Wife Goes on Hunger Strike to Force Her Husband to See a Doctor as "Last Resort"

Reddit's AITA sub is full of all sorts of sordid stories for manipulation, but rarely do we come across one that features someone who used these powers of persuasion for a "good" reason.

Relationships can be a tricky issue, especially when one partner outright refuses to do something that is unarguably beneficial. Everyone has their own quirks and lines that they don't want drawn, but it can be argued that some moral stances are downright stupid.

While I'm not saying that this woman's husband is dumb, I am saying that it's probably not the smartest idea to ignore a lingering back pain that's plagued him for almost 15 years.

She says that the pain had become so unbearable that as early as January of this year if he was standing up for more than an hour, he'd be rolling on the floor in absolute "agony."

I'm no rocket surgeon, but I'd say that he should probably get that checked out.

Maybe this dude grew up with a giant distrust of doctors after watching one too many botched surgery YouTube videos, or perhaps he was scarred by Marathon Man as a kid and thought anyone in the medical field was a Nazi Sir Lawrence Olivier. Whatever the reason, he just flat out would not entertain even the notion of going and seeing a doctor, no matter how much his wife pleaded with him.

So she decided to take action.

If there's one thing we've learned from Mahatma Gandhi and Michael Fassbender in that one awesome Steve McQueen flick, is that going on a hunger strike will most certainly capture people's attention. So his wife, who relayed the story on the AITA subreddit, decided to go and do just that.

She told him that "until you see a doctor, I'm not going to eat."

Initially, he didn't think that her threats were legitimate and for a week three days, decided to call her bluff. However, he finally caved in after seeing that she was for real — and it took him 10 days to see she was dead serious until he did so.

She went and ate what was probably the best meal of her life while he was getting his back issue checked out.

Sadly, that's not the end of the story.

He returned with his sister, who started "berating" OP, accusing her of "bully[ing]" him and calling her a "manipulative c***". He didn't say anything while his sister was there but after she left, he told OP that he agreed with his sibling.

Although there wasn't a diagnosis, there was a confirmation that yes, something is indeed wrong with his back. He's currently having testing done to find out what's wrong.

OP was worried because while she knows her measures were extreme and felt like she was pushed to a "last resort" scenario, she wants to know if there's any truth to what his sister said and if she really is, indeed, a "manipulative c***."

The comments began pouring in, and no, people didn't think she was that at all. In fact, they had some choice words for her husband and his sister.

In fact, the majority of people said that yes, while what she did was manipulative, she ultimately helped get him the care that he needed. But they also suggested she take a hard look at her relationship, given the fact that it even had to get to that point was extremely unhealthy, as was the way his sister spoke to her. That, coupled with the fact that it took him that long to finally give in, raised all sorts of red flags.

What do you think? Was she right to go on a hunger strike? Or should she have just let him live life in misery while realizing she was with a stubborn psychopath who is perfectly fine not getting a debilitating, persistent issue checked out by a medical professional?