Should husband have got taxi at 4am after finishing work late?

[Groay]

Husband is a pilot. He ended up at an airport that is not his home base. This meant he stayed overnight in a hotel. I was fine with this. But I have since learned that everyone except him chose to get in a paid for taxi in the very early hours. Husband’s taxi was for 2pm the next day. Everyone else wanted to gain that day back by getting the travel over and done with.

It meant that I had to cancel an event I wanted to go to. Dh knows I was trying to figure out alternative childcare but the hassle wasn’t worth it in the end so I sacked it off.

Do I have a right to be mad? Dh could’ve slept for three hours in the taxi and then driven the 20 mins home. And had basically the whole next day to chill with the odd drop off here and there for kids.

He said he was knackered. He FaceTimed me from bed and he was definitely tired but I can tell when he’s exhausted. He was actually quite talkative and I had to say get some sleep to him! I was up with poorly baby

It's absolutely nothing to do with misogyny. It's to do with the fact that her husband is responsible for an aircraft which is presumably full of 100s of passengers. It's not about fairness within the marriage. It's about the critical importance that he's fully fit to pilot the aircraft to the best of his ability, if a crisis happens. If she can't accept this, and expects him to put passengers at risk so that she can go to a social event, then either she shouldn't be married to him or he should find a different job.

YABU.

You both need to figure out childcare in advance with if possible a backup plan in case he's delayed. Expecting him to drive after working till the small hours and just three hours of sleep in a car is unfair and dangerous.

This !
OP you have not even considered the safety aspect .
Why on earth would you want your DH to drive tired , risk of accidents are high at that time , winter , bad weather …
You are bring very selfish and unreasonable .

If the event was so important you should have arranged for childcare , even if you had to pay for it

TBH the bigger immediate problem for the DH in the circumstances described would have been having a car accident on the 15 min drive home post the taxi ride - if he'd worked a very extended shift there's a chance the police might take a very poor view on his fitness to drive.. (that's of course if the DH survived the car accident).

That's why the company I worked for always offered hotel accomodation at base if you were arriving back having extended your duty day beyond normal limits.

I’m guessing the flight he was piloting was diverted to a different airport due to severe winter weather conditions. This is very stressful for a pilot.

A lot more stressful than a poorly child waking a few times at night…..

diversions can happen for all sorts of mundane reasons.

Name them. The mundane reasons why airplanes are diverted to different airports mid flight? I don’t know of any.

She was up with a sick kid. We don't know if she got any sleep that night, but she certainly didn't get a lot.

If he was on his way to work, sure. But he was on his way home, he wasn't about to fly anywhere. We don't even know when his next flight was except that it wasn't the next day. Clearly with his big job he's never allowed a crap night sleep just in case he has to fly in a few days time. What a load of rubbish.

I'd agree it's not the flying that's the problem, the jeopardy is in that 15 min drive post the taxi ride.

It would be alot more sleep than a pilot flying a plane all night until 4am.

Yes your posts are a load of rubbish. He just flew a plane all night, landing at 4am and you seem so unable to understand this means he had no sleep all night that you persist in saying crap like “he is never allowed a crap night sleep”

Not sure I’d be happy with a sleep deprived person driving my kids around. Flying is extremely hard on the body. Was he flying in from a different time zone (jet lag)?

Doesn’t seem like he’ll get much of a sleep with u and the kids disturbing him so he picked the hotel. I would too, it’s not a simple come home and sleep when there is a spouse and children waiting for u, who then require you to be up at a certain time to be dropped off

No, I'm appreciating that he's knackered. What I'm saying is that this has absolutely zilch to do with his flying safety in a few days time.

I'm still not sure where you got the idea that this mum got a 'good night sleep' from whilst up caring for a sick child. I mean I guess it's possible she went to sleep at 10, baby slept perfectly waking her up at 4 ill, and back to sleep for her late rising kids it something. Equally she may have had zero sleep that night because that's not exactly rare with sick babies. Or she may have snatched the odd half an hour here and there. Regardless of whether she had zero sleep or just crap sleep, she then had to plough on with her day.

Meanwhile husband had a choice between 8 hours uninterrupted in a hotel, or 5 hours in his own bed whilst she is still up looking after the kids. She gets neither option.

And it's right that he gets that rest, but she also needs some rest and no one seems to give a damn about that. So to make out he's the hard done by one here is laughable.

He was a selfish arsehole OP, but I bet you already know that.

Did he fly a plane all night? How do you know? Maybe it was a 2 hour flight. I must have missed this information. 4am sounds crap but if you didn’t work 2 days prior and were fully rested until that point and you didn’t start work until 1am then a 4am finish doesn’t sound quite so crap does it? Like I say maybe I missed it but I think people are just assuming he worked all night.

agree with this. I'd rather my DH safe in a hotel than asleep in a taxi in the early hours. Taxi drivers may be used to driving in the early hours, but still its safer if DH has his wits about him (unless you know the taxi company well)

I don't know, I'd value DH, his good job, and a healthy routine and my stable family life over a one off event. A lot to be grateful for already? Unless there's something I'm missing. If he carries on like you're suggesting there will be a detriment to his health over time.

You think a pilot starts work at 1am, does a 2 hour flight, and is finished at 4am?

No preparation for the flight, just jump on the plane and take off? Then land and just jump off and go home?

Seriously?

Get a grip. She wanted him to drive home sleep deprived and jet lagged just so she could go to a little shindig the next day, I'd call that being a selfish arsehole!

Oh come on I’m clearly being hyperbolic because the poster said he flew all night and there’s no evidence of that. Of course I don’t think it but I also doubt he flies all night, every night like the hero some people are painting him as, thus requiring him to never be tired again in his delicate life.

Everyone's sleep needs are different. No guarantee for him he could sleep peacefully from breakfast time if you and the kids were up. I think he was sensible to use the hotel given the responsibility of his job. I get that single parenting is hard work though and I hope he plays his part with the kids when he is properly off duty.

Imagine if he’d had an accident and died and/or killed other people? How would you feel? I bet your event would seem less important then. Plus your life would be a hell of a lot more disrupted. He’s the one who has to drive. He’s the one who gets to make the call.

So you think it would have been reasonable for him to spend 3 hours in a taxi, not sleeping properly, drive home and get in around 8am (when presumably you and the kids would just be waking up), settle back down to be able to sleep whilst kids are now awake and it's daylight, probably not actually sleep until at least 9am, wake up 4 hours later to drive kids to activities (whilst still tired and disoriented from the messed up sleep) and then hope he could get back to sleep at around 2pm at least when he gets back?

Seriously?

How many hours would he have been awake by the time he got home?

It seems like he would have needed much more than 6 hours of sleep after a long shift, 3 hours in a car and 20 minutes of driving while tired after that (which would be unsafe to do).

Sometimes things happen and there isn't a right or wrong. You just have to write it off.

OK, you clearly have no clue what a pilot’s work life is like. Gotcha.