The ambulance isn’t there yet? I’m not going anywhere. Wouldn’t even have to think about it.
Married 14 years. Sister-in-law can suck it. Staying by wife.
Married 21 years next week–wife comes first. Staying. The end.
Tho it is somewhat of a close call, I’d stay. For me, the determining factors were that she was shaken up, could not get up, and ambulance was not there yet. My wife is a pretty tough bird. Very calm in situations involving injury. And over 33 yrs of marriage, I’ve repeatedly expressed my preference for direct communication.
Generally, if she is in control of her faculties, and expresses a strong preference, I accede to that if possible. So if she fell, hurt her arm, but said, “I’m fine. I’ll wait here for the ambulance. You go.” I’d go. But not if she were shaken up.
Gotta admit, tho, the $ isn’t significant to me. I could afford a replacement ticket. And if there were any doubt, and I thought my wife was gonna be pissed at me for my choice/action, I’d prefer to be in the position where I could say, “Fine - I’m a jerk for being concerned about you.”
I actually had something comparable happen two years ago. I was scheduled to drive (four hours) on Thursday night so I could teach a certification class for 30 people. This class was a big part of a Trade Show and the students had all registered and paid to attend.
On Thursday morning, my wife fell when walking her dog and dislocated her shoulder. It took several trips to our GP, an imaging service, an orthopedic clinic, and the ER before she finally was able to get it reduced. She had to be sedated while it was reduced. We got home right around 5:00PM on Thursday night. She was still in quite a bit of pain.
The question was, “Should I leave my wife, who is on heavy pain medication and can’t even drive, alone in the house with our two (very active dogs) with her arm immobilized while I go off to a trade show for two nights and a day?” Sure, I probably could have found someone to check on her or help her out, but I went ahead and canceled the class. Fortunately, we were able to locate another qualified instructor who took over the class when i sent him the material at 11:30P Thursday night. (Bless him!)
It was not really even a hard decision.
Age 50, married twice (15 years, 10 years & counting) Stay. Airfare ain’t cheap but it’s peanuts next to other things. I’ll get out to sister when I can and when wife is stable. As for Sister, is she such a recluse that there is nobody local that can help her, so she needs to fly in family? In nature we call reclusive members of social species “food.”
And more importantly, she will eventually forget what the mission was, but will always remember on some level whether or not you stayed with her.
No doubt about it, you stay with your wife. Even if she tells you to go. Even if she *insists *that you go. This is a “not on my watch” situation.
Ask yourself these questions:
How will you feel if you take that plane and then your wife passes away while you are gone?
What if you find out she passed away because she was lying in the street for several hours because the ambulance or other family didn’t show up as planned?
What do you think her sister would think finding out you left her injured sister in the street like that? And if she has no concern for her sister, why the hell are you bothering to help her out in the first place?
I hope someone was a witness to this fall because if I were Lenny Briscoe and found out you left your wife on the sidewalk to take a trip somewhere and she died I’d suspect you murdered her.
Stay with the wife. Sister is already getting care and I can catch a later flight.
There are two reason for FDGB (Fall Down, Go Boom), physical or medical. It’s stated in the OP that the cause was physical (she tripped) which rules out the more serious, medical-based reasons (ie. syncope, seizure, stroke, hypoglycemia, etc.)
The standard for a response is 8 mins. Not every call meets the standards, especially when the system is busy, but first responders should be there momentarily. Where did she trip? At a home with a specific address or on a wooded trail in a large park where it’s harder to find someone?
Falling from a standing position, especially if she has osteoporosis may result in a dislocation &/or fracture.
Older people sometimes don’t recover & ultimately die from a fall, but with proper treatment it’s not a(n immediate) life threatening injury. If you’ve left anything near appropriate time to get to the airport in advance, waiting a few minutes shouldn’t have an impact on you getting there in enough time.
Even if you were planning on taking a train to the airport so leaving two minutes late means you need to wait another hour for the next train, there is the Plan B of driving/taxi/ride share so you don’t need to wait for the next train.
IOW, it shouldn’t be a big deal to wait a few minutes for someone to show up, but even if you don’t, this is hardly an (immediate) life threatening issue.
You’ve never flown Allegiant, I take it.
Even if there is enough sympathy to get your tickets refunded, they will not be able to put you on another flight that day, and probably not for a week or two.
For me, it depends on the cost of the tickets (can I afford to pay for another set? Can I even afford the set that I did buy, if I don’t get paid back?), the urgency of the task and my necessity to be there for it, and how insistent the wife is.
I don’t care what the plane tickets cost, they can’t be worth more than my wife.
They are not an either or situation, so comparing their relative values makes little sense.
For all those that value your wife enough that you wouldn’t leave, do you not value your wife’s judgement and direction when she tells you that you should?
Turn this around, you are the one that is injured and waiting on a ride to the hospital, while your spouse stands there and waits with you. Would you ask them to go ahead and make the flight without you? If you would make that request, how would you feel about your spouse’s refusal to respect your wishes?
What’s best for her is only one part of the equation. Staying is what’s best for me as I’d worry every minute I was away.
I’d be happy to use spouse 1 and spouse 2 instead if husband and wife, but FTR, not so happy about dismissing the people who don’t have a spouse at all. Maybe I should have used more gender neutral language, to encourage more women to respond.
I like how there’re no ‘something else’ votes yet.
‘I vote something else - toddling off to the pub to have a pint. Screw them both!’
It’s not that simple, because what people express is not always what they need, and people can misjudge situations. In my own case, my wife actually wouldn’t be telling me to go. But I know lots of people where each spouse is about equally likely to say “Go, go” and the other to respond “I wouldn’t do that to you”.
It’s not like you are going on vacation, you are going to help their family with something. And that something is important and urgent.
If it were that sort of thing, where I had non-refundable tickets for a caribbean get-away, then I would obviously stay with my spouse, rather than going on vacation by myself and leaving her injured at home.
Lets say that there is no one else to help out the sister in law, and if whatever it is with this project doesn’t get done, she looses her house, or something else fairly unpleasant and irreversible happens to her.
So, if my refusal to accept my spouses wishes to go assist her family ends up causing great and irrevocable harm to her sister, what have I accomplished other than proving that I care about my spouse enough to ignore her?
“Non-transferable” typically means the ticket belongs to you and you cannot have it transferred to someone else. Most airlines will reschedule you, for an additional charge (usually somewhat less than a whole fare), but if you just fail to show up, they will be irked: it will help if you can call them to let them know there will be open seats.
So no, I am not leaving her. Probably not before she has seen a doctor.
Having discussed it with a few people now, I think the most important thing is that the spouses are on the same page. I wouldn’t go, or want my partner to go, but everyone’s relationship works differently.