Vacations are supposed to be fun for everyone involved, right?
So what happens when it seems like the other people on the trip conspired to make sure you had a miserable time?
That was the issue facing Redditor and Original Poster (OP) jacobMV1996 when he came to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for judgment.
He asked:
“AITA for leaving my family vacation after they forced me and my pregnant wife to sleep in a bunk bed?”
A little background.
“So just to set the stage, me and my family went on vacation at a location around 8 hours away for a wedding.”
“I have 2 sisters, both are married, and one has a 1-year-old kid. My parents rented an Airbnb so my whole family could stay at the same place for five days.”
“Check-in is at 4:00 PM, both my sisters and parents get there right on time but me and my wife who is 7 1/2 months pregnant arrive at the BNB at 4:30 PM or so.”
“We start to unload the car and ask where our room is, my mom responds: ‘You guys get the bunk bed.'”
“Me, thinking it was a joke I say ‘ooh I get top bunk!’ Their response was ‘no, actually, you get the bunk bed.”‘
“They were 100% serious.”
“While my two other sisters get a room for themselves and their husbands, with queen size beds, me and my wife get the literal kids’ room with a bunk bed!”
Sleep on it.
“Me and my wife don’t want to cause a scene and still want to be grateful for my parents paying for our accommodations, so we agree to just give the bed a try for one night and see how it goes.”
“Fast-forward to bedtime, around 12:00 we lay down on the bed for the first time. It’s as if you’re sleeping on a wooden board.”
“It’s extremely uncomfortable even for me, which means my wife was in a lot more pain due to her being pregnant.”
“We toss and turn for a couple of hours, and finally we both agree to just go sleep on the couch in the living room.”
“It’s around 2:00 AM now. The couch is by no means comfortable, but in comparison to the bed, it was a lot better.”
“We get a couple of hours sleep when my dad wakes up and sees us on the couch and decides to go back to the master bedroom to not disturb us.”
“Again, we don’t want to create a scene, so we just go back upstairs and try to get a little more sleep on the bunk bed before everyone wakes up.”
“We get around an hour of the worst sleep I’ve ever had and just decide to just wake up and go downstairs, knowing we couldn’t do that for a second night.”
“We booked a room at a hotel for a couple more nights to just get past the wedding then we were going to leave for home.”
“After explaining the situation to my whole family, instead of accepting it or helping us, most of them start getting annoyed, saying that this is just another way for us to distance ourselves from the family.”
“We just sternly say that we already made our decision, and they were just going to have to accept it. Now most of my family is irritated at us, saying that we ruined their trip.”
OP was left to wonder,
“AITA?”
In summation:
“TLDR:”
“My family gave me and my pregnant wife a bunk bed to sleep on for five nights while everyone else got queen-size beds. Now they are mad at us for renting a hotel and leaving early.”
Having explained the issue, OP turned to Reddit for judgment.
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
-
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided: NTA
Proper Accommodations.
“As a frequent reader of this sub, it’s INCREDIBLE how much family drama would be avoided if people just shelled out for an AirBnB that actually accommodated their entire group.”
“Like, yes, I bet a proper 4-bedroom Airbnb was $50 or $100 more a night (spread across four families of 2 adults each, so say $50-75 per person for the entire vacation) -“
“But I personally would pay $75 to avoid a massive awkward family fight without a second thought.” ~ nachtkaese
“I think quite often folks will just look at the room/bed count, see it say ‘4 bedrooms’ and not look beyond that and see that one of the bedrooms is basically a children’s bedroom. ~ kinkinhood
“That’s my thought exactly.”
“Whoever booked the house did a crap job.”
“They knew there would be 4 adult couples (parents, OP & spouse, 2 sisters & spouses) plus a child.”
“They should have gotten a house with 4 adult bedrooms, not 3 adult bedrooms and a bunk room.”
“OP’s parents are the assholes here for creating this situation in the first place.” ~ DisneyBuckeye
Bah bah, black sheep.
“You obviously haven’t been the ‘black sheep’ of the family lol.”
“Almost this exact thing happened to me when visiting a sibling, only I was 8mo and in the early stages of labor by bedtime.”
“And still was told I had to sleep on an air mattress, that leaked nonetheless, on the playroom floor.”
“Not that I was getting a ton of sleep that night anyway (labor), but still… let’s not make the heavily pregnant lady sleep on something your non-prego @ss wouldn’t.”
“I’ve since learned how to set boundaries, and almost any time I did for the first year or two, I would get pushback exactly like how OP is getting.”
“Op’s family is just upset he’s not ‘falling into line’ anymore. Good for him!” ~ illatious
“Right?”
“The room assignments speak volumes about where OP and his wife stand in that family.” ~ wisewoman707
“My guess is they don’t like her or him for whatever reason.”
“So they didn’t want Op and his wife staying there. But they didn’t want to play the bad guy either.”
“Because they won’t garner attention and sympathy that way.”
“So now this will become a story about how they didn’t like Airbnb. The bunk bed part will be conveniently left out.”
“Or they’re too afraid of becoming the next scapegoat if op and wife resign the role.” ~ exscapegoat
“Yeah agreed, this sounds like some weird in-law energy.”
“Why pick a place for four sets of adults where one of the bedrooms is bunk beds? Surely there were other rentals available.”
“This game seems rigged IMHO.”
“NTA OP, but I am curious so, INFO:”
“How is your family’s relationship with you and particularly your wife normally?”
“Are you the scapegoat of the family? Has your mom (or whoever made the accommodations) exhibited poor behavior to toward you and/or your wife before?” ~ fireflyflies80
She’s pregnant!
“Who tf makes a pregnant woman sleep on a sh*tty bed??!”
“Sh*tty people!”
“Definitely not the AH. And even if she wasn’t preggers, there is nothing AHish about wanting to sleep on a comfortable bed! That family sucks.” ~ Thick_Preparation648
“NTA.”
“I can’t even…just no.”
“Good for you for looking out for your very pregnant wife (and yourself).”
“I’m old and not pregnant, and if my parents did this, I would do the same thing you did.”
“Why would they even book this place knowing that your pregnant wife would have to sleep on a bunk bed?!?”
“That’s next level, OP, sorry.” ~ cece8873
“NTA.”
“I have to wonder if this is a regular cycle.”
“They set you up for some kind of obvious failure, then blame you when the obvious failure occurs.”
“But you shouldn’t have said, ‘we’ve made our decision.’ That suggests the decision was up for debate.”
“The right answer was a callout of the actual problem:”
‘”You can’t seriously expect someone 7 1/2 months pregnant to sleep on a bunk bed. We even tried it, and there’s just no way. It’s great to see you, and I wish we could have made the whole trip work, but this is just totally unreasonable.”‘ ~ Cjack66
“I cannot imagine a scenario where I wouldn’t be falling over myself to give the real bed to the pregnant woman.”
“Surely some of these wives have been pregnant before, right?!”
“They have to know how miserable it is to try to sleep at all during late pregnancy, much less in these circumstances!” ~ Blue-Phoenix23
Some were confused.
“NTA”
‘”Now most of my family is irritated at us, saying that we ruined their trip. AITA?'”
“Why the eff would that ruin their trip? Are they some sort of sadistic control freaks or something?”
“And what jerks would subject a heavily pregnant woman to that or resent her for improving the situation?”
“You made the right call, no doubt.”
“Honestly, I’d tell ’em to go eff themselves and let the chips fall where they may. A few months without meeting your little one could be a nice attitude adjustment for them.” ~ bureaucratic_drift
‘”Why the eff would that ruin their trip?”‘
‘”Our trip is only fun, if yours is ruined.”‘
“They want him to ruin his trip, to make theirs fun even though it actually doesn’t affect them where he sleeps.” ~ hummingelephant
Vacations are supposed to be fun.
If it isn’t fun, is it really a vacation?