To be sad that no one would help

[Parpadew]

Emergency last night and I needed someone to drive a forty minute round trip. That's all. Never asked for this or any favour really before. I offered to pay. No one would help. Not my mum, siblings. One friend would have but she's on holiday. Got a taxi in the end but it was sheer luck one turned up as it's not a well covered part of the country.

Feel really alone right now!

By that token, the time I fell over and injured myself near DSis's house and phoned her for help only to find she was out, she shouldn't have phoned her partner to ask him to come and rescue me because boundaries. And he certainly shouldn't have helped me clean up, taken me to A&E and stayed with me till my DH arrived.

If your family would really react this way to be asked to show a little human kindness, I feel really rather sorry for you.

Apologies if I’ve missed this in the zillions of pages… but how long has OP been with this partner?

Could it be that her family have had their fill of a variety of partners being introduced to the family and don’t feel like getting v involved with this one?

Could it be that OP has form amongst the family for being a bit of a drama llama? Her saying that she’s considering disowning her DSis over this leads one to wonder!

But there was a taxi. He just had to wait for one to come.

We maybe that's how your famiy/friendships work @Shinyandnew1 but where I'm from we don't leave people we care about stranded for 5 hours to save ourselves a 40min round journey in the car. Hell, I'd do that for a neighbour, let alone a friend.

That WAS an emergency though wasn't it? There's a huge difference between what you describe and what OP is describing.

OP still hasn't said how many people were at the station. Wouldn't someone have said "Who's heading for X town?" to get a few people sharing a cab when it came, or would answering "Yes, me" have been too much for DP? (Every time I've been stuck because of broken down trains etc, and the railways have stuffed up getting buses organised, organising taxi sharing has been the first thing passengers have done.)

I posted earlier after assuming that it was Op who needed picking up but having read her updates I still stand by what I said. I know I could have counted on my sister to help me in this situation. I would also be upset with my family.

You really don’t see the difference between a broken ankle requiring a hospital visit and having your train cancelled? 🙄

I have been on broken down trains many a time and have always managed to work through it by myself. Not once has a cancelled train promoted me to feel sad about my family relationships, so no need for you to feel sorry either.

I don’t travel by train into London anymore but my husband does and deals with cancelled trains, delayed trains quite often. And I will say again, he really does manage to deal with all by himself, he doesn’t sit there like a big man baby whilst I try to rally my family to rescue him (whilst sitting on my arse myself).

(no idea how that went to italics but I can’t be bothered retyping)

Agreed. A broken ankle is in no way comparable to a cancelled train and OP and her partner frankly sound like a right pair of wet blankets.

Doesn't he have any friends he could have called?

I have excellent relations ships with my friends and family, thanks. I would happily give lifts, depending on the situation. If it was 5pm, I couldn’t help because I’d still be at work. If it was 1am and I had to be up at 6am, I wouldn’t be keen. It’s my choice though-I’m driving.

I wouldn’t ask either of my parents to turn out on a dark rainy night to drive 40 minutes to fetch my boyfriend though and he wouldn’t want me to ask them.

OP needs to drive and get a car though and can then take her boyfriend anywhere he needs to be when he’s feeling anxious.

@Parpadew

Can you drive? If not, will you be learning?
What time was your boyfriend at the station?
Does your boyfriend have any friends?

That kindness works both ways though doesn't it? Because equally, in other families, they might be kind enough to not bother a girlfriends sister at dinner time, when a cab could be called. (Because let's face it, from a CITY which is where the cab came from, it wouldn't be 5 hours, if one made a concerted effort at the start of the 5 hours to call them all).

do find it weird that no one could drive 20mins there and back again to help out if it was around 5/6pm/rush hour

Do you realistically think that it would be a 20 minute journey on a day when the entire rail network went down?
I was travelling home by bus, journey that usually takes 20 mins even in normal rush hour.
I got home 2 hours later, it was hell on the roads.

Train travellers were told to avoid travelling, very clearly.
Even if it wasn't stormy in Scotland, the issues causing the outage started in Peterborough which is a hub for trains travelling North.
That's why there was a warning.

So do I want to go and collect idiot BF of sister who is catastrophising and calling it an emergency on a night when it's likely going to be massive traffic jams
No

Ps DH offered to come out.
I told him to stay put as it would be daft for him to get stuck as well.

A 3.5 hour walk in the dark IS an emergency in my book.

That you would call someone facing that a catastrophising idiot says more about you than them.

The 3.5 hour walk vs being picked up wasn't the comparison though... it was being picked up by your girls friends sister vs a cab. (It was a CITY they were going to, there are plenty of cabs).

OP is saying there are no cabs where he is. So THAT is the comparison, not what you believe.

There was no need to do any sort of 3 hour walk. Just wait in the nice dry station until a taxi came.

He did wait for a cab (5 hours) and even that was luck. I would spare a family member that anxious wait for a taxi that may or may not come.

So many people acting hard here but I but they wilt in similar circumstances themselves. Most of you won’t even open the front door after 7pm.

OP said it wasn't a well-covered area but went on to say there were no cabs because of all the train cancellations. So it was just a matter of waiting it out till the taxi companies were less busy. Which is exactly what happened as a taxi did go to get him.

You would leave a family member 5 hours in the dark?

Glad you’re no family of mine.

Why don’t they like him?

The op didn't say at what point the cab was called...

And as she has been back to this thread several times after being asked this...it's safe to assume whilst the wait was 5 hours, the cab wasn't called for at the beginning of the 5 hours.

Of course she'll be back now to make up that it was.

You are really clutching at straws now.

She says ‘It was absolutely luck of the gods that I found one after five hours.’

Firstly, he isn't the OPs family.

Secondly, we don't know when OP called the cab because OP continues to refuse to answer reasonable questions.

And we also don't know what OP said to her family as she won't answer that either.

You're saying you wouldn't leave a family member for 5 hrs when no-one would have known it would be that long. You don’t call up taxi companies and get told there'll be a 5 hr wait, you get told they're really busy and to try again later.

So even if OP had said "DP is stranded at so and so station, can you pick him up because there's no taxis available at the moment" it's really not unreasonable to think that whomever she was asking might think "well there'll be one available as soon as it all calms down" and wouldn't think that would take 5 hrs.