'AITA for ignoring my husband during our flight when he expressed anxiety over flying?'
"AITA for ignoring my husband during our flight when he expressed anxiety over flying?"
I [33F] recently married my husband [30M] and we took a 3 hour flight to Mexico for our honeymoon. I fly a lot for my job, so I have racked up a lot of miles. My husband isn’t a big fan of flying, though he has gotten better and tends to just hold my hand and close his eyes during take off and landing (mostly okay when in the air).
When I booked our flights I requested to use my points if an upgrade to business class became available, but made it clear I only wanted this upgrade if two seats became available and then basically forgot about it.
Then comes the day of our flight. I was so excited for this trip, I checked us in online, all is going well, and then when we go to board the person scanning out boarding passes stops us. She says it seems that my husband was upgraded to business class, but ONLY him and asks if that is okay.
I immediately say no, we are on our honeymoon and would like to stay together. But then my husband jumps in and says, “No it’s fine, I’ll go to business class!” I look at him in complete shock and he tells me that I fly all the time and have been in business class before, but he hasn’t. So he deserves a chance to experience it.
I see we are holding up the line, so I feel like I just need to agree and get on the plane. To say I am pissed off is an understatement. He is all smiles, taking his seat and I go back to my seat where they sit me next to an old woman with a baby on her lap where my husband should be sitting.
Within maybe 5-10 minutes of sitting there, trying to hold back tears because my husband left me alone on our flight during our honeymoon (and uses MY points for his upgrade no less), he starts to text me saying he feels anxiety over flying. I ignore the texts and stop looking at my phone.
Within maybe an hour after we are in the air, he comes to the back of the plane to find me, offers me half of his business class breakfast and asks me why I was ignoring him - that he was scared and needed me to tell him it’d be okay since I am such an experienced flyer. I told him maybe he should have thought about that before leaving me alone before our honeymoon even really began.
He gets angry, tells me that this may be the only time he gets to fly business class and he was giving me half his breakfast to make up for it so I could at least be supportive of his genuine fear. I roll my eyes, sarcastically say “thanks” and he goes back up to his seat.
When we landed I tried to just move on and forget about it so that we could just enjoy our honeymoon, but he guilt tripped me about not comforting him via text before take off and now I am wondering if I am being unreasonable and should have just let him enjoy his time in business class and ensure him it’d be okay.
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
coffeemom23 said:
NTA. It was selfish and childish of your husband to take the business class seat when you made it clear you wanted to sit together, it's your honeymoon after all. It's even more childish of him to need you to virtually hold his hand during the flight - if he needed that reassurance, he could have sat with you!
ReviewOk929 said:
NTA - He thinks flying business class is more important than spending time with you at the start of your honeymoon. His priorities aren't straight...
OldestCrone said:
NTA. Dear, this is not a good beginning. Please do not combine your finances or make any big purchases for a couple of years. You may wish to reconsider this marriage. I am sorry, but he has just shown you who he really is.
Belaani52 said:
NTA, but I’m afraid that you’re confused. You didn’t just get married. You just adopted an adult child.
mybooksareunread said:
NTA but I feel like all the people who are saying he's an asshole and just showed you who he really is have never been in a long-term relationship and needed to work out these kinds of problems with a partner.
Your partner got excited about the opportunity to sit in business class. He didn't consider the fact that it was your honeymoon and it meant a lot to you that he stay with you for the flight. He had a selfish moment where he had to weigh his wants against yours and chose his own. That happens in relationships all the time. We are not perfect and we do not always consider all of the external factors and we do not always put our partners first. That's normal.
Your feelings got hurt when your partner went to business class. You felt like he chose this individual experience over being with you on your honeymoon. So when he texted you for support, you couldn't offer it because your feelings were hurt. Also normal. You're a human being and you chose to honor your own feelings at the expense of your husband's feelings in that moment. Particularly because the reason he wasn't getting what he needed was due to a choice he made that is also the reason you were sad. You kind of a had a "you made your bed, now lie in it" moment. That's fair and okay.
NOW you need to be honest with each other about the choices you made and why you made them. Does your husband truly not care that he abandoned you? Probably not. He's just feeling defensive because he didn't mean to make you feel that way. But he needs to own up to his choices and their consequences. His choice hurt the feelings of his new wife right as their honeymoon was about to start. He should apologize for that.
Is this indicative of his "true" feelings for you? Does he not care about you or spending time with you? I doubt it. Don't blow this out of proportion. He made a bad call and you're hurt, but this isn't the equivalent of him spending the honeymoon at the hotel bar flirting with other women and ignoring you, you know? This is a minor upset in the grand scheme of life and totally resolvable.
Do you truly not care that your husband was feeling anxious and alone during the flight? Probably not. Could you have chosen to support him and reassure him, as he went through something that truly terrified him? Yes. Ideally, you could have set your hurt aside, supported him through the scary thing, and then addressed it when you landed (e.g., "When you left me in economy during that flight, I felt really hurt and abandoned. I know you were excited about the idea of first class, but I'm really mad that you chose to be ok with making me feel hurt and abandoned on our honeymoon.")
Instead, in your hurt over his decision, you also prioritized your own feelings over your husband's feelings in that moment. Your choices also hurt your husband right at the start of your honeymoon. Do I personally think you had a better reason, since he really did make his bed? Definitely! Which is why I'm going with NTA instead of NAH. But, ultimately, you didn't handle the situation perfectly and should probably apologize, too.
You are going to have many, many, many more moments like this over the coming months and years. If you can both learn to try to see where the other person was coming from and give them grace while advocating for yourself and your needs, things will go much more smoothly. Remember that you're on the same team. It's not you against him, it's the two of you against the problem.
goodytwotoes said:
NTA - this is hilarious, because this exact same thing happened to my husband and I on our honeymoon. We argued about who should take it (both insisting the OTHER person should take it) and then eventually decided on trading seats halfway through the flight. It was great. We both got to enjoy first class and then we had a fantastic honeymoon. I also have anxiety flying, texted my husband about it from first class, and he talked me down. You guys don’t really seem like you’re in a partnership at all.