AITA? Woman asks Reddit if her husband should have held his pee during flight

The woman said she asked her husband to delay toilet breaks during flights with their small children. Photo / 123rf

A woman who demanded her husband “just hold his pee” during flights with their young children has turned to the internet to judge if she is being fair.

The woman, who shared her story on Reddit’s “Am I the Asshole?” forum, asked people to decide whether she was being unreasonable.

During a 3.5-hour flight, the woman said she was in the middle aisle seat holding their 3-month-old baby while the husband sat across the aisle with their 2-year-old.

Seated separately due to the unavailability of adjacent seats, the mother said things became tricky when her husband got up to use the toilet.

“About an hour into the flight my husband gets up to pee while I’m nursing baby and as soon as he leaves the toddler crawls over to me,” she wrote.

The situation worsened when the husband got stuck behind the beverage cart, leaving her to juggle the restless toddler, who disrupted the nursing baby, causing them to cry.

Later during the flight, when the mum was nursing again, the husband got up for another bathroom break. Again, the toddler clambered over and the baby began to cry.

The woman added that medical tests for serious illnesses came up clear and a pelvic floor therapist said he should work with a personal trainer to “avoid issues down the road”.

However, the husband appeared unwilling to work on the issue and the wife claimed he could hold it in other situations.

“He says he doesn’t need help and blames it on drinking lots of water. He does work a full-time job in an office and does go hours without peeing when he has back-to-back calls so he’s capable of holding it,” she wrote.

He also runs ultra-marathons without ever having “accidents”, she added.

After the flight, she told her husband balancing the kids was tricky and asked him to hold his pee.

“So many times I have to pee when I’m watching the boys but hold it until timing is better. He said he can’t,” she wrote.

“Next, I asked if he could ask me before he pees and go when baby isn’t nursing and I have two hands. He said no and he should be able to pee when he has to go”.

The woman said she was “worried” about managing the unusual circumstance during several upcoming trips, including international flights.

Public give their judgment

More than 3400 people voted on the post, with the majority saying neither the wife nor the husband were in the wrong. In the comments, more than 2000 people shared their take on the situation.

The most liked comment was one person saying they felt torn between whether the husband was to blame or not.

“On the one hand, if he has a medical problem causing him to pee and has no ability to hold it whatsoever, then obviously he should get to go when he needs,” they reasoned.

“But you said that he refused help, so at this point he’s choosing this problem,” they wrote, adding he should do better in timing the trips when the mother wasn’t feeding.

Another pointed out that while the husband claimed he couldn’t time his bathroom breaks, he appeared to be able to hold it for 20 minutes while waiting behind the beverage cart.

Others took issue with the mum’s claim that she delayed bathroom breaks during flights, saying the burden should be shared.

“Why can’t he hold his own infant for a while so mama can stretch and pee?” one person asked, while another said people underestimate how tricky breastfeeding could be.

“If you’ve never had to breastfeed an infant with a toddler all over you at the same time then you really have no idea how frustrating and difficult that is,” they wrote.

Some suggested that using the bathroom often wasn’t the issue; the lack of communication was.

“Him refusing to communicate with her and make a team effort is how you know it IS in fact malicious intent”, one person claimed, another adding that he should have taken the toddler with him to the bathroom.

“I just did a five-hour flight and brought my toddler with me to the tiny plane bathrooms, did it suck, yup. But what other choice did I have?” another added.