There’s nothing more frustrating than needing to change or cancel plans.
Sometimes, however, life or unexpected events get in the way, leaving us with no other choice.
Things can get particularly complicated, however, when these plans involve other people.
Particularly if we need to change or cancel our plans, but they do not.
Redditor Virgo514 was looking forward to some longstanding plans they had made with their husband.
Unfortunately, the original poster (OP)’s husband informed them that these long-in-the-works plans might need to be postponed.
Even so, that response didn’t fly with the OP, who informed their husband that they intended to proceed with the plans, with or without them.
Wondering if this was fair, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for telling my husband I’ll go on vacation with the kids and my best friend if he’s too busy with work?”
The OP explained why they weren’t taking no for an answer from their husband regarding an upcoming vacation:
“My husband and I have been married for over 4 years.”
“Our son is 3 and our daughter is 16 months old.”
“My husband has a busy schedule, due to both his day job and his business after that and on Saturdays (and sometimes if I’m ok with it, Sundays).”
“We had planned to go to Spain at the end of December for a couple of weeks.”
“Like we’ve bought tickets, booked a hotel, talked about how we’ll spend our two weeks there.”
“Last weekend he asked if we could postpone our trip to the end of June.”
“Like a literal six months after we’re supposed to go.”
“I said no, it was so unfair that he was pulling this at the last minute.”
“He asked me to understand that his business required him to suddenly change his plans, that it was important, that he’d been looking forward to this down time as much as I had.”
“To provide more context this isn’t the first time this has been an issue.”
“His business hours had been an issue over the past 2 to 3 years.”
“He’d made changes and organized his hours better and his job had become wfh too, so we had struck a balance that I could be ok with.”
“But his business hours again started infringing on our family time, and he’d been promoted to a managerial role at his day job so he was now going in to work on some days too.”
“I told him I’d been looking forward to this for so long, counting days till our vacation.”
“I told him I’ll be going regardless whether he wants to come or not, and if he doesn’t want to come we can get a refund and my best friend can go in his place.”
“Admittedly I was just lashing out I have no idea of the logistics of it.”
“Yesterday I asked him again what his plan was.”
“He tried to show me messages from his clients to show how busy he was during that period, I told him I don’t care.”
“He gave me his word.”
“According to him I’m being unreasonable.”
“I wanted to know AITA here.”
“Also, I don’t even know if its logistically feasible and I don’t want it to come to it, but would I be the AH if I actually went on vacation and took my best friend along?”
Fellow Redditor 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
The Reddit community firmly agreed that the OP would not be the a**hole if they went on vacation without their husband:
Everyone agreed that not only might postponing the trip not be possible so close to their trip, but also that the OP needed to prioritize his family more than his job:
“You are talking about next month, right?”
“Unless your airplane tickets are refundable, a postponement would be expensive.”
“You’re not allowed to transfer tickets to another person, so your friend will have to buy herself a ticket.”
“Aside from that, it’s a two-week vacation for you to relax a bit with the kids.”
“It’s better than sitting at home fuming about a missed holiday.”
“I personally think HE is the one being unreasonable.”
“There’s no reason for you to stay home, is there?”
“He is upset that he will miss out, so if he can’t go, then you can’t.”
“That’s selfish of him.”
“NTA.”- Ordinary-Audience363
“NTA.”
“How’s he going to feel when both the kids have grown up and he kept rescheduling time with them?”
“When he misses important games and memories?”
“When they stop calling him because he wasn’t around anyway?”
“No job that’s worth having would even have it a possibility that you’d need to be rescheduling a LONG planned vacation.”- Archivist-exe
“NTA.”
“It doesn’t seem as though you were responding rashly; it comes across as quite rational.”
“You are not being unreasonable; what he’s asking for is unfair.”
“You made detailed, costly plans relying on his promises.”
“He knew what those plans were, yet he took on extra work.”
“He *asked* if you could postpone, which means that he contemplated that you would decline.”
“He made his choices, now you are responding accordingly.”- CandylandCanada
“Go on the holiday.”
“NTA.”
“He will never stop being busy until he retires.”- Plane_Practice8184
“NTA.”
“He needs to make his work/life balance out better; he’s known about this trip for a long time, and it’s not as easy as rescheduling a spa weekend or something.”
“What’s to promise that he won’t keep deferring this holiday because work stuff keeps coming up?”- lemon_charlie
“When running your business, it is up to you to make decisions based on your values.”
“Do I value only money and growth, or do I sacrifice some of that to maintain a healthy balance with my relationships/family?”
“This is an intentional decision to make, and the several instances you mentioned of it coming up say that either he has already made that decision and is prioritizing business over family and leading you along, or bad at boundary maintenance and saying no when clients want stuff done.”
“Maintaining boundaries can be hard, but once you enforce them consistently, clients will either get it and work around a December vacation or you will lose a client, which will be a monetary hit, but you can then gain new clients that will understand and respect the boundaries.”
“You are NTA.”
“He has made his choice to either prioritize work or not defend family time.”
“If you can afford it, you should definitely go in Dec with a friend or otherwise.”
“If I were to bail on my gf last minut,e I’d be like ‘I’m so sorry I absolutely can’t go anymore for X reasons, but I’d rather you go, I don’t want you punished for me messing up like this!’”-Tough_Tumbleweed_504
“NTA.”
“He needs to put his family commitments first.”- Spiritual-Handle2983
“NTA.”
“Go on holidays.”
“You married a workaholic, so work around it.”- 150steps
“NTA.”
“Get used to spending time away from him.”– ButtonRealistic8545
“NTA.”
“You and your husband aren’t fighting about the vacation.”
“It seems to me that you’re fighting about his responsibility to your family.”
“If hr won’t go, absolutely bring your friend along.”
“Are you taking your children with you?”
“If you can, leave them stateside so you get time to be with adults.”- Current_Equal7797
“NTA.”
“My husband pulled this sort of crap too, right up until I started taking the children (3f and 6f at the time) going to fun places.”
“We’d go skiing, winter tubing, and we’d go camping locally and to out-of-state National Parks and camp.”
“Nothing fancy, but a load of fun.”
“The kids would talk about all the fun we had when they got home.”
“He started coming with us after a year of this.”
“Go on your trip.”
“There is no guarantee that in June he isn’t going to pull the same thing again.”
“Maybe sitting in an empty house alone with his work will make a point.”
“So will telling him no one, absolutely NO ONE, while lying on their deathbed has ever said ‘Gee, I wish I’d spent more time at the office’.”- RavenRaving
“NTA if your best friend came in your husband’s place, but I’m thinking your husband might not see it that way.”
“Your husband needs to learn to say no to his clients.”
“if they are not willing to take a no for an answer, then they will go somewhere else.”
“If they really want to work with him, they will wait a couple of weeks.”
“It sounds like he has his priorities in life a little mixed up right now.”
“If he doesn’t set some time aside to make memories with his family, he will miss out on these most important years of your life.”
“The years when the kids were little were the best, and they go by rather quickly.”
“Need to enjoy while you can.”
“I hope you can convince him to tell his clients he will be out of town and unavailable for those two weeks.”
“Life is short and you need to spend it with those who are important to you.”-Positive_Comfort1216
Every now and again, we simply have no other choice but to cancel plans, no matter how much we were looking forward to them.
Seeing as the OP’s husband wanted to change his plans owing to his business and not his day job, however, it seems fair to say that he has a bit more say in this.
Effectively leaving the ball in his court.
He’d better decide quickly, however, as not many people would turn down an offer to head to Spain…