Working remotely does not always mean a super flexible schedule.

In today’s story, one woman who works remotely is annoyed that her husband and father-in-law want her to leave work in the middle of the day.

Let’s see how the story unfolds…

AITA for telling my husband no to getting lunch in the middle of the work day with my husband’s brother & in laws before he leaves for his final year of college?

In the last few hours, I (F 28) found out that my husband (M 30) made tentative lunch plans with his family and brother without asking me about my schedule for next Thursday.

I told my husband to go without me if that’s the day everyone is set on.

I’m not mad about him going, just more of his expectation that I would drop everything to join the lunch during work.

And he’s annoyed that I’ve said no, but my work takes priority and if this was planned for after work, then it would be more than doable.

She thought there was a different plan.

We are leaving for a wedding this weekend and returning home on Sunday.

The plan (I thought) was to stop by my in laws house on the drive back and say goodbye to my husband’s brother before he leaves for his senior year of college a few days later on Thursday afternoon.

Even though she has to work, her FIL is trying to convince them to meet up.

We both work mostly remote jobs, and I have general working hours from 9-5ish or 10-6ish.

The only time I am able to comfortably leave my desk is to go to my workout class for 1-1.5 hours right before the start of my day.

My FIL texted my husband and said my BIL was depressed that he couldn’t see my husband before leaving, even though we were going to stop by to say goodbye on Sunday.

My FIL told him that he realizes my husband is busy, but to try to accommodate.

She feels like her FIL doesn’t respect her work schedule.

This upset me for a couple of reasons:

I got the impression that my FIL doesn’t care about my job schedule, and he doesn’t feel like it’s hard to accommodate such a request when in reality, meetings are generally scheduled more than a week out.

And even if it’s not a meeting heavy day or week, there is still work to do (especially in my field of public health where it’s very research and writing focused).

It seems like he only prioritized my husband’s schedule and I would just tag along/agree with everything.

As an introvert, she avoids spending too much time with friends and family.

We see my husband’s family at least 1-2 times a month, and they live 30 minutes from us.

Anything more than that I feel like I would get anxious, as I’m naturally more of an introvert and need time at home to reset my social battery, whether it’s family or friends.

So for them to act like it’s not good enough for us to swing by the day after a wedding to come say goodbye on Sunday instead of Thursday rubs me the wrong way.

She and her husband are now upset with each other about the lunch plans.

I’m pretty upset about the lack of communication from my husband’s side.

He went ahead and tentatively said let’s meet for lunch next Thursday right before his brother drives off to college, then caught me up with the plans.

Any other time after work would be been fine.

And now he’s annoyed at me because I can’t step out for lunch with his family during the work day on specifically a Thursday, which round trip would be at least 3-4 hours.

It hurts me a lot because I always make sure to communicate with him before proposing or committing to plans with anyone.

AITA?

It seems reasonable to turn down leaving work for a 3-4 hour lunch on fairly short notice.

Let’s see how Reddit responded…

This reader thinks her husband should just go without her.

Another reader points out that the husband wants his wife to go.

Here’s another vote for the husband going to lunch.

This person is on her side.

Another person suggests letting the husband explain to his family why she can’t go.

It’s too bad her family doesn’t seem to respect her work schedule and her time.

But this doesn’t have to be a big deal.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.