Imagine having a family member who asked you to visit them at a specific time, but you had multiple very good reasons why this was not possible.

Now imagine explaining these reasons to the family member, but instead of understanding, the family member acts like you just don’t want to see them.

That’s the situation this pregnant woman finds herself in. It’s not like she doesn’t want to visit her sister, but she has a lot going on.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not going against my work contract to visit my sister and nephews

For context, I live in NJ and two and a half years ago my sister moved to Germany with her husband and son (they’ve since had two more boys).

Since then I’ve visited her three times in Germany and she has come back to the US to visit us and all other family/friends in the area twice.

Since she’s moved, I feel like she’s constantly pressured me to visit more and makes me feel guilty that I don’t visit more often.

Traveling to Germany is not only a huge endeavor travel wise but it’s expensive and requires me to take off work unpaid.

Traveling for Christmas this year sounds impossible.

I’m currently pregnant and expecting in June and my sister just reached out asking me to come visit in December on Christmas.

I’ll be coming back from maternity leave on December 1st and I work in retail so we have a blackout period from November to the end of January where we aren’t allowed to request off.

It’s in my work contract.

On top of that, it will be our first Christmas with our new baby and my husband’s family celebrates Christmas (my family does not) so we would want to be here to celebrate with his family.

Also the thought of planning an international trip right now is an immediate stressor since this is our first child and we have no idea what to expect.

She feels hurt that her sister doesn’t understand why she can’t visit her for Christmas.

I explained this to my sister and her response was, “so you aren’t even gonna try?” and she continued to push that I should visit and shes hurt that I wouldn’t even consider it.

This really hurt because I’ve continously made an effort to visit her since she’s moved and she has continued to make comments to me about not visiting more or not planning my major life events around when she visits which has only been twice in the last two and a half years.

I understand she has three kids but I do feel like since she’s the one that moved to another country, it’s more on her to visit then the other way around.

I also feel like this is a huge ask of a new mother and she’s completely dismissing the fact that I’m not able to take off during work during that time or that it’s during a holiday that my husband’s family celebrates.

Am I the jerk?

Between work and having a new baby, this is not a good time for her to travel.

Her sister should be the one to travel if spending the holidays together is that important to her.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

It’s ridiculous to ask her to travel with a baby.

Here’s the perspective of someone whose family lives far away.

As a mom herself, you’d think her sister would be more understanding.

The sister is selfish.

Her sister could visit her instead.

If her sister wants to see her, she should get on a plane.

Simple as that.

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.