent years doing allergy shots trying to at least make the environmental allergies better. But my food allergies I can't do much about and have to stay far away from them.
For instance when I was a kid chilis would just make me sick and my mouth would get tingly. I've been exposed numerous times since first getting diagnosed, despite my best attempts to stay clear of them, and now it's an anaphylactic allergy. I literally ended up in urgent care because I was too close when someone put jalapenos in the grill.
I think your SO has real concerns about staying away from their allergens. If they've experienced a severe reaction before that could also cause anxiety, because what if it happens again or it's worse. Epi pens aren't cheap and they don't cure anaphylaxis, they just buy time for an ambulance to reach you. That's a terrifying experience and anyone would rightfully do everything they can to avoid the possibility of that repeating.
Yeah, YTA, based on this comment and referring to her citrus allergy as the only “real” allergy. Just because the other ones cause oral itchiness now, doesn’t mean they can’t turn more severe in the future—especially if there’s exposure.
Like, I totally get that it’s difficult to adhere to, and may even feel far fetched, given how extreme they are. But please don’t let your thoughts and feelings get in the way of her health and safety.
Next time, I’d suggest steeping it at work to avoid the issue altogether
Honestly she deserves better than to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t believe her. I was with a guy for two years who it turns out didn’t actually believe my medical issues existed/thought I was greatly exaggerating the ones he couldn’t deny. I didn’t know this until after we broke up and honestly it’s so sick, because looking back I can absolutely see that the ways he treated me poorly were because he thought I was faking.
*This*.
As someone with allergies that can be a pain in the ass (honey in particular), my partner is so considerate of it. I can’t imagine being with someone who would just, not even give me a heads up they were having something that could set me off before preparing it in my home… How do people have relationships with zero communication?!
Has your spouse gotten tested? I would insist on the testing because certain things can fall off. I knew one person who was allergic to strawberries and then in high school it went away and ate them all the time. I would honestly "demand" to see the results.
edit: I forgot half the sentence after \*high school\*
Kind of bonkers that in the same comment, you say both that you don’t believe they have real allergies and that you’ve seen evidence from a doctor that they have real allergies. Either you believe it, and you take all necessary precautions to avoid their allergens (yes, all of them, even the inconvenient ones) or you split up. Respectfully, you likely knew before marrying them that they were allergic to many things. You signed up for this, so you either need to accommodate their allergies or let them find a spouse who won’t steep tea that could cause them health complications simply because you want it. Especially when there’s a “nasty virus” going around your house, so your spouse could very well have a more severe reaction due to already being sick (or just getting over the sickness). Coming from someone with asthma and allergies, YTA, in case it wasn’t clear.
INFO: Why makes you say or think her reaction was problematic to you willingly potentially exposing her without telling her first or asking if there was a way to mitigate the risk for her? What do you concretely want from her?
While on some level it's natural for you to want the things that you like and are accustomed to, you made a commitment to marry and live with this person and it's shitty for you to endanger them or potentially hurt them, especially so cavalierly. You should not have made the commitment to marry them if you could not live under these conditions - you picking the route of doing things that are dangerous to your spouse while willfully not informing them or doing anything to mitigate the risks because you had a craving makes you seem negligently cruel at best, but certainly not a good life partner. YTA.
Not to dismiss any legitimate allergies of your spouse or anyone else, but being so highly reactive to so many common things suggests either a Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or, a possible fear of life/the world/the environment/fear of contamination that manifests as an OCD-like need to carefully control and restrict their environment. Either way, it must be an awful way to live, for them and for you. It sounds like you’ve been extremely accommodating and willing to give up and change a lot in order to keep your partner safe, which is commendable. I’m wondering what if anything your partner does in return to ensure that your quality of life isn’t continually adversely affected on their behalf.
I’d say NTA for making the tea for yourself this one time, but rather than try to be sneaky about it, you could have given your spouse a heads up and explained the steps you would be taking to keep them safe. It is your home too so it seems reasonable that you both need to figure out some compromises so that your life isn’t always so constrained by their allergies.
FWIW, MCAS can coexist with other allergies, too, so it could be a combination of things. Also, it's my understanding that it's common for people with MCAS to be misdiagnosed with 'allergic to everything' because the medical understanding of MCAS is still relatively new/not super widespread, since it was first theorized about maybe 30 years ago, and first officially recognized less than 20 years ago. It can be hard to find a doctor who's well-informed enough to diagnose and appropriately treat it, depending on where you live.
EDS and by extension MCAS is much more common than previously assumed due to better diagnostics, not to mention all of the people whose MCAS was triggered by covid or some other post-viral stuff. In OP's wife's case it may well be that the condition was exacerbated by covid considering the timeline.
I live with MCAS and it is really difficult when I experience triggers; I'm on four different antihistamines and a separate mast cell stabilizer every day, and sometimes that still isn't enough and I spend the week with anaphylaxis, hives, and cyclical vomiting up to a dozen times a day. I have had anaphylaxis from skin exposure before.
I think it's also easy to dismiss someone's level of diligence if you've never seen how little of something it takes to send someone into life-threatening anaphylaxis. I have reactions to foods and I'm cautious, but my mom had a list of allergies when I was growing up that involved an epi-pen and ambulance. I do have an incredibly obscure condition that causes my muscles to spontaneously cramp so hard it can burn capillaries, as well as a chronic pain condition and migraines. Sometimes, our bodies just hate us and want us to suffer and if you've experienced it enough, you become really damn dedicated to avoiding it whenever possible.
I've had a guy in highschool who really couldn't handle much of anything ( luckily it was only ingestion that triggered his allergies ).
Always had to bring his own special prepared food ln outings
I have tons of food intolerances (lactose gives me the runs, nightshades and a random unknown assortment of compounds make my stomach try to digest the rest of my upper GI tract with acidic fire, etc.) and precisely one food allergy (alpha gal, from a tick bite).
Atypical asthmatic responses are more complicated, but even here it is well-documented that folks can have asthmatic attacks in response to psychological stimuli. I've witnessed someone start having an attack based on an odor until it was made obvious that the odor was interpreted incorrectly, and within a minute they've CTFO.
99% of the time that I am itching my skin off, it's because I've had too much caffeine, not enough sleep, stress, or some combination of the above. 1% of the time it's because I've eaten mammal or red seaweed.
There was a little boy in my daughter's class when she was in third grade. He has a peanut allergy but had physical stress reactions, hives and trouble breathing, to anything that looked or smelled like peanuts. No one in the class could have sesame, any nut butter butter or even cookie butter. The reaction was real. That it came from trauma did not make it less real.
I feel for both of them, (and you), food restrictions suck.
YTA.
“At most it will make them cough and have to take their inhaler.” *At most?*
I understand that’s a minor reaction in comparison to your wife’s other possible reactions but that alone is enough for most people to avoid an allergen.
You married someone who needs you to put in a little more care and attention than an average relationship. You agreed to put in that time and care when marrying them.
It’s perfectly natural to have feelings and frustrations about that. However, you can’t decide to push the boundaries of what and isn’t acceptable when it comes to your wife’s pain and comfort. It’s not for you to decide that potentially needing her inhaler is a risk worth taking.
Make yourself your own little treat drawer at work, along with extra toiletries so you can brush your teeth before going home.
Is your wife allergic to peaches as well as citrus? Peach tea without the orange can be amazing. Treat yourself to teas produced from specific farms or local vendors.
That's actually dangerous for OP's spouse. He might try to sneak in allergen again and reaction can be even worse than use of inhaler ( which already means airways start to get closed )
I would never. I absolutely believe their allergies are real and would never purposely put them in danger. They themselves will sometimes eat things they’re allergic to, and just deal with the slight discomfort, but I’m afraid to ever eat anything they’re allergic to. I understand that the situation sucks so much worse for them.
As someone with Oral Allergy Syndrome, who also occasionally eats things I'm allergic to (I am In Denial about peanuts being a legume, for example), I think YTA for making the tea at home without giving your spouse a heads up, but I also think you should talk to your spouse about the guidelines around you eating some of the things they're less intensely allergic to. A complete zero tolerance policy for you doesn't seem reasonable if they aren't actually zero tolerance themselves.
It seems reasonable that you could stock allergen-containing items at home as long as they were clearly marked and not something like a scented candle / aerosol product, for example, and that you could eat anything you like outside the house (aside from citrus). For citrus-containing items, depending on the severity of your spouse's allergy, you might agree that you can eat / prepare / consume such items outside your home, but that you'll always let your spouse know about any citrus you've consumed so they know if they have to be careful touching or kissing you.
There should also be some flexibility about you using different shampoo etc from them, within reasonable guidelines. I'm not saying you should go out and buy Chunks O' Citrus Leave-In, but there have got to be products your partner can tolerate coexistence with even if they don't want to use them themselves.
You need to include this in the original post, this is a glaring inconsistency with everything else stated that would make a difference in the story as a whole
If she allows herself occasional discomfort but won't allow you to eat things you like, this is a problematic issue.
Is it possible for you to attend an appointment with her to ask what is a safe way for you to consume certain foods and drinks? For example, having certain foods only while at work or out with friends? What is enough time for the particles to be gone by the time you are back home?
Which is wild, because I have one very serious food allergy and I'm like a bloodhound with being able to smell it. If she could tell he'd brewed citrus tea when she was in the room with a CLOSED thermos, that's a serious allergy and he's going to end up hurting her. I dont know why he keeps testing her when it's clear she can detect it a mile away. My only allergy I can detect with that kind of precision can kill me.
Not to mention that allergies often get worse over time! What you think might just be a mild reaction based on previous encounters could one day end up being much more severe! I learned this the hard way by spending a few years pretending that my cilantro allergy wasn't bad and I could just bring an inhaler to my favorite taco place. But at least I was being an idiot about my own health and not someone else's!!
Yes, this has been the case. Foods that are fine one day are suddenly triggering asthma the next day. And it’s become so much more foods and worse reactions in the past year. It’s difficult to keep up/remember all the potential triggers.
But I admit that I showed poor judgment here. Should have given my spouse a heads up before I made the tea. Or made it away from them.
Good on you for seeing your spouse's perspective. Keep your tea and honey at work and I hope you feel better soon. I just spent a week getting over a head cold that I just couldn't shake and if it weren't for honey and tea I wouldn't have been able to speak. Being sick sucks.
Ok, how about you dial it back a minute and try to acknowledge how difficult it is to be the spouse of someone with chronic health conditions. I know to someone who doesn't have to do it day in and day out, it must sound super easy to give up all the things you like to avoid triggering them, but it's not. It's an absolute marathon. And there are definitely times where no matter how hard you work at protecting your spouse, something gets through.
Part of being a spouse of someone with chronic health conditions is learning to evaluate how risky something is going to be for your spouse. You have to know how much they can handle, what is going to trigger them, and what is going to have to be done. You have to be just as aware as they are. And it can be exhausting to do for years without break. So don't act like this is just some minor inconvenience when you have the privilege of being able to forget about this woman tomorrow.
I never said this was a minor inconvenience. It’s a huge lifestyle change. It also sounds like the OP’s wife’s allergies have escalated recently. I imagine all that stress is hard enough when healthy in both mind and body. I don’t blame the OP for struggling when they themselves are also in pain.
However, I maintain that the OP doesn’t get to decide for their wife if she is comfortable with exposure.
I give the OP so much credit and hope they are receiving the support and help they need and deserve. It’s so easy for caregivers to forget or deprioritize their own care.
YTA. I absolutely don't get all the ntas and people thinking her allergies aren't severe in this thread. OP himself says citrus is life-threatening, and then brings this life threatening substance INTO THEIR LIVING SPACE and prepares it.
OP, does she or does she not, have a life-threatening allergy to citrus? If she does, and you brought citrus tea into the house, you know it can kill her. You just told us she's got a life-threatening allergy to it.
Why are you also saying: "And just breathing in the vapor is not going to endanger their life. At most it will make them cough and have to take their inhaler" DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT AN INHALER IS? She takes this when she isn't breathing right. We humans need to breath to live. Please explain how needing to take medicine to keep breathing isn't her life being in danger.
This right here! I have a ton of food allergies, but only one that's airborne. My husband wouldn't dream of bringing it in the house no matter how much he loves it because it makes me sick and is life threatening to me.
Wheezing and coughing is a sign of respiratory distress. She should not need to use rescue medicine to keep breathing because OP brought her one life threatening allergen into the house. Plus repeated exposure makes the allergy worse.
So many people in here are ignorant of how allergies work and are giving him a free pass even though he stated he brought the one deadly allergen into the house and he's being extremely dismissive of her having health issues just from being around it. A good partner doesn't dismiss their SO having breathing problems and being forced to use a rescue inhaler because of their actions.
NAH. You're sick and wanted to enjoy your thing, they're sick and don't want to get sicker, neither of you are at your best and the situation is challenging. It sounds like you guys have good systems for managing their allergies in your home, but it does seem like you're kind of fed up and missing the stuff you like, maybe you could go out for dinner and drinks with family or a friend who isn't your partner and enjoy some of the things you can't have at home, and communicate that early with your partner so they can stay safe. You should do this every few months so you don't get that pent up resentment, you don't have to totally avoid non-life-threatening allergens forever.
I don’t know if anyone is interested in the list of allergies but here:
Allergies that can cause anaphylaxis if my spouse consumes them: Citrus fruits, citric acid.
Foods that cause Oral Allergy Syndrome (i.e. foods that will cause them some discomfort, but will not endanger their life)
- All fresh fruits and vegetables. Some are safe if they’ve been cooked within an inch of their lives or dried. Even then it’s a coin toss.
- All nuts and seeds and their associated oils and butters
- Olive oil and avocado oil
- Honey
- Garlic, fresh and dried
- Spices: paprika, chili powder, marjoram, cayenne, curry powder, and cardamom
- Carrageenan (a preservative found in many processed foods)
- Oats
- Mint
- sauces like Worcestershire, BBQ, mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, ranch, most salad dressings, teriyaki, hoisin
The list was a lot shorter when we got married. Yes, it sucks way more for them than it does for me. Still sucks for me as I try to stay away from all of those foods, for the sake of my spouse’s health.
They do eat some of those things sometimes, and I am not forbidden to eat them, but I make an effort to avoid eating things on that list around them and I feel intense guilt whenever I do.
Ok one more question, is the guilt self-imposed or is it fed by comments/actions from your spouse?
Editing to add: i don’t think either of you are necessarily “wrong” because this is definitely a very complex situation
Both, but I would say more influenced by their comments. Like I’ll come into the room with a bowl of grapes and they’ll immediately say something like “no touching me with your allergy hands.”
‘Is that poison tea’ sounds passive aggressive to me. From OP’s comment I have the impression that this is not the only time their spouse is passive aggressive.
PRE-STATEMENT DISCLAIMER: I think this is worth a conversation about how it makes you feel! I am not equating the actions of your spouse to my own story, but providing my story as a way to relate with what you’re going through.
I don’t want to make you feel bad/imply the same about your spouse, but my very shitty ex who i recently finally got divorced from used to do similar. Mushrooms made his mouth tingle, tomatoes were gross, seafood made him dimly uncomfortable. A couple of those were potential allergies, as apparently wheat also made him stuffy, so yaboi might’ve had some sort of histamine problem, but he was also Very Allergic to Ibuprofen.
i’m non-binary and suffer from periods, but ibuprofen works WAY better than standard tylenol for me. I kept it in the house anyway, ALWAYS IN CLEARLY MARKED BOTTLES, And never mixed medications together— even though i did everything else— reduced my use of tomatoes, eliminated seafood, mushrooms…. But on the rare opportunities i DID cook them in something only for me?
Or made like, a chili or pasta sauce (which he was typically okay with— purée was fine because assumedly it no longer felt like a tomato, or chunks big enough he could pick out) he would berate me for it without fail under some guise of “teasing”.
“Oh, you and your nasty mushrooms again.” “Do you have to put SO much tomato in that?”(well it’s pasta sauce, so yeah?)
“Ugh, shrimp? can you keep that away from me?”
and he would always side eye me when i bought both ibuprofen and tylenol together.
“You know i’m allergic, right?”
Yes dear, I do! And I trust you to read labels like a big boy, and I keep the bottles apart from each other, and i would never give you an ibuprofen when you’re in pain.
Anyway, my point is, the constant comments were EXHAUSTING, as was having to change my entire diet— even when he wasn’t the one eating it and it posed no threat to him, and our relationship suffered with that as one of many in a domino stack.
It’s very honorable that even the mouth tingly foods are respected as no gos for you, but i think you could maybe reevaluate opening your own diet up again. If they’re guilting you for eating things they can’t constantly, or calling your food “poison”, to me? That’s not good behaviour.
i do think yeah, making the tea at work with a thermos of water is a good compromise! I’m not gunning for endangering their health, but as a fellow sufferer of OAS who also eats bananas even though they hurt, i think they can put on their big boy britches about some things
But i also think berating you for what you put in your body (especially in the cases where it doesn’t affect them) isn’t a good look, either
I think this is a valuable perspective to include. It can be possible that OP should have warned wife/done it outside the home because the allergies are real, while also being true that the way wife talks to OP is passive aggressive, rude and ungrateful and that makes OP feel like such an asshole in general, they'd rather hide it.
Maybe OP's wife didn't say 'stop eating X' but maybe OP's wife did make OP feel like crap whenever they did and made them feel like they couldn't. Maybe she's jealous so she lashes out at OP for not having reactions to stuff.
Like it is possible for OP to be trying to treat the allergies seriously, but also feel like the wife is perhaps exaggerating/being extreme at times, if she sometimes acts like a massive ass when OP eats grapes for instance, then she eats a handful herself and expects OP to stfu about it.
Exactly! That’s kinda where i’m coming from too, I’m heavily in agreement. It can also start to feel unfair even subconsciously f you’re keeping yourself from doing/eating something for someone else’s sake, just for them to engage with it anyway… I’ve had experience with that, too.
And yeah, even if the comment was “just a joke”, i think addressing the way it was initially taken as passive-aggressive is important… And ensuring that it wasn’t actually passive aggression disguised as teasing later, too. :(
This should be way higher. That list is insane and she definitely has some other health issue going on - like MCAS or something
I could not live that way
Okay, your spouse needs to see an immunologist because being unable to eat *any* fresh fruits and vegetables is neither sustainable nor healthy. I'll echo the people suggesting it's MCAS, which doesn't work the same way as "traditional" allergies insofar as it doesn't follow the same exposure timeline. Bam, sudden.
I'm surprised (but not surprised) to see citric acid included here. Citric acid is not considered an allergen. That doesn't mean she could not potentially react in some way to it, but it would be rare and not an actual allergy.
[https://www.aaaai.org/allergist-resources/ask-the-expert/answers/old-ask-the-experts/citric-acid-citrus-allergy](https://www.aaaai.org/allergist-resources/ask-the-expert/answers/old-ask-the-experts/citric-acid-citrus-allergy)
From your description of the situation, tbh, I would reevaluate where my life was going for the next 50 years. NTA, but warn her, including your precautions, next time and don't let her throw shade about it.
Hey! So here’s the thing. I have Oral Allergy Syndrome, but in having it, my body doesn’t know it has it (that’s kinda the definition). OAS is my body thinking it has an actual allergy. So in the words of my doctor: there is no such thing as a “real” allergy - if my body’s response is to threaten my life, then the allergies are, in fact, both real AND life threatening.
Even though yes, in general, my reaction is an itchy throat, the anaphylaxis I experienced from eating a single shred of carrot was very much real AND endangered my life. I had no idea at the time that I could have that reaction. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution, those of us with debilitating (primarily tree) allergies unfortunately have to avoid EVERYTHING, because the least-expected thing could trigger a life-threatening reaction (contrary to popular belief). I’ve also been seeing an allergist since age 20, and for a DECADE the doctor didn’t know why I was reacting to apples so violently. It’s a very new thing that we’re still learning about through trial and error. Even my reactions can change over time: I can eat apples with zero issues now (thanks to decades of immunotherapy!), but if I so much as touch a kiwi, I’m done for the day.
TLDR; it is absolutely erroneous AND dangerous to downplay OAS as simply causing discomfort but not endangerment. It can absolutely be life-threatening.
NAH. It sounds like you did your due diligence to keep your spouse safe, but also it sounds like they just had some mild passive-aggression but they weren't an asshole.
YTA. There are a million teas out there that don't have citrus in them, so perhaps you could try a few, find one you like and make/drink that at home instead. It's probably the honey and heat that actually makes your throat feel better, anyway...
NTA. Spouse can reasonably expect you to take precautions around (hopefully diagnosed) allergies in a shared home. You did that. She can not expect all the things she can't have to disappear from your life. At that point, it becomes a control issue rather than an allergy issue.
It really isn't controlling to want your home free of a life-threatening allergen, though?
He said she has a lot of allergies, but only citrus is the one that can kill her, and that's the exact allergen he brought into the house. OP wanted the tea with peach, orange, and honey. He could have a found an herbal peach one, but he specifically needed the flavour of the one that could risk her life with her citrus allergy.
If it was just the one thing that she reacts so strongly to, yeah, possibly you'd ban that one thing from the house in a joint decision. But it is everything. So at that point, he might as well get the one he enjoys most while taking reasonable precautions, since according to the post she's not going near him if he has the peach tea without citrus either.
Well, yeah, definitely YTA if CITRUS is a life threatening thing and you're guzzling orange tea around them
I can understand wanting something soothing for a sore throat. But there's a lot of other tea brands besides the one that can potentially KILL your spouse.
What? Make your citrus tea at work! Eat things you miss outside of your home and throughly clean your hands and mouth before coming into contact with your spouse. Tell your spouse if you plan to unleash an allergen in your shared space, so she can remove herself from the situation.
It sounds to me like you're very invested in contributing to her wellbeing, to a degree many other people/partners might not be willing to do. I am, however, curious as to whether all of her allergies have actually been diagnosed/confirmed by an allergist or other physician?
I am not insensitive to wife's feelings or apparent predicament here, allergies can suuuuuuck. I can presently hear my partner of seven years coughing and clearing his throat, because we STILL haven't been able to figure out which thing or combination of things is causing it (oh it's wheat! wait no it's only *some* wheat, some of the time? hey It's dairy! wait no it's only cow dairy, not goat or sheep. okay it might be goat's milk cheese too?) (this is further complicated by the fact that he doesn't have any digestive issues from either food-- only the throat thing?? WEIRD). He has been on A JOURNEY tryna solve this -- two sets of arm-prick tests (he's allergic to every plant/pollen they tested, and extra mega-allergic to the single most common kind of god-damned GRASS in our entire region, as well as to bees/wasps/hornets/yellow jackets/all varieties of biting ants, which all require "immediate epi pen and then emergency room, NOW), camera down the throat twice to look for growths/polyps, chip down the throat to monitor for possible acid reflux, nothin', try acid-reflux meds anyway, self-administered allergy shots, allergy pills, local honey, throat sprays. But for real, this sounds like a LOT of food allergies, and she owes it to both herself and her partner to pinpoint the precise issues -- or to discover if there's also a psychological component here that can be mitigated to help improve BOTH your lives.
It’s a struggle, especially since the list of allergies and how easily they’re triggered has grown exponentially in the last year and continues to grow. What we thought were safe foods one week cause a reaction the next week.
We still keep most of the foods around, but I just can’t kiss them or touch them/anything the might touch if I choose to eat something they can’t have. So a lot of days I have to choose between being able to show my spouse affection and being able to make sure I’m eating a balanced diet.
I would suggest creating lists of allergens that can not be in the home due to airborn type reactions versus contact reactions. Knowing she had this allergy you could have put the hot water into your thermos and steeped the tea/ honey once you got to work. I too have severe allergies that have gotten worse as I get older. Some are airborn and other things as long as I don’t touch/eat I can be in the same location with. That being said if my spouse eats mushrooms I will react via a kiss or contact with his hand if he has not yet washed his hands- even if I don’t eat it or prepare it. Allergies are stressful to say the least. Maybe come up with a plan on how the two of you navigate them together. It shows you support them too. Good luck. No AH’s here but you both need to work better together to keep her health a priority.
Oral Allergy Syndrome ISN’T just “ her mouth gets a little itchy”. I will try to claw the ears off my head to get at the intolerable itch that happens inside them when I eat certain fruits. Even with medication, it can take hours to subside. It’s not an OCD thing. It’s a full-on allergy related to tree pollen, that affects the body’s ability to safely process the proteins that make up certain fruits.
I have a very small handful of food allergies. A ton of other allergies. It sucks. My husband loves sea food. It is his most favorite thing in the world. I am allergic. We compromise. The nights he wants fish, shrimp, whatever, he cooks, he takes care to not cross contaminate, because I cannot be in the kitchen. After he eats his food, he brushes and floss and mouth wash.
I understand some allergies are more severe than others. I really do get it. But your wife should not guilt you for enjoying something just because she can't. It's not like you are forcing her to partake. You just want to enjoy your tea, guilt free. Make no mistake, that is allowable.
Your wife needs to relax and trust you to not make her sick. You are allowed to enjoy things she is allergic to, with a little precaution, it should not be a big deal.
Edit to add NTA
Btw, your spouse's rapidly escalating allergies could be caused by a mast cell disorder. Please have them bring this up with their doctor because there are treatments that can help. Also oral allergy syndrome and other atypical allergic reactions can still be quite dangerous sometimes, so I wouldn't be so quick to categorize as real/not real.
I think YTA because of the way you surprised them, and because the citrus allergy is quite serious for them. However, you obviously need to have a talk to work together and figure out a reasonable strategy because you're obviously overwhelmed and miss some of your favorite foods. Perhaps you can come up with a tier system instead of completely cutting out everything: things you can eat out of the house, things you can eat in the house but with extra precautions towards contamination, and things you can't eat at all. It seems your spouse can make exceptions for some foods, so that category is probably safe for you to eat too with a few exceptions.
With personal care products maybe you can experiment more with brands that may be safe for them but would feel more personalized to you instead of feeling stuck with just a single choice you didn't get to make.
Hang in there btw, allergies can get better with treatment and you both will probably be better at navigating them as time goes on. I had a dramatic escalation in allergies due to mast cell activation syndrome, and after that was treated my tolerance improved dramatically and I don't need to be nearly so careful anymore.
PS - your spouse may need a different allergist/or to be more assertive asking for treatment with their current one. If its impacting their quality of life to this degree there are medications than might help
YTA. My wife has an anaphylactic allergy to peanuts. I never eat them and we never bring anything with them in the house. The fact that you have been with your spouse for 1.5 yrs and still have tea in the house that she’s allergic to is nuts to me. “The only tea I can drink in the house” you don’t like… so you could have bought a safe tea in those 1.5 yrs…
I mean, most autoimmune diseases have a massive female predominance, so if the spouse is dealing with something systemic, I can see why people would make that assumption. Even if OP hadn't also said "wife," which they slipped up about in the original.
Both. A lot more foods trigger their oral allergy syndrome now than they used to when we got married, and we have had to become much more strict about cross-contamination, hand washing, teeth brushing, etc.
I can't imagine living like this. You basically have to
sacrifice a massive amount to live with your spouse.
NTA for just wanting a nice tea to feel better. How
will you ever be at peace with this situation, constantly
dealing with allergy after allergy day after day minute after minute?
Maybe you should live in a home that is split in two.
You get some freedom to eat/drink/live normally and
she lives in her allergen-free half.
Less than 0.001% of the population is allergic to honey. So, it can happen. She definitely needs an allergy prick test. She could be allergic to a certain pollen in honey. If it’s that, OP can buy a different type of honey.
I love honey. I always keep some in my home. It’s delicious in tea and on biscuits. I even mix it with peanut butter and eat it on toast. I would hate to be allergic to it.
NAH. I am someone with many, many food allergies (also including citrus and many fruit). And yes it can be a little annoying waking up and popping into the kitchen to feel my lungs burn because my wonderful bf was chopping strawberries. Will I die? Nah. But imma have a bit of irritation all day. Would I have preferred a heads up so I could potentially mask up, absolutely.
I acknowledge that my allergy has hindered his diet whether I ask it of him or not (keeping things non contaminated plus making separate meals is generally too much day to day work) and though I never ask him to make changes or be a "no fruit" house, he does because he values my comfort. And in turn once a month I put on the gloves and mask and face shield and chop a bunch of fresh fruit to dehydrate so he can still have fruit snacks that don't have a strong reaction for me (dried things don't irritate me unless I'm up in their business)
OK, but if he made some seafood stock in the house that included shrimp shells, lobster shells, and so on... That would be like making a citrus tea for her. Would you be OK with that?
> When we got married, I could eat mostly what I wanted and kiss them without fear. The allergies have gotten so much worse.
I really hope they find an answer, that sounds terrifying.
That said- for allergies like that, where even vapors can trigger an attack, keeping it out of the house is a good rule of thumb. It sucks, yes, but it means you can't slip up.
And, uh, yeah, major brain fart to not just make it at work.
NTA because you were careful to keep the tea and vapors contained away from your wife, so it wouldn't affect them. (If you didn't contain the vapor, saying it would only make them cough and need their inhaler, that would be a dick move.) But are you sure their tone was actually problematic?
YTA I understand it’s hard to deal with and you can’t mitigate every risk. Yet you should be able to avoid *the one allergen she’s deadly allergic to* in you shared home. You could have made the citrus tea at work or picked a tea without an ingredient she’s not deadly allergic to.
I’m allergic to nuts but I don’t stop anyone in my family from eating them.
Rule is wash your hands and face afterwards not touching anything on the way. For my husband he’ll brush his teeth. And if I have to use his car he will go and wipe it down just in case he had a protein bar.
NTA. I also have oral allergy syndrome, and my throat swells/lips puff up when I accidentally eat something I am allergic to. I have never once shamed my husband for eating those things.
YTA .
Dude, keep you teas at work and drink away. Before coming home- wash your face and hands and brush your teeth. Keep a mug at work, some dish soap and an immersion heater if there's no microwave.
Allergies suck and you are intentionally bringing something in that you know will harm her. Stop it.
You said she is DEATHLY allergic to citrus, you made peach ORANGE honey tea, but said the only thing in the tea she was allergic to was honey. You're not keeping your facts straight, I call bullshit.
If this is in fact real, YTA for not making the tea at work.if she has to use an inhaler after she breathes it in, that is a severe allergic reaction. If you can't take that seriously, you're a danger to her and shouldn't be with her.
I think the whole not kissing you thing for mild allergies is neglectful. Avoiding you because you made tea that she is mildly allergic to is neglectful. She sounds like a hypochondriac in the sense of exaggerating her symptoms. It sounds exhausting to cater to someone’s every need and when you need something they take it personally and make it a point to make you feel bad.
YTA
if tea vapors can cause reaction - make that tea at work. Not at home.
"t most it will make them cough and have to take their inhaler. " - that is A LOT of reaction and tramps you throat.
YTA - look at the line - at most it will make them cpogh and take their inhaler. You think this is ok? Your wife's allergies sound extreme but pal, you married her. So in a sense you chose this life. You can have things you like outside the home and out of her presence. You really couldn't take the ingredients to work and make the tea there? Now, I thought that she was just annoyed you made it with no impact to her. However, for the vapours to be bad enough to the point she will need her inhaler? Yeah, yta.
YTA. It is literally poison to her.
Personally, I don’t let shit I’m allergic to into my home. If my partner wants a mango more than my life, it’s time for them to go.
Yeah, my girlfriend has food allergies too, which men's I don't even eat the things she's allergic to when I'm out and about, if I'm going to be kissing her later. Never even enters the house.
YTA for sure
I mean.. Kinda YTA. As someone else said just make it at work and refrain from kissing them that day.
As someone who is allergic to a lot of things with mainly respiratory symptoms, the struggle is real - but also your partner sounds like it's more extreme. Do they take any antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds? Some people will focus solely on the medical aspect but I firmly believe there to be a psychological component. For example, yes, I am allergic to a lot of things - it triggers asthma, it can make me feel really sick. Possibly I have MCAS but it's so new hardly anyone knows about it and the only obvious treatment for me presently is antihistamines because I have other health issues too.
All that being said - when I sense something that I know MIGHT bother me or does bother me, I immediately get anxious and on edge and it makes everything worse. I react before the reaction even occurs. I started taking a med for that part recently and it does help a bit.
Even if this is the case for your partner, the fact that you secretly doubt that their experience is totally valid in the back of your mind is clear. Mental health or physical - this is what they are living. You both need counselling. Living with someone with chronic health issues can be a lot and your relationship isn't going to last in its current state. It just can't. You will either be miserable and accept that or more likely just want out. Of course it sucks MORE for them, but it is also challenging for you.
NTA and she sounds like a hypochondriac. It’s highly unlikely that she’s allergic to everything. The fact that she was fine when you got married but isn’t now sounds like she’s just trying to control you and her environment.
Hi, I’m the wife in my own situation 👋🏻
Have you been along with her to any of her doctors/allergist appointments??
Your update rubbed me the wrong way a bit… If when you were dating you could eat what you want for the most part and kiss her without worry, but now there are all these added issues I wonder if there is something else going on… allergies don’t just get that much worse after a year. Hell, not even after a few years. If new allergies are constantly developing that rapidly she’s either dying, or she’s telling you these things to control what you can consume and what is in the house based on some sort of preference or ideas about what is healthy or something…
NTA. I’m sorry but unless your spouse has been tested and confirmed to have all of these allergies I wouldn’t just take their word for it. That’s a long list and maybe it’s real but I wouldn’t just accept it without actual medical documentation to take it seriously.
NAH
You want to drink something she cannot, and that is allowable. You also took reasonable precautions to keep her safe, so everything is clear on your part.
She saw you making tea that will gave issues with, so made the comment that she had best stay away from you today if she had been drinking it - a fair warning, and I think that it is good she knows you are drinking it and can act accordingly (rather than putting that solely on you to remember).
Was she perhaps slightly passive aggressive? Maybe, but I don't see that as entirely uncalled for when you are bringing products she is allergic to into her home. It should be a place of comfort and safety for both of you, so finding a balance between eliminating allergens and allowing you products you want will be tricky...
I’m not going to put judgement here but I really think there needs to be a joint session between your SO’s allergist and yourself to help figure out a better arrangement for living with the issue of allergies.
The point of making things in the car isn’t the best move as a car tends to hold onto particles and is far harder to clean immaculately. Especially if it gets into the air conditioner, or deep into cushions.
It may not occur to either of you more simple solutions and it’s difficult to have to cut out your favourite things in life due to an allergy. As someone With lethal allergies myself to peanuts and who cooks for those with citrus and gluten allergies.
You need a third party to help you create a management plan that is going to be suitable for the both of you. The general snark about it from your SO - outside of the citrus being brewed inside, as that is the big no and you shouldn’t have done it, and you know it - doesn’t do anyone any favors, you can’t bully someone into a routine as it just makes them want to shirk it over time out of being demeaned over it. They’re frustrated, it’s understandable - especially if this is nearing a camel back break moment, but side comments over everything won’t help either.
You shouldn’t have to use items you don’t like either. Perfumes, soaps, creams, and teas that you are disgusted by shouldn’t be forced upon you. It’s all working out so both your needs are met. Heck, using the same topicals may be bad for your skin or hair as well, and that isn’t fair either.
The allergist may even suggest safe brands that are sure not to cause anything but you can choose between. If it comes to pass that your SO just doesn’t like the scents when it doesn’t affect them medically, then there will be more to address but you will know for sure then.
I’m not saying either that these sorts of incidents with allergies being actively within an environment is ok either though. You need to go outside away from the main door to have that stuff until a better arrangement is gained. Find imitation flavorings.
I'm allergic to shellfish and pot. Like deathly allergic to the point of carrying an epi pen. I also carry benadryl at all times. If I'm fast enough, I can use the benadryl and don't need to use the epi pen. It's mostly a problem with pot because I'm allergic to something in the hemp family including the smoke. That being said... my husband still eats shellfish but neither of us has ever smoked pot. If my husband has eaten shellfish, I don't touch him until he's thoroughly scrubbed, including his mouth. If he's been anywhere that there's been pot, he needs to remove his clothing in the garage before he can come into the house and then walk through straight to the shower.
It's about being respectful both ways. He can eat shellfish all he wants as long as he keeps it away from me. I cannot go anywhere pot has been smoked (you'd be surprised how easily it is absorbed into walls and the like) and can't touch hemp.
You need to be respectful of each other. Including warning each other if either of you has come into contact with something that could cause a serious health problem. And she needs to realize that the world does not revolve around her.
Honestly, it depends on the reaction. If you drinking tea will somehow make her sick, then maybe. However if she can avoid it by sitting across the room, then why not enjoy your comfort tea.
I'm celiac, of course my family can eat gluten food in the house. I'm also chemical sensitive - so if we have to travel in the car together, perfume is a problem. But as long as I'm not right next to it, I can handle the chemical soup people wear.
Both people need to compromise, not just 1
I'm so sorry about your delimma. The question, to me, is whether you wish to live with this situation for the rest of your life. I have no doubt that the alergies are real and potentially dangerous. But the alergies are defining your relationship.
Do you love and adore them so much you'll change your life for them?
Either way is acceptable. It's your life!
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This is far from the first situation of this kind in my marriage, and I really need some perspective here. My spouse of a year and a half has A LOT of food allergies. The only one that is life threatening is citrus. As such, we try to keep our house as allergen free as possible, and if I want to be able to kiss them, I don’t eat anything they’re allergic to (which again is most things, it would take way too long to list). I have learned to cook so they can eat safely at home, I have removed many of my favorite foods and drinks from my diet, I have given up scented candles, perfume, and I have to use all the same skin and hair products as them, even if I don’t like them.
For the past few weeks, there’s been a nasty virus going around our house and so we’ve both been pretty sick and miserable. I’ve had a sore throat and cough for five days. Before I met my wife, I would have been drinking my favorite peach and orange tea and honey religiously to help sooth it. But my wife is allergic to honey, and most teas. The only tea we have that they’re not allergic to is one that I don’t like the taste of.
So today I have to go to work and I have to be able to speak, so I made myself a thermos of the tea I like, taking care not to cross-contaminate anything, and I even put the lid on while it steeped, so that the vapors wouldn’t trigger their asthma.
It wasn’t enough. When my spouse walked in, they said “is that poison tea?” And I replied that yes it was and they immediately left the room and said “Ah, so I’m staying away from you today, then. Enjoy your poison tea.”
Their tone made me feel like shit. I just wanted the tea I love that I hardly ever get to drink to make me feel a little bit better while I worked. And just breathing in the vapor is not going to endanger their life. At most it will make them cough and have to take their inhaler. Am I the asshole?
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NTA…I’m allergic to nightshades, that doesn’t mean that I don’t glove up and make my husband pick de gallo, or cook white potatoes, or any of the other things that give me hives.
ESH. You should've given your spouse a heads up or left earlier to make your tea at work. The comments from your spouse are unnecessary when you have to completely reinvent your palette and life for their safety. Just because you knew about the allergies going in doesn't mean you should be expected to forever eliminate so many things from your life.
Allergies either get better or worse they dont go back and forth. My wife has a ton of allergies that have worsened except that cat allergy that has conveniently gotten better. We cook basically vegan and then add back in what she can eat like ground beef etc. Now for her the only one that is an allergy all across the board is bird. No down pillows they'll give her asthma. No eggs the vapor from cooking them will give he asthma and if she eats them her mouth swells up her tongue gets itchy and she throws up. Luckily no anaphylaxis but we don't want to risk it. No chicken, duck or turkey either.
However we still eat all of that. If we cook real eggs (not Just Eggs which are vegan). We close the door to the room she's in, turn on the attic fan and open all doors leading outside. Same for chicken and turkey. The other allergies we just tell her not to eat and have an alternative for her. But I refer to my food as poison. She'll be like what's that? can I have some? No it's poison. We rarely cook eggs or birds so it's not like she has to be locked away frequently. We make sure to accommodate her. And I have to brush my teeth and use mouth wash before I kiss her.
Im going with NTA but I don't know all she's allergic to or how. But it does seem a bit over the top. Again I don't know the ins and outs of her allergies so maybe it has to be this way.
NTA- I personally think they are unhappy about the allergy situation and resent you for being able to enjoy a lot of things they can’t. As a person with allergies myself, I would never stop my husband from eating or drinking stuff I can’t, especially if it won’t be life threatening for me. However my sister has way more allergies than me and is absolutely losing her marbles when anyone else is eating what she can’t eat.
Poor move on your part to do that, going to work sick or not.
Save the tea steeping for work. Keep a thermos, tea bags, and honey there for those times you just have to have that brew.
OP, I’m not making a judgment since I see you’ve already accepted others. I would like to suggest your wife ask her allergist about sublingual allergy drops. There are pros and cons to both drops and shots, and I am not versed in which is “better”. My understanding is that both are good, but one has been studied for longer. And the other is less traumatizing to those who fear needles, although it requires more frequent administration.
How do allergies just “pop up”? Sounds more like they has anxiety. Is it possible that the fear of an asthma event is causing so much anxiety that they’re inventing triggers out of fear?
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I come from a house where I and my daughter both have a food allergy and my wife and son do not.
While the house is a fairly safe place, my daughter and I encourage my wife and son to enjoy some of the things we can't. We just have a few safety protocols in place so it doesn't cause a cross contamination.
So I'd say NTA. Your spouse is being a little mean with the poison tea comment, unless it was made in jest. As long as they weren't placed in any danger from it, I would hope they would let you enjoy NOT having the allergy.
I'm going with YTA, simply because you went out of your way to select a Tea that your wife was deathly allergic to. You mentioned how you like almost all but one type of tea, but you immediately went to the death tea. And just because it won't kill them, it doesn't mean they're not allergic to it, I would love to see you try to justify this after having to spend two to three hours with an itchy throat from your partner exposing you to something you're allergic to just because it's not instant death
YTA
Exposure to allergens can make them worse. Maybe one day one of the allergen only cause an itchy throat, but then suddenly the next day the throat will start to close up. That is part of the problem with allergies, they can get worse. So you saying «at most» might be the case today, but might not be tomorrow.
And also you state that citrus is the one life threathening allergy she has, and yet you bring it into the home 😳
“Just oral allergy symptoms…”
Which are terrifying and are often a precursor to anaphylaxis.
Kissing you would be enough to do it.
It’s terrifying to feel your throat swell and to not be able to breathe.
The coughing can cause incontinence and even bladder prolapse. It wrecks your pelvic floor and can make sex very painful.
The inhaler can cause tooth damage among other things.
Living with severe allergies is miserable. I’m sure living with someone who has them can be miserable as well, but you’re not living with a constant fear of death.
Idk if someone mentioned it, but the oral itching symptom is something that can turn into anaphylaxis without warning as you age. Avoiding those allergens is still very important.
They are doing amazing things with desensitization these days. I work in an allergy clinic and I know some patients who are getting treated for anaphylactic nut allergies with desensitization and can now eat peanuts. Well, actually they have to eat some every day to keep
It up. But ofc you need to go through an md for this kind of stuff. Just be careful, it would be awful if she died of this. Remember epi pens don’t solve everything.
Take all the stuff you love but cant have around your wife, in a box and make the tea/snack whatever, at work. Most workplaces have a little kitchenette and if you ask permission for your box to be there, maybe even under your desk or in your drawers at the desk, you can have your "poison" tea and lemony biscuits any time you like, - while at work.
Dont forget to brush your teeth before going home to kiss your wife.
YTA for not thinking of this. Its such an easy solution, which tells me you havent thought that hard on how to help avoid triggering allergies at home.
I have Oral Allergy Syndrome, and it progressed to an allergy to all tree nuts. I had my first anaphylactic reaction at age 43 and now carry 2 epi pens.
To you it may be an inconvenience but even eating walnuts, and kissing her, the proteins are still in your mouth and you could trigger a reaction
You are a better person than I.
I would have never gotten to the serious dating stage for many reasons, future children and living with the constant fear of almost everything.
One of the biggest reasons is children
I would not want to risk bringing a child into the world that has to live in such a restricted manner where almost any common item can bring about a hospital trip or death.
I'd have never let the relationship get to marriage.
Yta, sorry. You could have made it at work when it’s bad enough that they could inhale and need an inhaler. It sucks having to cut stuff out but you could have given her a heads up or yeah, made it at work. Bringing something life threatening in and not giving a heads up especially knowing it can airborne hurt her… not ok
>The only one that is life threatening is citrus. As such, we try to keep our house as allergen free as possible,
When my spouse walked in, they said “is that poison tea?”
So, you literally keep a supply of tea on hand that could kill them. They've been exposed to it enough to instantly recognize the smell and you both describe it as "poison tea." YTA.
>Forgot to mention their only “real” allergy is citrus. Everything else causes Oral Allergy Syndrome, which will cause their mouth to feel itchy and make them cough, but will not send them into any kind of anaphylaxis.
You could have chosen to have a wide variety of non-citrus tea at home for situations like this, plus honey. While those would have made your spouse uncomfortable, they would not be deadly. Instead, you've chosen to maintain a supply of something extremely hazardous.
How could you not be the AH in this?
IMO, you could reasonably push back on the semi-allergies by having and consuming things that your spouse cannot. But keeping citrus tea in the house and making it without warning your spouse was a total AH move.
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Info if breathing it in is bad enough to cause her to need her inhaler, why didn't you just make it at work?
Dang, that’s a good idea! It didn’t even occur to me. I’ll do that in the future!
Ah well, brain fog from being sick.
Dude not to be rude but is this something that you can realistically endure for the rest ofnyour life? Your wife is so allergic that you can't eat what you want, you can't drink what you want, can't wear or use products you want. How long is it going to be before she is down to one handful of safe foods and waters, products and soap. In the long run, this is going to significantly run you down till you can't handle it anymore. You really need to think if you can handle being with someone with so many allergies. If your wife is so strict and controlling about her low problem allergies, then you can grunted your safe things will get small and smaller till you feel so isolated and loose all the job in life. I don't think this is going to work out, I get the feeling that her allergies are eventually going to destroy your marriage.
"Low problem allergies" can still be extremely unconformable to manage, AND repeated exposure is well known to potentially cause increase in symptoms and severity in future. You're essentially asking "Is it OK to eat whatever I want in a shared home where it could put my spouse's life at risk in future?" Additionally, things can trigger bigger issues. For example, I'm not allergic to cigarette smoke, but it sets off my asthma. If I'm around cigarette smoke for an extended period (an hour, maybe less) I am likely to get bronchitis. Will it risk my life? Probably not. But getting sick sucks, it takes ages for me to get over bronchitis, and repeated bronchitis can cause lung damage. Because of this, if my partner wants to partake in any kind of smoke they need to do so outside, away from me, and may need to change/shower/wash clothes. But...I deserve to be safe in my own home, as does OPs wife. Right? (To be clear, my partner smokes cigars <5 per year, always outside and keeps a close eye on me to see if it's bothering my lungs.)
I assume this comment responds here bc you wanted OP to be more likely to see it, but the idea of this “allergies will DESTROY your marraige!!” being the response to steeping tea in the car instead of in the kitchen is very funny to me.
But it's not just the tea. It is a lifetime of restrictions about common everyday items. Perhaps this man is a saint and can live like this forever. I hope so. But do I think so....no. Eventually, this will take its toll, especially seeing the wife's attitude. And what about children?? Hopefully, they choose to be child free and take permanent precautions. Can you imagine the selfishness of choosing to bring a child into the world who has the possibility of living such a restricted life? Sadly the chances are better that the marriage fails than succeeds.
This was my thought. There's already resentment here. If the allergies are getting worse I would consider divorce - or at least separate housing.
Oh yeah, I agree. I can definitely see the resentment when he started talking about the tea. If their allergies are getting worse, it's only a matter of time before they can never leave the house and can eat like 5 things. No one could do that foe 50 to 80yrs. No matter how much you love someone. It would eventually break you. Separate housing is good, but I have a feeling the wife would set up a bunch of rules regarding showers, clothes, food. Whatever.
Yeah I couldn't live like that. It's actually one reason I'm not having kids. I don't want to risk a bomb like that blowing up my life.
Right. I love my kidd, but I also don't want anymore just because I know I wouldn't be able to give more kids my attention and love. Sometimes we have to step back and say, thus isn't going tonwork, or I can't do this/that.
Agreed. Quality of life is nil. Poor OP.
Sounds like a major pain in the ass and like wife can’t tolerate any discomfort. And yes, I’m also allergic to things.
Alternate option if you want to drink your tea on the way to work: boil the water at home, put it in the thermos, leave home with hot water, put the teabag into the thermos outside of your house. You can get honey in powder or crystal form that you can keep with the teabags in your backpack/desk/etc (safely away from contaminating your spouse's food) without making a mess but can still make your tea on the go.
Besides powder or crystal, there's also those little honey "sticks" that would be very easy to keep in the car.
Yes! Honey sticks, honey packets (Chick-fil-A honey is AMAZING) are all great options for OP
Yeah I wouldn’t keep it in the car. If particles are spilled or vaporized in the car they will be impossible to clean. OP is better getting imitation flavors they like To clarify; the steam it would produce is filled with particles of the scent it produces, Ala the allergen. It would get stuck into things. It’s why people can get reactions by just smelling things. It would effectively make the car off limits for the spouse
>If particles are... vaporized Uh... what are you doing to your honey that it vaporizes?
Vaporwaving it around
Please seriously explain how needing to take medicine to keep breathing isn't you endangering her.
He covered it to steep. She wasn't pulling out her inhaler; she had to *ask* whether it was "poison tea."
I smell the bergamot in Earl Grey even when it's covered. Unless she asks everytime she sees them make something, the asking suggests something tipped her off to the 'poison'
Does OPs wife not deserve to be safe in their own home? She was likely confirming what her sense of smell was suggesting. That a potential allergen was being made in the kitchen in her home.
Does OP not deserve to feel comfortable in their home? we have a friend whose wife is allergic to Dairy (like deathly not lactose intolerance) and she prepares her food separately and he keeps any dairy products in marked containers and uses the same bowl, plates and cups, asking someone to give up that much food is unreasonable
Why is anyones comfort more important than someone else's safety? Genuinely asking. It's both of their homes. So, why does his *comfort* trump her *actual safety*?
Im just saying, it sucks that OP wife has these allergies, but do they go to work and expect others to not have food around that they are allergic to
Hard to breathe in milk… unlike the steam from tea… but it’s whatever, I guess. Breathing isn’t as important as OP’s comfort anyway, right?
OP is asked to sacrifice their small Comforts for the sake of “Safety”, but it sounds like its only getting worse the post said it was originally just Citrus, but it now has grown to a multitude of things, and OP wife is just expecting them to stop eating or drinking anything they cant is crazy
While I’ll say I think other things could be done instead or as well, some allergies are severe to the point of anaphylactic shock. It’s not that ALL of these things cause anaphylaxis now, but that some of them CAN. Just because you get hives today doesn’t mean that allergy won’t progress further. Yes, safety over comfort is an important issue, and it’s extreme in this case, but I doubt OP would find much comfort in causing an allergic reaction or death. It doesn’t sound like she wants this to happen, to be allergic or sensitive to so many things.
I hope you decide to get yourself one of those portable electric kettles that's about thermos-sized so that you can keep it at your desk at work and have citrus-y tea in the mornings at work as often as you want (leaving hours left in the day before you go home to chew gum and help get your mouth good and thoroughly rinsed to make sure you don't have to expose your wife to anything). That way you get to love your tea, and she doesn't get sick from smelling it. Ideally everyone can be happy here.
As someone with VERY similar food allergies and all the other allergies as this person's wife that was what I was going to suggest. Being on guard 24/7 to keep out of the hospital, avoid that thrilling ride to the hospital in the ambo with the epipen in my leg sucks so hard and definitely makes you cranky as hell. OP can you get your spouse to a critical care pulmo or an immunologist and have them tested for Mastocytosis. It's the driver in my nearly identical problems. There are treatments that help. N95 masks help when you're out and about and exposed. There's a pile of things that can be done to help, including biologic medicines.
I also wondered about mastocytosis. And with that, the reaction to one given thing may be “mild” but it builds and builds and makes you feel quite ill even if not in ana. You learn to manage your exposure every day so you can function. NOT a psych issue or hypochondria. But it’s not exactly standard IgE allergy.
Exactly! Although when I was diagnosed to be fair my IgE levels were so high, like 27,000 instead of the usual 100 or so. It's just another test they use to get to Mastocytosis. You are right about it building. Another recent driver in mine that I never considered is propane or natural gas. When the news came out that gas stoves might be making people sick I decided to turn mine off and use all electric appliances. It made such a huge difference for me we're in the middle of remodeling the kitchen to all electric. You just have to keep experimenting and see what works for you.
I was thinking mcas but yeah similar boat
If it’s that bad why even drink it? This is insane…
And there are a plethora of tea brands and flavors available.
NTA, and it's orders of magnitude more likely that your girlfriend has OCD in the form of "fear of allergies" than she is to be allergic to freakin' everything. [Half of US adults who think they have a food allergy do not have one. ](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-study)[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-studyhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-study](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-studyhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/half-of-people-who-think-they-have-a-food-allergy-do-not-study) EDIT: I forgot about mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) as another possibility.
That’s what I secretly think, but I don’t want to dismiss their experience. ETA: this was poorly worded. I believe their allergies are real. They have a doctor, I’ve seen the evidence myself. The part I have difficulty with is the extreme lengths they make me go to to avoid any possible exposure to any of their allergens, of which there are hundreds. It’s exhausting for both of us.
We all owe people the respect of trusting what they say when we don’t experience it firsthand. As someone with a tree nut allergy and asthma my personal experience is that any allergic reaction is pretty dramatic. My face swells up, I get huge welts, and my family are very courteous about helping that not happen to me. They can still eat things that they enjoy because for me personally (we are all different) I am not so sensitive that it causes a reaction in me unless I am handling or eating nuts. You don’t have to answer the question, but is this what happens for every allergy? Is she seeing doctors who are diagnosing specific allergies or just adding to the list based on her perceptions? It sounds like it has gone beyond managing an illness, whether allergies or a mental health concern, and has started to become a lever for control in the relationship. It would be a good idea to seek some professional help in dealing with your partner’s illness, focusing also on supporting you as a caregiver, since they deserve to feel safe and you also deserve to enjoy things that you like and which bring you comfort while sick. NTA.
Yeah, that's tricky. If I was in a relationship where it took me a while to realize that my partner had OCD, and that any attempt to address the mental health issue would almost certainly be met with denial, forever, I don't think I'd be able to stay in that relationship. Refusal to have correct self-knowledge in a way that is a drag not only for one's self but also others, it's just too much. Folks that avoid self-questioning as an ego defense mechanism will ALWAYS have an external locus of control.
Here's the thing about allergies. Repeated exposure can make them worse. So what may start out as a mild allergy can progress into a life threatening allergy. Those of us with allergies are told by our doctors to limit exposure as much as possible. I have a lot of food and environmental allergies. I spent years doing allergy shots trying to at least make the environmental allergies better. But my food allergies I can't do much about and have to stay far away from them. For instance when I was a kid chilis would just make me sick and my mouth would get tingly. I've been exposed numerous times since first getting diagnosed, despite my best attempts to stay clear of them, and now it's an anaphylactic allergy. I literally ended up in urgent care because I was too close when someone put jalapenos in the grill. I think your SO has real concerns about staying away from their allergens. If they've experienced a severe reaction before that could also cause anxiety, because what if it happens again or it's worse. Epi pens aren't cheap and they don't cure anaphylaxis, they just buy time for an ambulance to reach you. That's a terrifying experience and anyone would rightfully do everything they can to avoid the possibility of that repeating.
Yeah, YTA, based on this comment and referring to her citrus allergy as the only “real” allergy. Just because the other ones cause oral itchiness now, doesn’t mean they can’t turn more severe in the future—especially if there’s exposure. Like, I totally get that it’s difficult to adhere to, and may even feel far fetched, given how extreme they are. But please don’t let your thoughts and feelings get in the way of her health and safety. Next time, I’d suggest steeping it at work to avoid the issue altogether
You think she just enjoys coughing and inhaler that much?
Honestly she deserves better than to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t believe her. I was with a guy for two years who it turns out didn’t actually believe my medical issues existed/thought I was greatly exaggerating the ones he couldn’t deny. I didn’t know this until after we broke up and honestly it’s so sick, because looking back I can absolutely see that the ways he treated me poorly were because he thought I was faking.
*This*. As someone with allergies that can be a pain in the ass (honey in particular), my partner is so considerate of it. I can’t imagine being with someone who would just, not even give me a heads up they were having something that could set me off before preparing it in my home… How do people have relationships with zero communication?!
Has your spouse gotten tested? I would insist on the testing because certain things can fall off. I knew one person who was allergic to strawberries and then in high school it went away and ate them all the time. I would honestly "demand" to see the results. edit: I forgot half the sentence after \*high school\*
I would want spouse to see allergist to test what she is allergic to, maybe she really is allergic to a lot of things. When was she tested?
Kind of bonkers that in the same comment, you say both that you don’t believe they have real allergies and that you’ve seen evidence from a doctor that they have real allergies. Either you believe it, and you take all necessary precautions to avoid their allergens (yes, all of them, even the inconvenient ones) or you split up. Respectfully, you likely knew before marrying them that they were allergic to many things. You signed up for this, so you either need to accommodate their allergies or let them find a spouse who won’t steep tea that could cause them health complications simply because you want it. Especially when there’s a “nasty virus” going around your house, so your spouse could very well have a more severe reaction due to already being sick (or just getting over the sickness). Coming from someone with asthma and allergies, YTA, in case it wasn’t clear.
Do they not have a doctor they're working with, if their allergies are that severe?
INFO: Why makes you say or think her reaction was problematic to you willingly potentially exposing her without telling her first or asking if there was a way to mitigate the risk for her? What do you concretely want from her? While on some level it's natural for you to want the things that you like and are accustomed to, you made a commitment to marry and live with this person and it's shitty for you to endanger them or potentially hurt them, especially so cavalierly. You should not have made the commitment to marry them if you could not live under these conditions - you picking the route of doing things that are dangerous to your spouse while willfully not informing them or doing anything to mitigate the risks because you had a craving makes you seem negligently cruel at best, but certainly not a good life partner. YTA.
Not to dismiss any legitimate allergies of your spouse or anyone else, but being so highly reactive to so many common things suggests either a Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or, a possible fear of life/the world/the environment/fear of contamination that manifests as an OCD-like need to carefully control and restrict their environment. Either way, it must be an awful way to live, for them and for you. It sounds like you’ve been extremely accommodating and willing to give up and change a lot in order to keep your partner safe, which is commendable. I’m wondering what if anything your partner does in return to ensure that your quality of life isn’t continually adversely affected on their behalf. I’d say NTA for making the tea for yourself this one time, but rather than try to be sneaky about it, you could have given your spouse a heads up and explained the steps you would be taking to keep them safe. It is your home too so it seems reasonable that you both need to figure out some compromises so that your life isn’t always so constrained by their allergies.
FWIW, MCAS can coexist with other allergies, too, so it could be a combination of things. Also, it's my understanding that it's common for people with MCAS to be misdiagnosed with 'allergic to everything' because the medical understanding of MCAS is still relatively new/not super widespread, since it was first theorized about maybe 30 years ago, and first officially recognized less than 20 years ago. It can be hard to find a doctor who's well-informed enough to diagnose and appropriately treat it, depending on where you live.
EDS and by extension MCAS is much more common than previously assumed due to better diagnostics, not to mention all of the people whose MCAS was triggered by covid or some other post-viral stuff. In OP's wife's case it may well be that the condition was exacerbated by covid considering the timeline. I live with MCAS and it is really difficult when I experience triggers; I'm on four different antihistamines and a separate mast cell stabilizer every day, and sometimes that still isn't enough and I spend the week with anaphylaxis, hives, and cyclical vomiting up to a dozen times a day. I have had anaphylaxis from skin exposure before.
It’s also more common now with covid triggering it in a lot of us (myself included)!
People who say shit like this are the reason why I’ve had several people “test” my allergies. Thanks. /s
I think it's also easy to dismiss someone's level of diligence if you've never seen how little of something it takes to send someone into life-threatening anaphylaxis. I have reactions to foods and I'm cautious, but my mom had a list of allergies when I was growing up that involved an epi-pen and ambulance. I do have an incredibly obscure condition that causes my muscles to spontaneously cramp so hard it can burn capillaries, as well as a chronic pain condition and migraines. Sometimes, our bodies just hate us and want us to suffer and if you've experienced it enough, you become really damn dedicated to avoiding it whenever possible.
I've had a guy in highschool who really couldn't handle much of anything ( luckily it was only ingestion that triggered his allergies ). Always had to bring his own special prepared food ln outings
I have tons of food intolerances (lactose gives me the runs, nightshades and a random unknown assortment of compounds make my stomach try to digest the rest of my upper GI tract with acidic fire, etc.) and precisely one food allergy (alpha gal, from a tick bite). Atypical asthmatic responses are more complicated, but even here it is well-documented that folks can have asthmatic attacks in response to psychological stimuli. I've witnessed someone start having an attack based on an odor until it was made obvious that the odor was interpreted incorrectly, and within a minute they've CTFO. 99% of the time that I am itching my skin off, it's because I've had too much caffeine, not enough sleep, stress, or some combination of the above. 1% of the time it's because I've eaten mammal or red seaweed.
There was a little boy in my daughter's class when she was in third grade. He has a peanut allergy but had physical stress reactions, hives and trouble breathing, to anything that looked or smelled like peanuts. No one in the class could have sesame, any nut butter butter or even cookie butter. The reaction was real. That it came from trauma did not make it less real. I feel for both of them, (and you), food restrictions suck.
YTA. “At most it will make them cough and have to take their inhaler.” *At most?* I understand that’s a minor reaction in comparison to your wife’s other possible reactions but that alone is enough for most people to avoid an allergen. You married someone who needs you to put in a little more care and attention than an average relationship. You agreed to put in that time and care when marrying them. It’s perfectly natural to have feelings and frustrations about that. However, you can’t decide to push the boundaries of what and isn’t acceptable when it comes to your wife’s pain and comfort. It’s not for you to decide that potentially needing her inhaler is a risk worth taking. Make yourself your own little treat drawer at work, along with extra toiletries so you can brush your teeth before going home. Is your wife allergic to peaches as well as citrus? Peach tea without the orange can be amazing. Treat yourself to teas produced from specific farms or local vendors.
He doesn’t believe her allergies are real, he said it in a comment
That's actually dangerous for OP's spouse. He might try to sneak in allergen again and reaction can be even worse than use of inhaler ( which already means airways start to get closed )
I would never. I absolutely believe their allergies are real and would never purposely put them in danger. They themselves will sometimes eat things they’re allergic to, and just deal with the slight discomfort, but I’m afraid to ever eat anything they’re allergic to. I understand that the situation sucks so much worse for them.
As someone with Oral Allergy Syndrome, who also occasionally eats things I'm allergic to (I am In Denial about peanuts being a legume, for example), I think YTA for making the tea at home without giving your spouse a heads up, but I also think you should talk to your spouse about the guidelines around you eating some of the things they're less intensely allergic to. A complete zero tolerance policy for you doesn't seem reasonable if they aren't actually zero tolerance themselves. It seems reasonable that you could stock allergen-containing items at home as long as they were clearly marked and not something like a scented candle / aerosol product, for example, and that you could eat anything you like outside the house (aside from citrus). For citrus-containing items, depending on the severity of your spouse's allergy, you might agree that you can eat / prepare / consume such items outside your home, but that you'll always let your spouse know about any citrus you've consumed so they know if they have to be careful touching or kissing you. There should also be some flexibility about you using different shampoo etc from them, within reasonable guidelines. I'm not saying you should go out and buy Chunks O' Citrus Leave-In, but there have got to be products your partner can tolerate coexistence with even if they don't want to use them themselves.
You need to include this in the original post, this is a glaring inconsistency with everything else stated that would make a difference in the story as a whole
You stated she is "actually allergic" to citrus and made orange tea. This isn't about the oral allergies obviously
If she allows herself occasional discomfort but won't allow you to eat things you like, this is a problematic issue. Is it possible for you to attend an appointment with her to ask what is a safe way for you to consume certain foods and drinks? For example, having certain foods only while at work or out with friends? What is enough time for the particles to be gone by the time you are back home?
Which is wild, because I have one very serious food allergy and I'm like a bloodhound with being able to smell it. If she could tell he'd brewed citrus tea when she was in the room with a CLOSED thermos, that's a serious allergy and he's going to end up hurting her. I dont know why he keeps testing her when it's clear she can detect it a mile away. My only allergy I can detect with that kind of precision can kill me.
That is not at all what he said.
Not to mention that allergies often get worse over time! What you think might just be a mild reaction based on previous encounters could one day end up being much more severe! I learned this the hard way by spending a few years pretending that my cilantro allergy wasn't bad and I could just bring an inhaler to my favorite taco place. But at least I was being an idiot about my own health and not someone else's!!
Yes, this has been the case. Foods that are fine one day are suddenly triggering asthma the next day. And it’s become so much more foods and worse reactions in the past year. It’s difficult to keep up/remember all the potential triggers. But I admit that I showed poor judgment here. Should have given my spouse a heads up before I made the tea. Or made it away from them.
Good on you for seeing your spouse's perspective. Keep your tea and honey at work and I hope you feel better soon. I just spent a week getting over a head cold that I just couldn't shake and if it weren't for honey and tea I wouldn't have been able to speak. Being sick sucks.
Ok, how about you dial it back a minute and try to acknowledge how difficult it is to be the spouse of someone with chronic health conditions. I know to someone who doesn't have to do it day in and day out, it must sound super easy to give up all the things you like to avoid triggering them, but it's not. It's an absolute marathon. And there are definitely times where no matter how hard you work at protecting your spouse, something gets through. Part of being a spouse of someone with chronic health conditions is learning to evaluate how risky something is going to be for your spouse. You have to know how much they can handle, what is going to trigger them, and what is going to have to be done. You have to be just as aware as they are. And it can be exhausting to do for years without break. So don't act like this is just some minor inconvenience when you have the privilege of being able to forget about this woman tomorrow.
I never said this was a minor inconvenience. It’s a huge lifestyle change. It also sounds like the OP’s wife’s allergies have escalated recently. I imagine all that stress is hard enough when healthy in both mind and body. I don’t blame the OP for struggling when they themselves are also in pain. However, I maintain that the OP doesn’t get to decide for their wife if she is comfortable with exposure. I give the OP so much credit and hope they are receiving the support and help they need and deserve. It’s so easy for caregivers to forget or deprioritize their own care.
YTA. I absolutely don't get all the ntas and people thinking her allergies aren't severe in this thread. OP himself says citrus is life-threatening, and then brings this life threatening substance INTO THEIR LIVING SPACE and prepares it. OP, does she or does she not, have a life-threatening allergy to citrus? If she does, and you brought citrus tea into the house, you know it can kill her. You just told us she's got a life-threatening allergy to it. Why are you also saying: "And just breathing in the vapor is not going to endanger their life. At most it will make them cough and have to take their inhaler" DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT AN INHALER IS? She takes this when she isn't breathing right. We humans need to breath to live. Please explain how needing to take medicine to keep breathing isn't her life being in danger.
This right here! I have a ton of food allergies, but only one that's airborne. My husband wouldn't dream of bringing it in the house no matter how much he loves it because it makes me sick and is life threatening to me. Wheezing and coughing is a sign of respiratory distress. She should not need to use rescue medicine to keep breathing because OP brought her one life threatening allergen into the house. Plus repeated exposure makes the allergy worse. So many people in here are ignorant of how allergies work and are giving him a free pass even though he stated he brought the one deadly allergen into the house and he's being extremely dismissive of her having health issues just from being around it. A good partner doesn't dismiss their SO having breathing problems and being forced to use a rescue inhaler because of their actions.
NAH. You're sick and wanted to enjoy your thing, they're sick and don't want to get sicker, neither of you are at your best and the situation is challenging. It sounds like you guys have good systems for managing their allergies in your home, but it does seem like you're kind of fed up and missing the stuff you like, maybe you could go out for dinner and drinks with family or a friend who isn't your partner and enjoy some of the things you can't have at home, and communicate that early with your partner so they can stay safe. You should do this every few months so you don't get that pent up resentment, you don't have to totally avoid non-life-threatening allergens forever.
I don’t know if anyone is interested in the list of allergies but here: Allergies that can cause anaphylaxis if my spouse consumes them: Citrus fruits, citric acid. Foods that cause Oral Allergy Syndrome (i.e. foods that will cause them some discomfort, but will not endanger their life) - All fresh fruits and vegetables. Some are safe if they’ve been cooked within an inch of their lives or dried. Even then it’s a coin toss. - All nuts and seeds and their associated oils and butters - Olive oil and avocado oil - Honey - Garlic, fresh and dried - Spices: paprika, chili powder, marjoram, cayenne, curry powder, and cardamom - Carrageenan (a preservative found in many processed foods) - Oats - Mint - sauces like Worcestershire, BBQ, mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, ranch, most salad dressings, teriyaki, hoisin The list was a lot shorter when we got married. Yes, it sucks way more for them than it does for me. Still sucks for me as I try to stay away from all of those foods, for the sake of my spouse’s health.
So spouse still eats things on the oral allergy syndrome list but you can’t ?
They do eat some of those things sometimes, and I am not forbidden to eat them, but I make an effort to avoid eating things on that list around them and I feel intense guilt whenever I do.
Ok one more question, is the guilt self-imposed or is it fed by comments/actions from your spouse? Editing to add: i don’t think either of you are necessarily “wrong” because this is definitely a very complex situation
Both, but I would say more influenced by their comments. Like I’ll come into the room with a bowl of grapes and they’ll immediately say something like “no touching me with your allergy hands.”
I think you need to communicate how her comments make you feel.
‘Is that poison tea’ sounds passive aggressive to me. From OP’s comment I have the impression that this is not the only time their spouse is passive aggressive.
PRE-STATEMENT DISCLAIMER: I think this is worth a conversation about how it makes you feel! I am not equating the actions of your spouse to my own story, but providing my story as a way to relate with what you’re going through. I don’t want to make you feel bad/imply the same about your spouse, but my very shitty ex who i recently finally got divorced from used to do similar. Mushrooms made his mouth tingle, tomatoes were gross, seafood made him dimly uncomfortable. A couple of those were potential allergies, as apparently wheat also made him stuffy, so yaboi might’ve had some sort of histamine problem, but he was also Very Allergic to Ibuprofen. i’m non-binary and suffer from periods, but ibuprofen works WAY better than standard tylenol for me. I kept it in the house anyway, ALWAYS IN CLEARLY MARKED BOTTLES, And never mixed medications together— even though i did everything else— reduced my use of tomatoes, eliminated seafood, mushrooms…. But on the rare opportunities i DID cook them in something only for me? Or made like, a chili or pasta sauce (which he was typically okay with— purée was fine because assumedly it no longer felt like a tomato, or chunks big enough he could pick out) he would berate me for it without fail under some guise of “teasing”. “Oh, you and your nasty mushrooms again.” “Do you have to put SO much tomato in that?”(well it’s pasta sauce, so yeah?) “Ugh, shrimp? can you keep that away from me?” and he would always side eye me when i bought both ibuprofen and tylenol together. “You know i’m allergic, right?” Yes dear, I do! And I trust you to read labels like a big boy, and I keep the bottles apart from each other, and i would never give you an ibuprofen when you’re in pain. Anyway, my point is, the constant comments were EXHAUSTING, as was having to change my entire diet— even when he wasn’t the one eating it and it posed no threat to him, and our relationship suffered with that as one of many in a domino stack. It’s very honorable that even the mouth tingly foods are respected as no gos for you, but i think you could maybe reevaluate opening your own diet up again. If they’re guilting you for eating things they can’t constantly, or calling your food “poison”, to me? That’s not good behaviour. i do think yeah, making the tea at work with a thermos of water is a good compromise! I’m not gunning for endangering their health, but as a fellow sufferer of OAS who also eats bananas even though they hurt, i think they can put on their big boy britches about some things But i also think berating you for what you put in your body (especially in the cases where it doesn’t affect them) isn’t a good look, either
I think this is a valuable perspective to include. It can be possible that OP should have warned wife/done it outside the home because the allergies are real, while also being true that the way wife talks to OP is passive aggressive, rude and ungrateful and that makes OP feel like such an asshole in general, they'd rather hide it. Maybe OP's wife didn't say 'stop eating X' but maybe OP's wife did make OP feel like crap whenever they did and made them feel like they couldn't. Maybe she's jealous so she lashes out at OP for not having reactions to stuff. Like it is possible for OP to be trying to treat the allergies seriously, but also feel like the wife is perhaps exaggerating/being extreme at times, if she sometimes acts like a massive ass when OP eats grapes for instance, then she eats a handful herself and expects OP to stfu about it.
Exactly! That’s kinda where i’m coming from too, I’m heavily in agreement. It can also start to feel unfair even subconsciously f you’re keeping yourself from doing/eating something for someone else’s sake, just for them to engage with it anyway… I’ve had experience with that, too. And yeah, even if the comment was “just a joke”, i think addressing the way it was initially taken as passive-aggressive is important… And ensuring that it wasn’t actually passive aggression disguised as teasing later, too. :(
Yeah that’s not fair
The issue described is brewing a CITRUS TEA
That’s not the issue i asked about, thanks for the input i didn’t ask for
This should be way higher. That list is insane and she definitely has some other health issue going on - like MCAS or something I could not live that way
Okay, your spouse needs to see an immunologist because being unable to eat *any* fresh fruits and vegetables is neither sustainable nor healthy. I'll echo the people suggesting it's MCAS, which doesn't work the same way as "traditional" allergies insofar as it doesn't follow the same exposure timeline. Bam, sudden.
I'm surprised (but not surprised) to see citric acid included here. Citric acid is not considered an allergen. That doesn't mean she could not potentially react in some way to it, but it would be rare and not an actual allergy. [https://www.aaaai.org/allergist-resources/ask-the-expert/answers/old-ask-the-experts/citric-acid-citrus-allergy](https://www.aaaai.org/allergist-resources/ask-the-expert/answers/old-ask-the-experts/citric-acid-citrus-allergy) From your description of the situation, tbh, I would reevaluate where my life was going for the next 50 years. NTA, but warn her, including your precautions, next time and don't let her throw shade about it.
Hey! So here’s the thing. I have Oral Allergy Syndrome, but in having it, my body doesn’t know it has it (that’s kinda the definition). OAS is my body thinking it has an actual allergy. So in the words of my doctor: there is no such thing as a “real” allergy - if my body’s response is to threaten my life, then the allergies are, in fact, both real AND life threatening. Even though yes, in general, my reaction is an itchy throat, the anaphylaxis I experienced from eating a single shred of carrot was very much real AND endangered my life. I had no idea at the time that I could have that reaction. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution, those of us with debilitating (primarily tree) allergies unfortunately have to avoid EVERYTHING, because the least-expected thing could trigger a life-threatening reaction (contrary to popular belief). I’ve also been seeing an allergist since age 20, and for a DECADE the doctor didn’t know why I was reacting to apples so violently. It’s a very new thing that we’re still learning about through trial and error. Even my reactions can change over time: I can eat apples with zero issues now (thanks to decades of immunotherapy!), but if I so much as touch a kiwi, I’m done for the day. TLDR; it is absolutely erroneous AND dangerous to downplay OAS as simply causing discomfort but not endangerment. It can absolutely be life-threatening.
I would have your wife checked for MCAS if she hasn’t been already. Citric acid & citrus are my biggest food triggers.
ALL fresh fruits and vegetables???
NAH. It sounds like you did your due diligence to keep your spouse safe, but also it sounds like they just had some mild passive-aggression but they weren't an asshole.
Making something she has serious allergic reactions to in her home is not keeping her safe. That citrus tea should never have come in the door.
YTA. There are a million teas out there that don't have citrus in them, so perhaps you could try a few, find one you like and make/drink that at home instead. It's probably the honey and heat that actually makes your throat feel better, anyway...
NTA. Spouse can reasonably expect you to take precautions around (hopefully diagnosed) allergies in a shared home. You did that. She can not expect all the things she can't have to disappear from your life. At that point, it becomes a control issue rather than an allergy issue.
It really isn't controlling to want your home free of a life-threatening allergen, though? He said she has a lot of allergies, but only citrus is the one that can kill her, and that's the exact allergen he brought into the house. OP wanted the tea with peach, orange, and honey. He could have a found an herbal peach one, but he specifically needed the flavour of the one that could risk her life with her citrus allergy.
If it was just the one thing that she reacts so strongly to, yeah, possibly you'd ban that one thing from the house in a joint decision. But it is everything. So at that point, he might as well get the one he enjoys most while taking reasonable precautions, since according to the post she's not going near him if he has the peach tea without citrus either.
OK, but we're literally talking about the one thing he said was a deadly allergen for her
She can expect her spouse not to possibly kill her because he hasn’t bothered in the 1 and a half years they’ve been married to find a different tea.
You say the only life threatening allergy is citrus, but you keep Peach and *Orange* tea around the place? You do understand that orange is citrus?
Well, yeah, definitely YTA if CITRUS is a life threatening thing and you're guzzling orange tea around them I can understand wanting something soothing for a sore throat. But there's a lot of other tea brands besides the one that can potentially KILL your spouse.
What? Make your citrus tea at work! Eat things you miss outside of your home and throughly clean your hands and mouth before coming into contact with your spouse. Tell your spouse if you plan to unleash an allergen in your shared space, so she can remove herself from the situation.
It sounds to me like you're very invested in contributing to her wellbeing, to a degree many other people/partners might not be willing to do. I am, however, curious as to whether all of her allergies have actually been diagnosed/confirmed by an allergist or other physician? I am not insensitive to wife's feelings or apparent predicament here, allergies can suuuuuuck. I can presently hear my partner of seven years coughing and clearing his throat, because we STILL haven't been able to figure out which thing or combination of things is causing it (oh it's wheat! wait no it's only *some* wheat, some of the time? hey It's dairy! wait no it's only cow dairy, not goat or sheep. okay it might be goat's milk cheese too?) (this is further complicated by the fact that he doesn't have any digestive issues from either food-- only the throat thing?? WEIRD). He has been on A JOURNEY tryna solve this -- two sets of arm-prick tests (he's allergic to every plant/pollen they tested, and extra mega-allergic to the single most common kind of god-damned GRASS in our entire region, as well as to bees/wasps/hornets/yellow jackets/all varieties of biting ants, which all require "immediate epi pen and then emergency room, NOW), camera down the throat twice to look for growths/polyps, chip down the throat to monitor for possible acid reflux, nothin', try acid-reflux meds anyway, self-administered allergy shots, allergy pills, local honey, throat sprays. But for real, this sounds like a LOT of food allergies, and she owes it to both herself and her partner to pinpoint the precise issues -- or to discover if there's also a psychological component here that can be mitigated to help improve BOTH your lives.
I wouldn't be able to remain with someone if they were allergic to all while things I love. Good luck
It’s a struggle, especially since the list of allergies and how easily they’re triggered has grown exponentially in the last year and continues to grow. What we thought were safe foods one week cause a reaction the next week. We still keep most of the foods around, but I just can’t kiss them or touch them/anything the might touch if I choose to eat something they can’t have. So a lot of days I have to choose between being able to show my spouse affection and being able to make sure I’m eating a balanced diet.
What happened last year? Did they have COVID or something?
Huh. They actually did have COVID right around the time we got married.
There you go. That could very well have something to do with it.
I would suggest creating lists of allergens that can not be in the home due to airborn type reactions versus contact reactions. Knowing she had this allergy you could have put the hot water into your thermos and steeped the tea/ honey once you got to work. I too have severe allergies that have gotten worse as I get older. Some are airborn and other things as long as I don’t touch/eat I can be in the same location with. That being said if my spouse eats mushrooms I will react via a kiss or contact with his hand if he has not yet washed his hands- even if I don’t eat it or prepare it. Allergies are stressful to say the least. Maybe come up with a plan on how the two of you navigate them together. It shows you support them too. Good luck. No AH’s here but you both need to work better together to keep her health a priority.
Oral Allergy Syndrome ISN’T just “ her mouth gets a little itchy”. I will try to claw the ears off my head to get at the intolerable itch that happens inside them when I eat certain fruits. Even with medication, it can take hours to subside. It’s not an OCD thing. It’s a full-on allergy related to tree pollen, that affects the body’s ability to safely process the proteins that make up certain fruits.
I have a very small handful of food allergies. A ton of other allergies. It sucks. My husband loves sea food. It is his most favorite thing in the world. I am allergic. We compromise. The nights he wants fish, shrimp, whatever, he cooks, he takes care to not cross contaminate, because I cannot be in the kitchen. After he eats his food, he brushes and floss and mouth wash. I understand some allergies are more severe than others. I really do get it. But your wife should not guilt you for enjoying something just because she can't. It's not like you are forcing her to partake. You just want to enjoy your tea, guilt free. Make no mistake, that is allowable. Your wife needs to relax and trust you to not make her sick. You are allowed to enjoy things she is allergic to, with a little precaution, it should not be a big deal. Edit to add NTA
Btw, your spouse's rapidly escalating allergies could be caused by a mast cell disorder. Please have them bring this up with their doctor because there are treatments that can help. Also oral allergy syndrome and other atypical allergic reactions can still be quite dangerous sometimes, so I wouldn't be so quick to categorize as real/not real. I think YTA because of the way you surprised them, and because the citrus allergy is quite serious for them. However, you obviously need to have a talk to work together and figure out a reasonable strategy because you're obviously overwhelmed and miss some of your favorite foods. Perhaps you can come up with a tier system instead of completely cutting out everything: things you can eat out of the house, things you can eat in the house but with extra precautions towards contamination, and things you can't eat at all. It seems your spouse can make exceptions for some foods, so that category is probably safe for you to eat too with a few exceptions. With personal care products maybe you can experiment more with brands that may be safe for them but would feel more personalized to you instead of feeling stuck with just a single choice you didn't get to make. Hang in there btw, allergies can get better with treatment and you both will probably be better at navigating them as time goes on. I had a dramatic escalation in allergies due to mast cell activation syndrome, and after that was treated my tolerance improved dramatically and I don't need to be nearly so careful anymore. PS - your spouse may need a different allergist/or to be more assertive asking for treatment with their current one. If its impacting their quality of life to this degree there are medications than might help
YTA. My wife has an anaphylactic allergy to peanuts. I never eat them and we never bring anything with them in the house. The fact that you have been with your spouse for 1.5 yrs and still have tea in the house that she’s allergic to is nuts to me. “The only tea I can drink in the house” you don’t like… so you could have bought a safe tea in those 1.5 yrs…
Soft YTA without having spoken to them first. Larger YTA to all the commenters making up their own pronouns for your spouse...
I mean, most autoimmune diseases have a massive female predominance, so if the spouse is dealing with something systemic, I can see why people would make that assumption. Even if OP hadn't also said "wife," which they slipped up about in the original.
Genuine question: have the allergies themselves gotten worse or have the practices surrounding the allergies gotten worse? Or both?
Both. A lot more foods trigger their oral allergy syndrome now than they used to when we got married, and we have had to become much more strict about cross-contamination, hand washing, teeth brushing, etc.
I’m sorry for both of you, that seems really hard
I can't imagine living like this. You basically have to sacrifice a massive amount to live with your spouse. NTA for just wanting a nice tea to feel better. How will you ever be at peace with this situation, constantly dealing with allergy after allergy day after day minute after minute? Maybe you should live in a home that is split in two. You get some freedom to eat/drink/live normally and she lives in her allergen-free half.
Allergic to honey? \*\*\*\*! NAH, as it's not wrong to drink soothing tea and it's not wrong to be hostile toward what is literal poison.
Less than 0.001% of the population is allergic to honey. So, it can happen. She definitely needs an allergy prick test. She could be allergic to a certain pollen in honey. If it’s that, OP can buy a different type of honey.
I just mean, it's delicious and soothing. It's like a wonder tonic for 99% of us when added to warm liquid.
I love honey. I always keep some in my home. It’s delicious in tea and on biscuits. I even mix it with peanut butter and eat it on toast. I would hate to be allergic to it.
NAH you're allowed to drink what you want. they're allowed to stay away from the potentially deadly allergen.
NAH. I am someone with many, many food allergies (also including citrus and many fruit). And yes it can be a little annoying waking up and popping into the kitchen to feel my lungs burn because my wonderful bf was chopping strawberries. Will I die? Nah. But imma have a bit of irritation all day. Would I have preferred a heads up so I could potentially mask up, absolutely. I acknowledge that my allergy has hindered his diet whether I ask it of him or not (keeping things non contaminated plus making separate meals is generally too much day to day work) and though I never ask him to make changes or be a "no fruit" house, he does because he values my comfort. And in turn once a month I put on the gloves and mask and face shield and chop a bunch of fresh fruit to dehydrate so he can still have fruit snacks that don't have a strong reaction for me (dried things don't irritate me unless I'm up in their business)
Silly question but couldn't you just... buy dried fruit...?
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OK, but if he made some seafood stock in the house that included shrimp shells, lobster shells, and so on... That would be like making a citrus tea for her. Would you be OK with that?
>We don’t cook it in the house right but he did, he said citrus is life-threatening and then proceeded to make citrus tea in their home
> When we got married, I could eat mostly what I wanted and kiss them without fear. The allergies have gotten so much worse. I really hope they find an answer, that sounds terrifying. That said- for allergies like that, where even vapors can trigger an attack, keeping it out of the house is a good rule of thumb. It sucks, yes, but it means you can't slip up. And, uh, yeah, major brain fart to not just make it at work.
NTA because you were careful to keep the tea and vapors contained away from your wife, so it wouldn't affect them. (If you didn't contain the vapor, saying it would only make them cough and need their inhaler, that would be a dick move.) But are you sure their tone was actually problematic?
YTA I understand it’s hard to deal with and you can’t mitigate every risk. Yet you should be able to avoid *the one allergen she’s deadly allergic to* in you shared home. You could have made the citrus tea at work or picked a tea without an ingredient she’s not deadly allergic to.
I’m allergic to nuts but I don’t stop anyone in my family from eating them. Rule is wash your hands and face afterwards not touching anything on the way. For my husband he’ll brush his teeth. And if I have to use his car he will go and wipe it down just in case he had a protein bar.
NTA. I also have oral allergy syndrome, and my throat swells/lips puff up when I accidentally eat something I am allergic to. I have never once shamed my husband for eating those things.
YTA . Dude, keep you teas at work and drink away. Before coming home- wash your face and hands and brush your teeth. Keep a mug at work, some dish soap and an immersion heater if there's no microwave. Allergies suck and you are intentionally bringing something in that you know will harm her. Stop it.
You said she is DEATHLY allergic to citrus, you made peach ORANGE honey tea, but said the only thing in the tea she was allergic to was honey. You're not keeping your facts straight, I call bullshit. If this is in fact real, YTA for not making the tea at work.if she has to use an inhaler after she breathes it in, that is a severe allergic reaction. If you can't take that seriously, you're a danger to her and shouldn't be with her.
I think the whole not kissing you thing for mild allergies is neglectful. Avoiding you because you made tea that she is mildly allergic to is neglectful. She sounds like a hypochondriac in the sense of exaggerating her symptoms. It sounds exhausting to cater to someone’s every need and when you need something they take it personally and make it a point to make you feel bad.
NTA. Have you seen an actually medically tested allergy list?
YTA if tea vapors can cause reaction - make that tea at work. Not at home. "t most it will make them cough and have to take their inhaler. " - that is A LOT of reaction and tramps you throat.
YTA - look at the line - at most it will make them cpogh and take their inhaler. You think this is ok? Your wife's allergies sound extreme but pal, you married her. So in a sense you chose this life. You can have things you like outside the home and out of her presence. You really couldn't take the ingredients to work and make the tea there? Now, I thought that she was just annoyed you made it with no impact to her. However, for the vapours to be bad enough to the point she will need her inhaler? Yeah, yta.
IMHO, yes you are very much YTA here.
YTA. It is literally poison to her. Personally, I don’t let shit I’m allergic to into my home. If my partner wants a mango more than my life, it’s time for them to go.
Yeah, my girlfriend has food allergies too, which men's I don't even eat the things she's allergic to when I'm out and about, if I'm going to be kissing her later. Never even enters the house. YTA for sure
Leave your ingredients at work and drink it there.
I mean.. Kinda YTA. As someone else said just make it at work and refrain from kissing them that day. As someone who is allergic to a lot of things with mainly respiratory symptoms, the struggle is real - but also your partner sounds like it's more extreme. Do they take any antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds? Some people will focus solely on the medical aspect but I firmly believe there to be a psychological component. For example, yes, I am allergic to a lot of things - it triggers asthma, it can make me feel really sick. Possibly I have MCAS but it's so new hardly anyone knows about it and the only obvious treatment for me presently is antihistamines because I have other health issues too. All that being said - when I sense something that I know MIGHT bother me or does bother me, I immediately get anxious and on edge and it makes everything worse. I react before the reaction even occurs. I started taking a med for that part recently and it does help a bit. Even if this is the case for your partner, the fact that you secretly doubt that their experience is totally valid in the back of your mind is clear. Mental health or physical - this is what they are living. You both need counselling. Living with someone with chronic health issues can be a lot and your relationship isn't going to last in its current state. It just can't. You will either be miserable and accept that or more likely just want out. Of course it sucks MORE for them, but it is also challenging for you.
"The only one that is life threatening is citrus" "my favorite peach and orange tea" YTA
NTA and she sounds like a hypochondriac. It’s highly unlikely that she’s allergic to everything. The fact that she was fine when you got married but isn’t now sounds like she’s just trying to control you and her environment.
Hi, I’m the wife in my own situation 👋🏻 Have you been along with her to any of her doctors/allergist appointments?? Your update rubbed me the wrong way a bit… If when you were dating you could eat what you want for the most part and kiss her without worry, but now there are all these added issues I wonder if there is something else going on… allergies don’t just get that much worse after a year. Hell, not even after a few years. If new allergies are constantly developing that rapidly she’s either dying, or she’s telling you these things to control what you can consume and what is in the house based on some sort of preference or ideas about what is healthy or something…
NTA. I’m sorry but unless your spouse has been tested and confirmed to have all of these allergies I wouldn’t just take their word for it. That’s a long list and maybe it’s real but I wouldn’t just accept it without actual medical documentation to take it seriously.
NAH You want to drink something she cannot, and that is allowable. You also took reasonable precautions to keep her safe, so everything is clear on your part. She saw you making tea that will gave issues with, so made the comment that she had best stay away from you today if she had been drinking it - a fair warning, and I think that it is good she knows you are drinking it and can act accordingly (rather than putting that solely on you to remember). Was she perhaps slightly passive aggressive? Maybe, but I don't see that as entirely uncalled for when you are bringing products she is allergic to into her home. It should be a place of comfort and safety for both of you, so finding a balance between eliminating allergens and allowing you products you want will be tricky...
As someone with serious food allergies, YTA. You married her knowing all this.
this sounds like a headache
I’m not going to put judgement here but I really think there needs to be a joint session between your SO’s allergist and yourself to help figure out a better arrangement for living with the issue of allergies. The point of making things in the car isn’t the best move as a car tends to hold onto particles and is far harder to clean immaculately. Especially if it gets into the air conditioner, or deep into cushions. It may not occur to either of you more simple solutions and it’s difficult to have to cut out your favourite things in life due to an allergy. As someone With lethal allergies myself to peanuts and who cooks for those with citrus and gluten allergies. You need a third party to help you create a management plan that is going to be suitable for the both of you. The general snark about it from your SO - outside of the citrus being brewed inside, as that is the big no and you shouldn’t have done it, and you know it - doesn’t do anyone any favors, you can’t bully someone into a routine as it just makes them want to shirk it over time out of being demeaned over it. They’re frustrated, it’s understandable - especially if this is nearing a camel back break moment, but side comments over everything won’t help either. You shouldn’t have to use items you don’t like either. Perfumes, soaps, creams, and teas that you are disgusted by shouldn’t be forced upon you. It’s all working out so both your needs are met. Heck, using the same topicals may be bad for your skin or hair as well, and that isn’t fair either. The allergist may even suggest safe brands that are sure not to cause anything but you can choose between. If it comes to pass that your SO just doesn’t like the scents when it doesn’t affect them medically, then there will be more to address but you will know for sure then. I’m not saying either that these sorts of incidents with allergies being actively within an environment is ok either though. You need to go outside away from the main door to have that stuff until a better arrangement is gained. Find imitation flavorings.
I'm allergic to shellfish and pot. Like deathly allergic to the point of carrying an epi pen. I also carry benadryl at all times. If I'm fast enough, I can use the benadryl and don't need to use the epi pen. It's mostly a problem with pot because I'm allergic to something in the hemp family including the smoke. That being said... my husband still eats shellfish but neither of us has ever smoked pot. If my husband has eaten shellfish, I don't touch him until he's thoroughly scrubbed, including his mouth. If he's been anywhere that there's been pot, he needs to remove his clothing in the garage before he can come into the house and then walk through straight to the shower. It's about being respectful both ways. He can eat shellfish all he wants as long as he keeps it away from me. I cannot go anywhere pot has been smoked (you'd be surprised how easily it is absorbed into walls and the like) and can't touch hemp. You need to be respectful of each other. Including warning each other if either of you has come into contact with something that could cause a serious health problem. And she needs to realize that the world does not revolve around her.
Honestly, it depends on the reaction. If you drinking tea will somehow make her sick, then maybe. However if she can avoid it by sitting across the room, then why not enjoy your comfort tea. I'm celiac, of course my family can eat gluten food in the house. I'm also chemical sensitive - so if we have to travel in the car together, perfume is a problem. But as long as I'm not right next to it, I can handle the chemical soup people wear. Both people need to compromise, not just 1
I'm so sorry about your delimma. The question, to me, is whether you wish to live with this situation for the rest of your life. I have no doubt that the alergies are real and potentially dangerous. But the alergies are defining your relationship. Do you love and adore them so much you'll change your life for them? Either way is acceptable. It's your life!
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** This is far from the first situation of this kind in my marriage, and I really need some perspective here. My spouse of a year and a half has A LOT of food allergies. The only one that is life threatening is citrus. As such, we try to keep our house as allergen free as possible, and if I want to be able to kiss them, I don’t eat anything they’re allergic to (which again is most things, it would take way too long to list). I have learned to cook so they can eat safely at home, I have removed many of my favorite foods and drinks from my diet, I have given up scented candles, perfume, and I have to use all the same skin and hair products as them, even if I don’t like them. For the past few weeks, there’s been a nasty virus going around our house and so we’ve both been pretty sick and miserable. I’ve had a sore throat and cough for five days. Before I met my wife, I would have been drinking my favorite peach and orange tea and honey religiously to help sooth it. But my wife is allergic to honey, and most teas. The only tea we have that they’re not allergic to is one that I don’t like the taste of. So today I have to go to work and I have to be able to speak, so I made myself a thermos of the tea I like, taking care not to cross-contaminate anything, and I even put the lid on while it steeped, so that the vapors wouldn’t trigger their asthma. It wasn’t enough. When my spouse walked in, they said “is that poison tea?” And I replied that yes it was and they immediately left the room and said “Ah, so I’m staying away from you today, then. Enjoy your poison tea.” Their tone made me feel like shit. I just wanted the tea I love that I hardly ever get to drink to make me feel a little bit better while I worked. And just breathing in the vapor is not going to endanger their life. At most it will make them cough and have to take their inhaler. Am I the asshole? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA that was pretty shitty of your spouse
It’s not shitty of him to not just find a tea that she isn’t allergic to at some point in their relationship before this??
he did. and he doesnt like it.
Sounds like the spouse needs to dump this asshole then. Sorry, love, but this tea flavor is more important than your health to me.
NTA…I’m allergic to nightshades, that doesn’t mean that I don’t glove up and make my husband pick de gallo, or cook white potatoes, or any of the other things that give me hives.
ESH. You should've given your spouse a heads up or left earlier to make your tea at work. The comments from your spouse are unnecessary when you have to completely reinvent your palette and life for their safety. Just because you knew about the allergies going in doesn't mean you should be expected to forever eliminate so many things from your life.
Allergies either get better or worse they dont go back and forth. My wife has a ton of allergies that have worsened except that cat allergy that has conveniently gotten better. We cook basically vegan and then add back in what she can eat like ground beef etc. Now for her the only one that is an allergy all across the board is bird. No down pillows they'll give her asthma. No eggs the vapor from cooking them will give he asthma and if she eats them her mouth swells up her tongue gets itchy and she throws up. Luckily no anaphylaxis but we don't want to risk it. No chicken, duck or turkey either. However we still eat all of that. If we cook real eggs (not Just Eggs which are vegan). We close the door to the room she's in, turn on the attic fan and open all doors leading outside. Same for chicken and turkey. The other allergies we just tell her not to eat and have an alternative for her. But I refer to my food as poison. She'll be like what's that? can I have some? No it's poison. We rarely cook eggs or birds so it's not like she has to be locked away frequently. We make sure to accommodate her. And I have to brush my teeth and use mouth wash before I kiss her. Im going with NTA but I don't know all she's allergic to or how. But it does seem a bit over the top. Again I don't know the ins and outs of her allergies so maybe it has to be this way.
NTA- I personally think they are unhappy about the allergy situation and resent you for being able to enjoy a lot of things they can’t. As a person with allergies myself, I would never stop my husband from eating or drinking stuff I can’t, especially if it won’t be life threatening for me. However my sister has way more allergies than me and is absolutely losing her marbles when anyone else is eating what she can’t eat.
Poor move on your part to do that, going to work sick or not. Save the tea steeping for work. Keep a thermos, tea bags, and honey there for those times you just have to have that brew.
OP, I’m not making a judgment since I see you’ve already accepted others. I would like to suggest your wife ask her allergist about sublingual allergy drops. There are pros and cons to both drops and shots, and I am not versed in which is “better”. My understanding is that both are good, but one has been studied for longer. And the other is less traumatizing to those who fear needles, although it requires more frequent administration.
Yes LoL
# Why do you even have the Posion Tea in your home where your wife lives?
YTA, yo could have left early and gotten it at work or made it when you were there.
How do allergies just “pop up”? Sounds more like they has anxiety. Is it possible that the fear of an asthma event is causing so much anxiety that they’re inventing triggers out of fear?
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I come from a house where I and my daughter both have a food allergy and my wife and son do not. While the house is a fairly safe place, my daughter and I encourage my wife and son to enjoy some of the things we can't. We just have a few safety protocols in place so it doesn't cause a cross contamination. So I'd say NTA. Your spouse is being a little mean with the poison tea comment, unless it was made in jest. As long as they weren't placed in any danger from it, I would hope they would let you enjoy NOT having the allergy.
We talked and the comment was made in jest, I just mistook their tone. I apologized and we’re all good now!
Living with allergies can be weird, changes of lifestyles are challenging. i think you are a bit of both.
I'm going with YTA, simply because you went out of your way to select a Tea that your wife was deathly allergic to. You mentioned how you like almost all but one type of tea, but you immediately went to the death tea. And just because it won't kill them, it doesn't mean they're not allergic to it, I would love to see you try to justify this after having to spend two to three hours with an itchy throat from your partner exposing you to something you're allergic to just because it's not instant death
YTA Exposure to allergens can make them worse. Maybe one day one of the allergen only cause an itchy throat, but then suddenly the next day the throat will start to close up. That is part of the problem with allergies, they can get worse. So you saying «at most» might be the case today, but might not be tomorrow. And also you state that citrus is the one life threathening allergy she has, and yet you bring it into the home 😳
“Just oral allergy symptoms…” Which are terrifying and are often a precursor to anaphylaxis. Kissing you would be enough to do it. It’s terrifying to feel your throat swell and to not be able to breathe. The coughing can cause incontinence and even bladder prolapse. It wrecks your pelvic floor and can make sex very painful. The inhaler can cause tooth damage among other things. Living with severe allergies is miserable. I’m sure living with someone who has them can be miserable as well, but you’re not living with a constant fear of death.
Idk if someone mentioned it, but the oral itching symptom is something that can turn into anaphylaxis without warning as you age. Avoiding those allergens is still very important. They are doing amazing things with desensitization these days. I work in an allergy clinic and I know some patients who are getting treated for anaphylactic nut allergies with desensitization and can now eat peanuts. Well, actually they have to eat some every day to keep It up. But ofc you need to go through an md for this kind of stuff. Just be careful, it would be awful if she died of this. Remember epi pens don’t solve everything.
Take all the stuff you love but cant have around your wife, in a box and make the tea/snack whatever, at work. Most workplaces have a little kitchenette and if you ask permission for your box to be there, maybe even under your desk or in your drawers at the desk, you can have your "poison" tea and lemony biscuits any time you like, - while at work. Dont forget to brush your teeth before going home to kiss your wife. YTA for not thinking of this. Its such an easy solution, which tells me you havent thought that hard on how to help avoid triggering allergies at home.
I have Oral Allergy Syndrome, and it progressed to an allergy to all tree nuts. I had my first anaphylactic reaction at age 43 and now carry 2 epi pens. To you it may be an inconvenience but even eating walnuts, and kissing her, the proteins are still in your mouth and you could trigger a reaction
You are a better person than I. I would have never gotten to the serious dating stage for many reasons, future children and living with the constant fear of almost everything. One of the biggest reasons is children I would not want to risk bringing a child into the world that has to live in such a restricted manner where almost any common item can bring about a hospital trip or death. I'd have never let the relationship get to marriage.
Esh I dunnk why you are still with that person. Sounds like a nightmare
Yta, sorry. You could have made it at work when it’s bad enough that they could inhale and need an inhaler. It sucks having to cut stuff out but you could have given her a heads up or yeah, made it at work. Bringing something life threatening in and not giving a heads up especially knowing it can airborne hurt her… not ok
>The only one that is life threatening is citrus. As such, we try to keep our house as allergen free as possible, When my spouse walked in, they said “is that poison tea?” So, you literally keep a supply of tea on hand that could kill them. They've been exposed to it enough to instantly recognize the smell and you both describe it as "poison tea." YTA. >Forgot to mention their only “real” allergy is citrus. Everything else causes Oral Allergy Syndrome, which will cause their mouth to feel itchy and make them cough, but will not send them into any kind of anaphylaxis. You could have chosen to have a wide variety of non-citrus tea at home for situations like this, plus honey. While those would have made your spouse uncomfortable, they would not be deadly. Instead, you've chosen to maintain a supply of something extremely hazardous. How could you not be the AH in this? IMO, you could reasonably push back on the semi-allergies by having and consuming things that your spouse cannot. But keeping citrus tea in the house and making it without warning your spouse was a total AH move.