**I am not The OOP, OOP is u/justneedanameokay** **I'm breaking off my engagement because my fiance might get sick in the future** **Originally...
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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2025-07-04 04:04:03+00:00.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/justneedanameokay

I’m breaking off my engagement because my fiance might get sick in the future

Originally posted to r/TrueOffMyChest

Original Post Feb 23, 2022

My fiance and I have been together for five years. He’s the love of my life and I literally can’t imagine being without him. So the thought of doing this is making my stomach roll.

He was adopted and neither he nor his parents knew much about his medical history. A few weeks ago, he met his biological brother for the first time and found out that his birth father had passed from Huntington’s disease.

There’s a 50% chance that my fiance also has the genetic defect that causes Huntington’s, but he refuses to get tested.

It’s not the disease I’m scared of, it’s the not knowing. If we know he’ll get it, we can prepare financially, practically, and emotionally. He says a positive test result will hold him back from living his life, but I feel like it’s the opposite. How can we live with this giant maybe looming over us? How can I make smart decisions on where to live, how to budget, or even whether or not to have biological children with this man if I’m not allowed to have all the facts?

So, I’ve come to the decision that I have to break it off. I respect his decision, but I can’t understand or accept it.

I have literally no one I can talk to about this because it’s his fucking secret and not mine to tell.

Edit: I have to go to work now, but I’ll try to continue responding throughout the day. Especially to the comments that exactly mirror the dissenting voice in my head. I just want to clarify a few things up here:

  1. I would not leave him if he tested positive for the defect. I would not leave him if he got sick. I just want to plan for us to be able to afford the best life and care for him if he does - which means we’d have to start immediately.

  2. I don’t want or need ‘perfect’ children. That isn’t realistic. But it is possible to avoid them being subjected to a 50/50 chance of having this disease. Of course there are alternative options, but again: they involve preparation and planning. I’m more than willing to take a full genetic panel as well.

  3. Yes one or both of us could get cancer, or permanently disabled in an accident, or any other number of things. But I’ve come to learn that you can’t plan for every unpredictable thing life throws at you - this is the rare occasion that we do have the opportunity to prepare.

  4. Essentially it comes down to the fact that we’re incompatible, regardless of how much we love each other. I’m a planner and he’s very laid back. Until now, these traits have complemented each other, but unfortunately they’ve brought us to an impasse that I don’t think we can both move forward from happily.

Second edit: I’m floored at all of these responses, supportive and… otherwise. At the very least, I feel validated that this is a complex issue with no clear and obvious answer.

I’ve decided to take a few steps back. Those of you who brought up the fact that a few weeks is probably too little time for him to fully process his possible diagnosis have a really valid point. Just because I want to immediately jump into problem solving mode, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the right thing to do here.

So, I’m not leaving. Yet at least, and hopefully never. I’m going to find a therapist to help me work through my anxieties and give my fiance some space (not literal) to work through his. And then we’ll revisit this conversation, hopefully with more patience on my part and willingness to act on his.

Third edit: I know my title sucks. Sorry, but I can’t do anything about it now. It sounded fine at 6AM when I made the post.

Update 1 Sept 16, 2022 (7 months after original post)

Hi! Remember me? I posted earlier this year about my fiance who was refusing to get tested for Huntington’s after learning he had a 50/50 chance of having the genetic defect.

Some of you gave me great advice and support, others the wakeup call I needed, and the rest of you… well, reddit gonna reddit.

I’m not sure if it was obvious, but I was not in a good place when I made that post. When I stress, I don’t sleep or eat. For him, it may have “only” been a few weeks to accept the situation, but for me it was a few long weeks of nonstop anxiety where I was lucky to get even an hour of restless sleep a night. I was plain exhausted on top of everything else and only began to consider leaving when I started to hit my breaking point.

Anyway, we talked about it. At length. We cried, we fought, we researched, I showed him empathy. We consulted with friends, family, and specialists. We pressed pause for days or weeks when we needed a break from the whole damn thing… and in the end he agreed to have the test.

Guys, to say we dodged an absolute maelstrom of bullets would be putting it mildly. He’s negative - both for developing the disease himself as well as the risk of passing it on. No matter what else happens, this is one area where he’s assuredly safe.

All of this said, once the euphoria faded we decided it was necessary to put a hold on our engagement and take some time apart. I still love him with all my heart, but this was our first serious disagreement as a couple and it forced us to seriously reflect on ourselves and our relationship. Neither of our positions were wrong, but they were so disparate that there was no realistic compromise.

I’ve spent the last few months traveling abroad, and other than a few texts we haven’t spoken much. But I’m home now, and we have our ‘second first date’ tonight. Wish me luck!

TLDR: he’s safe

Edits!:

  1. I mentioned this a million times in my first post, but here goes again. I had no plans to leave if he tested positive. I just needed to know so that we could plan our lives accordingly.

  2. we decided together to take a break. It’s been an incredibly difficult, emotionally charged roller-coaster of a year. I didn’t leave him!

  3. we planned from day 1 to keep communication to a minimum. It was difficult. I actually began keeping a journal of all the things I wanted to call or text him about. It’s extensive, and I can’t wait to share it with him.

  4. I didn’t give him an ultimatum, but I understand why that’s the takeaway. I only told reddit that I was thinking of leaving, and I know that it was rash and irrational.

  5. no, I’m not going to kill myself. Sorry if that disappoints you.

  6. why does everyone seem to think that traveling means sleeping around!?

  7. just gonna leave a little timeline here for those of you who think I’ve been traveling since my last post:

  • he learned that he was at risk of developing HD
  • I posted on reddit when I reached my own breaking point and needed to vent about how I was affected
  • we spent the next three-ish months discussing next steps, consulting professionals, meeting others in our situation, etc.
  • he made his own decision to get tested
  • that took a while, since there are a lot of steps you have to go through before they’ll even agree to do it
  • we learned he’s negative!
  • we rode the emotional high for a bit, then realized we weren’t the same people we were at the beginning of the year, and no longer knew how to be together normally given everything we learned about ourselves and each other during the hardest of situations
  • we decided to take a break and meet for dinner on 9/16
  • I’m now getting ready to leave for said dinner

8 and I swear this is my final edit) I meant to say this last time too. Thank you to all of you who are sharing your stories about HD, chronic illness, and love. I’m sorry I haven’t responded to everyone, but I’m reading all of them and wishing you and your loved ones nothing but health and happiness.

Update 2 Sept 17, 2022 (1 days after 1st update)

This title continues to be embarrassingly bad (and now irrelevant), but I kinda feel like I’m stuck with it now. Sorry.

If you’re new here: my fiance found out he was at risk of developing Huntington’s Disease. I wanted him to get tested and he did not. Months later, he did and thank god, he was negative. The whole thing put such a strain on us that we decided to take a break. Last night, we went on our second first date.

And I can’t believe how many of you want to hear about it! Of course I couldn’t leave you hanging, but there are a few things I want to address first so please bear with me for a few more sentences.

It feels like many of you are determined for there to be a ‘bad guy’ here, but please don’t put this label on my fiance. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s not a jerk, an asshole, or an ostrich. He’s a man who was suddenly forced to face his own mortality. He had a very human response, and I didn’t make it any easier on him during those first few weeks.

On that note, it’s great that so many of you guys always react perfectly to every tough situation life throws at you. I’m sadly not like that, sometimes I fuck up like I did by not initially giving him enough time to process. But I owned up to that, took several steps back, and he forgave me. I don’t know what else you want from me.

Lastly, there ar…

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  • Spacehooks@reddthat.comMEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    Lastly, there are a lot of comments about how the obvious compromise was to just act like he had it. But you know what, it was the idea of living like he was dying that actually drove him get tested. He didn’t want us to unnecessarily save half our paychecks instead of using them to enjoy life. Or deal with the complications of IVF if we don’t have to. Or forego opportunities that didn’t play nicely with the end of life care plans we’d be making.

    Essentially, he concluded (in his words) that the cat was already halfway out of the bag and it could come out but it was never going back in. If he was positive, we’d be obsessing over every little thing being a possible symptom. But if we left things as they were, we’d be doing that anyway.

    That doesn’t mean it was easy at all. We actually had to make a second appointment to get the results because he couldn’t bring himself to hear them the first time. But that was okay, I was there for him the whole time to support him however he needed me to.

    Okay! I’m done with that, onto what you actually clicked for.

    Do you guys know the feeling of watching your favorite childhood movie for the first time in years and being nervous that it won’t hold up or have the same magic you remember? That’s kind of what I was feeling yesterday, and I actually have to thank everyone jumping down my throat in the comments because you did a great job of distracting me from the butterflies in my stomach.

    Well, the magic was still there. We may have spent months apart, but it didn’t feel that way at all. In fact, everything felt even better and more comfortable than when we parted; we felt like the happy couple we’d been back in January before this whole thing started. It was like there was a weight hanging over our relationship that was keeping us from actually moving forward despite the good news, and it’s finally been lifted. Before last night, I couldn’t remember the last time anything with him felt bright and easy. But we’re back, baby.

    I know the general consensus was that this was a dumb move, that we should have opted for marriage counseling instead of going our own ways for a bit. I’m not a relationship counselor, I’m not recommending this method to anyone. I don’t know why it worked for us. All I know is that we were both so drained at the time and we each had the same gut feeling that a complete separation was what we needed. Our relationship had become far more exhausting than fun and I honestly believe that we wouldn’t have made it if we’d forced ourselves to work together to fix it.

    Again, don’t take relationship advice from me. But trust your instincts - you have them for a reason.

    And I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that he wasn’t sitting at home pining for me while I traipsed around Europe not having sex with people! He was busy with his own adventure - he bought a car (we live in Manhattan, so that’s a pretty big thing) and road tripped across the country.

    We stayed up all night sharing stories and pictures and telling each other about the people we’d met. It was absolutely amazing sharing our experiences with each other. I know it may seem like it would have been better if we’d done it together, but there was something really special about living it through each other’s eyes.

    Anyway, we have the rest of our lives to travel the world together.

    Because we’re not breaking up, suck on that people who were hoping he’d leave me.

    Look, we know this new honeymoon period we’re in won’t last forever, but I really think we’re prepared to handle whatever other challenges life tries to throw at us. Honestly, there’s a pretty good chance we’ve already gotten through the worst one (knock wood), but even if there’s something bigger and badder waiting for us I’m completely optimistic we’ll be okay.

    So, that’s that. We’ve officially reached the other side of our first major life issue together. Did either of us behave perfectly? No. Are we going to be perfect next time? Proooobably not. Are we 100% committed to combining our completely opposite ways of dealing with crises into a superpower designed to crush conflict like a 90’s cartoon? Absolutely.

    Thanks for listening to my story everyone. Roll credits.

    THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP