'AITA for not canceling a college football trip after my pregnant wife canceled her Taylor Swift trip?'

"AITA for not canceling a college football trip this fall after my pregnant wife canceled her Taylor Swift trip?"

My (29M) boys and I are going to a college football game this fall, Oklahoma at Ole Miss. There are 6 of us going and its proving to be an expensive trip. We are all meeting up in Memphis from where we live. I'm in LA. This is a 4 day, 3 night trip.

Tickets, Lodging, Tailgates, Flights, Fund for bar hopping are some of our expenses. Going to an SEC game costs a lot of money. We've all locked in nearly everything. This has been planned since the schedules were finalized earlier this year.

My wife is 3 months pregnant, now that we have a child on the way, money has become a concern for her. Her being pregnant is a bit of a surprise, but not shocking. We weren't using protection and took an approach of if it happens, it happens. I feel comfortable with our finances, she doesn't.

She's brought up remodeling a bedroom, hospital bills, and numerous other baby related costs. She is right, its expensive, but I have no qualms about where we are financially. She has asked me to cancel my trip. I've told her I won't do that. She was supposed to go to Taylor Swift in London in a few weeks and canceled that trip to save money.

I didn't ask her to do that and encouraged her to still go. She is pissed that I won't cancel the trip and that I won't sacrifice for our family. We've had several arguments about this. She will be 6 months pregnant so there is no concern about me missing the birth. At times the tension and stress is a lot. The last thing I want to do is stress her out, but AITA?

The internet had a lot of comments and questions to add.

SoMuchMoreEagle wrote:

Info: you're comfortable where you are now, but have you both sat down and looked at your budget with the baby in the mix? Will she be taking time off work, which will reduce your income? How much savings do you have in case of emergency?

OP responded:

Yes. We’ve discussed. She makes 70k, I make 100K. We keep our day to day accounts bare bones with 15k money market accessible if needed. We have a 300k mortgage, 1 car is paid off, 1 car has a 20k loan.

We have 6 figure retirement accounts. She feels uncomfortable where we're at, I don’t. It’s mostly a difference of opinion. She gets 6 weeks paid off but can take 6 weeks more unpaid ( or utilize vacation time).

Altruistic-Bid7011 wrote:

YTA but not because your wife is pregnant. YTA for paying money to watch Ole miss lose.

ReputationPowerful74 wrote:

INFO: What do you mean you “feel comfortable” and have “no qualms” with your finances?Have you actually sat down and worked through y’all’s updated budget so you can actually see that you can afford it? Do y’all currently have enough spending money (totally liquid, un-budgeted cash) set aside to make all baby related purchases tomorrow without coming close to your pre-baby budget?

If you do, get offline and start buying and renovating. That will help ease her anxiety and her mental work load. Then see what else you can do to support her during this period of time where she’s carrying your child and planning for its future.

If you don’t, cancel the trip and pretty much anything else until you physically have everything you’ll need when the baby is born, at the very, very least. Until then, her anxiety is completely rational. From an outsider’s perspective just reading this post, it doesn’t sound like you’re taking the whole thing very seriously. Six months is a lot closer than you seem to think.

UseYourBrain2001 wrote:

So soft YTA. No, she didn't have to cancel her trip...she did so because she's being a responsible adult preparing for children. Good thing for her, because it looks like she will soon have two petulant little kids to deal with.

Jealous-Factor7345 responded:

This comment is wild to me. He's being incredibly responsible. They have saved tons of money, have good jobs, a solid (if a little low) emergency fund, and extremely well funded retirement accounts.

Unless there are expenses OP has specifically neglected to mention, they are doing just fine and his wife should not have cancelled her trip and neither should he. These kinds of trip are among the most meaningful things people do in life, and he shouldn't sacrifice this if he doesn't have to...which he doesn't.

OK_Discount_7889 wrote:

NAH. Slight edge to your wife, but I don’t think you’re really an AH - just a little uninformed. It sounds like you’re in a really good place financially right now. On paper, at the moment, for two adults, you’re solid.

BUT she is thinking about those six weeks that will be unpaid, the ridiculous cost of childcare that comes after that, and all of the crazy unforeseen circumstances that can come up between pregnancy and having a kid.

What if she has a medical need that forces her to go out early? Now you’re talking 7, 8, 9 weeks without her income. There goes your $15k in savings. Your financial situation looks very different when you remove her $70k for an extended period and later add in $1500+/month for daycare.

And that’s IF you can get into a daycare, a nanny or even a nanny share would be more expensive. It’s not an exaggeration to say a large portion of her income will be eaten up by childcare costs. I’m not saying you’re destitute by any means but I can understand why she’s stressed. Your $100k salary is great for one adult. It’s not going to stretch as far for a family of three.

PessimiStick wrote:

NTA, but financial stress is one of the primary causes of divorce, so you guys need to get on the same page. Even if you are perfectly fine, if she doesn't feel like you're fine, it's going to hurt your marriage.

toxicredox wrote:

From your comments about the state of your finances, YTA. You are clearly working class (meaning, if you're not working, you can't get by for more than a few months financially), and your emergency fund ($15k) is pretty low. Does that even cover a full 6 months of your expenses as they existed before pregnancy? If it would, ok, but it won't last nearly that long now that she's pregnant and after the baby comes.

You're at least $320k in debt, and part of that is the mortgage, so if something happens to your job, your housing is on the line. Even your combined income at 170k, which would be great in some parts of the country, doesn't really help because you live in LA, easily one of the most expensive places to live.

Also, the fact that you only have the one emergency fund, then the rest is in retirement funds, doesn't help - you have to take big hits to pull money out of retirement funds. You haven't mentioned your health insurance, but if yours isn't good, or it isn't good for pregnancy, then that alone can seriously drain your savings.

Your wife is right. This trip is a luxury, and you're at the beginning of a SUPER financially unpredictable situation - possibly one of the most unpredictable financial times you're gonna have in your life - and spending a lot of money on a complete luxury like this trip is a foolish financially.

Maybe everything goes smoothly and you'll have more financial padding than you did before -- but that's only from straight up dumb luck, and you shouldn't rely on that. You need to sit down with your wife and seriously discuss your finances, then set financial goals you can both agree on. Also, there will be other football games you can do trips for.