People are criticizing a dad who is planning on taking an international trip without his children. Although wanting to go on a solo trip or an adults-only vacation is totally understandable, it’s the dad’s reasoning that has really rubbed people the wrong way.
In a post on Reddit, the dad explained that he is divorced and has 14-year-old and 16-year-old kids with his ex-wife. During a seemingly contentious custody dispute, the kids said they would prefer to spend the majority of their time with their mom.
Things did not work out in the dad’s favor.
The dad wrote in his post that he “spent $165,000 (basically my life savings) fighting for 4 years.” But the judge said the children’s preferences “will take precedence.” According to the dad, his older child told a court-appointed therapist that they would rather live with their mom and see their dad every other weekend. The younger kid said they’d prefer to spend half of their time with their mom and half of their time with their dad.
The dad added that his youngest later changed their mind and said, “Oh maybe 70/30 with Mom. I just want court stuff to be over.”
Additionally, the judge said officials didn’t want to split up the siblings and “break their sibling bond.” As a result of this dispute, the dad wrote, “I’ve had 50/50 since I got divorced, up until a few months ago.”
He seems upset about this, which makes sense.
Many Redditors took issue, however, with the way he is seemingly trying to punish his children for choosing to stay with their mom. The dad explained that he’s in the process of planning a family trip, and his kids are not invited. His current wife, along with her friends, her sister, and their husbands, will be joining him. They plan to spend nine days in Spain and France.
When the dad’s children heard about the trip, they told him they wanted to go. He told his kids that they couldn’t go on the trip, and when they asked why, he initially said, “This is something we planned. We saved for.”
His kids then asked if it was an adults-only trip. “I told them it was not, and their 15 year old cousin was coming,” the dad wrote. Unsurprisingly, his kids were pretty upset and said this wasn’t fair.
What the dad said next really bothered people. He told his kids, “You’re young adults now. You chose to spend the majority of your time with your mother, and you got what you wanted. But choices have consequences. One of them is that you don’t get to join me on things like this.”
Understandably, his kids were not happy.
“They’re both very upset,” the dad wrote. “My younger one said: ‘You’re just mad we have more fun at Mom’s house.’ I’m afraid I’m being an a–hole here. I’m happy to be wrong. But my gut is telling me what I’m doing is fair.”
But many people on Reddit disagreed with the dad’s decision — not because he plans on taking a trip without his kids but because of the way he’s handling the whole thing.
“You are being spiteful and immature,” one person told the dad in a comment. “You are the adult. They are NOT—despite you calling them young adults, they’re kids.”
Others called the dad “petty” for blaming his kids for “the difficult position [he] and [his] ex-wife placed them in” and holding a grudge.
“I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t take them, but it does sound like you are punishing them for hurting you,” someone else wrote. “They are in a very difficult developmental phase and being placed in the middle of a process that is incredibly stressful. You seem to understand that the custody battle was hard on you as an adult. Why would it be easier or simpler for your children?”
Additionally, people struggled to understand what the dad was hoping to achieve. “Now that your kids said they would like to spend more time with their mom, which is something that obviously hurts you deep down and understandably so, do you no longer want to be part of your kids’ lives?” one person questioned. “Are you this mad that you want to start intentionally excluding them from things and cutting yourself out from their lives?”
Another person added, “It is a family trip and you are holding your children’s choices against them and allowing your anger to affect your relationship with them.”
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