Matt Walsh goes to reddit to help people answer the age old question: am I an a**hole? Not all the questions have made the cut, but here are some highlights that got deleted from past episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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| So today we're going to try something a little different. | |
| Again, I always like doing this because as your theocratic fascist dictator, one of my duties is to listen to the people and hear their problems and then judge them ruthlessly. | |
| Thankfully, Reddit's Am I the a**hole forum provides us plenty of fuel for this a**hole fire. | |
| Take a listen. | |
| Am I the a**hole for kicking my husband out of the delivery room? | |
| I, 23 female, my husband, 24 male, just had our first baby. | |
| My husband was so excited and was super supportive and caring throughout the pregnancy. | |
| The only thing is that he became slightly obsessed with watching YouTube and TikTok videos of husbands pulling pranks on their wives while in labor. | |
| I just got an idea for a different series of YouTube videos we have to do now. | |
| I didn't mind at first, but then he started casually joking about doing things he saw in the videos, saying it would be funny. | |
| I clearly stated my distaste for them and asked him not to do anything like what he saw. | |
| He agreed and continued to joke about it from time to time, but I brushed it off since I trusted him and thought nothing would come of it. | |
| The day of the delivery came and I had been in labor for eight hours. | |
| I had just finished another round of contractions when my husband let out the loudest fart, turned to me and said, what the hell have you been eating? | |
| It smells disgusting. | |
| I immediately recognized that as one of the pranks in the videos. | |
| Outraged at him not honoring what I asked him not to do, I demanded that he leave the room. | |
| He started to argue, saying that it was just a joke, but I insisted, and luckily, the nurse helped him get out. | |
| I went through the last four hours of labor by myself, since my family lives out of state, and I'm not close to my mother-in-law. | |
| After the delivery, I told the nurse he could come back into the room, and he was fuming. | |
| He started demanding that I tell him why I kicked him out. | |
| I calmly told him the reason, but he was pissed. | |
| He hasn't talked to me in a week. | |
| His mom is taking his side, saying that I was a complete b**** for kicking him out. | |
| Normally he will defend me from her, but this time he completely agreed. | |
| I might be the a**hole because I know how much he was looking forward to being there for the birth of our first kid, and especially when he got to cut the cord, but I still kicked him out and I refused to let him back in. | |
| The nurse asked a few times if I wanted him back in, but each time I said no. | |
| So am I the a**hole for kicking my husband out after a stupid prank that he agreed not to do? | |
| First of all, your husband is the a**hole purely because he spent weeks researching delivery room pranks, and that's the one he settles on? | |
| No offense, but you are a stupid a**hole. | |
| After weeks of watching all these videos, which do sound really hilarious, and I want to check some of that myself, but that's what you end up doing? | |
| Just the best you could do after all that time and all that preparation? | |
| You had weeks, man! | |
| And the best you could do was fart and blame it on your wife? | |
| Leaving that aside, yeah, he's the a-hole. | |
| Because look, fellas, you antagonize your wife while she's giving birth, and you get what you get. | |
| Daddy, how you feel? | |
| I feel sorry for, you know, you about as much as I feel sorry for somebody who gets eaten while wrestling a crocodile. | |
| It's like these are choices you make in life and you live with the consequences. | |
| You knew what you were getting into. | |
| You knew the risks and you decided to do it anyway. | |
| And besides, third thing, he's also kind of the a-hole for being upset about being kicked out of the delivery room. | |
| I've been through this four times. | |
| I would have loved to get kicked out. | |
| Who wants to be in the delivery room anyway? | |
| I know I'm one of the only guys who will say this out loud, but I tell you right now, I'm not the only guy who feels this way. | |
| It's kind of gross, and I don't feel a great need to be there. | |
| I should have gone there. | |
| I wish we could go back to the days where men hung out. | |
| This is what they used to do back in the old days, okay? | |
| They had a smoking room in the hospital. | |
| That's right. | |
| And you would sit there while the woman does all the delivery stuff, and you would just | |
| sit there, you'd read a newspaper, and you'd smoke a cigar. | |
| That's right. | |
| It's a baby. | |
| And then when the baby's born, you'd go into the room, you'd say hello to the baby, and | |
| you'd leave, and you'd check back in about the time that they, you know, graduate middle | |
| school. | |
| That's the way it should be. | |
| Okay? | |
| All right. | |
| Am I the a**hole for wanting my son to get along with my boyfriend? | |
| Sean is my 13 year old child and I am a single mother. | |
| Connor, my current boyfriend, of course his name is Connor. | |
| And I have been together for two years. | |
| Sean has disliked Conor for as long as he can remember. | |
| He would go upstairs and ignore Conor whenever he came to my place, even though I let Conor drop Sean off at school. | |
| Sean has never once expressed appreciation or bonded with Conor. | |
| Conor pretended to be unconcerned by his actions, but I could tell he was hurt by all of it. | |
| I asked him why he despised Conor so much. | |
| He gave a list of various reasons, some of which I seriously doubt. | |
| To begin with, he claims that when Conor dropped him off at school a couple of times, He made derogatory remarks about his Asian friends, calling him a little Kung Pao chicken, etc. | |
| It's not funny. | |
| Sean mentioned the time Connor didn't give his guinea pig water. | |
| And when he and I were at the beach a year ago, he was house-sitting for three days. | |
| Sean also mentioned how Connor advised him to man up in a number of circumstances. | |
| I basically told him straight up that I don't believe anything he's saying. | |
| I confronted Connor after that and he denied all of it. | |
| So because Sean lied, I took away his gaming consoles as punishment. | |
| I also lectured him about abusing Connor, who might be his new stepdad one day. | |
| Sean told his father, my ex, what had happened. | |
| Now my ex is cursing at me for being unfair towards my son. | |
| Am I the a-hole? | |
| Okay. | |
| Yeah, you're the a-hole. | |
| Look, I don't know your situation. | |
| I don't know why you aren't married to Sean's dad. | |
| But what I do know is that what Sean wants, what all kids want, is for their parents to live together in the same house and have a real intact family. | |
| Like, they're real parents, both of them. | |
| Like, that's what Sean wants. | |
| That's what your kid wants. | |
| And like, if you can't handle that, grow the hell up. | |
| And if they can't have that for whatever reason, you can't blame them for being upset. | |
| Or for not being especially fond of the runner-up prize. | |
| Hey Sean, your dad and I, you know, you can't have a real dad, but here's Connor. | |
| Why don't you settle on that instead? | |
| And besides, he's just your boyfriend. | |
| So Sean doesn't know if this guy will be actually a permanent fixture in your life. | |
| Have you thought about that? | |
| How many, let me ask you, how many boyfriends have you had since the father of your child? | |
| I'm guessing more than one. | |
| So how many times has Sean been expected to develop a father-son relationship with the new guy in your life who just ends up getting, you know, ends up out of the picture in a year or two anyway? | |
| You might have your hands full once I pick up the controller. | |
| Have you ever thought about the fact that there's this continual effect of abandonment that your son is going through? | |
| And so now he's putting up defenses against that because he's tired of being abandoned by one man after another? | |
| Whether it's the man's fault or yours or a combination, probably a combination. | |
| Have you thought about that? | |
| Well, that's it. | |
| Those judgments are absolutely final. |