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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

In expecting him to pick me up from the airport?

388 replies

dramallamamx · 23/09/2023 16:01

I'm currently travelling alone in Mexico and I realised I had made a mistake with my coach times to get home from the airport as I forgot about the time difference. A new ticket is £40 and a 6 hour coach journey returning home at 8pm by which time I will have been travelling for around 24 hours and I am back at work the next day. I rang my partner and asked if he could give me a lift from the airport , it is about a 2 and a half hour drive. He says he has a meeting at 10am and I land at 11:15, I said ok I don't mind waiting at the airport for you to arrive, he says he will be too tired as he drove 5 hours to Devon yesterday for a music show and he doesn't know how long the meeting will last so he can't do it and it's my fault that I fucked up the times. I said he was being selfish as I would go out of my way to help him in this situation. Who is being unreasonable here?

OP posts:
MolkosTeenageAngst · 23/09/2023 17:09

Sakura7 · 23/09/2023 17:03

The DM is cracked if she would pay £300 just to spare her DD the horror of a few hours on a coach.

No way would I accept, or expect, that. It's insane.

Show quote history

Totally agree it is ridiculous of a mother to offer to pay £300 on a taxi so that an able-bodied adult who has just been on holiday the minor inconvenience of a 6 hour coach journey. Also crazy to splash out on an expensive trip to Mexico and then worry about a £40 coach ticket. However with a mother who thinks saving a few hours on a coach is worth £300 it’s probably no wonder the OP is entitled, if this is the level of bending over backwards she has come to expect from her mother I guess she thinks the world revolves around her and that therefore her boyfriend should pick her up!

MyHornCanPierceTheSky · 23/09/2023 17:09

Yabu and is there an undercurrent of pissed off that he drove 5hrs for a gig and you think he should do same for you?

CornishGem1975 · 23/09/2023 17:09

I love my DH but fuck that! Your mistake.

Bloom15 · 23/09/2023 17:11

Highfivemum · 23/09/2023 16:23

You are getting such a mixed response on this. Although I can see his point I know for a fact my DH would travel to get me without question. We all make mistakes and I think he is being uncaring. As I said you will get mixed opinions on this but for me I wouldn’t ask my DH age would have offered. Last year my flight was cancelled ( only a domestic flight and my DH said he would drive to get me. 7 hours each way. Thats what we do for ones we love

I agree as my DH would do the same.

BUT this is a boyfriend of 5 months - I think that is very different

pandora206 · 23/09/2023 17:11

A tip for next time OP, is to book a Change and Go coach ticket which enables last minute changes (assuming National Express coaches). I usually allow a couple of hours to collect bags and go through security at major airports (Heathrow, Gatwick) anyway and if I get through before my departure time catch an earlier coach if one is scheduled. Coach travel can be slow when you have to change but it's pretty reliable.

NumberTheory · 23/09/2023 17:12

It’s not your boyfriend’s reaction that isn’t normal.

If your mum, on hearing you made a mistake and would need to cough up an extra £40 decides to try and throw £300 at you to get you a taxi and you think that’s a “normal” reaction to you making an annoying but perfectly bearable mistake, I think you may be a bit spoilt, OP!

Justnot · 23/09/2023 17:12

I don’t get the very unreasonable, in a relationship you should want to look after each other. Help when your partner has a mishap - if you can. If I asked a friend with all the same provisos, likes to drive, isn’t busy, I would think any of my friends that could, would.

SundayCherry · 23/09/2023 17:13

Bloody hell OP, of course he’s not going to respond the same as your mum- you’ve only been together since April that’s only 5 months! It’s basically still a fling at this point!

FOTTFSOFTFOASM · 23/09/2023 17:14

The "partner" isn't the problem: the mother is. If one of my adult DC fucked up like that, I'd tell them it was their own silly fault. Mother has presumably given the OP the idea that someone else will bail her out when she fucks up.

Agree with PP who say a boyfriend of 4 months is absolutely not a "partner". It would be a massive ask of someone you'd been married to for 20 years, never mind a new boyfriend.

If he has any sense, he'll be the one reconsidering the relationship.

Vivi0 · 23/09/2023 17:15

I’d be really upset if my husband asked me to do what you have asked of your partner, and then told me he wasn’t happy about me saying no.

I would do it if there was an emergency, but in the circumstances you have described, it’s just a lack of respect for your partner’s time.

Reading that you are considering ending the relationship over this is quite shocking but you know what, you are the one with the issue here, a massive entitlement issue, and he will be better off without this in his life.

It’s really telling that your mum offered to pay £300 for a taxi.

Good luck with your future relationships.

jazzyfips · 23/09/2023 17:17

You’re a total CF for asking. Get the coach.

PrincessHoneysuckle · 23/09/2023 17:17

Dh would pick me up if able to no question.
A lot of that would be so he didn't have to pay for a £300 taxi tho Grin

DirectionToPerfection · 23/09/2023 17:17

Justnot · 23/09/2023 17:12

I don’t get the very unreasonable, in a relationship you should want to look after each other. Help when your partner has a mishap - if you can. If I asked a friend with all the same provisos, likes to drive, isn’t busy, I would think any of my friends that could, would.

I'd see where you were coming from if she had no other way home, but there's perfectly acceptable public transport!

It's not exactly being helpful and supportive to her boyfriend to expect him to take almost a full day off work just to save her having to get on a coach. It's batshit.

If you genuinely think she's in the right, you're as entitled as her.

arintingly · 23/09/2023 17:18

Why did you book the coach originally rather than ask him to get you?

viques · 23/09/2023 17:20

Sleep on the plane, sleep on the coach. Sleep when you get home at 8.00pm. As long as you aren’t doing brain surgery the next day at work you should be fine.

Sakura7 · 23/09/2023 17:20

PrincessHoneysuckle · 23/09/2023 17:17

Dh would pick me up if able to no question.
A lot of that would be so he didn't have to pay for a £300 taxi tho Grin

But there's a coach! OP just doesn't want to get it.

SallyWD · 23/09/2023 17:20

So it's 5 hours driving for him and your coach journey would be 6 hours? I'm afraid I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't even ask DH because 5 hours driving is a lot. It's only one hour more travelling time than you getting the coach but on the coach you can sit back and relax. He can't relax during a 5 hour drive.

category12 · 23/09/2023 17:21

Since you have previously given him lifts from the airport, I think it's pretty shit he won't return the favour. At least it's only a few months wasted on him.

ilovesooty · 23/09/2023 17:22

I don't think his refusal is unreasonable. I think you're being unreasonable to sulk about it.

Whichsideoftherock · 23/09/2023 17:23

Going against the majority of the replies here… call me old fashioned, but ime, a man will drive any number of hours to pick up a gf he is in love with.

My now dh of nearly three decades regularly used to drive me from London to Cumbria and back again, and he would still do it today if I asked him.
(That’s not a boast, it’s a fact bc in the interests of this thread, I have just asked him.)

Perhaps blokes have changed though … but my dh did this in the first few weeks of our relationship as it happens. .

Peony15 · 23/09/2023 17:24

You land at 11.15am, if flight is on time. It'll
take you min 1 hour from getting off flight /immigration to bag claim.
Hardly a wait to then take 2pm bus on which you can sleep all the way for 6 hours.

Why anyone would do
this long trip having to go to
work next day is beyond me buy hey. Hope flight not canx or delayed.
Why would you make anyone drive/concentrate for 5 hours return trip / no traffic is beyond me.
Very entitled after 5 months. Am on DP's side, bit of a cheeky demand as that is a long drive.
Also arrival times of planes are always local times, not sure how that can be messed claiming time difference mistake ?

CherryMaDeara · 23/09/2023 17:24

Cosyblankets · 23/09/2023 16:46

Wouldn't we all.
But he'd rather not drive 5 hours. He'd rather be in the comfort of his own home.

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But he has expected OP to do TWO airport pick ups.

He’s a user.

lemonraincoat · 23/09/2023 17:27

You are being unreasonable. I would not expect anyone to drive 2.5 hours to pick me up - and then drive another 2.5 miles home. You sound rather entitled (and hard work).

Whichsideoftherock · 23/09/2023 17:29

Op why not try and meet him half way? If he’s not prepared to take 2 hours out of his day for you then I think you have your answer!

LIZS · 23/09/2023 17:29

Yabu You could be halfway home by the time he could reach you,