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

How much decent quality sleep do you think he’d get in a taxi at 4am, and then while he has a house full of small children - including a poorly baby?

Riding in a taxi for 3 hours when I was already tired and then needing to drive would be an unsafe decision.

I would not sleep in a car driven by a stranger. That is not a good plan. It is a perfect way to be assaulted.

I imagine being a pilot is a very intense job.
He was probably exhausted and needed to rest. Unless is was a life or death emergency which needed him home. YABVU

But by your timings the most sleep he would have got at home would have been five hours and realistically less because you needed him to be able to look after the kids at that point so he would need time to shower and get dressed. You are being very very unreasonable. Is there some backstory where he does nothing and you're fed up with it? It's this the final straw?

If not I can't understand why you are being so stubborn on this.

He should have come home imo, I guess different for pilots as they are used to different sleep patterns/places, but most people sleep better in their own bed and want to see their family asap. On choosing to stay in a hotel, he should have got in touch with the airline/taxi firm, etc to get home earlier to see family and not muck up your plans - which I'm sure are often bent around his job. I'd be really surprised if the airline booked the transport and hadn't asked him what time he wanted to be collected.

Not a single person has expressed concern that she's caring for multiple kids and driving around with them on virtually zero sleep.

I'd really hope she wouldn't be so stupid to put her kids at risk like that but given her attitude to her husband lack of sleep perhaps not.

Yes he could possible have got in at 4 am and then done 3 hour taxi to home airport then called another taxi wait around for it 7 am on no sleep for 15 minute drive home waited for it to turn up rather than sleep in a hotel overnight.

It's not that I would not do that but it would have to be a really big one off event for my spouce to put myself though that for.

Before I respond,it depends - do you work full time, part-time, WFM or not at all outside the home OP? Because that matters.

I would have chosen hotel

You ABU. If he is the captain in charge of the plane then all decisions ultimately rest with him for future rotations after that rest. The CAA set legal requirements about minimum rest periods and unbroken sleep is important to satisfy these. If there is ever a near miss or worse, the CAA want to know the state of the pilot's previous hours to decide whether any blame rests with the pilot. Errors can be lethal and if a pilot survived them could still result in a custodial sentence.

I would never do anything to interrupt a pre-flight rest period as the risks are too great.

So if your school is a drive away, how do the other kids get there? Do schools take 'mum is knackered ' as an authorised absence now?

As it happens I think he made the right choice, but I do understand her frustration.

Yes and from a man hanging around and commenting on a women’s forum 😆

This has ‘nothing to do since being thrown off a Council zoom by Jackie Weaver and finished reading Daily Mail Online for the day’ vibes.

No idea where your DH works but for info post the Selby rail accident at least one airline's management got quite twitched about crew driving themselves any distance at all after an extended duty day (risk of corporate liability), so advised crew not to do it and always offered hotel accomodation in those circumstances.

I'm with your DH on this.

Taxi - bus - walk - better than causing an accident and killing her kids fuck sake.

Driving tired is dangerous - and if it's no sleep as I was answering to it can be as bad as drink driving it delays reactions time and causes accidents - as I said I knew someone who managed to over turn her car on way home and died and it was put down to her being tired - she did 8 hour shift coming straight from airport and hoilday and little sleep - no other contibuting factors.

I too get she is frustated - I've had it happen to me with no other childcare but her attitude is awful and I suspect it may be part of a pattern of behavior that she may need to address rather than pick this event which TBH he was probably reaonable about and as makes her look unreasonable.

This isn't as straightforward as I thought it would be when I clicked on it - it's not worth rowing about, just make sure he knows you would want him home if a similar occurrence happens in the future.

He probably was shattered and needed rest. You have responsibilities too @Groay so you need an acknowledgement.

Who said she has multiple kids and zero sleep?

I think YABU, in my view work (and therefore adequate rest) has to come first. I would have also chosen the hotel option. Unless you had a serious medical appointment or similar then I think staying at the hotel is a no brainer.

I agree.

The 3 hour taxi ride isn’t the worst thing in the world but if he’s not slept for hours and is jet jagged etc then I think it’s risky driving himself when he’s tired, even if was only 20mins.

Nobody. People are making up their own narratives.

She said she was awake with a poorly baby at 4am, not at all unusual even with a baby who is not unwell. That's literally all we know.

Sorry, no, I would have taken the hotel room.

It’s not safe to go from a full day of working to a little nap in a taxi (surely no one sleeps 3 hours straight sitting up in a car) straight into a full day of childcare and driving kids around on no sleep.

The safest thing to do was sleep. That’s what I would have done and what I would have expected Dh to do.

She was still up at 4am with poorly baby. She mentions 'kids'. The other kids are probably up at 6ish.

The post I took the quote from and quoted in bold. I can't be arsed to go back and find it.

I can never work out if it best to quote whole post of bit I'm responding to but driving tired should be taken serioulsy it's disturbing so many posters are so cavalier about it

This..
if is multiple kids and zero sleep as per usual… then how will he get the safe sleep?

Yabu sorry

Well if the other kids are up at 6 in your scenario that's even more reason for him to stay at a hotel, don't you think?

Team DH here. He probably wouldn't have been able to sleep in the taxi properly or when he got home.

It's actually really important for his health to sleep when he needs it in a job like that. Can't afford to miss opportunities to get a proper rest.