I (25m) have a girlfriend (26f) who’s autistic. Normally I wouldn’t bring this up, but it is relevant to this story. She’s pretty high functioning, but the main way her autism effects her is a really strong special interest in one specific fictional character.
I’ve never had an issue with this, and I try to keep up with whatever’s going on in the fandom for her and listen to her info dumping about her favorite character on a regular basis.
About a year ago, my girlfriend got a body pillow of her favorite character. I didn’t really have an issue with it, as we have a very large bed with more than enough room for something like a body pillow.
The body pillow wasn’t even that weird as far as body pillows go, it’s just her favorite character wearing her normal outfit on one side and a simple dress on the other. Definitely not weird compared to other kinds of body pillows out there.
Recently, my girlfriend told me she’s getting more covers and another pillow inner so she can have two body pillows to sleep with at once. I was more apprehensive about this, as our bed is big, but two five feet long pillows plus two people feels like it would be pushing it.
She assured me that if it was really an issue, she could go back to only sleeping with one, or alternatively lay one of them Lincoln style and use it as a regular pillow, so I agreed to it once again.
The real issue arouse when the pillow covers actually arrived yesterday. She did get another cover of her favorite character, as I’d expected, but what I hadn’t was that she’d also gotten a cover featuring her favorite character’s DAD.
I’d always known she had a little crush on him but I never thought it would go THAT far. Worse, this pillow isn’t just him in a normal outfit like her original one. One of the sides full on has his private parts out for the world to see.
I told my girlfriend that I’m putting my foot down, and I refuse to sleep in a bed with another man, even if that man is a pillow. She said that that’s ridiculous, it’s not like he’s real, and one of the sides is SFW so if I’m really uncomfortable she can just keep it flipped to that side.
I said that I still don’t feel comfortable with that. I know I wouldn’t be able to forget the uncomfortably detailed d*ck lying in wait on the other side of the pillow, especially if I have to sleep right next to it. She said she can put the pillow with her favorite character (who’s female) between us, and keep the dad pillow firmly on her side of the bed, but I said I just don’t want him in my bed at all.
She’s pretty p*ssed about it. Her body pillows are pretty expensive, since she has to get the art custom drawn and then custom printed, and it’s not something you can return.
The dad character really doesn’t have any super fans other than her, so it’s not like there’s some other girl she can possibly try to sell him to either. I know she’s been saving for this pillow a long time, so I do feel guilty saying she can’t cuddle with it. AITA?
(Reddit)