Go to https://expressvpn.com/walshYT and find out how you can get 3 months of ExpressVPN free! Matt Walsh reads the AITA quandaries of his Sweet Baby Gang. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| This is our time for analyzing some M.I. | |
| the A-hole moral quandaries. | |
| We have some that were sent to us by listeners, and then we've got... I'll do one from Reddit. | |
| Why is it always Reddit? | |
| So we start with this. | |
| From Ty, he says, My fiancé wants to try having kids shortly after we get married this summer. | |
| While we're both on board with that plan, I want to stop at just one, and she definitely wants many more children. | |
| I'm aware that if neither of us changes our mind, one of us will get what we want, and the other will be crushed. | |
| I, being the selfish bastard that I am, am planning on putting my foot down when push comes to shove and our first kid reaches two or three years old and she will want to try again. | |
| Am I the a-hole for not being very transparent in my plan after our first kid is born? | |
| I'm 100% firm on this, and as a last resort, if my back is up against the wall, I'm not opposed to getting the snip. | |
| But I hope it doesn't come to that. | |
| Yeah, you are the a-hole on a few different levels. | |
| I mean, first of all, if you're even considering getting the snip, as you say. | |
| A vasectomy's a medical procedure. | |
| And that's something that you would do against your soon-to-be wife's wishes, then that is something that she needs to know. | |
| You need to tell her that. | |
| Also, don't do that. | |
| Don't go neuter yourself like a dog. | |
| Let the ball removal begin! | |
| You're a man, you're a human being, don't do that to yourself. | |
| Look, how about this for an idea, right? | |
| You both want a child, so it's good that you agree on that much. | |
| So get married, have your child, allow yourself to grow. | |
| And change. | |
| My point is that there's a very good chance that you'll have one child and then you'll discover yourself that you actually want to have more. | |
| Because right now you're speaking all in theory and you've never had a kid before so you can't, you know, you don't really know what you're talking about. | |
| And once you experience that joy of having a child, there's a very good chance that you're gonna change your mind about that. | |
| The joy of having a child is one that, again, it's hard to describe until you've actually experienced it. | |
| Allow yourself to have, you know, you have the child, and you should be open to life, you should be open to more kids, if that's what God wants for you. | |
| But you also need to be totally honest with the woman that you're about to marry. | |
| All right, Mary says, Hello, sweet daddy. | |
| Am I the a-hole for not encouraging my husband to have a relationship with his father or father's family? | |
| For some backstory, my husband's parents divorced when he was 17. | |
| His dad was verbally abusive, tried to instigate a fight with my brother-in-law when my husband was younger, and hit his wife. | |
| My husband was a witness to it all. | |
| Whose wife? | |
| Who was hitting whose wife? | |
| Your dad hit your brother-in-law's wife? | |
| Okay, so there's some kind of abuse going on, which is very bad. | |
| After my husband and I started dating, I tried to get my husband to have more of a relationship with his father, since his father had promised that he had changed and wanted to be better. | |
| I kept at it for years, just reminding him to text on holidays, birthdays, and go see him at the yearly family reunion on his father's side. | |
| A year after my husband and I had our wedding, we attended the family reunion. | |
| At this reunion, my father-in-law kept talking crap about my mother-in-law. | |
| and had his family joining in, making both his sons very uncomfortable. | |
| Later, my father-in-law wanted to take a family photo of his immediate family. | |
| When my husband and I started over to the spot for the photo, | |
| his father called out, "Not you, girl," | |
| then did not want me in any of the other family photos either. | |
| This hurt me deeply, so we left early after that. | |
| Then afterwards, I come to find out his father doesn't like me at all | |
| and blames me for the lack of relationship with his son. | |
| My husband told him he won't speak to him anymore until he apologizes to me. | |
| Am I the a-hole for no longer encouraging my husband to make the relationship work? | |
| Well, these are always really difficult, and, you know, I get these kinds of questions. | |
| And you're talking about family drama and resentment and all these sorts of things that have been building up | |
| over the course of years. | |
| -Have you thought about the possibility that your children are actually scared of you? | |
| Oh, f*** off. | |
| There's almost certainly going to be a bunch of other details that don't make it in here. | |
| And part of that is just time constraints. | |
| Part of it is also that you are seeing things through your own prism. | |
| And if I were to talk to your father-in-law, he might have some other details. | |
| He might say, well, guess what? | |
| Guess what she did? | |
| There's almost always more to the story. | |
| It's very often there's not a clear bad guy. | |
| I mean, sometimes there is, but oftentimes there isn't. | |
| So, that's all just a qualifier to say that based on what you've told me, if all of this is accurate, which I have no reason to think that it isn't, I don't know you, then no, you're not the A-hole at all. | |
| And also in general, even though I don't know all the rest of the situation, your husband is absolutely right to take your side and defend you as the wife, to cherish his relationship with you. | |
| And to put it over as a priority above his relationship to anybody else in his family, because that's what you're supposed to do when you get married, that your relationship with your spouse comes before your relationship with anyone else, to include your children, by the way. | |
| Your relationship with your spouse is supposed to be the number one most important thing, and it comes before everything else, certainly extended family, but even with your kids. | |
| That's what your kids need. | |
| Your kids need their parents to prioritize their relationship with each other. | |
| It's the best thing for them. | |
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| All right, from Steve says, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question. | |
| I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to excessive gifts from my mother-in-law. | |
| Let me elaborate. | |
| My mother-in-law is a hoarder in every sense of the word. | |
| Her house is completely full with random toys, kitchen accessories, etc. | |
| to the point where I have told my wife I don't even want to visit because there are literally very few places where someone can even sit down, let alone relax due to the amount of stuff all over the place. | |
| On top of filling up our house, she is always bringing things over to our house that we don't want. | |
| We've told her repeatedly over the years that when she comes, we only want to spend time with her, not go through all the things that she brings. | |
| When we refuse the things she brings, she has taken to leaving things in our house without us knowing, thinking we wouldn't notice. | |
| I asked her many times to stop, and when she didn't, I took to throwing away anything that she left. | |
| When she notices that the things are gone, I told her that I don't know where they are. | |
| I know she thinks she's being generous and giving us gifts, but if we're keeping everything that she brings to the house, our house will end up looking like hers. | |
| Am I the ale? | |
| No, you're not. | |
| I mean, as long as you're being nice to her about it. | |
| I mean, she's trying to love her family in the way that makes sense to her, and so she thinks that by giving gifts, that's the way of doing it. | |
| And so she's trying to bless you and even if it's a way that's sort of annoying and ends up being onerous and burdensome, that is what she's trying to do. | |
| So as long as you're being nice to her about it and trying to be delicate, then no, you're not. | |
| Neither of you are exactly in the wrong. | |
| Finally, this is a Reddit one. | |
| It says, am I the a-hole for refusing to help my sister pay for her daughter's medical expenses? | |
| So, my sister's daughter, sentence starting with so there. | |
| You know how I feel about that. | |
| My sister's daughter was recently diagnosed with a serious medical condition that requires extensive treatment. | |
| My sister is a single mother struggling to pay for the treatment on her own. | |
| She asked me multiple times to help her with the expense, but I have refused. | |
| My reasoning is that I have my own financial responsibilities and I can't afford to help her out. | |
| I also believe that it's not my responsibility to take care of her and her family's expenses. | |
| My sister is understandably upset with my decision and has stopped talking to me. | |
| My other family members are also disappointed in me and think that I should have helped her out. | |
| Am I the a-hole for refusing to help my sister with her daughter's medical expenses? | |
| Uh, yes. | |
| Yes, this is classic a-hole territory. | |
| This is one of those times where I don't need to hear the other side of the story, actually, because I've heard enough. | |
| This is horrible. | |
| Now, it's one thing, look, If somebody in your family is suffering through something, and they need help financially, and you simply don't have, like you can't help them because you really don't have it, you're broke, you're poor, you just, you don't, you don't, and it pains you, and you want to be able to help but you can't because you just don't have it, that's one thing. | |
| But then, but then the tone and the attitude would be very different. | |
| Then you wouldn't need to say anything about it. | |
| This is your family. | |
| It's not my problem. | |
| You wouldn't need to say that. | |
| You wouldn't say that. | |
| Instead, it would be, I'm distraught by this. | |
| It's terrible. | |
| It's heartbreaking. | |
| I want to help, but I just can't. | |
| I wish that I could. | |
| That would be the attitude. | |
| What I take from this is that probably you can help, but you've decided that it's not your problem. | |
| And that is the height of selfishness. | |
| I mean, this is your family. | |
| And if you won't even do that, then you are a selfish bastard and a dayhole. | |
| And we will leave it there for today. | |
| We'll talk to you tomorrow. |