Everyone experiences second thoughts.
What seems like a fun idea initially might quickly lose its appeal upon further reflection.
The biggest frustration with second thoughts is that they tend to come at highly inopportune times.
Leading not only us, but also others to change our plans to everyone’s annoyance.
Redditor Fluffy_Sandwich8575 and their husband bonded over a love of travel.
As a result, the original poster (OP)’s husband planned a very special honeymoon trip.
However, upon further examination, the OP decided that this particular trip was not a good idea.
Eventually, they asked their husband to cancel the trip, despite their husband having already laid down an expensive deposit.
Wondering if they had done the right thing, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for asking my husband to cancel our anniversary trip to Everest?”
The OP explained why they were less than excited by their husband’s grand gesture for their honeymoon trip:
“I got married recently, and my husband is an amazing soul.”
“He is very thoughtful and loves to show love with small presents or acts of service.”
“We also are both big travelers, and that’s one of the many reasons why we connected so deeply on the first date.”
“One major difference in our travel styles is that he prefers art, culture, architecture, shopping, beaches, and while I love those things as well, 30% of my trips are around hiking.”
“I’m not a good hiker, but I visit Colorado, Montana, northern UT/AZ, etc for hiking ~1-3x a year.”
“Since he pays for a lot of the daily recurring costs, I have been paying for most of our recent travels.”
“But, he wanted to plan/pay for the two bigger trips for our delayed honeymoon and also our wedding anniversary.”
“One day he shared a link to a guided hike to Everest Base Camp in a group chat with the one friend I went to the Peru hike with.”
“I didn’t think much of it other than casually saying ‘yeah sure let’s do it’, thinking he’ll probably circle back if her really wanted to do it.”
“For context, my husband’s longest hike has been around 4-5 miles, at maybe 8000 ft elevation.”
“He is reasonably in shape as we go to the gym together 5x week to do HIIT classes, but he does not do anything for endurance training or focused cardio.”
“Well fast forward to last month.”
“He told me he paid for the $800/person deposit.”
“I was surprised that it costs so much since I haven’t done research on the tours, and so I started researching.”
“Then social media algorithms picked up my interest in Everest and started me down the rabbit hole of people dying on Everest (summiting, not base camp, but it’s still creepy!) and also the 1000 folks stranded just trying to reach Everest Base Camp.”
“Apparently a few hundred people die on Mt Everest each year.”
“While summiting vs reaching EBC is very different, the recent news of folks being stranded on the mountains while just trying to reach EBC is not helpful.”
“Plus husband hates: camping (no showers), bad food, when his head is rained on…and also gets low blood sugar if he doesn’t eat a snack first thing in the AM.”
“The hike to EBC is a 8-9 day hike at very high elevation, in the cold, with cold pizza & fried rice, and sub optimal showering/sleeping conditions.”
“My husband got majorly hurt that I showed him videos of people dying, people having a bad time on the hike.”
“He took it as an affront to his planning skills and his fitness levels since he wanted to plan a trip that has personal childhood meaning to me (my parents used to collect plant samples in the Himalayas when I was a kid) and also share something romantic with me in a sport I enjoy doing.”
“The EBC hike is very, very, very different in terms of endurance, food logistics, and more than the Peru hikes, though, and I just feel like with his preferences and physical condition, we shouldn’t chance it.”
“Now he’s hurt because he spent $1600, and I just insulted him basically.”
“I don’t really want to go after doing thorough research.”
“Am I the a**hole?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
While the Reddit community was somewhat divided, they generally had little sympathy for the OP.
Many felt that the OP was being unfair and insensitive to their husband, feeling that it was their own fears, not their husband’s condition, that made them hesitant to go on the trip, and also thought they led their husband on with their initial response to his offer to do the trip:
“I’ve done the Everest hike.”
“It’s not difficult, and I saw people of all ages and fitness levels on the trail.”
“Elevation/altitude sickness can be an issue, but you can’t train for that.”
“Groups account for that by having two acclimation days built in to the itinerary.”
“The food is simple and healthy and hot.”
“Why would you go to Nepal to eat pizza?”
“Calling off a hike to the foot of Everest because you saw a video of people dying while summiting is like being afraid to fly on a plane because there is no air in space.”
“YTA.”
“Stay at home if you’re scared.”
“Stop holding him back.”- frodosbitch
“You’re exaggerating the risk here; it’s not summiting Everest.”
“The base camp trek is not dangerous in the slightest – it’s just long because you go slow to acclimatise.”
“The snowstorm last week was a freak event, not the norm.”
“The food and accommodation at tea houses is also really good – it’s a guided tea house trek with hot food included (it’s good food if you like Nepali food), there is no camping.”
“YTA it was a really nice gesture considering he isn’t as into hiking, and you should go it will be amazing.”- CardamomMountain
“The guy isn’t trying to climb Everest, the EBC trek being talked about here is the hike from Lukla to base camp and the most dangerous part of it is the flight in and out of Lukla.”
“You stay a night or two in different lodges along the way up to help acclimate in stages, this not the same acclimatizing runs to the upper camps the Everest climbers are doing.”
“It’s basically like doing a week or two section of the CDT with about the same level of risk, deaths are usually for more benign reasons like pre-existing medical conditions.”
“I get the vibe the OP is more worried about their own ability and general disinterest in the trip than their partners ‘lack of cardio’ or whatever so YTA.”- downtocowtown
“YTA.”
“You said ‘yeah sure let’s do it’.”
“Is he supposed to be a mind reader?”- deliverance73
Some, however, felt that there could have been better communication about this from both the OP and their husband, but ultimately didn’t feel either did anything wrong:
“NAH.”
“Yes, he should’ve done more research before ponying up $1600, and yes, you should’ve perhaps been a little less casual about saying yes to the hike, but I don’t think that makes either of you a**holes.”
“It makes you people that need to recognize how dangerous this could be and understand whether or not you want to risk it, and it sounds like you’ve realized that you don’t.”- SwordTaster
“NAH.”
“My dad just did a trek in Nepal with a similar difficulty to EBC- but his group elected to go on a different route because they didn’t think EBC was worth the hassle.”
“And by that, I mean it was literally a couple of weeks ago.”
“Too crowded and the views weren’t as good as other options.”
“According to his report, they had hot meals and ate very well the entire time, however they were advised not to eat meat while on the trek and they had brought their own water filtration devices.”
“Dad and his friends are avid campers.”
“The meat advice was due to the dubious age of the meat while on the trail.”
“You could pay a nominal fee to get a shower, however after a certain point, they would be cold showers.”
“I think they stayed in guest houses the entire time.”
“They had porters and a guide.”
“The first part of the trek was with people going to EBC, and, by luck, they bumped into people they had befriended during the return, and it turned out that dad and his friends were able to get better views of Everest than those going to EBC.”
“Anyway, he had a great trip, and you might want to look into alternate routes.”
“But it’s also worth mentioning that he and his friends do a lot of hiking and backpacking and did tons of research before their trip.”- Miriyl
It does seem clear that the OP’s husband was mainly thinking of the OP, and not himself, in planning this trip.
Including the fact that he floated the idea by them before dropping the deposit.
Hopefully, the OP learned that saying yes to everything right away isn’t the best idea, and that they and their husband will find a perfect honeymoon that delights them both.