My motto on family trips in recent years has been “I’m the guy with a flexible job and no kids – the rest of you decide what works for you and I’ll just go along with that.”

But it seems the brother in this story might be…kind of the opposite.

AITA for excluding my brother from the family group trip planning?

I love my brother but he always needlessly complicates things for the family whenever we plan things.

We’ve all got that person in our lives, right?

So I am trying to plan an all-inclusive trip for 2027.

I spoke with my cousins and their partners separately and asked them if they would be down to do it and all of them said they would.

The only person who disagreed was my brother and his partner.

While everyone wants to do a resort, he wants to do a cruise.

A few of my cousins were okay with doing a cruise, but half of us didn’t want to do it and one of our cousins said she wouldn’t come if we did do it.

Lord grant me the status of being picky about a resort vs a cruise.

I was driving with my brother and his gf and he said we needed to have some more discussions about what we want to do and for when.

I told him I agree but the only thing I wanted to discuss was the planning and logistics.

My brother wanted to discuss if everyone is certain they want to do a resort and if they have other ideas.

He said we didn’t need to go to a resort and we could do other things like travel to another country and book hotels for the week or getting an Airbnb in our province or doing a cottage.

He also wanted to set up a joint bank account so it would make everyone obligated to put money into the fund to prove they were really going on the trip.

I told them that everything he said was unnecessary and that what he was suggesting is how our trips die.

Paying into some sort of fund beforehand makes sense, but opening a whole bank account?

While the trip is in the planning phase?

I don’t even understand what that would accomplish, since anyone who could deposit in said account could also just take it out again later.

I told him that we know what we want to do.

He said that a resort might be a bad idea because of how expensive it is and some people might not be able to go.

I knew when he said that he was referring to himself as my brother is out of work right now.

He said we should put it to a vote on everything we want to do.

I told my brother that this planning of the trip is not going to be a democracy, it is going to be a dictatorship and if he doesn’t like it then that is too bad.

So they’re trying to cut bro out.

Last night I was looking over some packages.

I spoke to one of my cousins about it and he told me that my brother was trying to sell him on a cruise.

I told this cousin that no way were we going on a cruise and my cousin agreed with me.

This ticked me off so I decided to make a separate family group chat excluding my brother to go over the planning.

Another cousin messaged me and said he could see why I did it but if we should feel bad for excluding my brother.

I told him no and that I would tell my brother a little later when all of the planning is finished but now idk.

Let’s see what the comments say:

Some were on board with the dictatorship.

Others called them out a bit.

You can’t please everybody, though.

I think all in all, he just kind of can’t be a part of the planning.

What he wants to do is thoroughly at odds with whatever everyone else wants, and he isn’t accepting that.

Which means even if he DOES manage to convince them, they’ll all be on a trip that only he’s happy with.

There’s no winning there.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.