When a close family member is going through a health crisis, most people will drop everything to help out where they can.

But there are limits, especially when you have your own responsibilities to manage.

How would you feel if you went out of your way to help your spouse and mother-in-law, only to be criticized when you had to leave?

In the following story, we meet someone in this exact situation who is now questioning if he’s in the wrong.

WIBTAH if I cancelled a trip to visit my wife and her family while my father in law is in the hospital?

Several weeks ago, my FIL had an unexpected health emergency.

As soon as we got the call, I dropped everything to travel with my wife to where her parents live (hundreds of miles away).

We got there very late at night, and things were hairy.

I stayed for about a week, driving them to and from the hospital 40 minutes away (neither my wife nor mother-in-law can drive), spending 9 hours a day with them at the hospital, etc.

I then came back home for a few days (needed clothes, medicine for my own chronic condition, etc.), and then visited them for another few days the following weekend.

Then, things got a little tense.

At that point, while things were still extremely serious, the immediate risk of death crisis had abated.

I went home again for a couple of weeks and visited again this past weekend (my wife stayed up there the whole time).

While I was home, my wife’s uncle (MIL’s brother) visited to help out from quite far away.

MIL is clearly bitter that I didn’t go up to visit again while her brother was there.

I went up to visit again this past weekend, and MIL was very cold, didn’t say hello, made several snide remarks, etc.

I tried to cut her some slack because she’s obviously going through a lot.

Then, at one point, she made a remark about how her brother was so much more helpful (as I’m driving her and my wife the 40 minutes each way to the hospital).

To her credit, my wife made her apologize to me.

MIL comes up with a sort of ******* apology about how I must have “misunderstood” what she said.

Here’s his current dilemma.

Anyway, I had planned to visit again in a week and a half or so, but am strongly considering texting my MIL and wife that I’m canceling and not coming up.

The in-laws live hundreds of miles away from my home, I work a demanding full-time job, and it costs like $400-500 round trip (plus 10 hours of travel time round trip).

It’s exhausting, and I don’t want to do all that just to put up with **** from my MIL.

My wife and FIL are obviously pretty blameless in this, but I’m considering saying forget it and just spending the weekend with my friends, relaxing, getting a massage, or something instead.

AITA?

Sure, she’s going through a lot, but the MIL is making everything worse.

Here are some great thoughts.

According to this person, the MIL was out of line and he’s already done too much.

This person brings up an excellent point.

They’re not wrong!

This person is shocked about the no driving situation.

Communication is key here.

It’s best to talk it over with the wife and get on the same page before making a final decision.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.