Imagine having a 1-year-old and being invited to a wedding that involves a lot of travel. Would you RSVP yes or no?

In this story, one couple is in this situation, and they RSVP no, but the mother-in-law won’t take no for an answer and insists they attend the wedding.

Now, the MIL is mad at them for not being grateful for the trip they didn’t even want to go on.

They’re wondering if they should feel grateful even though they don’t.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not being grateful for a free trip

My wife and I need some outside opinion about a trip we just got back from, as opinions from other friends/family had been too biased.

My brother-in-law got engaged, and invited me, my wife, and our 1 year old son to attend. The wedding was at the other end of the country.

When initially invited, we declined, stating that the trip would be too much for a 1 year old.

BIL understood, but my mother-in-law insisted that we go.

There were multiple reasons they didn’t think it would be a good idea to go.

We explained that the flight is one thing, but the wedding week involved a lot of details that would make it hard on a baby. Here are some of the main ones:

• moving hotels 3 separate times during the week
• having to take a ferry over to the island that the wedding took place
• the ‘hotel’ on the island was actually a small cabin that we had to share with 6 people (7 if you include the baby), two of which we’ve never met before

The MIL really isn’t taking no for an answer!

MIL insisted that between her, my wife and I, and my wife’s Aunt, we would be able to deal with the 1 year old for the week.

My wife and I stood firm that we thought it would be too much on us and the baby and we declined.

A little while later, we find out that MIL had paid for all of our flights, hotels etc and booked everything for us.

While that’s of course extremely generous of her, we were still quite nervous leading up to the trip, which we were assured would be fine between the four of us.

The trip did not go well.

Well the wedding happened and it was a disaster.

The baby did not handle the trip well whatsoever. The jet lag, the moving of hotels, the long trips in the car to go from airport to hotels to ferry etc.

Worst of all, the promise of sharing the child responsibility went out the window the moment we got there. MIL watched him for probably an hour total for the entire week. My wife’s aunt did not watch him at all.

Now the MIL is mad at them for not being grateful.

When we finally got home, my wife expressed that she had a really tough time on the trip, and MIL took massive offence to this.

It all boiled over when my wife told her that we didn’t think we should have gone in the first place.

MIL is now not speaking to us, as she thinks we should have been more grateful for the trip.

So, are we TA for not appreciating the free trip?

The wedding itself went well, but traveling with a baby was not easy.

Some more info:

-wife and I did everything we could to make sure the wedding itself went well and BIL was happy. As far as we know, he didn’t even know we were struggling with the baby and the wedding went great

-while we know people travel with babies all the time, this trip was especially difficult because we had an itinerary for the majority of the week that completely interrupted his naps, sleep schedule, feedings etc.

-a lot of the details weren’t told to us beforehand, such as having to share a cabin with 2 other people we don’t know. The baby ended up crying all night for two nights in a row in this very small cabin, which I’m sure wasn’t fun for this other couple

No, they should not feel bad about not being grateful for a free trip they didn’t want to go on.

They turned down the trip because they knew it would be a bad idea, and they were right. It’s too bad the MIL didn’t respect them enough to listen to their decision.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

They never should’ve gone to the wedding.

Another person thinks there was no way to win in this situation.

This person doesn’t think this couple should feel bad.

Here’s what another person would’ve done.

Just because you’re offered a free trip doesn’t mean you have to take it.

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.