No, he doesn't have an obligation to inform you!
DH tested positive for COVID last week. He was symptomatic, but barely -- he felt a bit off for a day, and that's about it. DH usually talks with his parents about once a week, and with his sister's family about once a month or less. Well, he didn't immediately tell anyone when he tested positive. He hadn't been around his family during that time, so no exposure risk to them or anything like that. He just didn't find it particularly newsworthy, and knew that his family tends to majorly stress about health stuff, and as he was doing fine, didn't feel the need to immediately stress them out.
Well, about a week later he mentions it in passing when talking with his parents. They flip out, are super worried, etc. They also seemed to assume he'd only JUST tested positive and DH didn't bother to correct them. Within 6 hours of that call, DH is getting hammer texted by his parents, saying "we just talked with your sister, she has no clue about your status, have you had a hard time getting a hold of her? Why doesn't she know? etc." DH replies back, just saying "hey, I hadn't bothered to mention it to her yet, I'm totally fine, didn't affect anyone else, didn't need to worry anyone. Will definitely let you and sister know if there's anything serious going on but I'm already healthy again."
DH's parents then proceed to call his sister, and "break the news" to her that DH doesn't think she can handle bad news, tell her about DH's COVID test, then contact DH to let him know that he's really "saddened" his sister that he doesn't trust her or think enough of her to share important life information. They go on to berate DH for being callous, unfeeling, disrespectful, and use terms like "we thought we raised you right but apparently we failed as parents if this is how you behave". They also, without DH's permission, texted a zillion distant family members (ok, so more like 15 people, but still) to "share the news and ask for prayers".
DH normally gets along fine with his parents and they're not particularly meddlesome or anything, so I think we were both totally taken aback by this. DH is a much more chill person that me and basically ignored their diatribe at him, then basically said to me "well, I guess in the future I just won't share ANYTHING with my parents as apparently I can't trust them to not cause problems with it or share it with the world" and he's moved on, but I'm still so angry on his behalf! I'm furious they messed with DH's relationship with his sister (who DH has spoken with after all this and he and sister are fine again, but it shouldn't have happened to begin with), furious they would dare say such awful things (the "we thought we raised you right" comment is just SO unacceptable to me), and pissed they thought it was okay to involve a bunch more relatives DH had zero interest in communicating with about his health. Given that DH is a bigger person than me and has moved on, I don't want to bitch to him about how angry I am, so I'm sharing it with all of you.....thank you for letting me get it off my chest!
