Family rituals can bring everyone together, but they also highlight existing tensions.

In this story, one mistimed Friday movie night kickoff turned into a surprising standoff between two tired parents.

Read on for the full story!

AITA for starting the movie before my wife was ready?

Every Friday evening my family has movie night.

We finish dinner and typically start the movie at 7PM.

The night started off pretty much as planned.

Last night it was my turn to pick the movie, so I sat down with my kids (4m and 6m) at ~6:50PM to decide what I wanted to pick.

My kid sat patiently while I scrolled through the options, and at around 7PM I picked Madagascar.

But that’s when things started to go off the rails.

Right after I picked the movie, my wife decided to vacuum the house and asked us to wait for her.

We waited patiently for 20 minutes for her to finish (20 minutes is a LONG time for 2 little kids to wait), and I was pretty annoyed at my wife by the time she finished.

Anxious to start the movie, he hit play, but that only made things worse.

I didn’t say anything, but after she put up the vacuum and walked into the living room, I started the movie — before she sat down on the couch — which made her angry.

She yelled at me for starting the movie without her and stormed off to our bedroom and stayed there the rest of the night.

I made dinner last night, so she had a full hour prior to dinnertime to vacuum, if it was that important.

He didn’t mean to hurt her feelings by doing this and he genuinely thought she was ready.

Also, even though I was annoyed with her, I did not intentionally start the movie before I knew she was ready — I thought that it was okay since she was done with the vacuum and was walking towards the couch.

AITA?

It’s a sad day when even Madagascar couldn’t lighten the mood.

What did Reddit think?

While there may be more to the story, this still wasn’t the proper way for the wife to handle things.

This situation didn’t seem like one that was worth blowing up over.

Small frustrations tend to grow and grow until they’re explosive.

He thought he was keeping the evening on schedule, but her reaction told a different story.

Sometimes the little things uncover what’s really going wrong.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.