Man goes on 'family trip' without two of his kids after ex won't let them travel abroad.

Co-parenting with an ex can be emotionally complex even when you get along and have similar values. But when you massively disagree on how the world should be, and who deserves basic human dignity, things are bound to get tense.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a man asked if he's wrong for going on vacation without his two kids from his previous marriage.

He wrote:

AITA for going on vacation without my children from a previous marriage?

My ex-wife Kate and I have two kids (Mike, 16 and Abby, 14). We had a turbulent marriage and split for many reasons. It wasn’t amicable and I had to fight for custody. Kate and I both remarried. She didn’t have children with her new husband. I have three (9F, 7F, 5M) kids with my wife and also gained a stepdaughter (19).

My stepdaughter’s father left after he found out my wife was pregnant, so she never knew her father. When I came into their lives I took on the role of a father figure. As far as blended families go, I am really lucky that we are all happy. My stepdaughter and I have good relationship and Mike and Abby love their siblings from my wife. The only person that is against my family is my Kate.

My wife is Black and this has been a point of contention since the beginning. Especially the fact that my wife is a very dark-skinned black woman is problematic to her. Kate, her husband and I are very white. Kate hates my wife and, especially, my stepdaughter (her bio-dad is also black).

Kate’s racism was one of many factors of our divorce. She has been mostly silent on my biracial kids even though they present as black. Thankfully Mike and Abby haven’t taken over her racism. Because of this, Kate has been on a crusade, trying to make my families life as difficult as possible.

It came to a head last week. We were planning to go on a vacation abroad with the entire family. Including Mike and Abby. Everyone was looking forward to it. Especially, my stepdaughter was looking forward to it. But Kate wouldn’t sign the documents that would allow Mike and Abby to travel abroad (because they are minors).

Everyone was really disappointed. It would be the first vacation abroad for my three bio-kids with my wife. I then decided to go and book the vacation anyway but without Mike and Abby. Understandably, they were not happy. Normal I don’t badmouth Kate in front of them, but I told them its because of her that they can’t go.

This caused Kate to become really angry, saying I was prioritizing my new family, and abandoning Mike and Abby. She somehow placed the blame for all this on my stepdaughter. Saying my stepdaughter was taking their father away. Also calling me a “race traitor”, which didn’t make sense.

This unleashed a s%$tstorm with everyone of our friends weighing in, with some saying I am an a$$&ole. Mike and Abby are pissed at me for not going on vacation, and place the blame on me, after I deflected blame away from my stepdaughter. Kate calls me an a$$*ole for going on vacation. I am beginning to think booking the vacation was a mistake, AITA?

People did not hold back on this one.

PsiBlaze wrote:

NTA but I really hope you're holding on to any communication from Kate that can be presented to your lawyer. This screams as an attempt to alienate you from your first kids.

avocadosdontbite wrote:

ESH. Your ex is obviously wrong for her harmful, racist views. She is enjoying pulling the puppet strings while she causes chaos in your new family, no matter how much it harms the children you share. Shame on her.

But (and I say this gently) you are at also fault here for booking a vacation that two of your six children cannot go on and then expecting them to be fine and dandy with the idea of being left out while you take the rest of their siblings on vacay, no matter whose fault it is.

The correct thing to do here is to cancel the vacation for the entire family, and book a new lovely vacation somewhere in the country where you live that EVERYONE can go on. There will be plenty of opportunity for international travel in just a few short years when your children you share with Kate are legally adults.

Don't make the mistake of dividing your family by taking some of them on a huge fun vacation and punishing your two children from your first marriage because of your ex's actions. They will not forget this, and the resentment they feel may poison their relationships with their siblings.

coffeemom23 wrote:

NTA but if there's any way for you to have less contact with Kate/more time with Mike and Abby, I'd pursue it. It is incredibly toxic that their mom is being racist towards their stepmom and stepsiblings, and they're still young enough that you need to do everything you can to protect them from her.

If Mike and Abby literally can't go on the international trip, I'd try and arrange a domestic family trip too, so they still get to have a vacation with their dad and family.

Christy_the_CD wrote:

I'm kind of at a toss up for this one, and leaning towards ESH.

Ex-wife is definitely TA for her racist views, and from what OP described, she is also TA for putting the children into the middle of it by refusing to sign the papers which would allow it.

However, in the fifth paragraph from the bottom OP said, 'We were planning to go on a vacation abroad'. From the sounds of it the overseas/abroad vacation was just an idea and was still being planned when ex-wife put the kibosh on it, because in the next paragraph OP said, 'I then decided to go and book the vacation anyway without [*insert OP's children's names]'.

Unless I read or I'm understanding it wrong, from the sounds if it OP was still planning the vacation, but when OP's ex-wife refused to allow it, OP went ahead and booked the vacation anyways.

If that's the case, OP did kind of exclude his children, thus also placing/leaving them in the middle of it. In my mind that kind of makes OP an TA too (softer than ex-wife but still an AH) because if nothing had been booked yet, he had the opportunity to plan a vacation which could have included all of his children.

Let's hope this doesn't happen, but in the end OP's excluded children may come to resent their siblings for the perceived preferential treatment, regardless of whether OP's decision is right or wrong. But that's just my 2 cents.

Nosysusan wrote:

ESH. Your ex is cruel for her racism. When you found out your children would not be allowed to go out of country for vacation, you should have changed destinations. The blame doesn’t fall completely on Kate. You excluded your children.

It seems unanimous that OP's ex is TA for her worldview, but many commenters feel OP could have handled this vacation situation better.