rSlash - r/AmITheA**hole I Was Pranked into Missing the Birth of My Child

Episode Date: August 21, 2021

r/AmITheA**hole OP's wife is about nine months pregnant and is ready to give birth at any moment. OP has been understandably stressed about it, so he decides to go hang out with his friends for an eve...ning. One of his friends is salty because OP missed his birthday party, so he decides to prank OP by hiding is cell phone for the night. Unfortunately, this happened to be the exact day that OP's wife gave birth, so he didn't catch the phone call and missed the birth of his son. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best posts from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash Am I the Butthole, where O.P. gets pranked into missing his child's birth. Am I the Butthole for refusing to let my brother-in-law see my son after causing me to miss his birth? I'm a 30-year-old guy, and I have a few close friends from college that I hang out with, including my brother-in-law, my sister's husband, Austin. My wife and I are expecting our first baby, and because this was our first child, we struggled with understanding things like whether my wife was going into labor or just dealing with pain and soreness. So a few times, we ended up driving to the hospital for nothing.
Starting point is 00:00:37 As a result, I have limited my time out with the guys, especially in the evening and night time. I have skipped hanging out with them to stay home by my wife's side to be ready for emergencies. My friends were upset that they hadn't seen much of me in a while. I explained the situation, but they kept giving me flack about it every time, especially Austin, who kept pressuring me to go out for a few beers
Starting point is 00:00:57 because he was in my shoes twice before and he has experience. He told me all the signs of labor to look out for and told me to just relax. One night I caved in and drove to Austin's farm since his birthday was a few days prior experience. He told me all the signs of labor to look out for and told me to just relax. One night I caved in and drove to Austin's farm since his birthday was a few days prior, and I missed it because my wife was sick. Austin wasn't happy that I missed his birthday and he whined about it. My wife was with my in-laws, and I wanted to call her but I couldn't
Starting point is 00:01:18 find my phone. I'd put my phone on the counter, but it wasn't there. After searching for my phone for an hour, I borrowed one of my friend's phone to call my wife, and her sister picked up asking where I was. I was in dismay when my wife's sister said that she was at the hospital with my wife because her water broke and she was in labor. I drove to the hospital ASAP, but I was met with my father-in-law berating me for ignoring his texts and phone calls. I wasn't allowed into the delivery room because my wife screamed at me to stay out. I felt awful and I waited outside while my in-laws berated me for my neglect even when I said that I lost my phone.
Starting point is 00:01:55 One of my other friends told me that Austin hid my phone after he saw my father-in-law's text so he could get back at me for missing his birthday. I blew up at Austin and called him a bastard for doing this. Austin said that our other friend, Chris, was a liar, and he swore that he didn't see any text or calls, and he hit it as a joke to scare me of it. I just left, and I haven't seen Austin in days. Our other friends got involved and begged me to make things right with Austin. However, I refused to see him. My sister said that I should let Uncle Austin meet our son because he's longing to meet him. And that Austin even cried and said that I was being unfair to him with all those years of friendship that we
Starting point is 00:02:34 had. But I said no, I would not let him meet my son after this. Chris later told me that Austin bragged about hiding my phone, and that Chris decided to tell me because he thought that it was wrong that I got blamed by my in-laws. OP, sounds like you need new friends. What kind of guy is like, oh, I'm mad at you because you missed my birthday party. Get over it, you're like 30. So he's going to sabotage you seeing your son being born because he's upset about a birthday party?
Starting point is 00:03:01 What is this guy like 10? So for that, I'm giving Chris 4 out of 5 buttholes. However, that being said, OP, I think you deserve a butthole score too. It sounds like your wife was about to pop any second, and you decided to give in to peer pressure and hang out with your friends and have a beer. You're an adult, and you definitely should have kept better tabs on your stuff, especially when you're expecting a call from your pregnant wife. And on top of that, okay, you lost your phone. I get it, you can't find it, and you search
Starting point is 00:03:28 for an hour. Why search for an hour? Why not use one of your friend's phones to call your wife right then? So yeah, OP, you are for the most part the victim here, but you do have to take some responsibility for your actions, and your actions here were a bit reckless. So for that OP, I have to give you one out of five buttholes, and I don't blame your wife at all for being mad at you. Am I the butthole for kicking out my brother for announcing his wife's pregnancy after I
Starting point is 00:03:53 announced my daughter's diagnosis? My brother and his wife have suffered for not having kids for years. It's impacted them greatly. They love the kids in the family, but they've always wished that they could have kids of their own. Lately, our daughter, Megan, whose 12 has had some serious health problems. She started suffering from anemia, loss of appetite, and recurrent fevers. We took her to the pediatrician, and from there, we learned that she has cancer. It was so devastating, and I didn't want
Starting point is 00:04:23 to tell my family right away. Most of them had chronic conditions and this type of news might trigger a negative reaction because they love Megan and would give everything to see her healthy. My friend suggested making the announcement on Facebook but we decided against it. Oh my god. Oh, he- I haven't even gotten to the part where your brother's the butthole, but I- I already know this is gonna be an incredibly painful story to hear. My husband and I decided to gather the family at my house this past Wednesday to announce Meghan's diagnosis. My aunt did not take it well because she's so close to Meghan, and she was rightly the most devastated person there. After a few minutes of complete silence, my brother started moving in his seat, saying
Starting point is 00:05:07 there was something very serious he wanted to tell everyone. He was hesitant, but then he and his wife stood up and they said they found out they were expecting. The family was conflicted. Some got up to congratulate them and some remained seated. I remained seated and my brother then approached me and expressed how sorry he was they had to tell us in these circumstances. But he said he couldn't wait since this is a huge deal for them after years of waiting, and everyone was present anyways. I argued with him about why he thought that this was an appropriate time to make
Starting point is 00:05:39 that announcement, and I asked if Megan mattered to him at all since he didn't even take a moment to process that she wishes diagnosed with cancer. He started by reminding me of how many years he and his wife suffered from frustration and disappointment for not being able to have kids. And he argued that because he wasn't able to be a father until now, he started seven. He felt that he was missing out on so much for so many years. He said that I didn't have to congratulate him, but at the very least I should not guilt him for feeling overwhelmed and excited to finally be a father. He says that I know exactly how much he adores Megan, and I shouldn't even think otherwise.
Starting point is 00:06:15 Then he said that he was just sharing good news after hearing the bad news, and there's nothing wrong with that. I told him and his wife to leave my house immediately. He said he won't argue with me anymore because of how tense I felt, but he would expect me to apologize at some point. Some family members agreed with me, but my parents thought that I shouldn't have taken my anger out on them like that. And that whole always remember my reaction to the news he gave, and I should apologize after I've calmed down. There are some posts where it's like, why is this person even posting on MI The Butthole?
Starting point is 00:06:49 Isn't the answer obvious? This is one of those posts. O.P., your brother is really like, oh well geez, kids with cancer, that's a real bum or isn't it? Well enough with the sad news, how about some good news? We're pregnant! And if he doesn't want you to have a negative reaction during the announcement, then maybe don't announce it when you're in the middle
Starting point is 00:07:09 of announcing that your kid has cancer. Opie, I'm giving you an easy zero out of five buttholes. I'm giving your brother four out of five buttholes. Your brother sounds like an insensitive prick. And based on this story, it isn't exactly clear if your daughter Megan was there with you during the announcement. I think she probably wasn't because you didn't mention her at all, but if she was then, oh my god, that's even more disrespectful. Sorry about the cancer kid, but don't worry, we've got a replacement for you in the family brewing. Wow, after those words came out of my mouth, I actually felt guilty saying them.
Starting point is 00:07:46 Am I the butthole for wanting to walk into my first home without my wife? I'm a 27 year old guy, and I've been married to my 25 year old wife for 6 months now. I have a good job in sales, and I've managed to save enough to get together to pause it for a house. It's also true that my parents have helped me out quite a bit financially. My wife hasn't been employed very consistently. She worked as a model, but she hasn't saved much money at all. I bought the house, and the real estate agent handed over the keys
Starting point is 00:08:14 to me. My wife wasn't there at the handover. I was obviously super excited to show her the house, and for us to start our lives together, we drove up to the house yesterday. While we were sitting in the car outside, I said to her, is it okay if I go in alone first, just so I could have a moment alone in my first home? I felt that it was a significant moment in my life, and I wanted to experience it alone, even just for 30 seconds. My wife was upset about this, and she's been acting off with me ever since. We have moved some of our stuff in, but she's clearly pissed.
Starting point is 00:08:47 I think she's being selfish and my brother thinks that I'm being ridiculous. Alright OP, instead of telling you what's going on here, I'm going to share a story from my own life and you can see how me and my wife handle things differently from you and your wife. So I've got a YouTube channel. I've been a YouTuber for about five years. I started doing overwatch content and then Fortnite content and now I'm doing R-slash. I'm reading stories on Reddit so it's taken me many, many years to get to this point.
Starting point is 00:09:16 And my previous channels, which I don't make videos for anymore, never hit a million subscribers. And R-slash got extremely popular, popular extremely quickly and just went crazily viral and in the first year I was approaching a million subs and I was so excited for this because I had been grinding out practicing improving my skills as a YouTuber learning about the algorithm learning about what the YouTube audience wants. I had been dedicating my life, my professional life to growing a YouTube channel to hitting a million subs and I was finally, finally reaching that incredible milestone. At the time, I was working from home in the basement of my house and my wife worked really, really close by.
Starting point is 00:09:54 She has a job at the university. Anyways, I was watching a live feed of my subscriber count and it was really clear that at some point today, I was going to hit that one million mark. So I told my wife who was at work at the time, and she actually took vacation time so she could drive home and be there for me during that huge moment. And like it was really, really close.
Starting point is 00:10:15 She showed up maybe like 60 seconds before it happened and she rushed downstairs and she sat next to me in front of the computer and we just watched the ticker, count up 999,980 and then 985 990 995 and then finally it rolled over to a million and we celebrated together and we giggled and laughed and we hugged each other and she you know Said good job, baby. I'm so proud of you. You did this. This is so awesome And I was like that was a great moment that we could share together. And it was my moment. Don't get me wrong. Like, this is my channel. It's my voice that you're listening to, not not my wife's voice, but
Starting point is 00:10:53 nonetheless, my wife wanted to be there to celebrate my accomplishment. And likewise, I wanted her to be there because it was a huge moment for me. And I want to share that part of my life with her. So reading this story OP, that you've accomplished this great thing, you've apparently made a lot of money, you've been able to afford a house more or less on your own, I mean your parents helped too, and you didn't really state whether or not your wife helped you either, that feels like an intentional omission if I'm going to be honest with you. You did this thing, which admittedly isn't an accomplishment. Buying a house is no small task, but why would you not want to share that moment with the person that you've chosen to be your life partner? I don't understand, and honestly, honestly, OP, it's just sad,
Starting point is 00:11:36 it's depressing. What's even the point of being married if you're not going to share your life with the person you're married to? OP, you sound like a major tool bag, and I don't blame your wife for being mad at you. It's super rude. And it's even worse than that, because not only is it just rude on the surface level, you've essentially made your wife feel unwellcombed in her own home.
Starting point is 00:11:57 Like how she's supposed to feel in her day-to-day life now that it's not her house, it's your house? What's the point of that? To make her feel humble, to make her feel lesser than you, to make your ego feel big? Oh, okay, you're being a real toolback, I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm giving you three out of five buttholes. I'm giving your wife zero out of five buttholes. Am I the butthole for quitting a job on the spot when they gave me a bad evaluation after only working 15 hours? I was talking about this with my sister the other day, and she thinks that it was a bit of a
Starting point is 00:12:27 Butthole move on my part. When I was 23, I started working at a clothing store in the mall for some extra money. I was there for about a week, but I only worked a couple of training shifts. In total, I worked about 15 hours. The managers pulled me aside and said they gave me an evaluation. This would have been fine. I'm open to criticism and improving. However, they gave me a really low score of 5 out of 45 points, saying that I wasn't living up to expectations and it was gonna go in my file. They promised it would be amended when I improved.
Starting point is 00:12:57 I pointed out that was unfair because I hadn't been trained on like 75% of the things on that list. So why was I getting a low permanent score before my training period was even over? I asked for the paper and they said I couldn't have it, but they would give me a copy. I told them never mind. This was not a job that I saw myself thriving at and they should find someone else to finish my shift. I was supposed to work from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. but I said they didn't care if they had to stay late and I left. They tried to get me to not leave by saying they would give me a copy of the paper, but I just said that I wasn't gonna work there anymore and went home.
Starting point is 00:13:33 I found a new job baby sitting until I finished my degree and I've never set foot in that store again. So am I the butthole? Oh, Pete, that is super toxic what your managers did. This wasn't about evaluation, this wasn't about improving your performance. To put it simply, this was about making you feel bad about being a bad employee so they could control you more later. Major red flag here Opie, and you definitely made the right call.
Starting point is 00:13:59 I'm pretty confident that would have been an extremely toxic work environment. However, I will say like devil's advocate, there's a possibility that your managers had to do that because of some corporate policy where you have to evaluate someone after 15 hours and they were just like checking the box like, did the employee clean out the back? No, the employee didn't because we haven't actually taught the employee how to do that. So if that's the case, it's not the managers who are bad, it's the company policy that's bad. However, I really doubt that's the case
Starting point is 00:14:29 because if that were the case and the manager surely would have said, hey, don't worry about this at all, you're gonna get a low score, but that's because you haven't gotten trained yet. So we're just doing this for company policy, but really don't worry about it at all. We're just being completely compliant here
Starting point is 00:14:43 and everything's fine. I mean, if I were a manager in that situation, that's what I would have done. So yeah, I feel pretty comfortable saying that the managers here get three out of five buttholes and OP get zero out of five buttholes. Am I the butthole for telling my cousin that she's the reason my husband and I have reconsidered adoption? I'm a 33-year-old female and I've had fertility issues for the past couple of years with my husband, who's 35. We went through with consultations, and while we did have very promising results for treatments, the cost did give us pause. It wasn't that we couldn't afford it, we just weren't at the point yet where we were willing to pay. I discussed it with my husband,
Starting point is 00:15:18 and we were both fine with the idea of adopting. Our cousin Tiffany, who's 25, is adopted, and she supported our choice in looking into it. However, this was a couple of years back. And during that time, Tiffany was reunited with her birth parents and she's been acting pretty hurtful to my aunt and uncle since then. She keeps making posts about how happy she is to know where she comes from and she's happy about being reunited with her real family. She even talked about having her birth father walk her down the aisle as a chance to make up for lost time. Obviously, my uncle was very hurt about this, but when he voiced it, Tiffany got defensive. She called my uncle selfish how this was about her and that he knew what he signed up for when
Starting point is 00:16:00 raising someone else's kid. Before the pandemic, Tiffany moved closer to where her biological mother lived so they could make up for lost time. And Tiffany kept making posts after posts about all the fun she was having meeting relatives. And how she video-chatted with each of her biological parents multiple times a week. Meanwhile, she barely texted my uncle and aunt once a month. I could tell how heartbroken my aunt and uncle were, but I tried to give Tiffany her space. And the few times her aunt and uncle said anything, she accused them of being selfish and unsupportive. I think the biggest thing that broke them was when Tiffany promised to come for my aunt's birthday, and was even given the money to travel to them,
Starting point is 00:16:39 but then she never showed up. She called literally the day before to say that her biological mom had an emergency so she wasn't going to make it and she didn't give back the money. I am completely disgusted by Tiffany's behavior and while I haven't completely ruled out adoption entirely, I didn't want to give medically assisted conception a try. My husband supported this and we're now currently expecting a baby. After we made our announcement, Tiffany messaged me asking me why I would spend thousands of dollars creating a child when I could help one who already existed. I tried to play it off, but Tiffany kept pressing and calling me a bad person when there
Starting point is 00:17:16 are so many children who desperately need a home. It got to the point where she was pissing me off, so I just came clean and said that her behavior towards the people who loved and raised her was the reason. Tiffany got really upset, but I didn't care. However, her parents are now starting to say that I was wrong, so am I the butthole? Down in the comments, I'm going to read this reply from Party Snacks. Not the butthole. Your cousin is actually horrific.
Starting point is 00:17:42 I'm adopted, and I would never ever ever pull a stunt like this. I'm sorry that she's such a selfish person that she sourd the idea of adoption for you. Yeah I agree with this poster. If Tiffany thinks it's so important that these kids have a loving family then why has she basically turned her back on the one family that's actually loved and raised her? Tiffany seems to think that adopted parents are basically just babysitters for 18 years. And then once the kid gets old enough, she can just completely turn her back on her adoptive parents in favor of her biological parents. OP, I'm giving you 0 out of 5
Starting point is 00:18:17 buttholes. Tiffany, on the other hand, gets 3 out of 5 buttholes. That was our slash of my the butthole and if you like this content, you can sponsor my podcast to unlock extra episodes. Also, be sure to follow my podcast, because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.

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