AIBU to expect DH to leave contact when I was hospitalised?

[Amioverreactinghmm]

I have been extremely unwell for the past 4 months and have been admitted to hospital for numerous blood transfusions. Im dizzy, sick and faint on a near daily basis, however I received my diagnosis yesterday and a plan is in place for my treatment going forward.

Quick backstory, my dh has a DD aged 15. He only found out about her at 6 yo and since then has fought tooth and nail to be in her life. The courts awarded him 4 hours contact (10-2) on a Saturday and Sunday every week at her aunt's house (mum's sister) as the mum refuses point blank to have any contact with my DH. She didn't want contact, it had to be forced and even then she was held in contempt for refusing a court order.

Anyway on Friday night I was really ill, sickness, temp etc. My DH left on the Saturday morning for his visit and I just got worst throughout the day. At 11.30ish I lost consciousness and my DD (20) panicked and called an ambulance and my DH.

My DH didn't leave, he stayed til his contract time was over and later as well as the sister allowed extra time as his DD was having a water fight with him in the garden so he didn't leave til 4 and didn't get to me in the hospital til the back of 5. I had to have another transfusion.

I feel he should of left when he got the call. He feels he barely gets time with his DD so will soak up every minute he gets. AIBU?

I would be very hurt and if I’m honest I would rethink the relationship.
I can see his time with her is hard fought, but he even stayed later and didnt rush after time was up. He has prioritised being “fun dad” and trying to win her over rather than rushing to see his seriously ill wife. I think that speaks volumes about his selfishness and where you are on the pecking order, so I would be rethinking the whole relationship.

So sorry to hear this awful story, of course the husband should have gone straight to hospital, what an unfeeling role model he is for his daughter. Even worse that he now knows you have a cancer diagnosis but still isn't speaking to you. Cervical cancer is a sexually transmitted disease, it may have come from him.
You seem to be getting zero support from him, sadly you need to look at getting it elsewhere for yourself and your daughter. The Macmillan service might be a start.

You had an adult family member with you OP so yabu. He barely gets to see his dd.

RTWT
No she didn't have anyone with her. OP's adult daughter is autistic and couldn't manage to make the journey in the ambulance with her mum

"Cervical cancer is a sexually transmitted disease, it may have come from him."

Now the husband is to blame for her cancer. Jesus wept this is low.

Your a idiot aren't you? I got cervical cancer when I was celibate it's not a std you dummy

😂 so it was imaginary sex that gave me cancer good to know 🤣 I got cervical cancer when I wasn't even having sex

It’s pretty obvious that there are many posters on MN who see men as the devil incarnate and find fault in any way. Some posters are so determined to paint the husband as the bad guy he’s been accused of causing the cancer or even having the affair. Others have banged on about OP having stage 4 cancer when she never said that - they have actually manipulated the story and lied just make the husband look awful.

When really, we don’t know what happened. OP was unconscious so she doesn’t even know the full story. She doesn’t know what her daughter told her husband. For someone who faints regularly, this was yet another episode and her husband would not have been unreasonable to see it that way and that therefore there is no need to go running to the hospital when it’s happened many times before and she’s in safe hands.

Being sick is awful, but being the family member of someone who is sick and in and out of hospital is also hard. Perhaps he didn’t appreciate that this time was somewhat more serious than others and that’s not unreasonable in the circumstances as all he had was one call from his step daughter to say she’s fainted again, just as she had many times before. The paramedics didn’t call him to say she’s being blue lighted (though I’m not actually sure how she knows that if she was unconscious this whole time so the story doesn’t quite add up). The doctors wouldn’t have called and said “hey, she’s harder to rouse this time than usual”.

There was nothing he was told to suggest he needed to be there right away. As some of us shared above, when you have a family member in and out of hospital a lot, it gradually becomes less of an emergency that means you must drop everything. It really doesn’t mean that they don’t matter or you don’t care, it’s just it happens over and over again that you know the drill and manage life around it.

Yes, it is sexually transmitted. They came out with a vaccine about 20 years ago.

Cause: Human Papillomavirus (HPV)

• High-risk strains—most notably HPV types 16 and 18—are responsible for about 70% to 90% of all cervical cancer cases.
• The virus spreads through skin-to-skin contact during sexual activity.

"Yes, it is sexually transmitted. They came out with a vaccine about 20 years ago."

Hpv is a virus which is sexually transmitted infection with which is a risk factor for cervical cancer but as you point out it is not the only cause. The cancer itself is not infectious!

In this case op has a DD 20 and her DH had a 15 year old which he didn't know about. So it seems likely op's DD has a different father to her current DH who still gets the blame from some posters for op's cancer.

Read the thread. OP had no-one with her at all. Her DD is autistic. She called the ambulance but couldn’t cope with going to hospital with OP. l wouldn’t say four hours dedicated contact every Saturday and Sunday was barely seeing his child, and l don’t know many people who would have overstayed that by two hours knowing that their partner had been rushed to hospital. He left OP in the care of her DD knowing she wasn’t well. DD called him at around 11.30 to tell him OP was unconscious and on her way to hospital, but it took him until after 5pm to get to her.

But she was safe in hospital. He came after contact. Her dd called the ambulance so was fine to be with her at home. I still feel OP was being unreasonable, making it into an unnecessary competition

Agree. OP says he didn’t find out about his DD until she was six and updated that this was after they were married. DD is 15 and OP’s DD is 20, so unless DD20 was born before they married, it’s most likely she’s his stepchild. I don’t support DH’s actions that day at all, but l think the attempts to blame him for OP’s cancer are utterly disgusting.

And his DD was safe at home with her aunt and other family around her. OP was safe in hospital, but would have regained consciousness alone and would have been aware that she had been admitted as an emergency - and for the first time.

Given his ex’s behaviour, l could just about get on board with him not wanting to risk leaving his DD early, but I think what’s unreasonable is that he overstayed his contact time by two hours and didn’t turn up at the hospital until after five. That sends a message that if l were the OP, l would find difficult to understand. Or forgive.

How on earth do you know what OP knows or doesn’t know ? This happened on Friday, so she’s clearly spoken to her DD since then and would have been told the circumstances. I can’t imagine any scenario in which DD would have rung DH and not told him she had called an ambulance and why. And this wasn’t ’the drill’. It was the first time she had become unresponsive and the first time she had been taken to hospital as an emergency. He would have known that.

I don’t think it’s the case at all that posters are seeing DH as the devil incarnate because he’s a man. I think we’re judging him on his actions under the circumstances and finding him wanting - especially for needlessly staying two hours extra with his DD. OP now knows where his priorities are, and they’re clearly not with her. Given that she’s facing a long hard road of cancer treatment, she needs to know that she has support, and his behaviour on Friday has caused her to doubt his ability to provide that support. You can hardly blame her for being concerned.

I agree.

Another factor I think may be important is that I find it odd that even after many years (9?) contact is so limited and remains supervised, despite the DD being 15 years old- and presumably able to express her own wishes and have those taken into account. It just seems unusual that after so long, with his DD being happy to see him etc, that this is still the situation. Which makes me wonder if there is a more complex situation surrounding her- perhaps SEND or issues about the relationship in some way. That might further impact why her DH chose to stay.

Unfortunately, we are all on our own, when it comes down to it.

If he was in the pub on a stag do, then that would be fair enough to bin it.

Sounds like he had to make a complicated choice.

Others might have made a different one, but we can see the reasons. Try to concentrate on getting well, and moving forward.s

"I don’t think it’s the case at all that posters are seeing DH as the devil incarnate because he’s a man. I think we’re judging him on his actions under the circumstances and finding him wanting - especially for needlessly staying two hours extra with his DD. OP now knows where his priorities are, and they’re clearly not with her. Given that she’s facing a long hard road of cancer treatment"

thr devil incarnate comment is because some posters are saying he probably gave her the cancer in the first place!

And few people would tell a woman that spending time with their DD was needless!

If his reason for not leaving contact early to go to the hospital was the concern that his ex would use it against him, that’s one thing. But choosing to stay an extra two hours when you know your partner has been rushed to hospital, is something else entirely. It was ‘needless’ in the sense that he didn’t need to stay late to ensure smooth ongoing contact - that just gives the impression that OP is no priority at all.

It was a few hours, you'd hardly have been triaged by the time he was finished, I think you're being childish.

Nope that's a very real and traumatic diagnosis I change my vote.

If she was blue lighted to hospital unconscious and unresponsive do you really think they would be hanging around to triage her ? An unconscious and unresponsive patient is a level one emergency - the ambulance crew call ahead and the hospital team meets them to transfer the patient straight to resuscitation.

I’ve no wish to add to the vitriol some posters are directing at DH, even though I think OP should have been the priority that day - and to try to blame him for OP’s cancer is about at batshit as I’ve ever seen on MN. But. OP says that the ex didn’t tell DH about DD and she didn’t want him to have contact with her - to the point where she was prepared to go to prison when she would comply with the court order. Some posters have painted her as mentally unstable, but we actually don’t know why she has this attitude towards him. I can’t imagine it’s for no reason.

Firstly, you’re assuming all of that happened.

And second, how did he know any of that?