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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/bussedaita on 2023-08-01 15:25:38.
My wife (34F) and I (36M) have a 4-year-old son. We both work full-time so he is in daycare 5-days a week. If my wife and I ever have plans that require us to get a babysitter, we have a few options. My parents are both retired and live a little over an hour away, so they can help either short or longer term. We also have a few trusted babysitters that we use for date nights or shorter events. And my MIL is also available to help, but I have some issues with that.
MIL doesn’t work so she’s usually available. But she is currently separated from her husband (wife’s step-dad) and isn’t living at home, she’s bouncing around from family member to family member, pretty much couch surfing. She also doesn’t drive so anytime we want her to babysit it can be a hassle to work out traveling as some of the relatives she stays with live up to 4 hours away.
Recently, my wife and I attended a wedding of one of my wife’s friends about 3 hours from where we live. I wanted to make it a day trip and come home that night, but my wife hadn’t seen a lot of this friend group in a while and wanted to make it a full weekend to catch up with people. I agreed depending on whether or not my parents would be able to watch our son.
My parents were busy moving that weekend (they just finished their retirement home) and none of us thought that them watching our son while that was going on would be a good idea. I again suggested just a day trip to the wedding, but my wife wanted her mom to babysit so she could catch up with her friends. She assured me it would be fine and it was “just a couple of nights.”
At the wedding, my MIL called my wife during the ceremony but my wife didn’t answer and called her back. MIL had apparently tried to take our son to the county library which is about 6 miles from our house. She thought it was too far to walk, so she tried to take the bus. She ended up getting lost and didn’t know where she was or how to get back home.
It was a whole ordeal with my wife and I trying to get her on the right bus, or as I suggested, download Uber and take one home. It took about 2 hours on the phone before we finally figured it out. After we made sure they were home safe, my mood was not good. I was upset and not exactly in a “let’s party at a wedding” kind of headspace.
My wife picked up on that and asked me what was wrong. I told her this type of thing is exactly why I don’t like her mom babysitting because she doesn’t drive and this could have ended a lot worse than it did. My wife said that I am blowing it out of proportion and that nothing bad happened. She said if I’m going to ruin her time with her friends, I should just go back to the hotel, so that’s what I did.
I guess she thought I wouldn’t actually do that, and she got mad at me for ditching her at the reception. I just needed to cool down and I didn’t want to fight with her about her mom while at a wedding.