A husband asked the internet whether he was in the wrong for leaving his wife at a transit airport and boarding a flight without her.  

The 47-year-old man posted on a Reddit thread called “Am I the A**hole” asking people to decide whether he or his 43-year-old wife, who had left the gate to get Starbucks, was in the wrong.  

“I know how this sounds, but hear me out,” the man begins, explaining how the couple lived in the Pacific Northwest and were flying to see their daughter, who studies on the East Coast. 

“Let me start by saying that travelling with my wife is not a great experience. I am very type A. I like to have everything organised and make sure that we get where we need to be early, especially when travelling,” he wrote. 

“My wife is the opposite, very ‘go with the flow’ and ‘we will get there when we get there’. I do my best to meet in the middle, but not when travelling by plane.” 

According to the man, when they visited their daughter the previous year, he tried waking her up five times for their morning flight. After she supposedly took her time making coffee, showering and eating breakfast, they arrived at the airport so late they missed their flight. 

For this trip, the couple were taking two flights and after some nagging, the man got his wife to the airport on time. 

”We got there on time, with a bit of time to spare, and my wife was annoyed. Kept going on about how now we just have to sit and wait for 45 minutes for them to start boarding,” he wrote. 

When the first flight landed, they had 35 minutes to take multiple rails to get to their new gate in a different part of the airport. 

“We got to our terminal and had about 15 minutes until our plane was set to board,” he wrote. At this point, his wife said she wanted coffee; not a coffee at the cafe next to their terminal but one from Starbucks. 

The problem was that Starbucks was a rail ride and a walk away. 

Airport Starbucks lines can often become very busy during certain times of day. Photo / Victor J. Blue 

“I told her we couldn’t do that, we didn’t have enough time. She stated that we had enough time and if I wouldn’t go with her she would go by herself,” the man explained, adding that he tried stopping her but she left. 

When boarding began 15 minutes later, he began to panic and called her three times. 

“Finally on the last call, she answered and said she was on her way. It was a long line and she had to wait a bit,” he wrote. “I waited by the gate but the attendant said they would need to shut the gate in two minutes. I waited and waited, but she didn’t show up. The attendant asked if I wanted to board, otherwise she was closing the gate.” 

When pleading didn’t work, he boarded the plane and just minutes later his wife called to say she was at the gate but they wouldn’t let her on. 

He also refused to leave the aircraft, saying he didn’t want to miss quality time with his daughter. 

“I said I told you we didn’t have time but you decided to go anyways. I told her to go purchase a new ticket for the next flight and I would see her when she arrives,” he said. 

Surprisingly, the wife didn’t appear upset when she eventually arrived. When they returned home after the trip, she refused to speak to him for more than a week, prompting him to ask the internet if he was the villain. 

Public praises husband for taking flight 

The man was shocked by the response his post received, with more than 8000 comments and 19,000 ‘votes’ dictating whether he was or was not in the wrong. 

In an update, the man clarified that issues with his wife only occurred around travel, so he didn’t think she had ADD/ADHD or an addiction, which people had suggested. 

According to the comments, most agreed the wife had been “selfish” and the husband was not to blame. 

“Your wife is very selfish. Imagine missing time with your child because you thought coffee was more important?” one person asked. 

Another described her as an “entitled child” for even asking to hold up a plane so she could get coffee. 

“I would be livid with this behaviour. How can she not seem to grasp that her callous attitude is the problem here?” another stated. 

The dynamic of one partner missing or being late for flights appeared to be a common one, with many sharing their own stories. 

“I stopped being the caretaker for my partner after the first time we missed a flight,” one person wrote, adding that the third time it happened he missed a flight for a 10-day cruise and has never been late for a flight since. 

One person who often showed up late for flights said it was okay but they never made it another person’s issue. 

“Just because I like to play it risky doesn’t mean I have to make others do it. And when it’s my own fault for being late, I fully acknowledge it,” they wrote.