AITAH for delaying a planned vacation with my SO by <12hrs to attend my kid’s awards ceremony?
For some context me (33F) and my live-in SO (30M) have been together for over 7 years, living together for 4. I have a 14yo child from a prior relationship. SO and her have always had a very close relationship and we function together as a family unit.
SO and I have had a rocky year and nearly split this time last year. I went through a god-awful 3 year custody battle and pretty much entirely lost myself in the process. It really strained what had been an incredibly solid relationship.
Every year, our group of friends take an adults-only trip to a neighboring state for a weekend music festival. I have had to miss the last 2 years due to scheduling and financial constraints from the ongoing custody case, selling my tickets and encouraging SO to take the money made off of the tickets and go without me (because of course he deserves a vacation and shouldn’t have to miss out when money is tight because I’m stuck in a costly court battle). This year my custody case is over—I won—I’m back on my grind and making good money so I am able to finally go, too (HELL YEAH!) We leave on Thursday and drive home Monday.
1 month ago I received a call from my child’s school letting me know that she was nominated for a district-wide award by her school faculty and was ultimately chosen by the district to be honored at a district awards ceremony for her achievements in a specific subject she is very passionate about. WOW! AMAZING! Only problem is that the date of the ceremony just so happens to be the first night of our vacation.
I want to attend the award ceremony. Even if it means we have to start our vacation a couple hours later than originally planned. I don’t think that something like this happens for every student and it very well could be a once-only occurrence (I was a crap student so I certainly didn’t have something like this happen for me while I was in school.) I think it is important to show up for her, to witness and celebrate her achievements with her. Plus—it is a short out-of-state drive(<4 hours) and we can just leave after her ceremony and arrive to our destination a few hours later that same evening.
SO does not want to attend—His initial reaction to the schedule conflict was essentially “that sucks for you.” So, I had initially planned to just go solo to the ceremony and arrange my own travel. But I will admit, I was pretty upset about his lack of desire to show up for this kid (who he has told everyone and anyone who will listen) that he loves “like she was his own.” Two weeks ago, before booking a flight for myself, I sat down with him and expressed that I felt hurt by his lack of interest in showing up for her. I told him that I’ve stood behind from trips for 2 years and encouraged him to attend without me so he could enjoy himself without having to worry about leaving early or stress about money. I felt that it was unfair for him to not take my experience into consideration as I have done for him. Ultimately, he apologized and told me that of course we would attend together and just leave after. I was grateful and delighted to tell the kiddo that we would both be there to support her!
Yesterday I was confirming our schedule/plans on the phone with my dad, who is watching 14yo while we are gone. After I hung up, partner began complaining once more about the delay to our arrival on Thursday. He tells me that he asked 14yo if she would care if we didn’t go to her ceremony because we had these plans first and she said she didn’t. (14yo has a longstanding tendency to not want to be a burden and will not express her wants/needs if she thinks it will upset someone else. SO knows this and has called it out to me when he has seen her do this with other people—we have discussed it often over the years.) He doesn’t understand why I am making such a big deal out of going. He doesn’t feel we should have to change our plans to attend. I told him that he could just go and I would drive out there by myself, but apparently we can’t take 2 cars to the AirBNB—which wouldn’t have been an issue if I had booked a flight weeks ago as I originally planned. But now of course there are no available flights that will get me there in time without costing me an arm and a leg. So my only options are to either skip the ceremony or make him stay with me despite his continued protests.
Am I being selfish for insisting that I will not skip my kid’s award ceremony just because my SO doesn’t want to be there?