Parenting can be hard. It gets harder when you’re not on the same page as your partner!

This mother shares how she couldn’t meet her partner in the middle regarding their son’s birthday.

Check out how things crippled between them.

AITAH for wanting my son’s first birthday to be abroad?

I’m looking for some outside perspective because my husband and I had a pretty big argument about our son’s first birthday.

For context, we recently had our first baby and I’m currently on maternity leave.

This is where it gets tricky…

My parents and siblings are planning to move permanently to another country soon. Once they go, they won’t be a a drivable distance away anymore, they’ll be in another country.

I also currently don’t live with my husband as we were living with my in-laws and for reasons I decided I didn’t want to anymore and moved out. We will be moving into our own house in a month.

I wanted to spend some extended time with my parents with my son while I’m still on maternity leave, around 2–3 months.

Realistically, once I go back to work and life gets busy with nursery, school, and finances, we probably won’t be able to just pack up and spend months abroad like that again.

UH OH…

The issue is that our son’s first birthday falls around the middle of my trip.

My husband feels very strongly that he doesn’t want to miss it. Because of work and limited annual leave, he may not be able to travel to join us if I’m there at that time.

He says the first birthday is an important milestone and he wants us to experience it together.

From his perspective, asking me to shorten the trip to 1–2 months instead of 3 is a reasonable compromise.

From my side, the birthday has another layer to the situation. My husband’s family lives in the city we live and we’ll likely live near them long-term, so they will naturally be there for most of our son’s milestones and birthdays.

That’s INSANE!

My parents won’t be.

That’s why I wanted at least one birthday where my family could be part of it before they move abroad.

During the argument my husband said the priority should be our immediate family: me, him, and our son.

I’m happy to agree with him on that so I suggested maybe we skip a big party altogether and just celebrate quietly as the three of us so nobody feels left out and that I’d come back to him if that’s what he wants to do.

Not to spite his family, but because it will just make me feel the absence of my family more.

But then he said both sides of the family would want to be there. I pointed out that it felt like the reasoning kept changing, either it’s about just us three, or extended family matters too.

She’s adamant about the birthday…

He also said our son deserves to celebrate with the family who is here, including grandparents who aren’t getting younger.

I understand and agree with that point, but because we’ll likely stay near his family long-term, our son will have many birthdays with them. My parents may never get that chance again.

So now it feels like we’re stuck where someone will end up hurt either way.

My husband feels like he’s already missed a lot of time with our son and doesn’t want to miss another important milestone.

She’s confused about the whole thing now…

I feel like I’m about to lose my entire support system to another country and want them to have meaningful moments with my child before that happens.

So AITAH?

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YIKES! That’s a weird situation!

Shouldn’t she be prioritizing her husband here?

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

This user knows the husband shouldn’t be tolerating this!

This user thinks this woman is being unreasonable here!

This user knows this woman is already being unreasonable towards her husband!

This user blames this woman for this situation!

That’s right! This user thinks this woman is being selfish.

Somebody needs to set their priorities straight!

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a woman who is ready to file for divorce after she found out her husband drained their savings to buy an old car.