According to the writer Tom Lichtenheld, “A road trip is a way for the whole family to spend time together and annoy each other in interesting new places.” Yes, this is an absolute truth – traveling definitely expands our horizons and we learn a lot of new things both about the world around us and about the people who surround us. And not always this news is actually pleasant.

One more example is this story, first shared by the user u/LipstickRibsteak on the AITA Reddit community. What else is remarkable about it is the author’s sincere misunderstanding or unwillingness to get what exactly he did wrong. However, let’s just get to the point.

The author of the post once took a trip by car with his wife and their toddler son

Image credits: Brett Jordan (not the actual image)

The spouses agreed to split driving shifts and the husband picked night hours at the wheel

Image credits: u/LipstickRibsteak

Image credits: Will Truettner (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/LipstickRibsteak

The man felt incredibly bored as his wife had fallen asleep so he decided to wake her up for a chat

Image credits: Hanny Naibaho (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/LipstickRibsteak

The woman lashed out at him since he also woke up their son, and called the man ‘selfish’ and ‘immature’

So, the Original Poster (OP), his wife and their 2 Y.O. son went on a family trip, the first since the birth of the child. The couple were driving a car, so they agreed to change at the wheel. And the husband, in his own words, decided to take on the more difficult, nighttime hours of driving. You may ask what he did wrong there, because the man acted more than nobly, but further events developed in a slightly different scenario.

Dusk was falling, and the OP’s wife, after driving for several hours, gave way to her husband. The woman climbed into the back seat, where their son was sleeping, and fell asleep too. But her sleep did not last long… As the author of the post says, he is a pronounced extrovert, and he gets bored driving alone for a long time. The OP’s wife, on the other hand, is more of an introvert, so while she was driving, the husband managed to take a nap.

In general, after some time, the man got bored and decided to wake up his wife to chat with her. The guy obviously didn’t think about two things – that the woman was tired after driving for several hours, and that there was also a toddler sleeping in the back seat. More precisely, he had been sleeping – because dad inadvertently woke them both up.

If you’ve ever comforted an awakened toddler in a car in the middle of the night, you’ll understand the range of feelings that went through the OP’s wife. When the woman, after some time, nevertheless put the child to sleep again, she was already in an agitated state – and then the driver also, as if nothing had happened, said something like: “Listen, I’m bored here, let’s chat about something!”

The author’s hope for a lively conversation, of course, was justified – although the topic of this convo was far from the most pleasant. His wife lashed out at him, blaming her spouse for being selfish and immature – and it must be admitted that her anger was fully justified. However, the original poster laid out his own logic (which he himself calls ‘perfect’) – according to him, since it was more convenient for his wife to drive in silence, then he did so, and that made it her turn to do what was convenient for him – that is, to talk.

Whatever the case, the OP’s “perfect” logic didn’t affect his spouse, and made her even angrier. Then the man called his wife ‘emotional’ and, as he himself claims, “at that point, since she got rude, I decided to disengage.” So the family trip fell apart, barely having started, the couple quarreled, and the husband got completely offended by his wife for being “unreasonably rude” over something he called “flawless logic”…

Image credits: lucas Favre (not the actual image)

Firstly, even if we ignore the moral and ethical side of this tale, any person, especially when driving, should get enough sleep. Especially when you consider that drowsy driving is one of the key hazards on the road. For example, according to the National Safety Council, each year it causes about 100,000 crashes, 71,000 injuries and, alas, 1,550 fatalities. Moreover, due to this study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, drowsiness was a contributing factor in up to 9.5 percent of all crashes and 10.8 percent of crashes that included airbag deployment, injury or significant property damage.

“A buddy system is a great idea and works well – share the driving and share keeping each other awake,” a special memo issued by the Sleep Health Foundation, recommends. “Have a break every two hours, get out of the car and walk around for a few minutes.” But if the original poster’s wife had entertained her husband throughout his entire driving shift, then her hours at the wheel would have become a true cause for a road hazard.

“What can be said about this case, except that the man here acted extremely selfishly?” rhetorically ponders Irina Matveeva, a psygholgist and certified NLP specialist, to whom Bored Panda reached out for a comment on this tale. “He did not think about comfort for his wife, or about the fact that she had to take care of the child on the road, or about what, in the end, that brings the whole family – and other drivers, the danger from drowsy driving – because sooner or later at the wheel of their car would be his dozy wife.”

“Of course, in the late hours, if you are an extrovert, then driving in silence and loneliness is 100% incredibly boring and uncomfortable. However, in this case, it would probably be worth considering the option of driving only during the daytime, and in the evenings finding some motels for an overnight stay. So, most likely, it would be more comfortable both physically and mentally. On the other hand, this husband’s stubborn refusal to admit that he was wrong about anything upsets me no less,” Irina admits.

But folks in the comments were not particularly shy toward the original poster, claiming that he was acting like a toddler himself. According to commenters, the man should have encouraged his wife to sleep as much as possible so she could safely drive her next shift. “If you’re not capable of driving without stimulus, pull over and get a hotel room,” people in the comments simply stated. So what do you think about the behavior of the characters in this story?

Most people in the comments sided with the author’s wife as well, stating that each driver should sleep while not at the wheel to avoid drowsy driving hazards

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