Holiday travel can be stressful.
As years go by, families may live farther apart.
And as couples start having kids, travel can be a hassle.
Often, there's no perfect solution.
But there have to be ways to compromise.
Right?
Redditor HopeSuspicious2406 found herself in a dilemma regarding this year's Thanksgiving family travel plans, so she turned to the "Am I The A**Hole" (AITAH) subreddit for feedback.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending relationships—both things that are banned on AITA. However, there are no required voting acronyms—only suggested ones—and no official final judgment declared.
She asked:
"AITAH for not traveling alone with my young kids?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"My husband and I have had the same fight for 4 years about Thanksgiving travel, and I’m honestly at my breaking point with it."
"He is a hunter and always has been."
"One of his longtime traditions is going back to the Midwest to hunt with his dad and brothers the week of Thanksgiving."
"He’s never missed a season, and he also usually takes at least one additional hunting trip during the fall."
"We live in another state, about a 3-hour flight from his hometown."
"Before we had kids, this was easy enough."
"He would fly out the week before Thanksgiving to hunt, and then I would fly out separately and meet him there for Thanksgiving weekend."
"We now have two kids, 3.5 years old and 14 months old, and obviously traveling looks very different."
"He still wants to go hunting the week before Thanksgiving, but he also wants all four of us to spend Thanksgiving with his family."
"His solution is that I should just get on a plane by myself with both kids and meet him there."
"I have told him repeatedly that I am not comfortable flying alone with both kids at these ages."
"I know plenty of moms do it, and good for them, but I personally do not want to wrangle a toddler and a 14-month-old through the airport, security, boarding, a three-hour flight, luggage, car seats, etc., by myself."
"I’ve been very clear that once they’re older, I’m sure I’ll feel differently."
"He thinks this is ridiculous and calls it a weak 'excuse.'”
"This is the part that makes me absolutely furious: he acts like I am single-handedly preventing him from having Thanksgiving with his entire family and that he has no other choice."
"But he does have choices."
"1-He can go hunting, stay through Thanksgiving with his family, and I can stay home with our kids. That means I’m alone parenting two little kids for roughly 10 days, which I don’t love, but it is an option.
"2- He can go hunting with his dad and brothers, then fly home and spend Thanksgiving here with our kids and me."
"3-He can skip the hunting trip that year, fly out with the kids and me, and we can all spend Thanksgiving with his extended family together."
"What he apparently considers the only acceptable option is..."
"4- He gets to go hunting, stays there through Thanksgiving, and I fly across the country alone with two very young children to make sure he still gets both things he wants."
"And when I won’t do option #4, he says it is '100% on me' that he doesn’t get to have Thanksgiving with his whole family."
"That is what I can’t get past."
"I’m not telling him he can’t hunt."
"I’m not telling him he can’t see his family."
"I’m not even saying we can never travel for Thanksgiving."
"I’m saying that during this relatively short phase of our lives where our kids are very young, I am not willing to fly alone with both of them so that he doesn’t have to compromise anything about his own plans."
"We have this exact same argument every year."
"My stance has not changed."
"If anything, it makes me angrier every year because he already knows exactly how I feel, yet he brings it up again, pushes the same ‘solution,' and then tries to make me feel like I’m the a**hole for not wanting to get on a plane alone with our kids."
"Because from my perspective, I’m not preventing him from having everything he wants."
"He just doesn’t like that having everything he wants requires me to take on all of the inconvenience and stress, and that I refuse to do that."
"He’s done a great job of making me feel like I’m to blame for this all and that I’m wrong for standing my ground."
The OP was left to wonder:
"Am I the a**hole?"
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - More Information Needed
Redditors decided the OP was NOT the A**hole here.
"He can take the two kids and fly with them solo if he thinks you’re being ridiculous."
"He can put his money where his mouth is and give you some free time at home to relax." ~ sikonat
"This was my plan as well."
"He takes both kids alone to his parents, drops them with grandma for the hunting week."
"Mom gets a week alone (I’m thinking spa day, girls trip, etc)."
"Then mom flies out and meets them for Thanksgiving."
"The issue is he has never dealt with the kids alone."
"OP needs to go on a trip herself before Thanksgiving, maybe just one overnight, so he really starts to understand the workload here." ~ Ladybugz93
"He can fly out for hunting, then he flies back to get wife and kids, and they all fly together to spend Thanksgiving with the family." ~ TopRamenisha
"NTA at all."
"Highkey think he should be the one flying home after hunting to pick you guys up if he wants it that bad."
"Why is he acting like a whole grown man can't take a round trip for his own family?" ~ VelvetMoon_14
"I have done this."
"I had a business meeting in Boston (where my family lives) a few days before Thanksgiving."
"My wife and kids live in the Bay Area."
"Yes, it would have been more convenient and less expensive for her to fly with 2 young kids on her own."
"But I flew back, got the wife and kids, and then flew back to Boston, to spend Thanksgiving with my family."
"It sucked."
"I was exhausted."
"But I did it, because making your wife travel with 2 young kids alone is a di*k move. Period." ~ Geetzromo
"NTA - hubs needs to wake up and take on his adult responsibilities, which includes being able to change his holiday tradition to accommodate his new family (meaning, not the nuclear family that he had decades ago when he was a child) and to make new traditions."
"It's a very serious issue."
"Somewhere in his mind he's divorced his responsibilities from his history and from his preferences."
"He's the dad."
"He has responsibilities to you and the kids."
"He's the one that has to flex if he insists that Thanksgiving is going to be with his family."
"The holidays are always a point of compromise between family and in-laws, and it's time for him to start giving 50%."
"He plans to give nothing and to have you bear the responsibilities that should be his." ~ CentaurSeige
"I'm surprised I had to scroll this far down to find this comment."
"Her husband acts like he refuses to grow up and like he's surprised that having children would require some change in his life and not just his wife's life."
"But no, he needs to go hunting with his daddy because he's always done it, even though he moved 3 hours away and now has 2 children."
"Actions have consequences, mate." ~ Dry-Comfortable2452
"No way I would ever take a 3.5-year-old and 15-month-old on a flight alone at Thanksgiving."
"He is delusional." ~ ComradeGlizzy
"Has he at any point tried caring for the 2 kids independently while travelling?"
"Maybe he needs to try it."
"A local train or bus ride."
"Give him the kids and a suitcase and send him off for a few hours." ~ CatCharacter848
"Yeah, you should take your own weekend away next month and see how he goes AT HOME alone with the kids, let alone travelling. NTA." ~ Necessary_cat735
OP returned with a lot to say...
"UPDATE for some added context."
"A few people have asked what Thanksgiving has looked like since we had kids, so here’s the breakdown..."
"2022: I was 8 months pregnant. I stayed home, and he went hunting/visited his family."
"2023: We had an 11-month-old baby. I stayed home, and he went."
"2024: We actually had tickets to go, and I planned to fly out with my S[ister]-I[n]-L[aw] and our son."
"Unfortunately, my son came down with a bad case of hand, foot, and mouth disease, so we had to cancel."
"My husband still went hunting and then came home afterward."
"2025: We had a 6-month-old and a toddler. He went hunting and then flew home to spend Thanksgiving with us here."
"My husband frequently brings up these last four years as examples of me 'getting my way' and uses them as a reason that I should finally just bite the bullet this year and accommodate his schedule."
"That framing is part of what bothers me."
"Being 8 months pregnant, having an 11-month-old, having a child, and then having a 6-month-old plus a toddler doesn’t exactly feel like four consecutive years of me getting my preferred Thanksgiving plans."
"Also, to address a couple suggestions..."
“Why don’t you just fly out with him before the hunting trip?”
"I can’t take that much time off work."
"And even if I could, I’m not on good terms with his mother."
"Because of our history and what I’ve experienced in that relationship, spending a week there essentially solo with his mom and my two young children while my husband is off hunting is not something I’m willing to do."
“Why doesn’t he fly home and then fly back with you and the kids?”
"I’m actually not opposed to that at all."
"It would solve the issue of me flying alone with the boys."
"The downside is that it adds another roughly $800–$1,000 in airfare to the trip, which is a significant amount of money for us to spend just to make this particular Thanksgiving arrangement work."
"I think the larger issue for me is that every year the conversation starts from the assumption that his hunting trip is the immovable part of the equation, and everything else — my work schedule, traveling alone with two little kids, the cost, Thanksgiving itself — is supposed to bend around it."
"And when I’m not willing to do that, the narrative becomes that I 'got my way again.'”
"That’s the part I’m struggling with."
"Really appreciate everyone’s comments - I do feel validated regarding the not flying alone piece."
"One more update because this fight took an even stranger turn..."
" I found out tonight that my husband has a saved note on his phone documenting every Thanksgiving since we’ve been together, including whether I went and the reason I did or didn’t go each year."
"When I asked him why he keeps a record of this, he said it’s because during past arguments we’ve remembered or mixed up some of the reasons differently, so he wants to have an accurate record."
"I then asked why it even matters what happened in prior years when we’re trying to figure out what works for our family this year."
"His response was, 'Oh, wouldn’t you just love to wipe the slate clean?'”
"It made me realize that he genuinely seems to view these past Thanksgivings as some kind of running scorecard where I’ve 'won' or gotten my way and now owe him something in return."
"I’m not asking him to erase history, but all the reasons above do not feel like victories I accumulated against my husband."
"I’m aware this is wildly unhealthy and needs therapy immediately."
Reddit is with you, OP.
And is concerned for you.
This is outrageously unhealthy behavior.
Therapy sounds like a good start.
His priority is certainly NOT his own family.
Stay strong and good luck.
