AITA for asking my husband to prioritize our family tradition over his new friendship?
A Reddit user (32F) shares her dilemma over a beloved family tradition she and her husband (35M) started early in their marriage. Every year, they take a special day trip before Thanksgiving, but this year, her husband’s new friend invited him on a weekend getaway during the same time.
The user asked her husband to prioritize their tradition, which he reluctantly agreed to, but it left her questioning if she’s being too stubborn. Read on to find out more about this heartfelt conflict.
‘ AITA for asking my husband to prioritize our family tradition over his new friendship?’
My husband (35M) and I (32F) have a very small but meaningful tradition we started the first year we got married. It’s nothing major, but it’s important to me. Every November, on the weekend before Thanksgiving, we take a day trip to this lakeside town about an hour away.
We spend the day walking, talking, and picking out a new ornament for our Christmas tree, something that’s meaningful to our year. It’s just one day, but it’s one of those things that makes the holiday season special for us. My husband recently became great friends with a guy from his gym.
They hit it off quickly, and I think it’s great because my husband doesn’t make new friends easily. He seems like a genuinely nice person and shares a lot of his interests, like hiking and gaming, and I know it’s refreshing for my husband to have someone he clicks with so well.
Here’s the issue: My husband’s friend invited him to go on a weekend trip for the exact same weekend as our tradition. My husband seemed hesitant to bring it up at first, but eventually, he asked if I’d be okay with us rescheduling our tradition to another weekend so he could go on this weekend with his friend.
I was caught off guard, and I told him that it kind of hurt my feelings that he’d even consider moving it. He told me it’s not a big deal for us to just go another weekend, and he’s right in the sense that it doesn’t really affect anything logistically. But this trip has always felt like “our thing”.
It’s not that I don’t want him to have fun or make new friends, but I kind of feel like he’s minimizing something that’s special to us, or at least special to *me*. When I told him that, he looked surprised and then frustrated, saying I was overreacting.
He ended up agreeing to keep the weekend for our tradition, but I could tell he was disappointed, and I feel guilty for that. Part of me wonders if I’m being stubborn about a little ritual that maybe only I care about as much as I do. So, AITA for asking him to prioritize our tradition over his new friend?
Check out how the community responded:
MickieBela − INFO. While I think it super nice your husband made a friend, he currently blinded by the honey moon phase of friendship.
Does he actually enjoys the trip or is he doing it because you want to do it?
FindAriadne − I don’t think you’re necessarily an a**hole, but I do wonder why it feels so bad to move it? Like it seems like you are in a position where you can have the wonderful thing that you want, and you can support him in having some thing that he wants.
It’s not your anniversary, you both have the power to choose when this happens. He wasn’t asking you to cancel the tradition. He just wanted to have both. if it were me personally, I don’t think that I would be quite as upset about it.
And I think that I would probably be happy to move it, given what you said about him having trouble making friends. Are you invited on this weekend away? Typically, in my relationships, I try not to treat situations as “either or” whenever “both” is possible.
Often, in relationships, you really are forced to choose between two things that cannot coexist, both of which you want. In those moments, you have to make sacrifices. And when you make sacrifices, it’s helpful to look back on all the wonderful times.
So make as many wonderful times as possible, and, be as generous as you in those moments where it doesn’t hurt anybody. It helps you build up a bank of Goodwill.
razcalnikov − NAH – but I’d just let him go. Making friends as an adult is hard and sometimes takes a tiny sacrifice in your personal life to build that foundation.
I think if you can see it from that perspective, you can enjoy your tradition on a different day and he can build a new friendship that could potentially last a lifetime. I understand initially being upset as it’s sentimental but I do think it’s not as big of a deal as you viscerally felt.
Isa_The_Great_ − I understand that everyone thinks she should be okay with moving it, but as someone who loves traditions as well, OP explains this is really special to her and they’ve been married for 6 years.
This isn’t something new for them and ik I would personally feel not prioritized and put on the back burner if they chose THAT SPECIFIC WEEKEND. I saw in a comment from OP that they just planned the trip for January.
This weekend wasn’t set in stone for the trip, but OPs tradition has always been that weekend. So I really understand why she is upset. Yes, they can move the weekend, but I think it’s the principle of the matter of he seemed to not care about her feelings when it’s been this one way for YEARS.
andromache97 − INFO: was your husband able to schedule a different weekend with the new friend or no?
kindaracat − NTA. It’s not just a random trip; it’s a tradition that’s been part of your marriage for six years. Asking him to prioritize something that’s meaningful to you isn’t being unreasonable—it’s about honoring the connection you share.
It’s great that he’s making new friends, but it’s also important to nurture the things that make your relationship special. Hopefully, he’ll see it as a small but important compromise for the long-term happiness of your relationship.
QuesoDelDiablos − Soft YTA. It’s hard to make friends as an adult and it sounds as if your husband is having a difficult time with it. You could have easily moved the weekend trip to another weekend with no ill effect. Except you pressed and made it a power play. Yeah, you won. But have you really won anything if he doesn’t want to be there?
Shouldonlytakeaday − You won the battle but you may lose the war. So soft YTA. Your husband is going to forfeit his trip but he has a right to feel resentful because your tradition trip could have been moved. Traditions are meaningful when they are voluntary, otherwise they become an obligation.
4th_chakra − He told me it’s not a big deal for us to just go another weekend. Sure it is: It’s just one day, but it’s one of those things that makes the holiday season special for us. I think it’s great your husband has a new friend that he gets along with so well.
But he’s letting the excitement of that, of doing what his friend wants, override your tradition. And it’s not “just one day” that can be steamrolled for a spur of the moment trip: We spend the day walking, talking, and picking out a new ornament for our Christmas tree, something that’s meaningful to our year
It’s one of the foundation blocks to your relationship, being together, and adding to your collection of Christmas memories for that year’s tree. That’s pretty damn important, if you ask me. Your husband can easily do another trip.
The only significance with this one is that it was with his new buddy, on THEIR first trip. So he was excited, and now he’s disappointed. But that doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen again. I would actively encourage him to re-book something, somewhere fun, with his friend.
That way you convey the message that you encourage their friendship, and you aren’t being punitive. But you should also underscore why your tradition is so important to you. It sounds like he needs a gentle reminder, to bring him back down to earth.. NTA
RaccoonRenaissance − You’ve got to be a little flexible here. He wasn’t dismissing you about this, it’s clear he understood how big of an ask it was, and he conceded. However, I would backtrack if I were you or resentment will take root.
Was the user right to ask her husband to prioritize their cherished tradition, or should she have been more flexible to support his new friendship? How do you balance family traditions with new opportunities? Share your thoughts below!