Throwaway
My (32M) Wife (27F) had her in-laws in town for thanksgiving this past weekend. We hosted and we spent the entire day together. We get along fine. They will be around even more in the future given we have a 5 month old. They were in town Wednesday – Sunday. On Friday was my college’s rivalry game in the afternoon and I planned to watch it on TV.
Turns out the Wife and In-laws made plans to go out to eat followed by going to a christmas light event. This was not a pre planned event, decided on the day of to do this. But this conflicted with the game. I told them I wanted to watch the game and would be staying home. My mother in-law said I could just record it and watch it later. I gently declined and said this was an important game and there was zero chance I’d be missing this live.
Apparently MIL wasted 30 bucks buying me a ticket and was upset I was passing on family time to watch the game. I had to hear it from my wife later too. I watch most games live, especially the most important ones. My actions really bothered my MIL. AITA?
Everyone’s TA here for not communicating about holiday weekend plans when people are traveling in from out of town.
Now that you’re a father, you’re going to have to decide which is your priority, family or football.
YTA
What does him being a father have to do with his MIL making plans without telling him and expecting him to cancel his plans to placate her?
Maybe his family should start recording their events and he can watch them after his games /s
ETA: YTA if you genuinely think that staying at home in front of a TV by yourself is more important than spending actual time with your family. I could maybe understand if anyone else was there, FIL or a sibling or something, but to be by yourself on a family holiday? Do you dislike them? Are you really introverted?
YTA. It’s thanksgiving weekend….your in-laws are in town… suck it up next time. It’s one game. No better way to tell your wife her family doesn’t matter than finding watching a football game more important than them…. And even if that’s not how you feel – guaranteed that’s how they took it.
But you do you.
I can’t say one way or the other because I don’t know how often this happens in your relationship. If the roles were reversed and it was your family visiting, would you be ok with your wife staying home to watch something live if your mom had already spent the money for her to attend a family outing? Something that is only important to her, and you wanted her to come. That will give you your answer.
ESH. You’re going to miss a game at some point, you won’t be able to see every single one.
MIL should have tried to find out if you had plans before spending $30.,
There’s not a person in this world that has kids that I would assume has plans the day after Thanksgiving to do without their family, and if they do, I would assume it’s more interesting than sitting on a couch by themselves and therefore would probably have been mentioned earlier.
If he was going to the game it would be one thing, but I think holidays are a safe time to assume your family is going to be around if they haven’t mentioned anything.
Especially if they’re coming from out of town.
YTA
Fellow sports fan here. I can completely understand the mindset and can certainly relate. Problem is you are a family man and with the ability to record games these days, just suck it up and watch the game when you get home. Family is always more important and I’m sure the wife will make it up to you if you aren’t a giant baby about it. It really isn’t that hard to just turn off notifications and focus on what’s important for the days family is in town.
If that specific game was THAT important to you, communicate this well in advance so your wife will support you and be your back up instead of also being upset you abandoned family time to sit and watch TV by yourself.
perspective as a wife who is the football fan. Zero chance if plans were made day of an important game that I would skip the game that I’d been looking forward to (and my husband would absolutely understand this). NTA. People shouldn’t buy tickets without confirming participation in advance.
It’s the holidays, it’s one game (and I know all about rivalry games – I went to an SEC school), and you’re just watching it on television.
Imagine looking at all of them – including your wife – and saying, *to their faces*, “It’s far more important for me to watch this game on television than it is for me to spend that time with you.”
That’s what you just did.
YTA.
Speaking as a father, do yourself a favor and get used to recording important football games and turn off all sport app updates when conflicts like this come up. This is only the beginning. Get ahead of it now so your wife will
be more willing to compromise on the important games like playoffs.