'Petty' Wife Not Waking Up Husband Causing Him To Miss Flight Praised

The internet has backed a woman who refused to wake up early so her husband wouldn't miss his flight to go spend Christmas with his family, leaving her home alone.

In a post shared on Reddit last Thursday, under the username u/Age_Philosophy3776, the woman explained that her husband was supposed to spend Christmas with his family, who didn't invite her over because she doesn't have "the same level of respect" for her husband as they do—but he missed his flight because she didn't wake him up.

"The way I see it [they] treat him like royals, call him 'heir,' gift him expensive stuff. Prince level treatment. I didn't have an issue with it at first since they consider it 'showing love and appreciation,'" she said.

It is not uncommon to have a complicated relationship with the in-laws. A survey by Porch shows that 27 percent of married couples, and 47 percent of parents-in-law, get along "extremely well."

Moreover, 30 percent of couples said they got along only moderately well and another 23 percent said they got along just somewhat well. Twenty-seven percent of parents called their relationship with their children's spouse only "moderately" good.

The poster explained that the only reason she didn't wake her husband was because she was also sleeping, and refused to set an alarm to wake him up, adding that her husband refuses to sleep near electronic devices, so he wouldn't be able to set one for himself.

She said: "He woke up freaking out and yelling about me being petty and not waking him up before his flight after he asked me to. Why would I wake up early just to wake him up? His phone was away since he hates sleeping nearby electronics."

Soula Hareas, a mental health counselor at Florida-based McNulty Counseling, told Newsweek that although this family created the problem, the wife enabled it by not setting a firm boundary early on in the relationship.

"Sometimes parents put their child on a pedestal so high that there is no one worthy of their child. They engage in behavior that validates this over and over so by the time the person gets married, they are so full of themselves that they have no awareness of what it means to be in a relationship and have a partner.

"This is because this would mean they'd have to give not just receive, and these types of people have a very difficult time doing that," she said.

According to Hareas, when two people are in a long-term committed relationship or marriage, they are a unit, "a package deal," and the husband failed to communicate to his family that he disagrees with excluding his wife, setting a boundary himself so they continued.

"To me this situation is an easy pass for the husband. Why isn't he speaking up for her? Why isn't he starting a new holiday tradition with HIS family which is his wife and possibly future children? The result is his lack of desire to act is now creating an environment on which resentment builds from the wife towards her husband and his family and little passive aggressive things happen like the alarm."

Hareas pointed out that it's not the wife's responsibility to wake him up but in a healthy marriage couples look out for each other and reminding one another of something or setting an alarm would be a common thing not something that causes trouble.

She said: "The wife needs to be clear and concise with her feelings and boundaries and not do these little tactics because that resentment will grow and grow and then you not only fall out of love with your partner but begin to see him or her as the enemy in your own home and relationship."

The post first shared on the r/AmItheA****** subreddit, quickly went viral, receiving over 9.300 upvotes and 2,000 likes so far.

One user, Straight-Singer-2912, commented: "Ummmm, this is NOT about your husband sleeping late. You're not a human alarm clock for a guy in his mid-30s. This IS about your husband allowing his family to exclude you. He's treating you terribly. Why are you putting up with it? He gets 2 business cards: one for a marriage counselor, one for a divorce lawyer. He can pick who he'd like you to call. [Not The A******]."

Emu_sapper said: "What kind of husband leaves his wife to go have Christmas with his family?" And JGH75 added: "The one that gets [treated] like a prince apparently. I would not be with a person like that. And [Not The A******], an adult is responsible for waking up by themself."

Another user, jokenaround, wrote: "Never marry a Mama's Boy. It gets worse with age." And Spare-Article-396 said: "Ok, [Not The A******]...BUT you will be one to yourself if you don't reevaluate this relationship if your [In-Laws] make him choose between you and them, and he chooses them."

Newsweek reached out to u/Age_Philosophy3776 for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.