The Matt Walsh Show - Who's The Biggest A-Hole? Episode 7
Aired: 2023-03-04
Duration: 07:50


=== Ex-Wife at Thanksgiving? (07:11) ===

[00:00:00]  (dramatic music)
[00:00:02]  (dramatic music)
[00:00:05]  (upbeat music)
[00:00:10]  My family gets together once a year on Thanksgiving.
[00:00:18]  I'm recently remarried, and my wife hasn't had much of a chance to bond with my family due to COVID, and we are all looking forward to getting everyone together.
[00:00:24]  Unfortunately, my elderly parents just told me that they've also invited my ex-wife to dinner, which I'm adamantly against.
[00:00:30]  My ex has known these people for 20 years, and that familiarity and level of comfort will make it hard, in my opinion, for my new wife to fit in.
[00:00:37]  She insists that I could go without her, but if she won't go, then I'm not going to go as my place is by her side.
[00:00:43]  My family says that my wife... Isn't that very nice?
[00:00:45]  You're remaining steadfastly loyal to your second wife.
[00:00:49]  Good.
[00:00:49]  That's a man of principle.
[00:00:51]  My family says that my wife should just suck it up and deal, and that if we're not there, we'll ruin Thanksgiving for everybody.
[00:00:58]  So am I the a**hole for thinking my ex should make other plans and not attend my family's dinner?
[00:01:03]  Yeah, you're the a**hole.
[00:01:05]  I think for a number of reasons.
[00:01:07]  You're such an a**hole!
[00:01:08]  First is getting divorced in the first place.
[00:01:10]  And this is why you don't get divorced.
[00:01:12]  Divorce!
[00:01:13]  You just make everything complicated for everybody.
[00:01:15]  You make everything worse and everything complicated for everybody for the rest of your life.
[00:01:19]  Including yourself.
[00:01:20]  That's what happens when you get divorced.
[00:01:22]  And your family, keep in mind, when you get married, it's not just you.
[00:01:27]  The two of you are not the only ones affected.
[00:01:30]  You have families, and your families are now bonded as well through this bond of marriage.
[00:01:35]  Your parents, it sounds like, have accepted your first wife as their daughter, as a member of the family.
[00:01:41]  And now they're supposed to renege on that?
[00:01:43]  They're supposed to reverse course just because you have?
[00:01:46]  Their bond doesn't mean anything anymore just because you've decided to sever it?
[00:01:49]  Doesn't work that way.
[00:01:50]  It's like when parents get remarried and then demand that their kids accept the new person as their mom or dad.
[00:01:58]  You're not my dad!
[00:02:00]  Maybe they will, but that's not their responsibility.
[00:02:02]  That's not their obligation.
[00:02:04]  They have a mom and dad.
[00:02:06]  They only need one of each as far as they're concerned.
[00:02:09]  The fact that you couldn't work out your marriage and you decided to break your wedding vows, that's not anybody else's problem.
[00:02:15]  That's your problem.
[00:02:16]  You figure that out.
[00:02:30]  He had a change of heart and tracked us down two months ago.
[00:02:33]  To be frank, I'm still angry he tried to make me abort our son and then washed his hands of me when I wouldn't obey him.
[00:02:38]  So, besides the financial help, I'm not grateful or happy about a change of heart.
[00:02:42]  He asked me if I would change our son's last name to his.
[00:02:45]  It made me angry because I'm the one who wanted him.
[00:02:47]  I carried him and raised him alone until two months ago.
[00:02:50]  So I don't think he deserves for our son to have his last name.
[00:02:52]  However, I know it would benefit our son to have a bigger connection to his father's family in the long run.
[00:02:56]  So I told him I would change his last name to his for X amount of money.
[00:03:00]  He was visibly angry and made a comment about how I wasn't as innocent as he thought.
[00:03:04]  And he told me I was very good at hiding my true colors.
[00:03:06]  While he did agree to give me the money, he's being cold towards me now, and I keep thinking about what he said, which is making me feel like a real a-hole.
[00:03:13]  Now, somehow, again, Reddit has said that this woman is not the a-hole, when she clearly is.
[00:03:17]  Now, she might not be THE a-hole, because there are two a-holes.
[00:03:20]  The father's an a-hole.
[00:03:20]  Like, showing back up, didn't want any... wanted the child aborted, didn't want to be part of the child's life, and then you show up.
[00:03:26]  Now, you want to be a part of the child's life, and that's good.
[00:03:27]  That's a good part.
[00:03:28]  You had a change of heart.
[00:03:29]  But then, like, two months later, you're saying, give the child my name.
[00:03:31]  You have to earn that by being present in the family.
[00:03:34]  Now, if this was a normal situation, healthy situation, where you're the father and you're there from the get-go, then yes, the child should have your last name to begin with.
[00:03:43]  But not in this case.
[00:03:44]  However, this woman, you are still 100,000% the a-hole because you tried to sell your son's naming rights?
[00:03:53]  What is he, a stadium?
[00:03:54]  Why not go auction him off to a bank?
[00:03:56]  Let's call him a PNC or Wells Fargo.
[00:03:59]  Sell his forehead to Best Buy.
[00:04:01]  They could slap a logo on it.
[00:04:02]  And you think you're the good guy?
[00:04:04]  I know it'd be really important for my son to be connected to his father's family.
[00:04:07]  So, you're the a-hole, he's the a-hole, I'm the a-hole, we're all the a-holes.
[00:04:13]  On this episode of Am I the A-hole?
[00:04:15]  [MUSIC]
[00:04:23]  I live alone in a one bedroom apartment.
[00:04:25]  Recently, a co-worker, let's call them Allie, has been coming to my supervisor to talk and visit almost every shift.
[00:04:32]  They've been talking about how Allie has had a downturn in job performance and might be laid off soon if things don't improve.
[00:04:38]  Allie is nice and outgoing but not reliable when it comes to office work.
[00:04:42]  The past couple of days my supervisor has been very interested in my living situation.
[00:04:46]  Always asking how the area is, how I decorate my space, how my relationship is with the property manager.
[00:04:53]  They've even started making comments about how lucky I am to live alone and how important community is.
[00:04:57]  Yesterday after hours... Can we just get to the point here?
[00:05:00]  You don't need to go back five years in the story.
[00:05:04]  Just get to the freaking point.
[00:05:06]  Um, okay.
[00:05:07]  For over a half an hour, they went on and on about how I could let her live with me and how good it would be to carpool, split expenses, and have company at home.
[00:05:15]  I tried to keep the shock.
[00:05:16]  Okay.
[00:05:16]  So basically, your supervisor is pressuring you to have a co-worker move in with you as a roommate.
[00:05:21]  You could have just said that!
[00:05:22]  The whole rest of the story is not necessary.
[00:05:24]  We don't need to know what you had for breakfast that morning.
[00:05:26]  Am I the a-hole?
[00:05:27]  Well, no.
[00:05:28]  I mean, you're the a-hole for telling this long, boring story, but not in this particular situation.
[00:05:33]  I hear these stories from people's jobs sometimes, and I'm just like, what?
[00:05:37]  First of all, why would you tolerate this to begin with?
[00:05:39]  Your supervisor at your job is trying to force you to...
[00:05:44]  To allow another person at your job to live with you?
[00:05:47]  I don't know if this is appropriate.
[00:05:48]  I'd better go ask Reddit.
[00:05:49]  It's wildly inappropriate and it's definitely illegal in like 50,000 different ways.
[00:05:55]  So, first thing I would do is go and get that supervisor fired.
[00:05:58]  And then absolutely you do not let this person move in with you.
[00:06:00]  Though this is coming from someone who I would never let anyone move in with me as a roommate.
[00:06:04]  I think the whole concept of roommates to me just doesn't make any sense.
[00:06:06]  If you're getting married and you're starting a family, right, with someone, that's one thing.
[00:06:10]  That's not really a roommate.
[00:06:11]  You get none of the benefit of starting a family, yet you get all of the annoyances of having to live with other people in your house.
[00:06:18]  Part of the problem, and no offense to men by this, but it seems to be mostly women who use the Midahole forum on Reddit.
[00:06:26]  And this is something women do.
[00:06:27]  And look, ladies, you have to realize that you do this.
[00:06:29]  You know, if you have information that you want to pass on to someone, you always start way further back in the timeline than you need to.
[00:06:36]  That's the scourge of existence for women.
[00:06:39]  They're always complaining, oh, you know, the men, they don't remember, they don't listen.
[00:06:42]  It's because you're giving us way too much information, okay?
[00:06:44]  And that's not how our minds work.
[00:06:45]  We can't retain all that.
[00:06:48]  We're looking for the point, and that's where we home in.
[00:06:50]  You know, you've heard me talk about how important it is to have a VPN to protect your online privacy, but choosing a VPN you trust is equally as important.

=== Protect Your Online Privacy (00:54) ===

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[00:07:07]  Think about all the times you've used Wi-Fi at a coffee shop, hotel, even a friend's house.
[00:07:11]  Without ExpressVPN, every site you visit can be logged by the admin of that network.
[00:07:16]  That's still true even when you're in incognito mode.
[00:07:18]  ExpressVPN is an app that encrypts all of your network data and reroutes it through a network of secure servers so that your private online activity stays private.
[00:07:26]  ExpressVPN works on all your devices.
[00:07:28]  It's super easy to use.
[00:07:29]  The app has one button, you tap it to connect, and your browsing activity is secure.
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[00:07:50]  No!