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Original poster

How ill would you have to be before DH ran from a very important meeting?

64 replies

Inoneminute · 26/05/2020 07:49

Maybe the whole key to this is that the parents involved are prone to over reacting.

MW seems to have had a stomach bug, called DC at work at which point he dropped everything and ran from Downing Street.

In the context of peope who reacted like that to mum feeling unwell, perhaps everything else is reasonable?

DH would come as soon as he could but I can't imagine him running on TV Grin

OP posts:
Bluntness100 · 26/05/2020 08:36

I don’t think he can be attacked for running, no one heard the call between him and his wife, how ill she was and the distress she displayed.

I’m sure if many peoooe felt it was an emergency they’d also have ran.

Tappering · 26/05/2020 08:37

Only once. After I called him and told him that I was having a really bad MH episode and didn't feel safe. He came straight home and then took me to the crisis team.

He is good at noticing when I'm not well though.

Coffeecak3 · 26/05/2020 08:40

My dh went off to work one morning when both me and toddler ds had d&v. I spent the day continually cleaning up dc whilst trying not to vomit over him or poop my pants.
Dh also didn’t come to baby scan because he couldn’t possibly take time off work.
That was 28 years ago though so perhaps times have changed.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

General health
SunbathingDragon · 26/05/2020 08:47

I think it depends eg whether running determined making a train to get home an hour earlier or not.

Nosurveysneeded · 26/05/2020 08:47

He is a liar. I wouldn't believe anything that DC said.

What a worm the man is

peperethecat · 26/05/2020 08:49

I think the salient point here is that all or most of this story is fictional.

MaeveDidIt · 26/05/2020 08:49

In answer to your question:

No everything else is NOT reasonable.

Running home - yes sure, BUT driving 100's miles was breaking lockdown rules.

What could be more black and white?

He's a complete hypocrite of a man.

Mary1935 · 26/05/2020 08:49

I wonder what his wife version of events would be!!!

Aretheystillasleepbob · 26/05/2020 08:50

Maybe she discovered his 'secret' phone with the messages from the OW?? That would get my DP running...

31133004Taff · 26/05/2020 08:52

I don't think a person can rise to that level of power and influence whilst also having a sensitive link to what's going on at home. Work is first second and third. Everyone and everything is essentially excess to requirement. Work and power is paramount.

I would believe more that DC was running for his OWN protection from CV and also transferred wife and family somewhere else in order to not interfere with his priorities.

Ilovemystarter · 26/05/2020 08:53

Mine wouldn't have noticed if I projectile vomited in the street. But none of my children have autism or any other disability - perhaps protective parents of a small autistic child would be particularly concerned about him seeing his mother being sick, or him harming himself if left unattended?

Aragog · 26/05/2020 08:55

I'd need to be properly ill before I called Dh to leave work to look after me and, when she was smaller, dd.

I would need to be incapacitated and unable to care for my child to call and expect Dh to leave immediately. Same the other way round.

But I guess if it was that I really believed I had Covid and that Dh was working with someone vulnerable or who had a confirmed case I'd expect him to leave soon after to isolate himself.

HouseOfSticks · 26/05/2020 09:00

I didn’t even realise being sick was a symptom?
I usually send DD to a family member if I’ve got a bug.

BertiesLanding · 26/05/2020 09:04

Don't be disingenuous, OP. In his words, she was sick enough that she was scared she was becoming unable to look after him safely. I would run home in that case, too. Of course, the press caught him doing this and made it all about him running away from Boris when he was diagnosed, but that's another story.

Jourdain11 · 26/05/2020 09:06

I had HG with all three of my pregnancies and often had to farm out my two older girls to a friend when I was pregnant with DS. I think I once had to ring DH at work when I was throwing up every 10 mins, couldn't look after DDs and couldn't find anyone to come round and take care of them. It was horrible. So I do sympathise with Cummings and Mary Wakefield. But I'm not sure it was exactly the same.

Her descriptions of family interactions in that article somehow don't have the ring of truth. They sound like a story. But I don't know why!

barshinskaya · 26/05/2020 09:06

People who make a living writing about the minute details of their lives are the sorts of tedious narcissists who think their every fart is of great and dramatic importance to the nation. Being sick (with no other symptoms) is not the sign of imminent death, a hospital visit or anything else serious enough to warrant the person running the country (and let's face it, he is, which is why he is not being asked to resign) in a crisis running home. By MW's own (tedious) account, the kid wasn't in a state of distress. By DC's own account, she was not in sufficiently ill a state to prevent him from returning to work the next day (against his own lockdown rules if they did suspect covid-19 was the cause of her vomit).

justanotherneighinparadise · 26/05/2020 09:11

My DP didn’t even leave a meeting to come to the hospital where I was taking DC with a head injury!! He also left both me and my three year old on the side of the road for five hours as he was on a conference call with his big boss overseas.

So I’m going to guess someone would need to be dead for him to leave a meeting, or else in the throes of death.

katseyes7 · 26/05/2020 09:14

l slipped on the path outside our front door. Tried to stand up, nearly passed out from the pain in my ankle. l managed to crawl back inside, rang my (now ex) husband at work and asked him to come home as l needed to go to hospital. l'd been going to pick him up from work, so l said "you'll need to get someone to bring you home."
He waited until he finished his shift, then, instead of asking if someone at work could drive him home as l needed to go to hospital, he rang his sister in law, who said she'd do it, but she had things to do first.
So l waited two hours, sweating and sick with pain, with my ankle swelling and bruising, for him to come home. When we were going out to the car (l was hopping, holding on to him and the wall) he said "Well try and help yourself! Try and walk!"
We sat in A & E for four hours before l was seen, with him grumbling that he was hungry.
l was eventually x-rayed and a doctor came in holding my x-ray and announced cheerfully "You've broken your ankle in three places!"
l wish l'd had a camera. My husband's face was a picture. He was convinced l was making a fuss about nothing.
l had surgery that night. Two wires and one screw on one side, and two plates and nine screws on the other. l was off work for five months.
He still wouldn't admit that he should have come home earlier.

Alittleshortforaspacepooper · 26/05/2020 09:16

There have been a couple of times where DH has stayed off work because either myself or the DC were sick, but I think that's different to coming home once already at work. Also we are recent immigrants so have literally no outside support if I am unwell. The times he has stayed home he has taken emergency leave and it's been because either myself or DC were particularly unwell, not just vomiting.

Then again, this wasn't during a pandemic. I can't honestly say what I would or wouldn't do in that circumstance. I'm not defending DC, he's in the wrong and he needs to go, but in answer to your specific question, during a pandemic I'm not sure I'd have to be that ill at all before calling my DH at work, if the symptoms that my DC and I had were consistent with the virus. I'd be scared and I'd also be thinking that he needed to get home and isolate.

Deelish75 · 26/05/2020 09:16

DP had just arrived at the office to receive a phone call from me to say I'd started bleeding (8 weeks pregnant) He did run out of the office.

I've phoned him when poorly and couldn't really look after kids and he has come home for that but not urgently.

Purpletigers · 26/05/2020 09:17

If I was dying

Iwantacookie · 26/05/2020 09:20

Only time I've asked a dp to come home because I was that ill was when I was heavily pregnant with ds2 and couldnt walk so he had to come home and take me to hospital.
The worst I every felt was when ds1 and dd were toddlers, I was a single parent and have a d&v bug. Poor dc spent 3 days surviving on toast and watching cbeebies but I soldered on because I didnt have a choice.

MashedPotatoBrainz · 26/05/2020 09:22

My DH would run. I know this because when I tripped in the town centre and broke my ankle he got to the hospital faster than the ambulance.

SleepingStandingUp · 26/05/2020 09:23

Didn't she tell him she nearly passed out?

Feeling really feint and woozy alone with a4 yo if expect him to run

But yes, assuming they'd both be incapacitated was an over reaction

CovidicusRex · 26/05/2020 09:27

Well it would have to be life or death but a very important meeting for DH cab resulting a six figure payout for him so you know, I don’t mind puking my guts out for a few hours while distracting kids with the iPad. Obviously if the meeting were less important then he’d cut it short if having him with me made a difference.