Family vacations are supposed to be relaxing—but when old grudges pack their bags too, chaos follows.

She thought a simple question deserved honesty. MIL thought her dismissal was perfectly reasonable.

Now, a year later, everyone’s unpacking the tension they left behind.

AITA for refusing to apologize to my MIL?

About a year ago, my husband (37M), daughter, and I (37F) were on a vacation with my MIL (60s F).

A couple days before we were supposed to leave to go home, my husband and his mom were talking while I was trying to pack some things up.

They started talking about how I always overpack for vacations, which I’ve told both of them before is a sore spot for me for several reasons.

Uh oh.

I stopped what I was doing, and told my husband that he could pack up our stuff by himself, and do the packing for future trips.

That started a bit of a riff between us, which led to me stating several times that I was overly exhausted of working every second of every day and night to get everything done.

…All while still taking care of our (disabled) daughter, while all he did was go to work 40 hours a week.

Sounds exhausting.

My MIL had made 1 or 2 minor comments during the back-and-forth between my husband and I, so I ended up asking her, “Did your ex-husband do anything other than just going to work and coming home to relax when your kids were growing up?”

She said no, not really, she did it all herself. I skeptically asked “Really? He didn’t do budgeting, car repairs, planning of anything, didn’t fix anything around the house, didn’t pick up after himself, not a single chore, ever?”

And she answered “No, he was working 40 hours a week and I always thought to myself, well then why shouldn’t I or any SAHM do the same and also work 40 hours a week?”

Wow.

I saw red, because I had been repeatedly saying very clearly that I was doing much more than 40 hours a week of work, and it felt like she was just completely dismissing my side of things and trying to tell me that my husband was perfectly within his right to do nothing outside of his job.

I took a deep breath, and quietly said I needed to take some time by myself to calm down, and left the room.

I admit that I did avoid any conversations with her other than small talk for the next couple days before we left, because I was very hurt.

No kidding.

So now, a year later, my husband had been talking to her and told me that she is insisting that I owe her an apology for getting mad at her for her response to the question that I asked her.

I think I owe her an apology for bringing her into the conversation in the first place, that was wrong of me, absolutely

. But I got angry at her answer because it was so extremely dismissive of everything I was saying, and I don’t think I should have to apologize for my emotions, especially when I didn’t react other than saying I needed time alone.

Absolutely.

In fact, I feel like she owes me an apology for being so dismissive, however I would never insist on that apology, since I think that trying to force an apology is worthless, when they’re not actually sorry.

I said as much to my husband, and he said something along the lines of, “Well you two can talk that out, she made it clear she expected an apology for that.”

So AITA? Do I owe her an apology for getting mad at her answer to a question that I asked her?

She stands by needing space and feeling dismissed, while MIL expects an apology.

Reddit had plenty to say about who’s really owed a “sorry” here.

This person says this is not even worth the apology.

This person says don’t apologize, just explain.

And this person says everyone is kind of in the wrong here.

A question, a dismissal, and a year later, the family vacation drama is still in the luggage.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.