Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 29, 2025
It starts with a sentence that doesn’t sound dramatic at all: “It’s best you stay home and rest.” On paper, that reads like care. In context, it feels pre-decided.
This is a story about illness, yes. About logistics and infusion appointments and how far an hour and a half can actually feel when your body isn’t cooperating. It’s also about birthdays and Thanksgiving, about who books first and who is consulted later.
The hang-up gets the headline. But the more telling detail is the resort already reserved. The money already spent. The assumption that attendance would sort itself out around that decision.
Sometimes conflict isn’t loud. Sometimes it’s confirmed before you even enter the room.
The tension rests less on a sarcastic goodbye and more on accumulated imbalance.
After relocating at the in-laws’ request, this couple has been the one driving, adjusting, accommodating. Now, with the wife navigating a serious health condition that dictates her schedule and stamina, a weeklong birthday-and-Thanksgiving trip is announced already booked. The proposed solution to the obvious conflict is simple: she should stay home and rest.
Her husband declines immediately. He does not hesitate or negotiate her absence. That refusal reframes the situation, and the pressure escalates. The cost of the booking is emphasized. The brother’s availability becomes central. The holiday is invoked as something they are endangering.
The wife, exhausted and sharp-edged, ends the call on her own terms.
What follows is not discussion but pursuit: repeated calls, voicemails, accusations of disrespect. One message crosses into deeply personal territory by invoking her history of abuse. At that point, the couple blocks contact.
The question on the surface is etiquette. The question underneath is positional.
Text Version
AITA for hanging up on my MIL after she booked a family holiday that excluded me?
ONGOING
I am NOT the Original Poster. That is Clearingthegarage. She posted in r/AITAH
Do NOT comment on Original Posts. Latest update is 7 days old.
Trigger Warnings: descriptions of child abuse; starvation
Mood Spoiler: good ending
Original Post: November 13, 2025
I (30F) have recently been really sick and in and out of the hospital getting infusion treatments. My husband has been my rock through it all.
Last year, we moved states because my in-laws asked us to. They have a micro family and want to stay close. Since our move, they’ve never once come to visit us except after we bought our house. They visited for an hour and left to “beat traffic”. We’ve driven to them over 15 times (an hour each way), and they still expect we go to them even though the drive now wipes me out and risks my health. I don’t have any family or close friends here besides them, and despite my husband asking several times for help, they always make excuses as to why they can’t visit even though they’re both retired.
What’s going on now is, my MIL and husband share a birthday. She recently called him saying it would be fun if the whole family went on a week long trip to celebrate and couple it with Thanksgiving. When my husband said he’d need to check with me since I have appointments and you know, his job, she told him it’s best I “stay home and rest” while everyone else went.
He immediately told her no. He wasn’t leaving me when I’m this sick especially during the holiday. He asked if we could postpone until I completed these rounds of treatment and just stick to something local. That’s when MIL dropped that she’d already booked a resort three hours away, spent “thousands,” and that if we didn’t come, we’d be ruining Thanksgiving and her birthday. When he asked why she’d book it without confirming with us, she said it was the only week his brother was free.
That’s when it really hit me. She never intended to include me and possibly my husband. Her only concern was his brother’s availability whom she seems everyday. It felt like she either purposely booked the trip to guilt my husband into going without me or as a way to exclude us.
I was over it, exhausted, and just done with the lack of effort/care from her. I asked my husband if I could talk to her and in the calmest, most sarcastic tone I said, “please don’t cancel your vacation. I really, TRULY, hope you have SUCH an amazing time on YOUR birthday. So much so that you forget we’re even there. Because we won’t be. Bye.” Then I hung up the phone. My husband took the phone and put it in his pocket. He told me, he had no notes and we carried on with our day.
Now MIL, FIL, and BIL are calling nonstop, leaving messages saying I was rude and disrespectful. So, AITA for hanging up on my MIL after she booked a family holiday that excluded me?
Some of OOP’s Comments:
OOP clarifies:
They live in a rural area and we could only find jobs in the city which is an hour and a half from them.
Esosorum: A micro family? What is that, a family for ants?
OOP: A family of 4. Mom, Dad, and 2 brothers. My husband only knew 1 grandparent growing up who passed 15 years ago. The others passed before he was born. They have no cousins, aunts, uncles or even distant relatives.
Going2beBANNEDanyway: NTA.
I have a feeling this MIL is very self centered, is willing to upset other people, but gets super angry if she is on the other end, and never apologizes for anything? Just a wild guess.
OOP: She’s the kind of person that volunteers you for things without asking and then gets mad when you say no because she already promised someone else you’d do it. For instance, I am a former chef and can cook just about anything. Well she would text out of the blue and say, hey, you’re making Beef Wellington and a side of your choice for my friends on Saturday. 10 people will be there. I would just give my phone to my husband and say you have to call your mom again because she thinks I’m making her a beef Wellington for a party?
Top Comments:
Cute-Profession9983: Time to put the house on the market and move to greener pastures
Beth21286: Yep, go back where life is peaceful.
Also, love the husband’s response ‘no notes’, A+ spousing right there.
Update Post: November 15, 2025 (2 days later)
Update – I posted this question after telling a coworker the story, and she was adamant that I needed to apologize. She said hanging up on anyone, especially my MIL, was unspeakable no matter the circumstance. Her reaction made me wonder AITA, but after reading your messages I was flooded with relief.
My husband and I have still been receiving VM’s from MIL and BIL. They’ve escalated to the point that we have now blocked them on all platforms of social media, email, and our cell phones. The last message my husband received was that they knew something was wrong with me because I have no family. Which, for context, they are aware I was abused and starved as a child. I left home at 18 and went no contact. Our house had no locks on the bedroom doors or bathrooms so that there was nowhere to hide from the abuse, the windows were nailed shut, and if I didn’t return home right after school (which was timed), then my dad would hit me or make me kneel on rice. People weren’t allowed over, not like I wanted them to come over, and my friends used to joke that I lived in Fort Knox because of the security gate and system that the entire neighborhood could see.
The only good thing that came from my suffering was perfect grades. It was expected that I be an absolutely perfect student and always be respectful, presentable, and professional. Anything less than straight A’s meant being beaten until I had no tears left to cry. When I threatened to call CPS once after a pretty bad physical incident, my dad said something along the lines of, if you think this is bad, it’s worse out there. You’re a girl and will be used like a plaything. So I kept my head down, worked hard, did what I was told, acted like I fell in line, and got the hell out of there. I never looked back. His family is well aware of my story, so it was quite shocking to hear his mom bring this up now.
For all those asking why we moved when asked, my husband’s family presented as very close. Both his parents were only children and his grandparents are no longer living. They are very tight-knit and still take annual family vacations and spend holidays together. BIL moved a few years ago and traditions carried on. Last year, BIL got engaged and announced that he and his future wife would be trying to have children soon after their wedding. We were all ecstatic. They haven’t had a baby in the family for 30 years, since my husband was born.
BIL’s future in-laws live a few blocks from him and are going to help out whenever they have a baby, and my in-laws threw in their hat to also help out. That’s how the move came about. BIL and MIL asked if we would consider moving too as a way to stay close together and be in our future niece/nephew’s life. We figured if we could find jobs equal to what we have now, then why not. It was actually welcomed since at that point I wasn’t living 20 miles away from my parents and was a little anxious about running into them.
My husband and I also talked about the possibility of moving, but it seems almost impossible with work, insurance, selling a house, and medical treatments. I was on the waiting list for 2 months with the infusion clinic, and we live in one of the largest metropolitan cities. I can’t imagine the setback of trying to get initial appointments with specialists again and insurance approval. It would negatively affect my health and set me back, if not worsen my condition. Then there’s insurance and finding a new job. Neither of our workplaces have other offices, so we’d have to get new roles, and I’ve heard competition has been tough with layoffs, and coming in as a candidate that needs accommodations for serious illness would be a tough sell. I’d practically miss 1–2 days a week.
We’re lucky that my place of work has been amazing and understanding. They cover 100% of my medical bills, which is unheard of. So for now, we’re going to stay and will consider a move when I’m better.
And at least we know our in-laws won’t pay us a visit, so there’s some grace in that.
At this point my husband and I acknowledge and accept that priorities have shifted for his family. We will act accordingly and create our own new holiday traditions, any ideas?
Also, thank you to everyone for your kind words, and you’re right… my husband is pretty hot.
Some of OOP’s Comments:
Husband’s childhood:
Really unique upbringing actually. His mom traveled for work and was gone Mon-Thur and came home for weekends. His grandmother took care of him until his was 15. She became ill and that when his parents figured he and his brother were old enough to take care of themselves. His dad is a craftsman. So he was always squirreled away somewhere tinkering. His parents never yelled at him, grounded him or anything. He just hung out with friends and could do whatever he wanted.
They might turn up uninvited:
We live in a gated community with security. No one’s coming in unless they’re on the list and I can’t confirm they no longer are.
Cruise?
A cruise sounds fun!
I’ve thought about going on a cruise before but wasn’t sure who was the best provider (I’m on the west coast). Since I have to be extra mindful about germs right now I’ll just have to start planning one for next year.
Source
The sequence matters.
She’s told to stay home and rest.
The resort is already booked.
The brother’s schedule determined the week.
The money has been spent.
Thanksgiving is attached. A birthday is attached.
Then she speaks, measured and cutting: “Please don’t cancel your vacation. I really, truly hope you have such an amazing time on your birthday… because we won’t be.” She hangs up. He takes the phone, slides it into his pocket, says he has no notes. The calls start coming in.
From the in-laws’ vantage point, this might look like disruption at a sentimental moment. A shared birthday. A rare overlap in adult schedules. In a small, tightly bound family, tradition can feel stabilizing almost infrastructural. If one person steps out, the whole shape shifts.
But this couple is operating under a different set of constraints. Medical appointments are not theoretical. Fatigue is not negotiable. He aligns with that reality without pause. Not loudly. Not performatively. Just a flat no.
The escalation arrives in stages. First insistence. Then volume. Then moral framing ruining Thanksgiving, ruining a birthday. Then the remark about her having no family. That sentence sits there.
There’s something about being pre-accounted for that lingers. Plans made with your absence already absorbed. You don’t need a thesis to feel what that does.
They block the numbers. They talk about new traditions. The larger family remains where it is, structurally intact.
Whether this was deliberate exclusion or simple prioritization is never fully answered. The effect, though, is concrete. And somewhere between a prepaid resort and a quiet house after the phones stop ringing, a line has been drawn what grows from it is still unclear.