rSlash - r/AmITheA**hole For Using My Wife's Trauma To Win A Fight?

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

r/AmITheA**hole In today's episode, OP's is married to a woman who was relentlessly bullied when she was in school. Today, while they were out shopping, OP's wife says something mean about another customer, so OP says that now his wife is being a bully. His wife was deeply hurt by that accusation and is now upset at OP. Is he the butthole for using his wife's trauma against him like that? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best posts from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash Amai the Butthole, where OP wants to report the doctors who almost killed her. Will I be the Butthole if I turn in a group of doctors who initially refused to treat me for a life-threatening illness because they were refused to believe that it was possible for me to have it? So, for context, I'm a disabled military vet from my time overseas. I'm a 36 year old female. I rely on treatment from the veterans' affair systems for my health care, which in my personal experience has always been wonderful in my area. A few weeks ago, I was rushed to the emergency room with the worst head pain that I'd ever

felt, and it appeared in an instant. My CT ended up being clear, and I was diagnosed as having a migraine. The next day is when hell started for me. I had two weeks of near-constant agonizing pain. I had a severely swollen left temple, bad jaw pain, my vision in my left eye was getting worse and I was seeing double. And there were other symptoms stacked on top of those. I had been making requests to immediately see my doctor, but he blew me off. I had a strong hunch of what was wrong with me, even though you're not supposed to get temporal arthritis until at least age 50. I just wanted to be taken seriously because I know my body.

I feel I have a good grasp on my personal pain levels because of injuries I suffered in the military, and this was the worst pain that I've ever experienced by leaps and bounds, and it never relented. Finally, my doctor saw me, and she instantly changed her tune. To start treatment, I was to get a biopsy of my left temporal artery. An eye nose and throat doctor called me to set that appointment up, but he wouldn't. He told me that I had an actual 0% chance of having this, and I would be wasting my time and theirs if I came in, because I was just too young.

He made it clear that he wasn't entertaining the idea of seeing me at all, and he hung up on me. It took another 24 hours of fights, emails, and phone calls, and just being treated like garbage to get the biopsies set up the following morning. And hey, guess what? I freaking have it! I'm being treated for temporal arthritis, but I've suffered permanent vision loss in my left eye because of my delay in treatment.

Let alone what other damages I may have suffered, because I haven't been fully informed on the extent of this disease yet. I want accountability. I want this drastic mistake to be learned from, and from other people to not suffer the way that I suffered. However, people around me are telling me that my anger is too much. That I would be a butthole because I went after Dr.'s career, but really? I'm looking for advice here so I can make sense of all this and make a decision.

And oh yeah, I would have literally died as a result of this not being treated, and it could have happened at any time. So that's what people are basing their opinion on. You didn't die, they ended up saving your life, and it could have been worse. So what are your thoughts? OP, this story reads like a clear cut and dry example of medical malpractice. Not one, but two doctors completely disregarded your request for medical assistance and as a result you suffered for it.

Like you suffered agonizing pain and you suffered permanent debilitation because of it. OP, you can and should hold these doctors accountable because they were literally playing with your life here. If they blew you off, then what's to say they won't blow other people off too? And so what if you're going after a doctor's career? Just because they're a doctor doesn't mean that they're good doctors. I mean, based on what you're saying here, it sounds like they're crummy doctors actually. Look, their systems in place to deal with this type of thing.

There's laws, regulations, lawsuits, and doctors have insurance, so like what will happen here will happen, but the point is you need to move forward with this OP. OP, I'm giving you 0 out of 5 buttholes. You're clearly the victim here, you're mad, and you have every right to be. As for your doctors, I'm giving them 3 out of 5 buttholes. They were being egotistical, dismissive, and quite frankly dangerous. Am I the butthole for calling my wife a bully, knowing that it would trigger her? For context, I'm a 36 year old guy and I work as a bus driver.

I've been doing the same route for about 5 years, and I've gotten to know my regulars pretty well to the point where I consider most of us friends. I enjoy my job in conversations and socializing comes easy to me. My wife, who's 36, works in an office and drives to work, so she's never really met any my regular passengers. So I've been married for about five years now and we've got two little kids, and every few weeks we do the big shop where we go to the Big Asda. Everything was fine and we were going through our shopping list with the kids in the trolley, and I heard my wife make a noise of disgust. I look up and follow her gaze, and I see when are my regulars getting her own shopping done. Let's call her Lily. Lily is a god.

Very monochrome color scheme. Always in black velvet and lace, black lipstick, powdered white face, some visible tats, the works. But she's a lovely girl, very sweet. She works as a sign language interpreter at a local secondary school. She's involved with age concern in her spare time, and she's working towards her PhD. All around, she's a nice young lady. My wife launches into a snarky tirade about her appearance. Look at that! Why would you choose to look like that?

She's just asking for attention, then probably complained that she can't get a job. She looks like a witch. It's creepy, I wouldn't want that in any place of work, and she's probably on drugs. I told her to stop because she was being very rude and judgmental, but she kept going and saying increasingly worse things about Lily. Not even toning down her vitriol in front of the kids. I'll be honest, I wasn't the best guy when I was younger, and if I'd seen Lilly when I was in school, I probably would have made fun of her too. But we're all adults now,

and I think it's time we left that attitude behind us. Even if I didn't know Lilly, I would think that sort of talk is inappropriate, especially since my oldest son is very impressionable, and do start school in September. And I don't want him thinking that's an acceptable way to behave. My wife was bullied severely during her teenage years and she told me how much of an impact it had to this day. Eventually I just told her to shut up and stop acting like the same bullies that made her life hell when she was in school.

She shut up quick. She hasn't spoken to me since, and I got an angry text from my sister and all telling me that I hurt my wife beyond words, and how dare I compare her to her schoolbillies who traumatized her so badly as a teenager. I've tried explaining my side and how I want to set a good example for the kids, and also that Lily was a friend of mine. But neither one of them listened, and I'm thinking that I might have gone too far. Okay, so I'm actually that I might have gone too far. Okay, so I'm actually going to disagree with the people down in the comments on this one,

and whenever I disagree with Reddit, I need to proceed cautiously. So give me a chance on this one. First off, let me just say that what your wife did was wrong. Criticizing another person based solely on their appearance, especially in front of young impressionable kids, is just wrong. Playing it simple, it's wrong. Your wife shouldn't have done that, she deserved to be shut down, and for that alone she deserves a butthole score, so I think I'll give her like 2 out of 5 buttholes. So like, don't get me wrong here, the wife is definitely wrong in that scenario, she was a hypocrite, she was doing something she shouldn't have done, she was just being a bad

person. However, separate from that, separate from her being a bad person, you also have a responsibility as a father, as a man, as a husband to treat your family a certain way. And while I would agree that you definitely should have shut her down, I think using her past trauma as the way to do that was probably not the best way to handle that. I can't tell what kind of bullying your wife endured when she was a teenager, but for all I know, she was beaten and abused every single day of her life for years. So like, yeah, what she did at that grocery store was bullying, but to compare what she went through to her being snarky in a grocery store, it just doesn't really feel like the

same thing here. So to dredge up your wife's trauma and use that against her to shut her down, doesn't really feel appropriate. I mean, who knows? Maybe the reason why she had such a visceral reaction to Lily was because one of her bullies also dressed like a goth.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm not trying to belittle what your wife did here because what she did is rude, but just can we agree to not dredge up people's emotional or physical trauma and use it to win fights? That just feels really inappropriate to me. What I'm trying to say OP is that there was probably a much better way for you to handle this tactfully. I think the appropriate thing to do would have been to wait until you get home, have a separate conversation with the kids about bullying and how to treat strangers. Then approach your wife and ask why she got so triggered by someone dressing like a

goth because it's not a big deal. And then explain to her that you're concerned that that type of behavior might rub off on your kids and you don't want your kids to treat other people the way your wife did in that grocery store. So I guess the TLDR here is that you were right to shut your wife down, but the way that you shut your wife down is probably not the best way to do it. So for that OP, I think I have to give you one out of five buttholes. Using someone's old trauma against them is just sucky. Also, down in the comments, a lot of people are bringing

up Sophie Lancaster, who was a girl who dressed in sort of like an alternative goth way, and she was beaten to death for it. So yeah, treating people this way has real consequences. Also, down in the comments, I'm gonna read this reply from full of answers, because I feel like they articulate my thoughts in a much better way. There was definitely a more tactful way to do this. It sounds like you demeaned your wife in front of your kids. What message is that sending to them? Fight meanness and rudeness with more meanness and rudeness? As soon as she started her rant, you could have interrupted and said, actually, Lily is a great person, or you could have left your shopping to go over and say, hi, how are you,

Lily? It's nice to see you. This would hopefully lead to little snow conflict with your wife, but you could show her and your kids what kindness and compassion really looks like. Also, as a teacher, I am constantly happy to correct kids and parents use of the word bully. Your wife was being mean in a butthole, but she wasn't doing this over a long period of time, repeatedly, which it sounds like happened to her as a kid, and this is definitely different. You knowingly use a traumatic event in her past to tear her down and exert your power over her. This honestly is a lot closer to bullying in my opinion.

Your wife was being a butthole, and so were you. Apologize, and have a meaningful conversation with her about how you want to raise your kids to be kind and compassionate human beings. Am I the butthole for kicking my daughter's boyfriend out of the house for eating from the birthday cake before the party started? I'm a mother of two girls, Lily, who's 14 and Monica, who's 21. Monica has a 20-year-old boyfriend who visits her often. To be frank, he is not polite, or to rephrase, he lacks social skills, And he always ends up doing things that can be annoying whether intentional or not.

It's been affecting Lily, and there have been instances where Monica's boyfriend Ruyn Lily's math project and Ruyn her camera by dropping it. Because of his increasingly reckless behavior, I've set some basic rules and asked him to follow, like, don't touch anything that belongs to Lily. Monica didn't approve, and so that I was treating her boyfriend like a child, and she asked me to treat him like it's his own home. But I made it clear that when he comes over, he's a guest, and he should behave like a guest, not running around the house causing damage like kids do. A few days ago was Lily's birthday. My sister pre-ordered the cake and picked it up from the bakery, and we kept in the fridge until we finished with preparations.

We were upstairs while Monica's boyfriend was in the living room. I went downstairs to the kitchen to get the cake. I opened the fridge and saw that someone cut and took a piece of the birthday cake. I was infuriated, and I figured that it was Monica's boyfriend. I went to ask him, and he admitted that he was the one to cut into the birthday cake. I screamed at him, and he said that he was sorry, but he was hungry. I told him that was my daughter's birthday cake, and I asked if there was literally nothing else that he could have eaten instead. He said, yeah, there was, but I really wanted a

piece of that cake, because I couldn't wait until the party started. I kept screaming at him that he ruined the entire party. Now Lily won't even be able to blow out the candles when the cake looked like that. He got defensive and said that it didn't matter if he ate it before Lily blew out the candles, and that all those birthday party rules are lame, and people should just eat the freaking cake once it arrives. Also, he said that it wasn't like he ate the whole thing.

I lost it and told him to get out of my house. He kept calling out for Monica to come downstairs and deal with me. Monica yelled at him, and I thought that was it. However, he said that what he did didn't warn me kicking him out, but I insisted that he leave immediately. She begged me to let it go, but I said not a chance. They both left after they argued with me and got my sister involved. We had to delay the celebration for two hours so we could get another cake, and unlike

the previous one, this one wasn't customized. Monica's been angry with me for how I treated her boyfriend by kicking him out on Lily's birthday. She said that Lily wouldn't have minded, but I was disrespecting her boyfriend and looking for excuses to keep him out of the house. She also said that I caused him to miss the party. She wants me to call her boyfriend and apologize, but I refuse. Am I the butthole here?

Oh, it's... whatever. This guy's 20. He's 20 years old and he still doesn't realize that you shouldn't eat the birthday cake that belongs to a 14 year old girl. OP, you had every right to kick him out of the house. I would have done the exact same thing. In fact, I probably would have taken it further and permanently banned him from the house. What's more, I can't believe that Monica would defend her boyfriend over her sister.

I mean sure, I kinda get it. She cares about her boyfriend, she wants her boyfriend to be liked by the family. But still, Lily's her little sister and her boyfriend ruined her little sister's birthday party. And her response to that is to just say, oh, she won't mind. OP, you get zero out of five buttholes. You did exactly the right thing here. The boyfriend gets 2.5 out of 5 buttholes. Honestly, who steals a child's birthday cake? Monica also gets 2.5 out of 5 buttholes. She should've had her little sister's back, but instead, she added to the problem.

OP, I say just stick to your guns and ban that guy from your house permanently. He's super disrespectful. Am I the butthole for refusing to let my husband eat dinner with me and the kids? This might sound silly, but my husband loves food. Not gaming, not YouTube, his weakness is food. I don't hold this against him in any way, but he eats a lot. I should point out that he's in shape and regularly goes to the gym. Sometimes, I find myself cooking bigger portions of food because he'd attempt to eat from our daughter's plates, leaving them hungry. We always run out of snacks as well, so there are times

when I have to cook twice a day. Yesterday at 4 p.m., I was out with my daughters to get new haircuts. I already prepared dinner and left it in the fridge until we got back. I told my husband that I put his portion aside for when he got back from the gym, so he could go ahead and eat if me and the girls were going to be late. At 8 p.m., me and the girls returned home when I quickly went to the kitchen to reheat dinner because we were so hungry. I opened the fridge and the food that I prepared was gone. I asked my husband and he said that he felt hungry after eating early and he ate our dinner. I was angry and kept thinking, well, what are we going to eat? I kept looking for other options and when I asked about other foods, he kept shaking his

head saying, we ran out of this, we ran out of that. I bluntly said that he was selfish to eat the girl's dinner. He said that he couldn't help it, he's always hungry. So I went to order delivery for just me and the girls. When our order arrived, I called the girls and sat down to eat. A few minutes later, my husband walked out of the office and was upset that we didn't call him to join us for dinner. I told him that he already had dinner, not once, but twice, and that I didn't include

him in the order since he'd already eaten. He lashed out at me, saying that I was deliberately ordering food from his favorite restaurant. Pretty much all restaurants are his favorite. And that I was excluding him from dinner, and teaching the girls to treat him like an unwinded person at the dinner table. I called him selfish, saying that this dinner was for me and the girls since he already ate our previous dinner that I spent time making. He admitted that he was wrong to eat our dinner and said that he felt bad afterwards. But he said that it was totally worth it because there's no doctor, therapist or pastor that could help him out with this problem. He's just a man who loves food. But he said that I was

behaving passive-aggressive towards him and implying that him liking food is a problem which is incorrect. We argued for a few minutes, then he went back to the office saying that I should feel bad for excluding him from our meal. Needless to say, he hasn't spoken to me ever since, and he keeps teasing the girls about no longer sharing his snacks with them. Since they were okay with me excluding him from dinner. Am I the butthole here? Okay, there's like so many multiple layers going on in this pose and it's gonna take me a while to break this down. So first of all, this guy keeps saying, oh, what's the big deal about liking food? And there isn't. There's absolutely nothing wrong about liking food. But what your husband is doing is he's presenting that as the problem. He's saying

like, oh, why are you doing all these things when the only problem is I like food, but that's not the problem. That's the cause of the problem. The real problem here is that your husband is being disrespectful of you, your daughters, and your time. You put in all this effort to make a meal for your family, and then your husband just comes in and eats everyone's meals. Okay. The respectful thing to do in that situation would be to not eat other people's meals, obviously. If your husband was right that there was nothing else in the house, then he could have ordered a pizza, he could have driven to McDonald's and gotten a burger, I mean, what's the problem here? But to specifically eat the meal intended for you and your daughters,

it's just disrespectful. But okay, whatever, so he got weakwilled in the 8- everyone's dinner. What's next? Does he do anything about it? No, he's just like, well, not my problem and goes back to his office. He knew that you and your daughters were expecting that for dinner. So after he ate them, the logical, nice thing to do would have been to either cook something or order you food so that when you arrive to be ready. Like he didn't even call you up and was like, hey, I'm really sorry that I ate everyone's

meal. Maybe you could grab something for the girls on the way back. And now, after you've had this fight, he's making his daughters feel bad by saying that he won't give them any of his snacks. When his daughters had nothing to do with it, they got their meal stolen. Then, because of the fight between their parents, they lost the opportunity to share a family meal with their father. So even though they did nothing wrong, your husband is teasing them to make them feel bad. O.P, your husband is being the butthole in pretty much every way that he can be a butthole

in this story. He's being a bad person, a bad husband, and a bad father. That was our slash of my the butthole, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.