Every family has its own rhythm, and not everyone shows up with the same effort year-round.

So when a group of daughters planned a special birthday trip for their mom, they never planned to be grilled by their brother about why his wife didn’t get an invite.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for not inviting my SIL on a mother/daughter cruise?

My mom has always wanted to go on a cruise, so my 2 sisters and I decided to plan one for her birthday as a surprise.

My sisters and I are very close and all live in the same general area.

But their brother soon has some strong thoughts on the cruise guest list.

My brother lives in another state and got very angry that we didn’t invite his wife on the cruise with us.

To the sisters, it’s very clear why their sister-in-law wasn’t invited.

His wife is great and very sweet, but she doesn’t have much of a relationship with my mom.

They never come for holidays, they always go see her family, and we honestly rarely see them unless we fly to them.

Still, his brother doesn’t seem willing to let it go.

He keeps saying this isn’t how families act and we should have included her.

We stand by the fact this is a mother/daughter trip, and it’s perfectly fine she wasn’t invited.

AITA?

Looks like this trip exposed just how unequal efforts have been in this family.

What did Reddit think?

If this sister-in-law wanted to be more included, she could start by making a genuine effort to visit the rest of the year.

It’s funny how only now is this brother speaking up.

It’s hard to ignore the hypocrisy here.

It just doesn’t make sense to include someone you’re not even close with on a family vacation.

At the end of the day, a mother-daughter trip shouldn’t require a committee vote.

If they really wanted an invite, they should probably show up more than once a year.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.