Am I The A-Hole? Sweet Baby Gang Edition Part Two
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
215.29636
Summary
A listener asks, "Am I the ahole for not encouraging my husband to have a better relationship with his father or father's family?" and another asks "Is my fianc on board with my fiance s plan to try having kids shortly after they get married? "
Transcript
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This is our time for analyzing some M.I. the a-hole moral quandaries.
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We have some that were sent to us by listeners, and then we've got, I'll do one from Reddit.
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My fiancé wants to try having kids shortly after we get married this summer.
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While we're both on board with that plan, I want to stop at just one,
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I'm aware that if neither of us changes our mind,
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one of us will get what we want and the other will be crushed.
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I, being the selfish bastard that I am and planning on putting my foot down
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when push comes to shove and our first kid reaches two or three years old,
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Am I the a-hole for not being very transparent in my plan after our first kid is born?
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I'm 100% firm on this, and as a last resort, if my back is up against the wall,
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I'm not opposed to getting the snip, but I hope it doesn't come to that.
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Yeah, you are the a-hole on a few different levels.
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I mean, first of all, if you're even considering getting the snip, as you say,
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And that's something that you would do against your soon-to-be wife's wishes.
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You both want a child, so it's good that you agree on that much.
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My point is that there's a very good chance that you'll have one child,
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and then you'll discover yourself that you actually want to have more.
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Because right now, you're speaking all in theory,
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so you don't really know what you're talking about.
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And once you experience that joy of having a child,
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there's a very good chance that you're going to change your mind about that.
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it's hard to describe until you've actually experienced it.
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Allow yourself to have, you know, you have the child,
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You should be open to more kids if that's what God wants for you.
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But you also need to be totally honest with the woman that you're about to marry.
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Am I the a-hole for not encouraging my husband to have a relationship with his father or father's family?
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For some backstory, my husband's parents divorced when he was 17.
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tried to instigate a fight with my brother-in-law when my husband was younger
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Okay, so there's some kind of abuse going on, which is very bad.
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I tried to get my husband to have more of a relationship with his father
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since his father had promised that he had changed and wanted to be better.
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just reminding him to text on holidays, birthdays,
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and go see him at the yearly family reunion on his father's side.
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At this reunion, my father-in-law kept talking crap about my mother-in-law
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and had his family joining in, making both his sons very uncomfortable.
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Later, my father-in-law wanted to take a family photo of his immediate family.
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When my husband and I started over to the spot for the photo,
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Then did not want me in any of the other family photos either.
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This hurt me deeply, so we left early after that.
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Then afterwards, I come to find out his father doesn't like me at all
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and blames me for the lack of relationship with his son.
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And my husband told him he won't speak to him anymore until he apologizes to me.
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Am I the a-hole for no longer encouraging my husband to make the relationship work?
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And you're talking about family drama and resentment
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and all these sorts of things have been building up over the course of years.
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Maybe you thought about the possibility that your children are actually scared of you.
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There's almost certainly going to be a bunch of other details that don't make it in here.
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Part of it is also that you are seeing things through your own prism.
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And if I were to talk to your father-in-law, he might have some other details.
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It's, you know, very often there's not a clear bad guy.
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I mean, sometimes there is, but oftentimes there isn't.
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So, that's all just a qualifier to say that based on what you've told me,
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if all of this is accurate, which I have no reason to think that it isn't,
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I don't know you, then no, you're not the a-hole at all.
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And also in general, even though I don't know all the rest of the situation,
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your husband is absolutely right to take your side and defend you as the wife,
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and to put it over as a priority above his relationship to anybody else in his family,
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because that's what you're supposed to do when you get married,
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that your relationship with your spouse comes before your relationship with anyone else,
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Your relationship with your spouse is supposed to be the number one most important thing,
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and it comes before everything else, certainly, you know, extended family,
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Your kids need their parents to prioritize the relationship with each other.
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I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question.
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I have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to excessive gifts from my mother-in-law.
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My mother-in-law is a hoarder in every sense of the word.
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Her house is completely full with random toys, kitchen accessories, etc.,
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to the point where I have told my wife I don't even want to visit
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because there are literally very few places where someone can even sit down,
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let alone relax, do the amount of stuff all over the place.
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she is always bringing things over to our house that we don't want.
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We've told her repeatedly over the years that when she comes,
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she is taken to leaving things in our house without us knowing,
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I took to throwing away anything that she left.
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I know she thinks she's being generous and giving us gifts,
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but if we're keeping everything that she brings to the house,
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I mean, as long as you're being nice to her about it.
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So as long as you're being nice to her about it
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struggling to pay for the treatment on her own.
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My reasoning is that I have my own financial responsibilities
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My sister is understandably upset with my decision
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My other family members are also disappointed in me
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Then you wouldn't need to say anything about it.