Family vacations are supposed to be an opportunity to relax, make memories and spend quality time together. They’re considerably less relaxing when someone else starts treating your itinerary like an open invitation for the entire extended family.

One woman learned that lesson the expensive way last Christmas.

She and her partner had planned their first holiday trip with their young daughter, complete with flights, accommodations and some much-needed time together as a family of three.

But her mother had other ideas.

The woman’s teenage brother had recently gone through a difficult breakup, and Mom convinced her to bring him along to cheer him up.

Wanting to help, she agreed.

Unfortunately, the trip quickly became more expensive than anticipated, with extra accommodations, food, clothing and other purchases coming out of her family’s vacation budget.

This year, she and her partner decided things would be different. They wanted a private trip focused entirely on their daughter.

Then Mom casually announced that her brother was planning to come again.

And this time, he apparently had a romantic reunion to squeeze into their vacation schedule.

AITA for not wanting my brother to come on my family vacation AGAIN?

my brother (M) & his ex gf had an ugly messy breakup last year. also, my mother tends to try to be very controlling over a lot of aspects of my life.

my other half works a wonderful job that pays for our travel and rental car over christmas for a christmas party/vacation.

last year was our first year going (our first trip as a little family of 3 w my little 1 year old) and my mom managed to get me to bring my brother (M) because he was “heartbroken.”

Sigh.

i let him come, changed all my arrangements around, added an extra bed to my hotel room, added an extra room to our cabin after the hotel, and paid for all his food/snacks/drinks and anything he asked for.

he’d constantly ask for $60+ pants/shirts and w/not. which i didn’t mind at the time but it did run our money down fast and we hadn’t even spent that much on our daughter.

all my mom had to pay for was the flight (which i also helped cover $300 of). she sent him money but he spent it all on clothes and gifts for himself or his other siblings. i even paid $130 just to extend his flight with us for an extra day.

Oh, come on.

anyways, fast forward to us coming home, life went on as normal and he acted like he didn’t even know me afterwards lol. not an issue, whatever.

my other half and i get to a conversation where we discuss that this year, we want our trip to be just us and we want to focus solely on our daughter and let her have an awesome trip and be comfortable with money. have a private trip where we don’t have to share a room and cabin with my teenage brother.

months pass by and my brother now has a long distance gf. then, my mother randomly says to me “omg so (M) wants to come with you again this year and him and his gf are planning on meeting when he’s there! omg you better take cute videos and pictures of them” without even letting me get my opinion in.

Wowww.

not asking a yes or no from me, nothing. just shoving him into MY personal vacation plans and not thinking about whether im okay with it or not.

we are going to disneyland this year and i want my daughter to have the best time of her life. how will i watch her and enjoy my vacation when im worrying about my teenage brother and his gf? when im basically meant to just chaperone them and it’s just f my family?

am i the a*****e for wanting this to be a family trip only for us? i already let him come on our first one and this just doesn’t seem fair to me at all. and now she’s trying to invite one of my sisters.

It’s not a family affair!

i said ok since they’re adults one of them can watch him right? and she says “no you have to be the one.” and she went and told my brother to ask his gf what the plans are and whether they’ll follow us or we’ll follow them.

it’s MY vacation and i shouldn’t have to shift things just for him. she could schedule a vacation for him any other time and instead she chooses the exact dates of MY vacation to make it convenient for her so i could babysit?

i love my brother but this is my vacation and i want to enjoy it.

The woman already went above and beyond for her brother last year. She rearranged accommodations, covered meals and purchases, helped pay for his flight and even spent extra money extending his trip. That was a generous gesture, not a commitment to sponsor his vacations indefinitely.

Her mother seems to have mistaken that one-time favor for an ongoing arrangement.

What’s especially frustrating is that nobody actually asked whether the couple wanted another guest. Instead, Mom began discussing her son’s plans as though his invitation had already been confirmed, despite the vacation being organized around her daughter, partner and young child.

The fact that the brother now wants to meet his long-distance girlfriend makes the situation even more unreasonable. That’s a separate trip with a separate purpose, and there’s no obvious reason his sister should be responsible for supervising it.

Even if other relatives offer to pay his expenses, the couple would still be sacrificing privacy, flexibility and the experience they specifically wanted for their daughter.

The woman doesn’t need to justify her decision by explaining every inconvenience from last year. A simple, firm statement that this year’s trip is only for their household should be enough.

Her mother is welcome to arrange a separate vacation for her son. She just doesn’t get to volunteer someone else’s time, money and accommodations to make it happen.

This person says NTA, but has some advice.

This person has some harsh yet true criticism.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about two kids trying to earn money by mowing grass, and decide to solve their gas issue by stealing some of dad’s.

And this person says to practice one very small two-letter word…

Mom already turned one family vacation into an all-expenses-paid brotherly getaway, and now she’s apparently trying to add a dating service to the itinerary.