A husband says a long holiday drive turned into an unexpected argument after he decided his wife’s anxiety was making the road more dangerous, not safer.

What started as a routine trip to visit in-laws ended with hurt feelings, a backseat relocation, and a disagreement that still hasn’t blown over.

Read on for the story.

AITA For making my wife ride in the backseat because she couldn’t stop distracting me

This happened over the holidays and my wife is still upset with me over it.

Our family went to visit my in-laws for New Year’s. It’s about a 3-4 hour drive. Mostly highway but it takes us through two metro areas with pretty significant traffic.

My wife (37F) gets nervous about driving in traffic so I always drive when we visit her family. She also tends to get car sick on longer drives and needs to sit in the front seat to help ease it. She has tried taking Dramamine in the past but she’s had an allergic reaction to it so she doesn’t take it anymore.

Not fun.

I love my wife with all my heart, but she is not good sitting shotgun. She makes huge reactions to any change in traffic. Grabbing the handle, putting her hand on the dash, gasping, telling me to watch out, etc. It’s not like I’m an aggressive or risky driver. I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket or been in an accident.

But if there’s a car a half mile ahead of us that puts on their brakes, she freaks out and acts like we’re all about to die. It’s incredibly distracting.

I’ve talked to her multiple times about how her reactions actually makes it more difficult for me to concentrate on driving but she says she can’t control herself because she’s nervous in traffic.

What a pickle.

On the way to her family’s place she sat up front with me and traffic was pretty bad. Lots of slowdowns due to weather conditions and in general just kind of slow going.

But I’ve been driving in cold weather my whole life and know how to control my speed and give lots of extra space to any surrounding cars. I understand that you can’t control anyone else on the road and that accidents happen, but I do everything in my control to keep my car and the people inside safe.

The entire drive my wife was on edge making all the reactions I mentioned. It’s very distracting to have someone next to you doing that sort of thing while driving. I mentioned this to my wife numerous times on the drive and she always deflected blame at me for the way I was driving.

That’s quite distracting.

When we were getting ready to head home, I told my wife she needs to sit in the back and our 14-year-old son will sit up front with me. I told her it’s either that or she drives us home.

She got upset with me and started giving excuses about her car sickness. I told her to take some Nyquil or something else to help her sleep but she refused and told me I’m being a jerk.

I told her that she can drive then and she refused that too.

Well, you’re running out of options here.

Eventually, she reluctantly got in the backseat with our 11-year-old daughter. The ride home was much easier traffic-wise and my wife sat pretty much silent in the backseat the entire time, pouting.

When we got home she told me that she felt ill the entire drive but didn’t say anything because she “didn’t want to make a big deal out of anything.”

She told me I humiliated her by making her sit in the back and that I should be more considerate of her feelings.

Now, with emotions still running high, he’s left wondering whether prioritizing his focus behind the wheel justified embarrassing his wife and ignoring her physical discomfort…or whether there was a better way to handle a tense situation without turning it into a power struggle.

Reddit, was this about safety, or did he cross a line?

This person says this isn’t just a matter of being NTA, it’s a safety hazard.

This person says options were given…NTA.

And this person couldn’t agree more.

It might’ve made the drive quieter…but at the cost of making his wife feel sidelined, literally and emotionally.

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.