rSlash - r/AmITheA**hole For Telling My Coworker "Get Over Your Dead Wife"?

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

r/AmITheA**hole In today's episode, OP has a male coworker who wears a wedding band. Unfortunately, his wife passed away. OP finds this confusing. Why would he want to wear a wedding band when his wife is dead? She calls her coworker out on this, and her coworker basically tells her to mind her own business. OP doubles down and insists that OP should take off his wedding band, which deeply upsets her coworker. Now OP wants to know if she was the butthole in that situation! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to R-slash, Am I the Butthole, where OP helps his sister escape an abusive relationship? Am I the Butthole for making an uncomfortable joke when my friend told me her dinner table was full with family? Over the last 20 years, everyone in my close family has died. Both of my parents are gone, as are my grandparents on both sides and all of my dad's uncles. Any other relative of mine who's still alive is scattered out across the country. All that I, a 20-year-old woman, have left, is my siblings and my brother-in-law. My friend, a 23-year-old woman, comes from a different family. All the uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents have monthly parties, stay in touch, have big celebrations, the works. All of them are still alive and active. I think she

knows that I'm sensitive to the topic because I wish that I had a big family. As she sometimes makes these comments like, you know, when you get married, your guestless will be so small compared to mine. But hey, at least it'll be cheap! And my mom's funeral, there were still a lot of open chairs, and she told me that if this was a family members of hers, all the seats would be full. And I'd like to point out that she's aware of my many, many deceased family members. I took some pictures of me, my siblings, and my brother-in-law cooking for Thanksgiving, and us playing games at the dinner table and posted them on social media. She texted

me privately saying that we look like we were having fun, followed by picks of her huge family, and remarked that her dinner table was full of family. This is where I might have been the butthole. I replied, lovely, have fun. We'd have a full table too, but with the snow it's hard to dig everyone out of their graves. She was silent for a few hours, then replied that joke was morbid and made her uncomfortable, and I really need to check my attitude.

Am I the butthole? Okay, so first off, Opie. that was a really solid joke. I give it like a 5 out of 5. As for your butthole score, you get an easy 0 out of 5. It's not like your friend is the one with the dead family and you're making jokes about her deceased family, it's your family that you're making a joke about. So yeah, you have a right to poke fun at your own history. That's what you want to do. That's your right. Also, based on the stories that you've told about how

she's acted in the past, it sounds like she is actually mocking your family. So it's okay for her to mock your family, but it's not okay for you to mock your own family. And then she gets all offended? Oh, Pee, I'm going to be honest with you. Your friend sounds like a total jerk. You get zero out of 5 buttholes, she gets 2 out of 5 buttholes. Am I the butthole for telling my new co-worker that it was misleading of him to be wearing his wedding band when he's a widower? A couple of weeks ago we hired a new employee at the company. He's a good guy and he's a widower named James who's 36.

And to my knowledge, his late wife passed away eight months ago. I'm a 32 year old woman, and me and the other co-workers get along well with them. However, I noticed that he's still wearing his wedding band on his finger. It kind of confused me a bit, and I couldn't help but bring it up with him while on lunch break. We talked, and I pointed out that he was being misleading by still wearing his wedding band when he's a widower. He looked quite bothered by what I said, but I tried to explain that I think that he's giving people the wrong idea or impression about his relationship status

since he's technically single and on his own right now. I don't wanna sound cruel, but I'm speaking from a technical angle. James said that he didn't give it much thought, meaning that he doesn't care what people think, and that even if he wasn't wearing his wedding band and some woman approached him, he'd still turn them down since he's obviously not interested. For some reason, things got awkward, and everyone stopped eating and just stared at James

and me. I told him, I don't know, but that really, really feels generally misleading of him, as in making people think that he's in a relationship when he's not, regardless of how he felt about being in that relationship. He got upset, called me rude, and said that I repeatedly disrespected his marriage and his late wife's memory with what I said. Then he took his stuff and walked away. My co-worker said that, regardless of who was right or wrong, there was no reason for me to bring this up in the first place and cause a scene and make James upset with us.

Like now he's not speaking to me and others who have sided with me. I should point out that some of my co-workers said that I overreacted. Am I the butthole? Did I overstep or did he overreact? This was just a conversation that we were casually having with other co-workers, and I didn't use any insensitive tones or anything, but we had a discussion, and it suddenly turned into an argument. I tried to let things calm down, but the situation got out of hand unexpectedly. Okay, so first off OP, you're just like straight up literally incorrect.

Like, I'm not making a judgment about you, being or not being the butthole here. You're just literally wrong about this. Lots of people lose their spouse continue to wear their wedding ring because they just want to. Do any of my viewers have a grandmother or a grandfather who lost their spouse and they continue to wear the wedding ring? That's totally normal, man. Then outside of the fact that you're just straight up wrong about this OP, you're also the butthole here. Like, let me just put this to you simply. It's none of your f*** business what he wears. Like, it just isn't. If he wants to wear a wedding ring, he can wear a wedding ring. Even if he's not married and he wants to wear a ring on his left ring finger, then that's his choice because it's his body. I have to wonder OP if the

situations were reversed and one of your male co-workers said to you, oh OP are you sure that you should be wearing that because it's sending out the wrong message to people around you? Should you be wearing something else instead? I'm pretty confident that you'd be pissed off about that because most people would be pissed off about that. Then after he gave a very logical and sensible answer that made it clear that he was not comfortable discussing this, you pressed the issue like why? There's like some sussy language in this post where you're like, I couldn't help it bring it up.

Yeah, you could help it. You just don't say anything that embarrasses someone in front of coworkers. And then you said, for some reason, things got awkward. You, you're the reason, things got awkward. You, you're the reason that things got awkward. O.P., for real, just mind your own business, it has nothing to do with you whatsoever. I'm giving James zero out of five buttholes because he's just living his life doing his own thing, hurting nobody. O.P., I'm giving you two out of five buttholes, what you did was rude and considerate and disrespectful. Am I the butthole for saying that I prefer sushi to children?

Okay, so straight to it. My husband and I are both in our early 30s and we've been together for over a decade. We've made the decision to not have kids. I like kids, I have nieces and nephews, we just don't want them for our own reasons. He had a vasectomy, which only a few people know about. Our families are aware that we don't want kids as they've asked about this before during different major life events like our wedding for instance. We recently bought a three-bit room home with a nice yard in a nice area. We were excited to show our new home to our

family and friends so we hosted a housewarming. During the party, one of my siblings in law, Alex, made a few indirect comments about all this space, and how kids would love it in our house. Eventually, they asked point blank when we were having kids. I made a lighthearted joke about it, which is my go-to for this question. I said, oh, well, I like sushi too much to have to give it up for pregnancy. Plus, not drinking for pregnancy and breastfeeding? No thanks. I tried to make it very light-hearted and laugh it off. Most people just laughed along. That seemed to anger Alex and I was told, children are a joy and a good mother puts her kids before everything else. I agreed and said, children are a joy. I like spending time with my nieces and nephews and obviously I can't be a

good mom if I chose sushi over kids, so I won't be a mom. I'm still trying to brush it off in a general way, because I'm not trying to start a fight by telling them to stop asking in front of everyone, because I know that tone would be seen as rude and abrasive. We move on, but Alex is still annoyed and making little comments in their group about how flippant I am about it, and how when I finally do get pregnant, then I'll understand. My husband heard this and jokingly said, Well, if she gets pregnant, that'll be a problem for the divorce lawyers.

That seemed to piss Alex off even more, but they stopped. With holidays coming up, we haven't been invited to Alex's usual Halloween bonfire. When my husband spoke to his parents, they told him that Alex was annoyed that we were so careless and callous about our child-free status and to say what we did, and that they realized that we had taken permanent steps to ensure that we never had kids, that we know that they had to do in vitro fertilization to have kids, and that we were just buttholes to not care. I feel bad because they did have to go through in vitro fertilization and lots of fertility treatments to have their kids. And even then, they still had a few miscarriages. I can't imagine wanting kids struggling to have them and then dealing with miscarriages.

But at the same time, I'm so tired of justifying living my life how I want, am I the butthole? So I can understand why Alex is so sensitive about it, but just because I understand logically, why Alex is acting the way that they're acting doesn't mean that the way that they're acting is correct. To put it simply, Alex should just keep their nose out of your business. What you and your husband do with your own bodies is no one else is concerned, but yours. Also, I might be reading too much into this, but I couldn't help but notice that you very intentionally used gender-neutral pronouns when you were talking about Alex in this story. You always

said they, you always said them, and I have to wonder, is this because Alex prefers they them pronouns and you're respecting Alex's choice to use they them pronouns, but then Alex is turning around and not respecting your choice to do what you want to do with your body because if so, that's super hypocritical. Anyways OP, you get zero out of five buttholes. Alex gets 2.5 out of five buttholes. Just mind your own business. Am I the butthole for helping my sister interpregnancy and possibly her marriage? I'm a 32 year old guy. I have two older brothers, 38 and 40, and a 34 year old sister.

Our dad passed away five years ago in our hometown, which is a suburban town in Wisconsin. Our family was relatively modest when my brothers grew up, and they were cared for a lot by my parents' families who were very conservative. My dad personally was not. By the time me and my sister were born, our dad's career was doing great and we were well off. Me and my sister had master's degrees while our brothers didn't go to college despite the funds and chances.

My mom had been trying to set my sister up with a churchgoer's kid. This didn't progress until around the time my dad died and my sister came back and helped with the funeral. My brother's families were both in town as well. I worked in technology in China back then, and I live in San Francisco now, and since the funeral I've been mostly low contact with everyone except my sister. Honestly, I was very close with my dad, and there was obvious favoritism towards me, which the others didn't like. So my mom and oldest brother now technically live in my house. So as a quick aside to the story, OP isn't being very clear here, but I think what he

means is that OP inherited his dad's house, and that house is in his name, and his mom and his brother live in that house separately from OP, and it's not the case that OP's mom and his brother live with OP in a San Francisco home. So I just want to make that clear because I think OP skipped over that detail. It's important to know that OP's mom and oldest brother are living in OP's house while all this is going down. My sister somehow ended up leaving her career and moving back home. She married the man my mom set her up with in 2019. Honestly, I was in shock at the wedding. I really didn't ever see my sister living on a farm

and becoming a stay-at-home mom. I knew for a fact that my mom and brothers had a huge part in this because there were a lot of, she's back home posts. Later, I found out that she had pretty much given all of her savings to her husband. In late 2020, my sister straight out of the blue started calling me just to chat about things. Of course, I love this. A few months later, my mom told me that my sister was pregnant. I immediately asked my sister about this, and she kind of broke down. In short, the husband has been abusive.

She's broke, and my family and our in-laws haven't helped. My oldest brother wailed at her about how his wife went through the same thing, and my sister should stop thinking that she's special. The first time she called me, he had kicked her out of their home for complaining about their finances. This was fairly common. What? She gave her husband all of the money that she saved, then complained about the finances, and then he kicked her out of the house. Wow, wow!

Okay, cheese, okay. This is where I think I might be the butthole. I basically yelled at her too. I told her she has a career that she can go back to and that I can help her move back to New York City where she worked and studied before and that pregnancy wasn't the end of it and there were other options. The next day she asked me for $5,000 which I sent her without asking any questions.

I didn't hear much after and I didn't intrude because it was a total mess. A month later my sister told me she had gotten a new job in NYC and she filed for divorce. The pregnancy is also no longer on the table. Now my family has been blowing up my social media, calling me all sorts of names. I've been calling them all sorts of names back. And my father's old home that I inherited. Well, I might be putting it back on the market soon. My sister had to switch apartments and got a restraining order against her ex. And, well, things are not great. But I'm happy that my sister is better. So am I the butthole? Opie, are you the butthole for being a supporting

caring brother who seems to be the only person in your sister's life who actually cares about her well-being? No, you're not the butthole, you're a good brother. Opie, you get an easy zero out of five buttholes. What you did was honestly above and beyond. Your mom and your brothers get two out of five buttholes. The husband gets five out of five buttholes. Am I the butthole for refusing to make a $120 cut of steak well done? So we did a bit of an extravagant friends giving this year because I lucked into a strip

loin of a 5 wagyu for a price that was unorthodox levels of cheap. My friend works for a high-end meat distributor and received it as a gift. It was a tight knit event with only 10 of us there, mostly couples including my friend who only started dating a girl within the last couple of months. We had an array of dishes, but I was responsible for cooking the meat. Steak is about the closest thing that I have to a religion, and I take it very seriously. The average steak for me takes about 4-5 hours to prepare and cook, from the sous vide to the cast iron to plate. Though sometimes, I take as much as 3-4 months butter aging or dry aging my meats to be certain that they're

perfect. These were genuine A5, so I only sous vide them after cutting them into 2 inch steaks. There was perfectly enough steak for one each, but I also made jerk chicken, mandarin duck breast, and a nice cut of cherry jalapenos salmon. I had quite the spread. I sous-veed them to medium rare to be sure the fat was well rendered, but informed them that if absolutely necessary I would bring them up to medium on request. Well, here comes the new girl to the group. She sees the first person cut into their steak, sees pink, and she's just mortified.

Immediately she warned him about eating raw meat meat and stressed that the steak should be brown all the way through or you could get sick. I informed her that this was not the case and that these steaks were actually cooked to the ideal temperature for the cut. She immediately demanded that I cook her till it was brown all the way through and I firmly said not a chance. She got angry and yelled that it was her steak and she should have it how she liked. I told her there was plenty of other meats to choose from, as well as a plethora of side

dishes, but I was not going to make her steak well done in my house. She said, effing butthole, then she got up and put the steak in the microwave. I shot up and grabbed that of her hand first, at which point half the steak fell into the microwave. I shot up and grabbed that over hand first, at which point half the steak fell into the ground. My dog's quickly got to it, to which I said, well, at least it went to someone who wouldn't dump on a good steak. From there, there was definitely tension from that into the table. They ate a little bit, then hurriedly left. Since then, my longtime friend and his new girlfriend have blocked me on social media and my phone number.

They've even gone so far as to block the rest of the people at that table and cut off all ties. Yesterday, I received a PayPal invoice from my old friend for 25 bucks that said, pay for dry cleaning of her dress. I don't think that anything actually spilled on her. I think it's just more drama, but as of now I'm ignoring this, and unfortunately probably washing my hands clean of an old friend. Am I the butthole here?

Okay, so the actual rating on this post is everyone sucks here, but honestly I disagree. OP, you're hosting this event and you're cooking the meat. It's your responsibility as the host to ensure that everyone has a good meal. And to start things off, she didn't actually do anything wrong. She saw the pink meat and said, hey you shouldn't eat that because you might get sick. And okay, she's wrong, like she's objectively wrong, but just because she's incorrect about this fact doesn't make her a butthole. Like she's entitled to believe incorrect stuff that's completely within her right.

Then when you said no actually this is fine she said I would like it to be not pink and then you shut her down like why this is a perfectly reasonable request. If she wants to eat a well done steak then she has every right to prefer a well done steak. And then you shut her down just because you're being a steak snob come on OP you're not being a good host here you're just being a pretentious food snob. Now, I will say that from this point, she did overreact. She got angry, she got yelled, and then she called you a butthole. However, I do want to point out, I do want to stress, that you're the one who started this problem. I have to remind you, she's the newcomer

to this group. So, she probably already feels like an outsider. And what you did, OP, was you made her feel even more like an outsider. You were intentionally singling her out, which made her dig in her heels because she wants to be accepted. She wants her wishes to be respected, and you just weren't doing that. So, okay, she wasn't being a very good guest by yelling and by calling OP a butthole. I have to give her like 0.5 out of 5 buttholes. But outside of that, like her taking the steak to cook in the microwave, it's her steak. You serve it to her.

If she wants to microwave her steak, she can microwave the steak. And then you got up and knocked it out of her hand. And then when you're dog-aided, you were like, well, I'm glad the dog-aided instead of you, like, oh my God, that is so disrespectful OP. OP, just because you care so much about steak, doesn't mean everyone else around you instead of you, like, oh my god, that is so disrespectful OP.

OP, just because you care so much about steak, doesn't mean everyone else around you has to care about steak as well. And then I'd like to point out in an edit that OP says that I should have stated that a menu was sent weeks in advance with the express point that if someone wanted their steak cooked to a higher temperature, I would have rather gone to the grocery store to get some USDA prime for them. But like, oh man, that's so... Ugh.

OP, you're being very entitled and snobby here. Because you're assuming that when you send out this menu, people magically know that they have to specifically request like, hey OP, I want a really well done steak, so make sure you give me a worse cut of meat. Like, that's not fair. It's not fair for you to expect them to have that knowledge. And even then, if they want to stay cooked differently, it's not fair of you to get them a worse cut of steak. Just because that style of cooking isn't up to your standards. OP, you're your butthole here. You just are.

I feel really bad for your friend OP that because of your actions, your friend basically lost access to all of your friend group because he has to support his girlfriend. OP, I'm giving you two out of five buttholes. Get over yourself, man. That was our slash of my the butthole, and if you liked this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day. Bye.