I (26M) recently went on a vacation with my wife (27F). Some context for the story: we had just gone on a one-week vacation, and on our flight back, it got canceled. This was a huge airport, all the flights were canceled, and there was a 24-hour wait for any hotel within a two-hour drive. So, we spent the first night at the airport, then got a hotel for the second night.

When we came back for our rescheduled flight, it was delayed for a few hours, so we were both on edge. While waiting at our gate, I noticed a kid, around 13, kicking and screaming. At one point, he threw his phone at someone sitting next to him—hard. The person got up and left.

After we boarded our flight, I noticed the kid was two rows in front of us, and before we even took off, he was already screaming and punching. We were in the second-to-last row, and the people behind us offered to switch seats with the kid and his family. I was already thinking about how long this flight would be.

They switched, and the kid was now right behind me. Before we even took off again, he threw a bunch of popcorn over his seat, all over me and my seat. He was still screaming, so I called over a flight attendant. She helped me clean up, and not even two minutes later, the kid grabbed my hair and pulled it back—hard. I’m 6’4”, so my head was over the chair. I immediately yanked the kid’s hand off—hard.

At this point, the mom, who hadn’t said anything yet, started yelling at me not to touch her kid. A flight attendant came over due to the noise, and the mom started screaming about how I assaulted her kid and that she wanted me off the plane. I finally got to tell my side, and a few passengers backed me up. I asked for the kid and his family to be kicked off. During this entire thing, my wife was giving me a look of pure hatred, but I didn’t care and was persistent about having the family removed. The mom was cursing me out, and the kid was still kicking my seat and screaming. After some time, they kicked the family off, and we took the flight in peace. My wife was still looking at me with hatred before saying I was an asshole for having their family kicked off and that I should have sucked it up. After that, she hasn’t talked to me since, and it has been three days. So, am I the jerk for getting an autistic kid and his family kicked off a flight after he physically assaulted me?

Edit: people keep asking why I am still with my wife I forgot to mention this but she has a autistic little brother that she deeply loves and I think the kid reminded her of her brother.

Edit 2: we got divorced