173: Trouble in Paradise.. Ft. Midwest Married
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I just have to check through all of my old episodes.

And make sure I haven't had one with this title yet. That's what I've started to have to do. Oh. Because we are 178 episodes in. 176, somewhere in there. I don't know. That's a lot of episodes. I'm starting to forget what stories I've read, you guys. Like, it's kind of all mushing. So when I come up with a theme idea, I literally have to go and look and type it in on my podcast backend and be like, have I used this word before? Or...

This iteration, because everything's just blending together. Well, that would be hard to come up with 177 new good sayings. It's a lot. But you guys, I mean, you'll get there eventually. Eventually. We're working on it. That's the goal. What episode number are you guys on right now? 11 this week. We'll launch. Hey!

Nice. There we go. Why don't you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves? It's been a while since you've been on my show.

Yeah, we're Midwest Married, and I'm Matt. And I'm Amy, and Matt is Morgan's brother. Yeah. I'm her sister-in-law. I'm Morgan. I'm your host. If you don't know me and this is your first episode, welcome. Yay! So excited to have you. Well, Justin and I went on your podcast, Midwest Married, and you guys, I'm going to link it in the description. You need to listen to this episode. It's a hygiene one. Yeah.

We got personal. We got personal. And we talked a lot from everything from how do you smush or fold your toilet paper to do you wash your feet in the shower or not? And Matt, you learned some things about Amy's shower habits.

I did, yes. After almost 20 years together, you learned something new about your wife. Yeah, all the time. Yeah. Just surprising me. It's scary. That's what it is.

So that gave me an idea. Oh. Yeah. Because we have no idea what the theme of today is. We just show up. You don't. Today's theme is trouble in paradise. Ah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it caused too much trouble, though. No. I just don't think he's going to let you rub your feet on him anymore.

Get those dirty things away from me. Feet don't bother me. Yeah. You don't mind too much. Dirty feet do though. My feet are not dirty. She admitted she doesn't wash her feet in the shower. I know. I stand in the shower. My feet are just not dirty. All right. Listen to the episode. Watch it on YouTube. However you listen to my show, be sure to check out this one because it was a really fun episode that I and Justin went on and

It was fun. It was a good time. It was good. It's always fun when we all get together. I know. I love it. Okay, well, let's dive into this one. Let's do it. Okay, so our first story that we have is coming from AITAH. It is titled, Am I the Asshole for Refusing to Repropose After My Fiance Lost Her Engagement Ring? Hmm.

I, 29 male, proposed to my fiance, 28 female, six months ago with a beautiful ring that I saved up for over a year to buy. She was thrilled, and we've been happily planning our wedding since then. Last weekend, we went on a trip to the mountains for a little getaway. During one of our hikes, she realized that her engagement ring was missing. She was devastated, and we spent hours retracing our steps, but we couldn't find it.

When we got back home, she asked if I could get a new ring and re-proposed to her to recreate the special moment. I told her that I understood how she felt, but buying another ring of the same quality would be financially challenging for me right now. I suggested that we could either wait until I could afford a similar ring or get a more modest ring for now and upgrade it in the future.

She was upset and said that it wouldn't feel the same with a different ring and that the magic of the proposal was lost. She insisted that she wanted the moment to be recreated just as it was before. I told her that the important thing was our commitment to each other, not the ring or the proposal itself.

She accused me of not caring enough about her feelings and said that if I truly loved her, I would find a way to make it happen.

No, I don't think so. I think it's kind of weird that she wants a whole new proposal.

Because like, even if you were to recreate it, it's not going to be the same as it was the first time around. Like you really only have one shot at that. So I think that that's, that's really silly. And in fact, a month before our wedding, we actually lost the diamond out of

of our engagement ring. Yeah. And that was quite devastating. And we learned a very important lesson that I think they need to learn as well, as if you have very expensive jewelry that you can only afford to purchase once, you really need to get that baby insured. It's so cheap to get insurance, you guys. Yeah. If something happens, you lose it.

or the diamond pops out, then you can actually afford to go and get it replaced. And then you don't have to be burdened by having to pay an exorbitant price multiple times. So for us in that situation, we also did not have that insured through...

I mean, we talked about it and it just never happened. So what we decided to do was replace the diamond with just a cubic zirconia. And I actually wore that baby for years and years and years. And we replaced it a couple times. And I was like, I'm not getting a new diamond ever because it's way too expensive. Still had the wedding to pay for. Then after the wedding, you have...

babies to pay for dogs first, I guess, then babies and then a house and, you know, just all the things. And the diamond on the priority list went from way up here to way down here. So, yeah, I think that that is really too bad that they did not have insurance. And I think it's a little unreasonable for her to expect him to dish out thousands more to replace a ring that she lost. Yeah.

I have a lot of issues with this one. Now I'm just thinking like to create a brand new proposal and to recreate...

The one that you did before seems silly to me. It's fake. If you want to go... It's weird. It's fake. You're faking it. None of those emotions are real. What's the point? You're already engaged. You've had that experience. It's not taking away from your relationship at all. This lady is off her rocker. Yeah. And I don't know, that might be a red flag.

I think it is. What is, what is, what's next? I think it definitely is. I think it's a little concerning that instead of kind of seeing like their partner out, she's immediately like, well, no, and upset and ignoring him or, you know, doing whatever. It's, it's kind of like, well, okay, I can see your side, but what if I maybe pay for half of the ring? You know, I know you saved for a year, so I hear you, but you know, what if I pay for half? I am the one that lost it. Like,

I don't necessarily think it's fair that he should be the one to replace this ring completely on his own. Well, she lost it. And who knows where she lost it? Did she lose it on the mountainside? Did she lose it while she was putting her makeup on and it just happened to fall down the sink? You never know. Is it by the bedside table and somebody...

Room service came in and swiped it afterwards. You don't know where you lost it. Is it going to turn up later? Like we searched high and low for that baby because the gold was still attached to the, like the actual setting popped out of my ring. Oh my God. And so Matt even went to the store and bought a metal detector because I was like with the dogs out in the yard and did the metal detector in the yard. I'm convinced someday it's going to turn up or it was released to, um,

Lady Superior, Lake Superior. I could see Lake Superior claiming that one. Yeah. I was also walking the dogs along the lake walk that day. So that's probably where it is, like just in the depths of the lake. There's a diamond out there. Anyone in Duluth. Yeah. We find it. You hear that?

I would really consider this to be kind of a warning sign of what's to come. Like, I know this is a big issue. Like, it's tragic that she lost this, especially because he saved up for a year. I can't even imagine the cost of that ring. But the fact that she is so unwilling to hear her partner out or have a civil conversation and then kind of go off on this deep end of like,

Not only does she want the exact ring now, she wants another proposal. Like,

Something's just off here. And he doesn't even seem really that upset, like very understanding. Yeah. This dude is chill. Very. So a year of saving, how much money that is. I bet, I mean, I think you were kind of heartbroken when that diamond fell out. So I imagine he's sad too. It was a lot of money. Yeah, that engagement ring. I went and retraced all your steps. I went and swept the supermarket. Yes, you did.

I've lost a lot of jewelry in recent years. It's so painful. It hurts. It hurts. But what happens if in the future she loses another ring, like her wedding ring? Are you going to have another wedding? Right? That's a good question. I think they need to come. She needs to come back down to earth. But if they can't come to a compromise or get like on the same page with this, would you guys consider this reason enough to call off the wedding? I want an update. I want to know what transpired afterwards. Did he cave?

That's the question. Or did he stand firm? And then where are they at? How much of a fight did she actually put up? Because if she's going to stand on that, yeah, that's... I think it's more of a yellow flag. Like, is it the only thing? We all have our weird things. Like, is the rest of the relationship completely perfect? And okay, well...

She eventually, she decides that she wants to wait for a new ring and she wants you to recreate the proposal. Like, if that's the only thing in the relationship that's weird. True.

Maybe we can move on from that. Maybe have a conversation, though, about what happens in the future if we lose rings. I think outlining that very clearly. Yeah. Maybe she looks at like the proposal as like a ceremony that blesses her engagement ring. So like maybe maybe she just needs to go through that again to feel that like the ring is true and she can wear it.

I need more info. Well, we don't have any because OP's account has been suspended. There's no comments from OP, but we do have some comments from the good people of Reddit. Let's hear it. Top comment, not the asshole. I would be horrified if I lost the ring my fiance got me. No way would I expect him to replace it with conditions. What?

would really consider who you've asked to marry you and where their priorities lie. In the future, however, I would insure the ring. Get that insurance. Yeah. And next comment down, not only replace the ring, but redo the whole proposal. Lots of main character syndrome going on here. Run, OP. She is horrible to expect any of this.

I wonder how expensive that proposal was, too. Like some proposals can be super simple. Like we just went for a hike and I was looking at a beautiful tree. I turned around and he was down on one knee, you know, very like, OK, just me and you. But there are proposals that are like there is a lot to it. And there's flowers and there's orchestras and there's I don't know, expensive things. Like was it that kind of proposal that she wants to be recreated? Yeah.

Was the entire family there that like now everybody has to come back for proposal number two? No one's asking those questions. And again, that's what I wonder. No comments from OP. But yeah, I would be curious about that because like I'm imagining myself in this situation. And one, I would never expect Justin to buy me a new ring if it was my fault it disappeared. He would probably be like, oh, I'll split it. Or well, he would probably be really nice and be like, I'll get it. But I would be like, no, I'm going to split it with you or like,

I'm going to get it because that just feels bad. But we got insurance. I actually insured my engagement ring and both of our Cartier bands for $100.

No, that's not bad at all. For a year? For a year. That is good. Yeah, that's not bad. For a year. And I actually think I put my diamond band on that policy as well. So it's like... Nice. Like it's so affordable. Like I think if I wanted to just do my engagement ring, it was like 20 bucks. Oh, nice. Like a year, like 20 bucks. That's a couple of coffees, four coffees. That's doable. It's doable. That's worth it. It's worth it. Yeah. I think this one...

I hope we get an update someday. I really want to know if he still went through with it.

Don't do it, dog. It's not worth it. Don't do it. You think you should run? Run. I don't know. A lot of people are saying run. A lot of people are saying this is a sign. Nature took its course. Nature intervened. I mean, people are really popping off. They think it's fate to have lost the ring. Yep. And that is just a bad omen and a bad sign. And now it's cursed. Instead of the ring being blessed, the relationship is cursed.

Yeah. Get some sage. Yeah. Someone does go get all our bridesmaids, rent a bunch of metal detectors, stuff backpacks with wine and snacks. At least you tried. There you go. Put that effort in. Yeah. You know, and I get, I will say I do get her being embarrassed and, you know, maybe kind of trying to deflect everything a little bit and take, you know, the pressure off her for losing it.

I get it. I would be sad, embarrassed, all of the things, but she's got to come back down to earth. Just come back down. Expectations are a little out there. Okay. Moving along. Okay. Okay. This next one. All right. It is coming from AITAH. It is two days old. Titled, am I the asshole for going off on my wife because she teases me even though our bedroom is dead?

I, 32 male, am married to my wife, 32 female, for six years and together for nine. Our sex life gradually diminished into nothing after our third year of marriage.

We do not have any kids as of now. I handle my part of the chores in the household, if not even more, due to me working from home and being available mostly. I do show her non-sexual attention and gestures such as massaging, kisses, being emotionally available, among other things. I explain this because people tend to find fault from my side first after I tell them about the situation.

I tried to have many talks with my wife about it, but all it boils down to, quote, we are not married just for sex. Stop thinking with your thing down there, and so on. However, she does not stop herself from teasing me. She'll talk about sex, but just reject me afterwards and go to sleep.

She'll be flirty, but nothing past that in the end. I asked her if it's a kink, and if it is, I am not comfortable with such a thing, especially as our sexual life is in shambles. She said it's not a kink, and she genuinely does not feel in the mood. I told her to stop teasing me then.

Yesterday was our anniversary and we had a great date together. She implied sex and teased me a lot during our time. I was hoping that we'll do something in the end. Guess what? Once we stepped inside the house, she just showered and went to bed. Cool. I think I should approach. I tried and got rejected in the end. I lost it at that moment and just shouted my frustration at her. I told her I'm going to divorce her. I packed my clothes and some important belongings and left for a hotel.

She tried to stop me, but could not. She has been calling me nonstop, but I just need peace of mind right now. It's just frustrating. Being together with someone, but feeling alone and unwanted sucks. On top of that, she gives me hope only to destroy it. I called my lawyer friend this morning and will start the divorce proceedings this Monday. I am just done at this point. Am I the asshole? That's so sad to me. That's so sad.

What do you think? The way that he's going about it? Absolutely. I think he is the asshole. Really? Interesting. Okay. Why? Go ahead, divorce her. But you don't just storm out of the house without having that conversation as far as, hey, here I am. I'm having this difficulty within our relationship. And this isn't acceptable to me. These are my expectations. And what can we do to fix it?

Or we're going to go down that path of getting a separation divorce. So I'm open to going to counseling if that's what it takes. What is actually going on here? Is it that you're not attracted to me? Am I just fat and old now? Or is there something beyond that that's transpiring? But to storm out of the house and then not communicate, I'm not a huge fan of that. I like open dialogue and communication.

That's a good point. If you did need the time, you say, hey, I'm leaving. I need to go and cool down. I'm having some issues right now. And I'm going to go and take some time to think about what's transpiring. Yeah. And then, yeah, just call up his buddy and be like, let's wrap this up. Divorce time.

Yeah, that seems a little bit like you're jumping way too into it too fast. Zero to 100? Yes. Yeah. Because it seems like he has been thinking about it a lot. You know, he...

right away mentions, I'm emotionally available. I'm trying to do all the things. It seems like he's been trying to address the actual issue, except I don't know if he's actually talking to her about what the actual issue is. I know. There's not a lot of context with this one, like in terms of like, I've had this conversation a hundred times with her. We've tried counseling already. They've been married for six years. The dead bedroom started yesterday.

year three of marriage. So now that's three years of this, which I wouldn't be able to handle it for six months, let alone three years. I mean, where I do kind of credit him like

for sticking it out. I agree. Some people might be like, oh, the bar's in hell. You don't have to have sex just for a healthy marriage. I get that. Some people do. Some people love sex. They both have high libidos and they have a good sexual match in their relationship.

That's cool. There's other people that are asexual and a high libido and it works for their relationship. This isn't working for him though. And so it's like, what have they done kind of in the meantime, instead of like,

oh, you went from not talking about it, you hit your last straw, and now you're just divorce, divorce. Was there anything in between is what I would really like to know. Because he doesn't mention a reason that she's given that she hasn't had sex with him. No. So I think that that's curious that he hasn't said, well, she says the reason is because her libido is low due to medical reasons or due to being busy or due to...

Stress. Something else, right? Yeah. Let's get real. She's probably just tired. Aren't we all? Aren't we all? I'm tired 24-7. I don't know what it's like to have energy, but you know, you prioritize. You maybe have sex in the morning when you got a little more energy. The spoons theory. I know. I remember. I know. I remember. You know, that's what we've had to start doing since I hit 30, you know? It's just...

you take all the time you can and just really prioritize the little things. Maybe she's having an affair with a neighbor and she's just not sexually attracted. Really? Or maybe, you know, maybe she is asexual and just didn't want to tell him since she wanted him as a partner and knew he wouldn't be okay with that. Like I think, or maybe she discovered that about herself after they got married. Like,

We don't know. This is the context we need, OP. Top comment. Oh, what? I was just saying she was good for the first six years of the relationship. It is really- So what changed? Yeah. That's what I want to know. Where's that? Do we have updates? So the top comment first, we'll see if there's any comments from OP after. Not the asshole. It's really messed up to lead a person on like that, especially your own husband. And I guess we didn't really address that. Like,

Whatever her reason for not having a sex drive or, you know, high libido or a libido that matches him, that's one thing. But it's the fact that she continues to tease him, imply sex, and then immediately shut it down. That feels a little psychologically fuckery. Frustrating when that happens. There's...

I think if you do it accidentally once, like, you know. I mean, sometimes it does happen. It happens. Like, yeah, you think maybe you're in the mood and then, nope. But to do it again and again and again and he tells you. If that's the only thing that you're doing. And he did say, like, please don't tease me. So it's like, okay, that's interesting. And I wonder if it's been so long since they've really had sex that she almost doesn't know how to get to that point.

step. Yeah. In a way, because it's been so dead. Like, how do you revive a dead bedroom? I think they need counseling if they're going to make it work. I know. They need somebody to help them through it. So there are quite a few comments from OP. OP says, I did talk to her many times, but it did not change anything.

She did a hormone check actually and everything came out normal. On the upper part of normal actually, she does not use birth control pills regularly either. We went with condoms almost all of the time. Someone does imply an affair and OP goes, I do not think that's the case. At least I hope. We are together most of the time and I trust her.

So curious if there's more. So if she had her hormones checked, then I feel like that means that she just feels like she just doesn't really want to. Yeah. There is one comment where someone goes, a coworker slash friend of mine went through this situation almost word for word. His ex-wife was doing it with someone else and reporting back to her affair partner. So then they both got off on it. What?

That's, that would be really sad. And OP responds, that's just cruel and disgusting. That would really piss me off. I mean, that's divorce worthy right there without question. Yeah. Well, we get an update from OP. Update. Just came back from local courthouse after presenting the divorce intention document to the family court.

My friend filled out my info on a one-pager draft, and that was it. I called my wife to let her know that I had started the process, and I am okay with 50-50 everything.

She called for marriage counseling and told me I should take what I did back. I realized I'm extremely burnt out from trying and do not want to try anymore. That's what three years of trying with no results does to someone, I guess. I told her we can have a separation counseling near the end of the divorce so we can understand the relationship from each other's points and end it amicably. She tried to talk it out with me, but I asked her to please make it easy for both of us and hung up.

She is messaging me and calling me still, but I have no intention of talking to her if lawyers are not involved right now. My lawyer friend told me it's okay to leave the house as we do not own it anyways. I'll be staying with my parents for now. Next update will be once the divorce is completed. Hopefully it will be in a few months, not years. There were a lot of comments on the original post and I could not answer them all, but thank you all for the advice and help.

He went through with it. Wow. I mean, that does go to show, don't let these issues just fester. It was really three years that it was a problem. People don't leave right away, but sometimes they, by the time they decide they're out, then they're out. And then it's too late. And like why, and I think this is a case in a lot of relationships where

Oh, let's go to counseling. Let's go to counseling. Counseling should not be a last ditch effort. Counseling should be initiated the minute you guys have continuous breakdown of your communication, trust, whatever. Counseling should be maintenance, like an oil change. It's not this last ditch effort because by that time, it's already too late. My take. My hot take. Should have started earlier, definitely. Waited too long, but

Sometimes I feel like we get a bad rap where people out in the world think that we're just, oh yeah, get divorced, get divorced. No, we're saying go and do the work and don't just, I don't know. This seems to me like he's just peace out. Like this is your wife. There has to be some bigger issues. I feel like beyond this, she's willing to work it out. Like you think he should give it one shot of counseling and see? Probably. Probably.

I don't know. I think after like trying to talk it out for three years, like he does not mention ever say, hey, let's go to counseling, babe. Like, let's do it. He doesn't mention that. He fell out of love. Yeah. I mean, after three years of like, at least for me, like physical connection is important to me. And I think it helps contribute to the overall relationship.

yay happiness of my relationship. So for me, three years, after trying and trying and talking and talking and initiating and getting rejected, rejected, rejected, you can only get rejected so much if

So I don't know. I get it. For him to leave so abruptly, do you think he had interest in someone else? It doesn't sound like it because they were on, like he even said, like we had our anniversary dinner and it was so great and we had so much fun. She was teasing me and then we got home, she got in the shower. So I tried to initiate and got rejected. Like it just sounds like

That was the straw. His wits were at their end. Should have never walked through the doorway. Should have did it in the car. Uh-huh. Take advantage of that energy. That's right. Yeah. Don't lose it. She lost her spoons. She lost her spoons. Yeah, she did. Okay. Bummer. Yeah, bummer. I was going to say, let's move on. But you guys have been married for, you got married in 2015. So it's like nine years now, marriage, but together for...

20 years. Yeah. Two kids. How do you not lose the magic? Like, have you ever gone through phases of a dead bedroom? How'd you get over it? What'd you do? What's the definition of dead bedroom? I guess it varies from person to person, but... It's like a roller coaster. It ebbs and flows. We have our slumps where it's just not as often and time can go on and

whatnot. But then we have our times where there's no problem whatsoever. I think it just really also depends on life for us. Like it's really tied to stress levels and what's going on and how busy we are and how, but also how connected we feel. Like, are we taking the time to put into our relationship? And then romance novels helps. Yeah. Yeah. Katar. Great success. Great book. What are your thoughts on it?

ACOTAR? I haven't read it, but I'm benefiting. Oh my gosh. Have you seen those TikToks? So it's on BookTok where it's like,

Books my husband loves but has never read. This book. My husband really loved this book. Oh, my God. This book. I love that. That's hilarious. The ending was he really loved this book. Oh, God. That's so good. They're hilarious and I can relate. Definitely agree with what Amy said. It definitely depends on the season of life, how busy we are, what we have going on, work, kids, you know, stress. How do you get out of a slump, though, when you got all that going on?

You got to decompress. You got to take a break. You have to actually carve the time out to go on a date and set the intention. Be intentional about dating your partner. Yeah. I love that. I think like Justin and me got really guilty about this where we would both be like working editing and he'd be like, oh yeah, we had a nice like little date night. It's like,

That is not a date night. No. No. Like, date night is no work. It's all fun. It's intentional. And the other night, like...

I guess like two weeks ago now, he was like, can we go to like our favorite restaurant on Fridays? Like, can we go to Bakery? And I didn't even reply because I was like busy with the horse or something. And he got home and I was like, oh yeah, like I think we, I think it'd be really nice. Like it'd be so like good for us to go on a little date night. And he goes, I already booked it. I was like, oh, so good. And then we went and it's like, that's the first dinner we have gone out to with just us. Like,

actually having quality time and like not talking about work and actually ran into a listener. She came over and said hi. Yes. That's fun. And she was from Minnesota. Oh, even more fun. Which I was like, you're from Minnesota, out in LA now, at Bakery, my favorite little restaurant. It just, it was a great night. It was a great night. So. That's the small plates, right? Mm-hmm. Tapas style. Tapas. And isn't it fun? This is so good. That was so good. Isn't it fun to be

Like asked out on a date. It felt so magical. Because usually it's like, oh, hey, what are we doing for dinner? I'm too tired. If we do, let's go out. Maybe we can get a sitter. You know, it's not.

There's nothing really to it, but to be intentionally like he was thinking about me and he wants to take me out on a date and he already made the reservations and it's not even our anniversary. It's just because he wants to spend time with me. When you've been in a relationship for so long, even that little bit of effort can feel so good. It was so nice. It was just magical. This next one, though, not so magical. Let's hear it.

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It's awesome. I'm in. I'm sold. Okay, this next one, again from AITAH, which is like a newer Am I the Asshole subreddit. They are kind of coming in and stepping on the OGs necks with the content, but gives us a good show, right? Love it. So it is titled, Am I the Asshole for Sleeping in a Separate Room with Our Baby After My Husband Lied to Me About Something Stupid?

My husband and I have a five-month-old daughter, and he was the one who unfortunately got slammed with postpartum symptoms. He has severe postpartum anxiety, and he's in therapy for it. But it's been a bit of an adjustment for me. Nothing went as planned. I realize you can hardly plan most things and have them work out exactly as you planned when you become a parent, but some things...

I don't know. I DIY'd an absolutely gorgeous nursery, has everything color coordinated, bought a really expensive baby monitor, etc. And my husband refuses to even let the baby sleep in there because of his anxiety. Not even for naps. He will 100% wake her up and bring her out to where we are if I put her for a nap in her crib. If she's not in the

Hence why me sleeping in another room with the baby away from him is an issue. Anyways, he absolutely knows that I hate long vehicle rides with the baby. Anything over 40 minutes is far too long. She hates the car and screams the entire time unless I'm sitting right beside her. And frankly, I don't want to sit in the backseat.

I get car sick, irritated. I feel unsafe, accident trauma and trapping because you can't open the back door without opening the front door. So I can't get out of the vehicle without him letting me out. You name it. I just don't like it. And he knows that.

Everything we need is within 20 minutes driving distance of us. All of our family lives within 30 minutes, so we have absolutely zero reason to venture outside of this length of time, but he often tries pushing me to it. Like last week, he tried getting me to go to some restaurant he wanted to try and tried convincing me that the three and a half hour round trip car ride isn't even that bad. No thanks.

Well, yesterday he asked me if I wanted to get out of the house and go for a drive with him because he was going to go look at a truck. I asked where it was and he said, quote, just on the other side of Albany.

Albany is 40-ish minutes from us. So I said, sure. Well, we get past Albany and it's been like 20 minutes at this point. So an hour total. And I'm getting irritated with being in the back seat. So I asked him when we will get there. He checks the GPS and says 43 minutes. I was pissed.

I asked him why the fuck he lied and told me it was right on the other side of Albany. And he gave me some sad-ass, quote, I thought it was, answer, which I did not buy for a single second. It was an hour and 58-minute car ride there, 40 minutes easily that he spent talking to the guy with the truck just to decide that he didn't want it.

And then the two and a half hour drive home because traffic. When we got back home, I immediately grabbed the baby and went to our guest room and locked the door and just went to sleep. It was 8 p.m. I hadn't eaten yet, but I was too pissed to eat. The baby screamed the entire ride home.

Once he realized the door was locked, he started doing his panicked slash anxiety pacing, saying that I'm overreacting, saying, quote, don't do this to me, texted me a bunch of times. When I woke up in the morning, I almost tripped over him because he fell asleep leaning against the door. He says I'm a, quote, fucking cunt for doing that, knowing how bad his anxiety is and overdramatic as hell to do so over an, quote,

uncomfortable car ride. So am I the asshole? No. No. No, I don't think so. Wow. I love that he busted that out. The minute he's... Oh, nope. If anyone that I was dating or with or getting engaged to ever called me a cunt, they would be getting a swift kick to the balls.

I'll show you. I'll show you who's a real big see you next Tuesday. You want to use that line? I like that. Never heard of that before. That's just right now. See you next Tuesday? No. Wow. Look at that. Learning things all the time. I think the first thing we need to address is the fact that she doesn't understand that the back...

doors have the child lock on. She just needs to flip the lever. Why do they have the child lock on? No, so I think what it is, it's a two-door car that has the back seat. So it's got that like dummy door. So you have to open the main door to get the back seat door open. Yeah, that sucks. I hate that. I hate that. And as someone that has car anxiety, like

It's just really uncomfortable being in the back seat and like not having a clear view of the road. Like someone who has motion sickness. Yeah. You like need to be in the front seat where you can see everything. And yeah. I also think super disrespectful not to take the fact into consideration that the baby cries the entire time that they're in cars. Yeah, I know. Who wants to sit back there and listen to that? Why doesn't he sit in the back?

Did she say, did I miss this? Did she say that she's the only one? Yep. She cries the entire time unless I'm sitting right beside her. But it's like, okay, well, hey, taste of your own medicine, dude. You get in the back. Enjoy this. Like, either way, this baby's now crying the whole ride home. Let's switch. It's not working with me back here. Let's switch. I want to give him a lot of, you know, empathy, grains of salt. He's suffering with some very severe postpartum anxiety. But...

therapy needs to come up with some positive coping strategies, stat. There needs to be some sort of arrangement for them, stat. And I get why he's like, you want to go for a ride with me? Because he didn't want to go see this truck without having eyes on the baby. Like it is very severe, clearly, but you can also not lie to your wife and then put your baby through that stress as well. Like that's not healthy either. Then you should not be going to look at that truck. Nope.

Which clearly wasn't super needed and wasn't the one anyway because they did not end up buying it. Maybe he really didn't think that it was just on the other side of town. GPS, he plugged it in right away when he left. Probably. Don't you think? You're like, oh, here's the address. I'm going to put it in right from the get-go. Maybe, but sometimes on the marketplace, you'll get the dot, which then you're like, oh, that's just on the other side of town. Then maybe you drove there and punched it in and it was like, shit. Yeah.

It's not right where I thought it was. Well, it doesn't sound like he apologized at all. Doesn't seem like he's like, oh, you know, I really... I don't know. I don't buy it. I think he knew. I think it was intentional. I think it was him...

kind of succumbing to his anxiety. I know. And they got to think of something else there too. Maybe medication as well because it doesn't seem like that counseling is working after five months. I don't know when he started it or how far into it. Yeah. Yeah, no mention of any medication and that can really make a huge difference. Really help. A lot of people are really adverse to starting medication, especially like I think moms if they're breastfeeding. But

It is so much better than feeling like that. So I've heard like I, one of my OT professors, like really advocated for postpartum medication because of what she went through. And she had a lot of very dark intrusive thoughts and she was like, I felt guilty about going on it, but yeah,

Even during pregnancy. So one of my last conferences that I went to, it was super interesting. They did studies following moms who treated their anxiety and depression during pregnancy versus moms who did not and had significant anxiety and depression during pregnancy. And they found that when their children were teenagers,

The ones who did not treat their anxiety and depression actually had higher rates of anxiety and depression themselves. Isn't that fascinating? And so it might actually be more protective to take medication even during pregnancy and to treat that.

versus not. So I think that's fairly new evidence, but I thought it was super neat. That's amazing. I love longitudinal studies like that, that just like, they really put in the effort to collect that data years later. Like that's, that's how you know it's serious and it like, it's actually substantiated. I love that. That's a really good one. Mm-hmm.

So where do you think they go from here? I mean, obviously not the asshole for sleeping in a separate room. Like, she needed the sleep. The baby needed the sleep after that stress. They needed to take their space. Especially after name calling, which you should never do in a relationship. No. I wonder if that...

would be a strategy going forward where like mom and baby sleep in a separate room and he can have a baby monitor and just like watch if whenever, however, like I wonder if there's any recommendations that a psychologist or psychiatrist would provide just so like the baby is not being impacted because like this child's development and not sleeping also doesn't, like it's not the healthiest environment. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

Slowly moving the bassinet out of their room. Then it's in the hallway. Then it's across the threshold into the baby's room. I don't know. You got to be creative sometimes. I don't know. I have a hard time with recognizing or getting on the same page with somebody who has anxiety because I don't have anxiety very often. Wow. Very, very often.

Very little. I'm so jealous. I deal with it constantly. It just doesn't happen and I have a hard time relating. So if I were to be going through this phase myself, I would be trying to figure out everything possible to fix myself. And I would be going to get the medication or going and doing rounds of therapy or whatever

Having the ability to recognize, hey, these are some intrusive thoughts and I need to go and talk to somebody else about this, whether that be a friend rather than pacing up and down the hallway and falling asleep on the bedroom door. Like, all right, I'm not going to win this fight. I'm super anxious. I need to call Miller over here and just sit with me to have a support person, have a support person, figure out the steps to get better. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I'm curious about. It's like he's now been going to therapy, which I love. I'm very, very happy he was willing to take that step because I think for a lot of guys that can be hard for, I mean, for a lot of people. It's hard to admit sometimes. Yeah, and there's still a big stigma about therapy in a lot of places, cultures, etc. So I'm glad he's doing that, but I'm kind of surprised that like

There's no coping strategies being implemented yet. It doesn't like nothing's mentioned where like if he gets anxious, like he does this or, you know, he doesn't like going places by himself without the baby. So we try to do this. Like there's just nothing.

Again, maybe the context wasn't thought about, so maybe we'll creep on the comments. Yeah, I wonder if it's more of a trust thing. Like, why doesn't he trust his wife to adequately care for the baby? Is it something trust with his wife? I don't know. I'm curious. Top comment on this one. My question is, how on earth will the baby grow up in this environment?

OP responds, his mom is considering forcing her hand and getting him admitted to a psych ward until he gets help. I have no idea. I'm worried about it too. Not every day is bad. Some days are great even, but the bad days, I don't know. Which, yay mom, yay mother-in-law being on, you know, the team. Yeah. That helps.

Apparently his anxiety prevents him from leaving the baby for extended periods of time as well. So he's trying to trick OP instead of dealing with his own shit. That's what someone implies. Let's go to the comments from OP. All right. So someone goes, you sound like a gem. Poor you. Maybe sit in the backseat with the baby. All parents have to do this. You're an asshole. OP responds, maybe dad should have gone by himself instead of making his wife and daughter miserable for nearly five and a half hours.

Wow. Agreed. Wow. People can be so mean. Mm-hmm. Crazy.

Um, so a lot of comments from OP. He doesn't think it's dangerous because of the car seat we have. I told him that it can be dangerous, but the car seat we have is the baby arc convertible car seat. So it's adjustable and reclines and he thinks it makes it more safe. I think people are implying like for a young baby to be in the car that long, it's not the best. And so that's in response to that. Someone does ask like, why weren't you driving?

He won't let me drive his vehicle and he won't go in my vehicle because it's a mom mobile. I trusted him to tell me the truth. Obviously, a mistake was made. I didn't lock him out with the intention of keeping him out of the room all night. I locked the door because I wasn't even in the mood to have to deal with him telling me why I was wrong for being upset while trying to get the baby to sleep after she had just been screaming for the past two and a half hours. He doesn't give me time to cool off.

ever. He's a, quote, we're going to talk about this now, and I'm going to point out how irrational you are being for having feelings, all while telling me I have to cater to his anxiety because, quote, in sickness and health, remember? This is like, this is not healthy. This is above and beyond.

Wow. He also needs to learn that sometimes you need space in order to come back and repair. That going to bed, don't never go to bed angry adage. I think that's bad advice. Everybody gives like people who are getting married that advice.

advice, you know, always work it out before you go to bed. You're like, no, sometimes just go to bed. Sometimes all you need is a little sleep and you're going to feel better and have a little separation so that you can work on repairing whatever felt a little bit broken the night before. Those are the best fights. Those are the good ones. You need to wake up just... Still mad? I hate when you go to bed.

I do have a hard time going to bed, like not kind of coming to a resolution, but sometimes you do need the sleep and you are a little clear headed and not so hangry, tired, crazy, mad the next day. She'll fall asleep and I'll sit there and I'll fume for like hours. Just wake up. Just take some Benadryl. Just go to bed.

We'll work it out tomorrow. That'll be fine. Also, I was real annoyed that he would not go into her car because she has a mom mobile. Like, where is your ego? Get over yourself. Come on. Get over yourself. And that's going to be a real problematic issue for you in the future if you will only ride in your own car with your family. It gets worse, you guys. Oh, no. Oh, no. So people are asking about medications and if he's on any.

He absolutely refuses all medications. And despite going to therapy weekly, he never follows any of the therapist's suggestions to make his anxiety better. He literally says he can't physically make himself follow the instruction because it, quote, gives him too much anxiety. She's in for a long...

Tough road ahead here. Also, therapy and counseling only works if you have buy-in, if you are in agreement to work on the things. And it doesn't seem like he's there. Well, and if you're not going to take the advice, you're wasting money by going everywhere. Why are you going then? It's got to be expensive. Find someone else if you're not jiving with your counselor, because that is a real thing. Sometimes there's just mismatches and

personalities or communication styles and it's just not a great fit. And so find a different fit where someone is going to be a little bit more of whatever you need. Yeah. I mean, I talk about therapy a lot on this podcast and in just about every ad read I have for it. I think I say like it's like dating or making a new friend. Like you're not going to match with every therapist. Like the first one you get is

The second one you get, the third one you get might not be your person, but keep trying because you will find someone that you click with and can really connect and talk to and find solutions with. And the first few are going to be awkward, the first few sessions, because you're getting to know each other a little bit. It gets better.

Okay, so we have a couple more questions I really want to get into. Okay, I want to hear it. So someone goes, can you let him take your daughter without you? Maybe he won't want to go once he realizes how much of a hassle it is by himself. And OP goes,

He took her without me two or so months ago. He was angry with me because I, quote, jerked the baby's arm too hard when I put on her onesie. So he waited until I was in the shower and left with the baby for five hours. He kidnapped her. He went to his mom's house, brought all of the milk that I had pumped, which wasn't much. It was only eight ounces. He called me panicked on the way home because she was screaming, saying, quote,

quote, he thought there was enough milk, but he was wrong. Somehow that got turned on me too, because our therapist said I had to understand that he reacted like that because of his anxiety and that I was going to hurt the baby and that he needed to get her away from me. I'm so depleted.

That's a little paranoia and seems to go above and beyond just a little anxiety. And he's also very much misconstruing, I'm sure, what that therapist was saying, because that's not logical. I think that's like OP kind of like, I think OP goes to his sessions with him. I promise I'm not saying just go into Boris, but at some point.

I don't know. Maybe that inpatient psychiatric stay might be what he needs. But again, if he's not a danger to himself or anyone else and he doesn't want to go, there's nothing really you can do. He's got to help himself. He's got to realize that there's a bigger issue at hand. Yeah. OP does say here, we attend sessions together. I'm told I need to be understanding. I'm curious like what the verbiage is there, but like OP is very clearly like construing it as that and like hurt, upset, upset.

At her wit's end. If they want to continue, she might need her own counselor or they might want to do separate sessions or something. This isn't working. Both individuals and couples. Yes. OP does note here it's become an obsession like OCD much more than anxiety. People are asking about baby monitors and technology and what are you using? OP goes, I have all of that. My baby monitor costs $580. She has a sensor pad. He refuses to let her sleep in there still.

This is intense. And someone does say here, which I don't love this comment. I don't understand what compels people to have kids with these types of partners. Why would you want to put your child through that?

And Opie goes, because he was absolutely not like this prior to the baby. That man was never shaken. He was, I thought, my best friend. After the baby arrived, he immediately turned into this control freak and says, quote, oh, my bad, anxiety. I wonder if there's drugs. I think there could be drugs. Sometimes if there's like this complete 180 and maybe it's just postpartum anxiety. But are there other signs?

How old is the baby? Did we get that? Five months old now. It's still very fresh. So maybe if you give it some time, let's say a year, as that child starts to get older and more independent, maybe he grows out of this. I hope so because otherwise I think their marriage is...

It's on the brink. You have to survive it in the meantime. Yeah. And those days, those days, like the days are long and the years are short, right? There's not a truer statement that was ever said. About kids? Those early days are so long. I mean, you, your second one, I feel like he just started sleeping. Yeah.

Like, honestly. You know, it's been, I feel like he's been sleeping through the night at least six months, maybe even a year now. Yeah, but he's how old? Five. Yeah. What? Oh, yay, if he was two.

Like, yeah, I mean, that's fine. He's our last. Not quite a year, but yeah. He's got there. It's six to nine months. Now I really actually enjoy when he wakes up in the middle of the night and he comes in and wants to snuggle because it's just so rare and infrequent now. And I'm like, okay, come on in, buddy. It is nice. It is nice. I like snuggling. You guys have a king bed? No. No? No.

Yeah. Have you seen the size of our house now? No. It's not much smaller than mine. So, you know, you got to just make those small spaces work. Yep. We snuggle. I hope they really go to therapy together. I hope OP gets therapy. No official update on this one yet. It is only 16 days old. So I hope we will continue to follow. I'm subscribing to OP's page on Reddit. So yeah.

We'll keep an eye peeled. You need to text me. Let me know. I know. This is a really tough one. That's hard. Really, really tough one. But moving along. Yeah. Okay.

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I, when Emmett was three months old, went on a work conference to Washington, D.C., and I took my mom with me. And so it was just Emmett, my mom, and actually my boss. We actually had to, we had a layover in Chicago, except that plane left without us. And so we had to spend the night in Chicago Airport, me, my mom, my very new boss, and

They didn't get you a hotel? A three-month-old. So then the next flight out, like, we got there at 1130-ish, and we had to leave by, like, five. Yeah.

No point. To like leave and then come back. No point. And then you'd have to get your bags from the baggage claim because car seats like it just wouldn't work. Nightmare. I asked the airport people for some sort of accommodation for my three month old and they said, oh, you just let him co-sleep with you on one of those really little cots that we have lined up in the. I literally asked them for a box.

And they wouldn't get me a box. Damn. I know. So we ended up actually staying in the lactation room. I got real close with my boss that night. That's nice. Yeah, it's very nice. Went with the flow. We made it work. Well, this next one involves traveling with kids. All right.

This is coming from Am I the Asshole? It was posted three hours ago. Very fresh. It is titled, Am I the Asshole? For asking my husband to hold his pee during the flight with two kids. My husband and I flew three and a half hours with our three-month-old and 2.5-year-old recently. We were unable to buy seats together, so I was in the middle aisle with baby, and he was across the aisle of me with the aisle seat and the toddler in the middle.

About an hour into the flight, my husband gets up to pee while I'm nursing baby. And as soon as he leaves, the toddler crawls over to me. I try to get the toddler to sit on my lap, but he causes baby to stop eating. So baby is crying on me while I'm trying to hold the toddler and not disrupt the two people I'm sitting next to. Plus, my husband got stuck behind the beverage cart, so he couldn't grab the toddler for 20 minutes.

Later, my husband gets up to pee again while I'm feeding the baby. And the same thing happens of trying to feed the baby with a toddler in my lap, ending up with a crying baby and a toddler in one middle seat. Backstory. My husband pees a lot.

I've worked with a pelvic floor therapist and told her how frequently he pees, and she agrees it's too much, and he should work with PT to avoid issues down the road. He says he doesn't need help and blames it on drinking lots of water.

He does work a full-time job in an office and does go hours without peeing when he has back-to-back calls. So he is capable of holding it. He's never peed himself or had an accident. He did go to the urologist this year who ruled out any prostate or cancer. After the flight, I told my husband how hard it was to balance both boys and asked if he can just hold his pee.

So many times I have to pee when I'm watching the boys, but hold it until timing is better. He said he can't. Next, I asked if he could ask me before he pees and go when the baby isn't nursing and I have two hands. He said no, and he should be able to pee when he has to go. We have a full summer of flying ahead of us, including a few international trips, and I'm worried. Am I the asshole? No.

They got to get this figured out. At first, I was going to be like, yeah, you're the asshole. But after hearing the situation of it all, yeah, no, you're not. What is wrong with people? It's kind of weird. He wouldn't like check in and just be like, hey, babe, I'm getting up to go pee. Like, toddler's going to be here. Like, you're just dipping out and like you're hoping the toddler stays put while your wife is...

in the middle seat, which it sounds like the wife, like I'm envisioning now, like plane wise, I was really struggling at first. I'm envisioning it's a big one where there's a row on the side, a row on the side and a row in the middle. Yes. And I feel like our OP is in the row in the middle, in the middle seat.

And the guy was like on one of the window side in the aisle and middle. So that toddler's climbing over people to get to our writer here. I would like a plane diagram, please. Like, yes, I'm confused. But either way, not great. Not great. Could you just pick a better time to pee? Right. Clearly, you just look and you're like, he needs to think ahead. There's a beverage cart person in this aisle. I'm going to wait.

Before you like have to go right now, you got to be like time those voids people, right? Like, oh, every hour I'm going to get up and go and we're going to plan this. And so we're going to make sure that you're not nursing. I'm going to go even though I feel like I don't have to go. And we're going to give it a try and figure something out. It's frustrating because it's like

I don't know if that's good for his pelvic floor. Peeing so often isn't great for his pelvic floor. But probably during a flight is going to be fine. Like it'll survive if you do it. Yeah, a couple times while you're flying. Yeah. He's got to do something. Like this is ridiculous. Like Justin goes a little above and beyond sometimes where he's like, I don't like peeing or pooping on airplanes. He has never pooped on a plane actually. I don't.

I'm with him. So he will like, he drinks a ton of water on flights, but yet like really tries to avoid the bathroom and like,

It's actually like if you feel you have to pee every 30 minutes, it's actually not good. Like you have to bladder train and like your bladder is a rubber band and like you have to kind of stretch it slowly like to increase the time between pees. Like he's got to start doing something like that because this isn't working. It's not working. And he clearly, as wife said, can't hold it.

I'm starting to wonder if he's doing this on purpose because he doesn't want to sit in the seat with a toddler. He's just going to the bathroom for breaks. That is possible. That's a possibility. Oh, oh, he was trapped behind the beverage cart. He might have had maybe two beers on the way back. Yeah. Thus, he had to pee again. Yeah. I don't know. Also, if you told a flight attendant, like, I'm stuck behind you. My wife is up there with our toddler. Any way I can sneak past you.

You literally scurry into a seat. They roll the cart past you. You get out like you can communicate with your flight attendants. They don't bite. Also, OK, so you were a flight attendant for a little while. Yeah. If there are families that are separated, is there any thing where they keep families together or can make it?

Where they can all sit together. Yeah. Especially with young babies. Yeah. Recommendation. If you have seats that are not together, like there are certain airlines, if you book all your tickets together and you're traveling with a lap child or, you know, whatever, they will really try to prioritize your seats together. But if for some reason you don't get seated together, get to the airport as early as you can and talk to someone about moving you guys together. And don't be afraid to like,

If you know, like your wife is sitting in this row with your toddler and you have a baby, like I'm pretty sure the person on the aisle seat doesn't want to sit next to your toddler. Like they're probably happy to switch with you. So communicate with your flight crew, the airline staff that you encounter before and people like,

No one wants to sit next to someone else's kids if they don't have to. And kind of here's my hot take. If you are a person who will not switch your seat, like if you're especially if you're traveling alone, I think that you're a jerk if you are not going to let a family sit together. Unless you're in first class and you paid for it. Oh, well, yes. Or like that's an exception. If you're like in the window seat and you paid for it, like then I'm like, no.

It's hard. Like I'm like, it's really annoying when you pay for airline seats and then people are like, can you switch? Can you switch? And it's like, I'd give up a window seat for a window seat. Yeah. But I really like sitting next to the window. I do too. I have anxiety if I can't see what's happening outside the plane. Like, but then sometimes I look at the wings when they're really like shaking and then I'm like, what if it snaps? We're going down. We're done. So it's a double edged sword. Yeah.

What if it's apples for apples, though? Window for window, middle for middle, and just switch. Super down. Super down. And just switch. Super down. I mean, I've given up a window for kids before, too. I probably would still, I would sit in the middle if I had to. I'm not terrible.

That's my hot take. I think a lot of people are going to be like, no, I'm not giving up my seat. I know. It just depends on what you're getting. Like if it's like if my seat reclines, like I don't want to get stuck in a seat that doesn't recline. Like but then there's some people on airplanes that like believe reclining is a sin. Like you should never recline your seat.

I rarely recline my seat. I rarely, I never do. I feel so bad for the people behind me. I feel bad for the people behind me, yeah. But I don't feel bad if the person in front of me reclines, I don't feel bad. Like, sure, come on over. So I don't know. I probably am just way too worried about everybody else's feelings. But if you see me and you need to switch on a flight for your family to all be together, I will totally do that. I don't care if it's in the back of the plane, I will do that for you. Yeah.

You can recline a little bit. Like you shouldn't have to sit. Like you can just press the button and just a little, you know, not full, but like a little bit. Yeah. It does help. Yeah. Every little bit helps. Sound effects for my people listening. I'm doing about a 90 degree to a 15 degree recline, but anything past 15, you're being a little, little. Aggressive. A little greedy. Yeah. Top comment on this one. Where do you guys think the comments are going to go? Where do we think they're going to go?

I think they're going to agree with us, clearly. Okay. I don't know. I think the people are going to call her out. Okay. So top comment with 986 upvotes. I'm torn between no assholes here and not the asshole.

On one hand, if he has a medical problem causing him to pee and has no ability to hold it whatsoever, then obviously he should get to go when he needs to go. But you said that he refused help. So at this point, he's choosing the problem. And it bothers me that it became a 20-minute case of him being absent due to the beverage cart and that both times he had to pee, you were feeding the baby and had your hands completely full.

You were both in a difficult situation, but it sounds like the labor was not divided evenly and the consequences weren't either. He got his needs met while you didn't and left with all of the parental labor in your moments of highest overwhelm while you're nursing. If he's unable to hold his pee for a few minutes, he needs a doctor. If he refuses a doctor and continues to willingly put you in this situation, he is the asshole.

They are so smart. I agree. I agree. It's the disregard. That was nice. Hun, I see that you're breastfeeding. I'll wait. Just wait. Be respectful. I just feel like he's almost too entitled and inconsiderate to even check in on his wife. He's like, I gotta pee. I mean, to just leave your toddler, like,

I agree. Come on. I agree. Check in big. Hey, love you. How you doing? I'm going to go pee. Oh, you're breastfeeding. Okay. Let me let you finish up. It's not more than 30 minutes, even if she just started, typically. Probably even less than that. How old was the baby? Five months? Or is that the other baby? Losing track. Baby is three months. Three months? Yeah. It's shorter. They don't have the biggest activity tolerance and endurance for breastfeeding.

It's going to be a couple minutes, dude. Yes. Someone goes, it became a 20-minute cart ordeal because he planned it right so he'd get away from the toddler. I told you guys. I don't think... On purpose. He's just... This is like those guys that will go poop and they'll sit in the bathroom for 30 minutes on their phones. Like, did you see the movie with Leslie Mann and...

Paul Rudd. It's called This Is 40. Yes. And he's got an issue with going and like playing Sudoku or something in the bathroom. And she's just over it, over it. And that's what this is giving. He just wants his time to get away. And he's using peeing as his excuse. It's a great mental break, the bathroom. I'm over him. Yeah. I'm over him. Moving along. This next one, 17 hours old.

It is coming from Am I the Asshole, the original. Original. Somebody's going to have to explain to me what the other one was. A-I-T-A-H. Different subs. Am I the... Asshole, still. Just different font. Oh. Same H. What's the H for? Ass. Oh, they made it two words. Asshole. Got it. I got it. Okay. Mm-hmm.

This one is titled, Nope.

Really quickly, we decided our daughter was going to be named Adora. The name holds special meaning to us. She was always a huge fan of She-Ra and loved the OG show and the remake. We actually bonded over the remake show. I, 27 male, thought it was a sweet name and loved that it had a deeper personal connection for the two of us. The middle name was still not entirely set in stone, but the first name was.

My wife is now six months pregnant and her twin sister is expecting a baby boy three months after our daughter is due. Three weeks ago, they started talking about baby names and all of a sudden my wife told me that she and her sister decided the babies should have timeless names that fit with their family names. Emily and Elizabeth, James and Haley, their parents, William, Hannah and Grace, their siblings.

So my wife and her sister chose the name Catherine for our daughter instead, and sister-in-law's son will be named Alexander. I was hurt and more than a little peeved. My wife asked me why I had that expression on my face, and I told her that I was not okay with her naming our daughter with her sister instead of me.

I told her we had chosen the name Adora. She never expressed second thoughts about the name. We were just working on a middle name. I told her I was supposed to be the baby's other parent, not her sister. Yet, she takes her sister's opinions on board and decides they'll name the child we're having together? I told her I had not expected that from her, that I thought she truly respected me and was excited to be on this journey together.

She asked me if I was really that upset about it, and I said yes. I told her I wouldn't lie and say I was okay with it. I told her she basically cut me out of the process in the end if she were to go ahead with this. My wife has been quiet since this. Her sister was furious with me for telling my wife I wasn't okay with it.

She told me I should respect their twinness and got to make all other decisions with my wife. So why was I being such an asshole about this? She told me to get over myself and then she accused me of acting like a child. Am I the asshole? It's not her kid. This blows my mind. She's on another planet. She's off her fucking rocker. I agree. And the wife is...

equally to blame. Yeah. Bad. I would be absolutely furious. As you should be.

It's your child. What if husband doesn't like Catherine? And also Adora to Catherine. Those are two completely different names. Totally different vibes. I also really loved the name Adora. I thought that was super cute. I did too. I did too. I thought that was a stronger name. If we're just going to judge the name for what it is. Honestly, I've never heard Adora before. I haven't either. But I think that's why I like it. It reminds me of Aurora or like...

I don't know. Like it does also have that kind of elegant, like, you know, kind of like high up, like Adora, like Adeline, like it gives, it gives old timey. It's giving. Yeah. It's, it's giving. So, and it's connected to both of them. They agreed on it. Like this is your sister, not your partner. Like, come on. And, and,

Perhaps I don't understand the whole twins connection thing. I'm not a twin. But still, there has to be boundaries to that too when you get married. You're having a baby with your partner? Yeah. It would have been one thing had the wife came back and said, you know, we had this conversation and I feel like we should change the name because I want it to be more timeless. I just am not really sure anymore. Yeah.

Could we work through that name change? Yeah, that would have been a more appropriate way to go. Instead of, oh, hey, I decided to change the name of our baby. With my sister. Without you. With my sister. Me and my sister picked a baby name. Sucks to suck. I think if they would have approached it like you said, Matt, and been like,

hey, or if the wife would have, because not they, sisters not included in this, but if the wife would have came home and been like, I've been having some second thoughts. Like, I want a more classic name. Let's do Adora for the middle name. Let's find a very timeless, classic name together. Because like Catherine, that's cool and all, but like let him participate. If you want that vibe for

for your family's names, like that's fine. But you bring it up to him as a question. Like, can we talk about other names? Or like, I, you know, I'm not set on Adora anymore. Like, let's come up with some other options. This is not. I agree. It was all about the way that they approached it. And Catherine is a beautiful name as well. It actually was one of my very favorite names ever.

Growing up, because I read a book and the main character's name was Catherine and her nickname was Kit. Vampire Diaries? No. I was like, no, I was like probably 13. It was a very innocent... I wonder what that was. Kit? Was it an American Girl doll? It was maybe like an American Girl book. I can see it. But not American Girl doll. It was a different book about some like...

Maybe the revolution or something. It's funny that I still kind of remember it. Yeah. But anyway, here they're there. I know. Fuck the sister. I also have a big problem with her sister coming in and being like, you're childish. You're this, you're that. That's a little pot calling the kettle black. Like, you're childish. You're bitching at this man for wanting to name his child. Participate in naming his child. And you're calling him childish? Don't... What did she say here?

I should respect their twinness. That's cool. You said it earlier. I don't know what that means. I understand you can have a really deep bond with your sibling, twin, probably more so. But again, you've gone off, you've grown up, you're with people, having children with other people. It makes no sense to me. I was really, I'm going to be honest, I didn't read this one and I was really, really scared because I feel like

When I got to like, oh, well, her sister's now pregnant and having a little boy. Like I'm like,

Oh, this could just like with their weird twin thing. I'm like, you know what I mean? Like just they're trying to like make them be siblings and like kind of like just not... Recreate the bond that they had. Yeah. It just like I got really scared at first and I'm like, God, what way is this going to go? And it's still not great. But I do know some girls in the cities that were from my college and like they're twins and like...

were just like inseparable, did everything together, the same everything. They got married within the same time. They got pregnant with their first within the same time. They got pregnant with their second within the same time. Like they're on, like they were synced up. And I think it's on purpose. I do think it's on purpose. And that's cool. There's some TikTokers that are like twins and like,

Very enmeshed. Doesn't seem like the healthiest of relationships, but maybe that's their twinness. Especially having kids at the same time, though, I can see how it actually makes things a bit easier to go through that same process together. When you have friends who have kids that are the same age as your kids...

makes sustaining that adult relationship that much easier because your kids can play together in exactly the same way. So when you, when your kids are a lot older and then you have other kids that are having babies, that actually makes it a little bit more difficult. So I, I understand that. I get it. But like,

Keep your partners. Yes, there needs to be boundaries in addition. In addition. Top comment on this one. Why can't it be Adora Catherine? You said you hadn't settled on a middle name. Not the asshole for speaking up about this and you totally need to discuss your own child's name. It really is none of her sister's business.

But you can see how they think it would be cute to have matching names being twins. But you are the father and she is being unreasonable to not see how this would impact you. OP does respond. Catherine is supposed to be the first name to fit with the rest of their family and with her cousin. The middle name was again meant to be decided upon. Which like Catherine Adora, like that would have been fine. But like, it's like, no, no, no. Adora's out. Meh. No! No!

I don't like it. It's giving unhealthy bonds. Yeah. And meshment. The disrespect throughout all the stories blows my mind. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. People are asking, like, have you always kind of been the third wheel with her twin? And OP goes, no, this was never an issue before. So I don't have to expect that'll be the third wheel and pushed out of decisions regarding my child. This is not an issue. Not one I will just accept. We will be talking more about it. But I married the individual. I did not marry twins.

And I think like Opie does say here, like he's not necessarily super upset about the name or changing the name. It's about her making a decision with her sister without discussing it with me. We're meant to decide together. If she didn't want Adora anymore, then we should be picking a new name, not her and her sister picking the name and I have to suck it up. Bottom line. I feel like it's kind of...

that his wife took that special time. It's kind of now it's always going to be stained a little bit, no matter how it... Catherine or Adora? Or just the process, just looking back at the naming process itself. I don't know. I even look back at how we decided on our kids' names fondly. For Emmett, we...

We had a supper that we went to. We had like our list of our top names because we were like, oh, well, it's getting to be time and we still don't have a name. So we went on a date and I still remember we went to Crooked Pint and had supper. And people actually get really upset that I call it supper. I discovered sidetracked instead of dinner. It's a thing. Anyway.

And we went through and we decided together. That's really cute. Yeah. And it was nice. We used an app as well. We did. That was a really good app. Like Tinder? For baby names? Tinder for baby names. You're synced up. You're synced up and then you swipe right, swipe left. That's so cool. Do you remember what it was called? It was literally baby name. So I don't know if it still exists or...

If it's out there still, you can look. That's really cool. Because then it will only show you the names that you and your partner both matched on. I love that. So then you can start building that list and then going through it and kind of, you know. That's such a good little hack. Going through and tweaking it. Yeah, we used it for both Eloise and Emmett. Baby name, one word. It's a yellow square with a white egg in the middle. That's a really cool app. I love that. I upgraded so you could...

by different like celebrity names or categories, French names, Norwegian. Oh, I love that. Yeah. I'm getting on it. It's nice also because it's not just, I'm like, oh, you have something to. No, I just have some more mezcal.

because it just gives you the names randomly. It's not like all alphabetical or anything like that. I like that. Especially when you just read baby names out of a book alphabetically, they all just like run together. You're like, how do I know if I like any of these? I can't sit with it and have a feeling one way or another. I've got a baby. That was a great

They need to just download that app maybe and go back to the drawing board. They should. And OP is down for it. Also, I was going to say like I have a baby names note list in my phone that like I'm working on. So I've got options, but I will be using this app. I love that.

But OP is down for a new name, not Catherine. He still loves Adora. People are like, Adora, you're naming your daughter after a character? And OP was like, well, I was named after two characters from two shows. I love my name. I was named after a cartoon. Like, no issues with it. So I think this could have a happy ending.

I just really hope with this one that wife doesn't go into labor, have the baby and then fill out the birth certificate without him. And then he's like, that would be the worst because she could do that. I know like that is very within possibility. And I really, really hope for OP's sake it does not happen.

Bad. Bad. That would be bad. I know people like there's been a lot of other stories that have that's happened. Having a baby is hard enough. I mean, you should make sure that that relationship with your partner is as solid as it can be going into that situation. Yeah. Well, this one is only 19 hours old. Okay. I hope it works out. But again, we'll keep our eyes peeled for an update. Moving along. We're going to do bracket style.

So I just did this on Patreon for my June full bonus episode, and I really liked it. And whatever one does not get picked at the end will go over to Patreon. So no worries. You will still get it if it's one you want to hear.

But it's this fun way I'm going to let you guys pick on the next one. Okay. So I'm going to give you two choices, okay? Choice number one. How can I, 39 male, better communicate to my stay-at-home wife, 39 female, that she can't slack off on her share of the housework during pregnancy? Okay. Or number two.

Am I the asshole for using my husband's salary to make a point to his family after he told me I should stand up for myself instead of expecting him to do it for me? Option one or option two. Okay. Count of three. One, two, three. Ah, two. Look at you guys in sync. Yeah.

Okay, so again, the title is, Am I the Asshole for Using My Husband's Salary to Make a Point to His Family? After He Told Me I Should Stand Up for Myself Instead of Expecting Him to Do It for Me.

My husband and I are doing okay financially. We make enough to not worry about rent and necessities. We are saving a decent amount and have scope for growth in our careers and make a little more than one third of our combined income. We are both in our late thirties and we have two six-year-old boys.

I have never liked my husband's family, most of them anyways, because they have a lot of old-fashioned opinions and don't really approve of me. We don't have a lot of contact, so it's okay though. My husband's cousin's wedding is this next week, and they are getting married in our city. So he offered for his parents and aunt and uncle to stay with us. Bride and groom are renting a place.

It is a bit of a squeeze, but it is working. They've been here for two days now, and on the first day, I heard them having a whole discussion on how it's so sad that our children won't get to have a proper childhood with a mom at home, like my husband and his cousin got, while they were in the living room and I was in the kitchen, and they knew that I could hear.

I was stewing, but I don't really like confrontation, so I didn't say anything. Later, I asked my husband if he could please tell them to shut up with the snide comments about me. He said, that's just their opinion and it's not really hurting me. If I'm bothered, I should learn to stick up for myself and that he can't always do it for me.

This sort of struck a nerve because it's true that I usually ask him to do small things like telling the drive-thru person if our order is wrong because it just makes me feel weird and guilty. But somehow it feels like more his responsibility because it's his family involved here.

Anyways, so today my father-in-law made one more pointed comment during dinner and I said, your son makes XXX. We live in a big city and rent is X. We literally cannot live on his salary. So I don't know why you think I should be home all day. They were pretty quiet after that. Now my husband is really angry with me because I put him down in front of his family who are all richer than us and will look down on him.

Am I the asshole? Nope. He got what was coming to him. He asked for it. He literally asked for it. He literally... Oh, he messed with the bull and he got the horns. Good for her.

You're not the asshole. Might have been an asshole move to just throw your husband right under the bus. He didn't stand up for her. Yeah. And she asked him to. He could have done it. He could have done it and avoided. I agree. So I'm going to say not the asshole, but I love that she just slapped him up in front of the entire family. That's some drama. I like that. I like that. Yeah. I don't even.

I don't even necessarily think that it's a slap on him. It's just the truth. I think it's very difficult to be a single earner household these days. It's hard. It's not the norm like it was back in the day. It's more difficult with the economy as it is. I would say there's very, very like, let's just find the stats. I'm curious. I just feel like it's just math. You have to be extremely fortunate to be able to stay home

So I don't think it's a knock on him in that he's not making enough money either. I think that his family is probably trash. In my mind, it's like, well, father-in-law, your son only makes $30,000. So maybe you should have raised him better. I'm whooping his ass. So...

Pipe down. For someone who really avoids confrontation most of the time, I'm pretty dang sure that's probably not how she said it. So quick Google search. Obviously, I'm like trying to get into this. But as far as 2002, it was 13% of U.S. married couple households where only one of the partners worked.

That was 2002, though. That was a long time ago. I bet it's way less now. I know. I'm trying to find something more recent. Here's a stat from GitNux. May 27, 2024. In the United States, about 32% of families with children under 18 are single-income families, which that is higher than 2002, which is very surprising. That feels weird to me. I know. I wonder what the...

I know. I don't know 30% of people where... I know like one person that... Yeah. Has a stay-at-home mom. Justin and I wouldn't be able to do it in LA.

I mean, housing prices, like health insurance, cars, car insurance, cell phone bill. Like I, all of the things. Our parents, like we're still on our parents' cell phone plans. Justin's dad just like texted him today and was like, hey, do you still want to be on the family plan? And Justin's like, yeah, keep me on it. Well, you might pay for it though. So it's like, what does it matter? But if you like tried to split off. It's $10 a line.

What one are you on? We have one where it's... No, it's more than that per person. It's cheaper if you all go in it together because we still have a family plan too, but everybody pays for their own share. Yeah. Yeah.

If I tried to split off because like there was something where my dad being over 55 or whatever, 65 now, or I don't know, T-Mobile has like a senior plan where a senior line is like dirt cheap and they get one other line. So it was either my brother gets kicked off or I get kicked off. So I was like, let me look and see what it would be. And it was like over a hundred dollars. I want to say it was like one 2160 to just have one phone line. And I'm like,

It's annoying because the more lines you get, the cheaper it is. It's just annoying. And maybe one family member has healthcare discount or teacher discount or military discount and then it applies to everybody. And maybe we live a different lifestyle than these individuals that are able to do that and stay at home. Maybe they only have one car and they're only making one payment. That's very true. Maybe we're living...

A different lifestyle, right? And we just don't think that it would be possible, but guaranteed if we had to, we could make adjustments. It wouldn't be comfortable. I agree. But they could make adjustments. Yeah.

I also think getting back to the root of the story, her question was, I felt like my partner should be the one to say something to his family. I totally agree. Yes. If my family were being especially like that is also cruel. Like that is inappropriate to be saying snide comments. If people were saying snide comments about you.

I would put the kibosh on that and be like, hey, knock it off. Well, what pisses me off with this is he had no problem with her being embarrassed by their comments. He had no problem with her being the one getting shit talked about her. But like the minute the tables are turned, you shouldn't have done that. If you didn't want that to happen or if you didn't want an unvariable response from her, you wanted to dictate something

everything with your family and their image of you. I guess you should have been the one to say, hey, while I respect, you know, your thoughts, like I loved my childhood. I really appreciated, you know, getting to spend more time with mom. But, you know, this is how me and my wife are doing things. It just, you know, it works for us. It works for us. You don't have to mention income. You don't have to put anyone down. You don't have to shame what your mom did.

It's all positive. Literally, it's all positive. It didn't have to be hard. You're just showing that you can't stand up to your family. You're afraid of confrontation. You're not standing up for your wife. You're just a little whiny pain in the ass with no... Yeah, good. All that. No balls, no ovaries, no oomph. Get it together. Yeah, he's got no balls.

Ovaries are tougher than balls. There you go. They really are. They are. Yeah. Not disagreeing. He's annoying me. Yeah, he got embarrassed. He got embarrassed in front of his family and he feels a little butthurt. Yeah. Simple as that. How do you recover? They're going to be there for a couple more days by the sounds of it. How do you recover? You can't. You just got to ride it out until they're out of the house and that's it. Top comment on this one. Definitely not the asshole. Your husband and in-laws, however, dot, dot, dot.

Common sense dictates that if your family has a problem with your spouse, you have their back. Still, I think you handled things perfectly, given the fact that your husband is a textbook asshole and doesn't offend you when he should. He doesn't get to be mad for the way you chose to do what he said. You just took his advice.

I agree. Yeah. Ugh.

Hate him. He's a hit on me. I know. This is 27 days old now, so I'm really curious if there's any updates. Nothing. Nothing. I hate that. I want to know. I know. I want to know what happened. I do too.

A couple comments from OP, but just mostly in response to people's stories, you know, kind of like, oh, I feel bad for that woman. Like some people are awful. There is one here that says, I don't want to be a stay at home mom now that the boys are in school, but I would have loved it a few years ago. I'm not working because I have a disinterest in parenting and I have a lot of career aspirations.

I work long hours because our family literally needs the money. I talked about career growth because we need career growth so that we'll be able to enjoy some things like eating out and replacing our ratty couch and not to have to budget so carefully and work less than 50 hours a week.

And I want to clarify, I am not knocking stay-at-home moms. I mean, they've got the hardest job ever in the world. I don't think you did. No. You just want to be extra clear. Yes, extra clear. I was like, I didn't hear that. Yeah. They work so hard. And that's wonderful if that's what they want. Exactly. But family should not be judging them.

family for their decisions on how they're gonna raise their own family bug off yeah let everyone do what they want to do yeah i mean you guys have had to deal with that where like not maybe in like stay-at-home parent land but like you're always gonna have other people tell you how to raise your kids and it's just it's hard it's hard to stick up to your own family yeah yeah it's tough

Tough to stick up to your partner's family. Harder to stick up for yourself from your in-laws, though. Definitely. I think that would be more difficult than sticking up to your own family. I agree. Yeah. It's typically easier to address your family of origin. Yes. And that's, you know, you came from them. You know how to test boundaries. You know how to push back a little bit. Mm-hmm.

usually. And you have years and years and years of relationship to fall back on, whereas with your in-laws, you've maybe only had a relationship with them for as long as you've been with your partner or less. So maybe it's only a few years that you've known them. You don't have any backbone of a loving relationship to fall back on. They might hate you forever if you really screw things up. I know. I know. Okay. Moving on to our last one, though. All right. Here we go. Okay. So bracket.

We're going back to option number one. Okay. How can I communicate better to my stay-at-home wife that she can't slack off on her share of the housework during pregnancy? Or now number two. Oh. Mm-hmm. My best friend kissed my husband and it's destroying me. How do I proceed? I'm like, count to three. One, two, three.

Oh, I thought you had a one for a second. And I was like, people were about to be screaming at you. Okay. Number two wins. Number one will be headed over to Patreon. So this was posted three days ago. Again, it is titled, My 28 Female, Best Friend 28 Female, Kissed My Husband 27 Male, and It's Destroying Me. How Do I Proceed?

I have been with my husband for six years, married for four, and we have two kids, three female, almost one female. Everything in our relationship is perfect for us. He's the best husband and father to our kids that I could have ever asked for. I am absolutely in love with him, and his actions and words have always shown me that he feels the same way. There's no better feeling going to sleep in his arms every night.

Last weekend, my husband and I had some friends over and we were having a barbecue. We were all outside in the backyard surrounding my husband who was on the grill. As the food got closer to being ready to eat, we all started sitting at our backyard table. Once the food was all ready and at the table, my husband went inside to use the washroom and get another case of beer. I didn't realize that my best friend, 28 female, had followed him.

When he was coming back out, my best friend hid behind the wall separating our kitchen and living room and surprised him by pulling him in and forcing a kiss. My husband immediately pushed her back and yelled, what the fuck? She immediately started crying and ran out of the house and left.

My husband came back into the backyard and asked to speak to me privately and immediately told me what had just happened. I was shocked and told him that it would be okay and that we could talk about it after everyone left. I managed to put on appearances for the next couple of hours, but mentally I was distraught.

After everyone left, my husband sat me down and told me what happened and showed me the footage from our living room camera. It was exactly as my husband had described it. My best friend of 10 years, the person who I treated as my literal sister, forcibly kissed my husband. After the third date with my husband, she was the one I told that I was going to marry him.

She knows how much I love him and how strong our relationship is. And still, she chose to try and come in the middle. For fuck's sake, our three-year-old calls her auntie. My best friend tried showing up the next day, quote, just to talk. And my husband had to hold me back from beating the shit out of her. And he kicked her out and told her not to come back.

It's been almost a week now, and I'm nowhere close to moving on. I don't blame my husband one bit. He's completely innocent in this, and if anything, he's the victim.

I've been lying down on my husband's chest and just crying every day and night. I'm so angry and frustrated and I don't know what to do. My husband has been amazing and like always, he just gets it and understands how I'm feeling. He brought me flowers almost every day and cooked my favorite meals multiple times in the last few days. I love and appreciate him all the more for it. I just don't know how I'm going to move on and trust any of my friends again after this.

Finally, a relationship that is like where the guy does everything exactly right, like tells her right away, comes and gets her, talks to her in private, says this is, you know, is distraught by this, shows her the video footage. I mean, shame on that best friend. I would be done. Yeah. Shame on that best friend. I mean, yeah. What are your thoughts? Why? Why?

Why would the best friend do this at a party? Was she shit-faced? Was it like, I want, I, there's gotta be an update.

This is bizarre. This bizarre behavior. Maybe she's just been pining after him because he's such a wonderful guy for so long. And she feels like she's friends with him too. And maybe like, because he's a nice person, she misinterpreted signals or something. Misinterpreted what? I don't know. Where you had to hide. Hide. She hid. It wasn't like this interaction where they were next to each other and they were talking and

No, it was weird. Bizarre. It was weird how she went about it. Forcibly kissed him. What kind of kiss was it even? Forcibly kissed him. Yeah, but if he's like pulling back, like was it just a... Grabbed his head and... That's different. I do that to lots of people. Who do you do that to? I don't know. I'm just saying I would. Oh, man. Because there's a difference between...

Like, that wouldn't be sexual. You know what I'm saying? It feels like she was trying to make this her shot and, like, in hopes, like...

It was this moment and I kissed him and he realized after all these years, like she was trying to ignite something. And that he's going to divorce his wife and leave their kids and my best friend. Literally, who is your best friend? Destroy everything. Like in what world would this have ever been a happy ending for her? Was she on drugs? Never. I don't know. Maybe she dropped some acid. I'm not sure.

And the difference, too, is she did it somewhere private where not the rest of the party was. Yeah. Where, okay, so if you're like, well, I would kiss somebody like that, it would be in front of the entire group. They weren't playing spin the bottle. No, there's no excuse for that. She followed him inside and she hid. A lot of adults play spin the bottle. Yeah. Yeah. We were just talking about swingers and how in Minnesota there's some times where...

Parents that have kids in high school and go to hockey tournaments, they'll sometimes switch partners. It happens. Swap, swap. Adults also could play spin the bottle at those tournaments. I've heard of that as well. Fair enough. So not beyond the realm of possibilities. I want answers. I'm scared. The top comment says,

You move on from that friendship and tell her not to contact you. There's no way she can explain it and you just can't trust her anymore. Next comment down. Seriously, she was so jealous of your life, OP, that she threw away your friendship just on the chance that she could ruin it all for you. I would completely cut contact with her and be very honest with any mutual friends about what happened.

And next comment down, be prepared for your ex-friend to tell an entirely different story of what happened. Keep the recording safe. It wouldn't hurt to let her know it was all caught on camera and tell her that before she tries to smear your hubby's reputation. Because she's going to tell everybody else a completely different story. Yeah, he came on to me. I went inside to go to the bathroom and he came on to me. Can you put videos on Reddit stories?

If you insert a link to like a tiny image, tiny URL kind of thing, you could upload it. Put it up. I'm requesting it. Let's go. I'm so scared. Send it to Morgan. I'm so scared. There's a lot of comments that you guys that OP's husband could be trying to cover it up. Complicit? He is trying to cover it up and that's why he like

He knew there was a camera in the living room and pushed her away. Like, there's a lot of comments here who are being very... Like some other things had transpired maybe previously. Yeah. And this was his... She thought it was a sure deal because they've done it a million times before. Oh, no. Oh, my mind didn't go there. I thought about it, but...

Oh, I'm devastated if that's the case. I don't like that. A lot of comments. That's what I'm saying. It's so weird how that interaction took place. It doesn't make sense that she would just go out of the blue and randomly do it. Yeah. And those comments are way, way, way down on this thread. But like, it is kind of like convenient. There was a camera in the living room. Like,

Did he make the decision? I'm cutting off the affair and this is how I need her out of my life and this is how I'm going to do it. She's setting that girl up. Okay. I mean, the girl is still in the wrong, right? But now they're both assholes. Right. Yeah. Fuck. Okay. Let's go look at Opie's account. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. We have an update.

We have an update. There's no comments between the original post and the update. Okay. So I think we just get into it. Let's do it. After reading a lot of the comments, I realized that it was possible that my husband was having an affair with my best friend and knew about the camera and acted accordingly to make sure I didn't suspect anything. Her running out of the house crying, my husband showing me the footage before I asked, and his love bombing would all make sense if he was cheating with my best friend.

Because that's the other thing. The flowers every day, the favorite meals. I'm so gullible. Oh, shoot. Okay, keep going. Keep going. I can't be with a cheater and I had to make sure my husband was loyal to me. On a side note, I made sure that my husband was okay and well after being forcibly kissed and he said that he was fine and he didn't feel assaulted as it was just a kiss. He said that he was just worried about me because he knew how much this friendship meant to me.

And I would say, like, if one of my best friends tried to kiss Justin, I think he would be getting me a lot of donuts, some red wine, flowers. Like, he'd be taking care of you because you would be grieving the death of a relationship. It literally is the death of a friendship. Like, it is grief.

Over the weekend, I looked through my husband's phone and laptop while he was doing yard work. Both of us have full access to each other's phones, and I didn't find anything out of the ordinary on my husband's phone. I checked his messages, WhatsApp, social media, and deleted messages folder. There was nothing suspicious on his phone or laptop.

The morning after my husband left to go to work, I arranged for our next door neighbors, a friendly elderly couple, to watch the girls for a couple of hours. And I went to my best friend's place without telling her that I was coming.

She works afternoon shifts, so I knew she would be there in the morning. She let me in and she seemed scared and I demanded to know the truth. She said that she had always been really attracted to my husband and she had tried making advances before, but my husband always just shut her down.

There's hope for the world. Okay. She admitted to being jealous of me and my perfect life with my husband. I should have seen the signs earlier. When our firstborn was learning to speak, my best friend would always try to get her to call her mama. When she held our daughter for the first time, she accidentally sat in my husband's lap.

She has been trying to replace me for years and I never noticed. And my husband kept rejecting her advances because he only wanted me. She said that she had drank more than she should have at the barbecue. And she decided to try her luck when she saw my husband going inside alone. I forced her to show her phone as well. And again, there was nothing implying an affair and all the messages appeared to line up with my husband's phone. So I knew there was nothing deleted or manipulated.

She apologized profusely and asked me to not end our friendship over this. I told her that she's nothing to me and she could have been happy for me and I treated her like a sister all these years just for her to try and steal my life.

Now I know for sure that my husband never cheated. The guilt for doubting him is eating me up. If I tell him that I snooped through his phone and laptop and met up with my ex-best friend to verify that he wasn't cheating, it's going to impact our marriage, and he'll be very disappointed in me for not trusting him. And if anything, he will lose his trust in me. If I don't tell him, the guilt is going to continue eating me up.

I've never lied or kept secrets from him before, and I don't want to start now, but this is an impossible choice. He's only ever shown me how much he loves me and cherishes me, and he doesn't deserve to be betrayed like this. I will update more when I tell him the truth. I feel like my heart is restored by... Right? Okay, he wasn't cheating. Oh, thank God.

But then it's, I think that he's going to love her no matter what and that she should just fess up and it's all going to be fine. And I think that he's going to be understanding. It's a huge betrayal, right? It's understandable why your mind could go there. That you would go, you would confront what is actually going on because you're trying to wrap your head around that situation and get some answers. Your husband, he's going to be fine. Not a big deal. Still seems super fishy to me. Are you doubting still? I believe it.

A little bit. Like too convenient to... There's been other advances? That's... Yeah. And he never told you? That is... What kind of advances? Where? When? I know. And if it's like, it's, God, her trying to get the baby to call her mama and then sitting on his lap. Like, if one of my friends sat on Justin's lap, what? Like...

in what universe is that ever okay and it sounds like op was like did notice those advances but like just didn't like kind of heads in the cloud together so it's just she's very friendly with everybody i don't know i still believe in love i don't i think that he my head was not going there after the initial post like i did think the camera was a little convenient but like

A lot of people have cameras in their homes these days. It is very common. Like, it's getting more common, I guess. Like, I don't have a camera inside. We have cameras everywhere outside. But I just, I don't know. Like, I don't know. I want to believe all is well. They sound like they're really good. Do you guys think she should tell him, like, that she went over there? I think she should. I guess here's where I'm at. I would just say...

Go ahead. You go ahead. I think she should tell him that she went over there and be like, hey, like, I gotta be honest. Like, I went over to blah, blah, blah's house. I just had to make sure, like, I was at a peace of mind. I had to have answers from her. And I just want you to know, like, I do, like, I really trust you. And I appreciate you, you know, being so proactive and telling me everything. And I was really scared, but...

I just, I'm in so much shock and I'm just grieving. And I just want you to know I went over there. What did you guys talk about? How did it go? Like, what were some of, like, why? That was so bizarre. Yeah.

I know. Well, because she has made other advances on you in the past. You should have told me then. Well, maybe he didn't necessarily know. Maybe she was drunk all those times and just was like, oh, well. And maybe he wanted to save that friendship and it was important. I could see. Maybe. I think that there's things that you can justify that for.

Again, maybe it's rose-colored glasses, but I think it's a very understandable situation where you would feel the need to triple-check. Heck, there was a time in our relationship where you thought I was cheating on you because of some health stuff that you were going through, and you were so scared. You felt really bad because I don't know if you went through my phone. Maybe you did. If you did, great. You know my password. Yeah.

You can look at any time. Like for... We just... It's fine. And you know that you can look at it any time you want and it's not a problem whatsoever. There's nothing to hide on there. Yeah. And so... But then when you...

You didn't tell me that you had this stuff going on for a full week. And then when you told me, you were like, I'm so sorry. I've that. You felt guilty for just not talking. I questioned your loyalty. And I was like, dude, I mean, you came to a very logical conclusion with what was going on and with the situation that was had. Why in the world would I be mad or upset with you? Yeah.

Like two plus two equals four. Like, I get it. I get it. Yeah. No, that's not the case. And I'm happy to tell you that that's not the case. Just busted that out. What? You talk about it on yours, don't you? I thought we already talked about it. Have we talked about it? Yeah. Yeah. I think we have. Matt had some long term COVID issues.

Side effects? Health implications? I don't know. And so there was a question. Some interesting things transpired. You've had crazy, like, you're... You've had weird health stuff. Yeah, like, you lost your hearing recently. Has that come back at all? No, the hearing loss is gone.

Like that's never coming back. You're still at the lower limits of normal hearing though in that one ear. Right. So it's not like gone. You can't hear out. My other ear is at the like best of the best hearing. It's compensating. So now I just get a ring. So like in these headphones right now, just. That's a nidus. Matt has had some really, really, really just shitty long-term health effects since getting COVID a couple of times and

It's not fun. So be safe. Wash your hands out there, guys. Hygiene episode, it's coming. I know, I know. Wash your hands. This update from OP was only seven hours old. And she is saying she'll give another update. All right. Top comment on the update?

You listen to the idiots of this subreddit who so doubt about your husband's loyalty despite there being overwhelming evidence to support the contrary. Ouch. You can be honest with him, but you know him best. Or so you thought. Only you know how he will react to your actions. Tread lightly with this one. Advice from this sub may do more harm than good. Even my own. I just got full body chills. We're like looking at the original post. Like, I don't know if...

Like, the comments have changed immensely since, like, OP saw all the comments kind of sowing doubt. But those comments were pretty far down. Like, oh, convenient for him to have the camera and then push her away. Like...

Those were very low down, but maybe they were the ones that came in first. You know, I think people's minds are quick to like grab onto the suspicion and pessimistic view sometimes. I'm guilty of it myself. Like I get it. So it is hard, but also like you can never be too sure because people out there every day hurt people they love and cheat. So it's like, I think it is better to like

hash it all out and like know for sure. Because we're human. We're human. Trying to get answers. Yeah. What's your final vote? She tells him everything. Do you guys, you think she tells him everything? She might as well if she's feeling super guilty about it because at the end of the day, she's going to continue to

let it eat at her. Just get it out of the way and just be honest. This is how I was feeling. These are some of the things that popped into my brain. Was it logical? No. Intrusive thought? Yes. Did it come up in my conversation with her? Yes. What else has transpired? And back to the point, there were other altercations. So,

It only makes sense that you could then ask those other questions. Well, if there was other altercations, then what else has been happening behind my back? Yeah. Let me see your phone. I want to see it. Prove it. Yeah. And I know it's tough because it's like the minute you start going through phones and lose that trust, it's...

I think it depends on what their relationship already is. If the expectation is, hey, you can look at my phone anytime, then it's not betraying any sort of trust. Yeah, that's true. So I think that I liked how the commenter was like, you know your husband best. You know how he's going to respond. This is on you. You need to make that call and that decision. Yeah, tough. I would tell you.

I'd be like, hey, I posted this on Reddit and everybody got me thinking, what if you were cheating? And then I was like, wow, maybe that is logical. Am I just have I been blind this whole time? Because I've apparently been blind this whole time with my friend. I can't trust my own judgment anymore. I know. So I think that you would you'd see that side and you'd be like, OK, yeah.

Yeah. I think they'll be okay. I think so too. I think they'll be okay. There is a comment here. This is why people shouldn't come to Reddit for advice. Her poor husband did everything right, but the masses on here were sure he was a cheater, which I don't agree with. Reddit helps people so much all the time. There's people that have gotten out of abusive relationships because of Reddit. There's people that have gotten saved from carbon monoxide poisoning because of Reddit. Like

I don't agree with that. And the next comment down, all the top comments on the original post say he was assaulted and he's a loyal man and a keeper, which is what your initial take was, Amy. OP decided to listen to a few fringe opinions when the majority rule was that he behaved perfectly. Yeah, and he did. So we know. Yeah. And maybe that's where you put that little saying in, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Trust what you're seeing right in front of you.

You know, your friend was the one that crossed that boundary and messed up and he's just trying to be supportive. Yep. You know your husband. You know he's awesome and amazing. Trust yourself, maybe. She stopped trusting herself. Yeah. That's where she went wrong. Good point. Their relationship and their love. While OP is still commenting as of three hours ago, does say that she is looking for therapists and the woman is no longer a friend. So...

Solid. Solid, solid, solid, solid. Again, I will follow her account and see if we get an update eventually, but I think she will post one after telling him. So let's keep our eyes peeled, everyone.

But thank you guys so much for coming on. Yeah, this was so much fun. As always, so much fun. Staying up late for me. Amy's going into the clinic tomorrow. Matt's driving in five hours, three hours away for work. So let's get you to bed. Let's do that. You just looked a little scared, but where can people go listen to your podcast? How can they find you? You can find us on YouTube and Instagram as Midwest Married or Midwest Married Podcast.

Yeah. Come on over. Stop on by. We'd love to have you. Or anywhere that you listen to podcasts. Yeah. It'll be linked in the description and show notes. You won't be able to miss it, especially our hygiene episode that should be coming out next week.

The week after the 4th. Okay. So this episode comes out Thursday, the 4th. And that episode with Justin, Amy, Matt, and I will be out the following Wednesday. I will update the show notes and link it, but you guys will see me share it a bunch on stories. And there is... Oh my God, you guys. There is one story that I gave up like Rumpelstiltskin and my firstborn child.

on their show. And it is a story that rivals Poop Knife. And I... It was wild. You need to hear it. So if you go and listen just for that story alone, please go listen because it's a very special story for me. You guys will love it. It's fucking crazy. But on that note, head over to Patreon for that story we didn't read. It'll be coming sometime in July. There's actually...

way more bonus stories than I typically do on June. So even if you want to join for a month and then cancel, do it. I don't care. June got six bonus stories, a full length episode, a free bonus story. So you are getting a lot, a lot, a lot of content as well as all the content that came before that. So

Join the $5 tier. You get automatically seven free stories for the month. Well, you paid for them, not free. You get seven stories for the month and then all the previous content in that tier. That's awesome. So come join us. Come be a part of Patreon. We're going to have some really fun stuff in July. Group T, where we hop on a Zoom together and chat. My favorite.

But seriously, I don't care if you join and cancel, take breaks, make it work for you. I just want you to be a part of the club. So come on over. But other than that, yeah. But other than that, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so, so freaking much for being here. I love you all. And until next time. Have a good night, everyone. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.