Family vacations always end up much more stressful than the plan originally sounded, but one parent abandoning the vacation completely is almost unheard of!

Key word: almost, because that’s exactly what happened to this Mom, whose husband backed out of their family trip to Hawaii the week before their flight.

While she was frustrated with her husband, she also shared that he had lost his Father around the same time last year, and went to Reddit to see if she was in the wrong for leaving her husband at home and going without him. See what you think!

AITA for leaving my husband for a Christmas trip to Hawaii with our kids

Every year my family spends our Christmas in Hawaii. We’ve done it every year since I can remember and it’s a fun family tradition for me.

After me and my husband had kids we had to reorganize our family Christmas plans because his parents wanted to see our kids for Christmas, so we decided that we would celebrate Christmas with his parents on New Years and go to Hawaii for actual Christmas.

Christmas in Hawaii sounds like a dream! But when her husband’s father tragically passed away the year before, they decided to stay with his family.

This is the system that worked for us until last year. Last year his dad passed away around this time of the year and it hit him and his mom hard. For obvious reasons we didn’t go to Hawaii.

But when the holiday season rolled back around, they planned early how they would manage to spend time with both sides of the family.

We’d do Thanksgiving with his mom, and we’d do Christmas in Hawaii since me and the kids missed out last year.

Just before the flight, her husband got cold feet.

About a week out, he said he was unsure. He said that he thinks it might be better that we stay. He said he really wanted to spend Christmas with his family and felt like his mom really needed it.

I was unhappy about this, we made a plan, we saw her last month, and we already had my dad buy our tickets and hotel, so it would be incredibly unfair to me, him and our kids for us to not go just for his mom, who we’d see a few days after we got back anyways.

This led to a huge argument between her and her husband, where she proposed he stay with his Mom and she take the kids to see her family in Hawaii.

 He decided to do this but he was very clearly upset that I wasn’t going to forgo my family’s Christmas tradition and seeing my family just for his mom. So now I’m in Hawaii watching and rangling the kids by myself. While he’s home alone.

He was clearly none-too-happy with this arrangement, and was extremely cold to her.

He has not texted me or responded to me much.

When I call him he only talks for about 3 minutes before wanting to get off the phone with me and talk to the girls.

This is a tough call, as grief can make people do some funny things, especially on anniversaries, and Reddit was understandably split on their opinions. This person argued that it would be very rude to her Father in Law to cancel the trip, as he had graciously spent a good deal of money on their tickets and lodging.

Some people sympathized with the husband, and suggested that his Father’s passing may be hurting him more than he’s letting on.

However, most people were somewhere in the middle, and this user agreed that while the husband was probably in a lot of pain over losing his Father.

Should the husband have verbalized his feelings before his Father-in-law had financed the trip?

Or should OP have been more understanding of her husband’s grieving of his Father?

This is a tough one.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parent’s 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.