When two parents with clashing social calendars collide, it’s bound to spark some drama.

This dad thought he found the perfect solution to a scheduling conflict with his wife by arranging childcare for their toddler.

But when she wasn’t thrilled, he wondered if he was in the wrong—or if this was a battle over fairness and priorities.

Let’s read all the details.

AITA for not staying home for the night with my daughter while my wife goes out with friends?

Background: My wife rarely goes out with friends (~6 times/year) and has never been very social and prefers spending time with me.

I am more social, but that has declined as we have focused on our family (we have a 2 year old daughter), and I spend time with the same 3 friends once/week for games night (sometimes in person, sometimes online).

I have another 3 friends that I see only once every 2 months, also for games night.

If I go out my wife will tend to our daughter (I often still help with dinner/bed time, but sometimes leave earlier than this).

Fun friend AND A helpful dad. What a guy.

Our daughter’s bed time is 7:30pm, and she often sleeps through the night without fuss (wakes up fussing maybe 5% of the time).

I always offer for my wife sleep in the next day, or something similar in exchange for me going out so that It’s not a one-sided thing.

This rarely happens, but they have conflicting plans.

Scenario: My wife made plans to spend an evening this weekend out with friends, she would be out from 6pm until late.

After she made those plans, I was invited to my friends birthday thing with my “second” friend group, if I went I would be gone from 5pm until late.

Last time I saw them was exactly one month ago.

He offered a suggestion so they could both go out.

I brought this plan up with my wife as I wanted to make arrangements for a family member to take our daughter for the evening.

She was irritated by this, and argued that I should stay home.

I have since spoken with a family member who is happy to take our daughter at 5pm and have her stay the night and I have communicated this to my wife.

I made it clear that this will not affect her plans at all, I will be responsible for dropoff and pickup of our daughter, and will not ask anything of my wife because I understand that it is rare for her to have a night out like this and so I don’t want her to change her plans at all.

She still thinks that I should stay home.

They both make good points.

Her arguments: 1. She says that since she always covers for me that I should also cover for her.

2. She doesn’t want to ask this family member to have our daughter for the night because she thinks we ask too much of them

My arguments: 1. I am covering for her as she does not have to change her plans and doesn’t have to do anything for our daughter.

2. This family member loves watching our daughter, and my wife is often quick to agree to leave our daughter there for sleepovers plenty of other evenings out of convenience (eg: we will be there for dinner and put our daughter to sleep there so we can visit longer, then we will leave her there for the night) so I don’t see why this time its too much to ask.

Let’s just lay it all out on the table.

I feel like she wants me to stay home as a form of punishment for going out more frequently than she would prefer.

“Punishment” feels too strong of a word, I don’t think there is any major resentment behind this or anything, I just don’t know how else to describe the feeling.

So, AITA here for making plans to go out the same night my wife also already had plans to go out, even though I am covering all arrangements for our daughter for the evening?

Despite his meticulous planning, this situation boils down to more than logistics.

For his wife, it seems less about the arrangements and more about feeling like her rare night out deserved priority.

And in the great debate of “fairness,” both sides are feeling a little shortchanged.

Reddit is kind of torn on this one.

This person votes AH.

But this person asks why do both of you have to suffer?

And this person says kudos to him for arranging the plans and there’s no reason both can’t go out the same night.

When two plans collide, one parent’s “perfect solution” might look like a selfish reroute to the other.

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.