EJ, you are being a bit of jerk. You can’t trust you wife for 9 hours? She does this ‘all the time’ yet you are enough of a drama queen to post this thread, when you had no reason to think anything was wrong.
I mean come on,
So you can’t get in touch with her for hours at a time and this makes you worry. What if it’s serious this time? Since it hasn’t been serious any of the other times, maybe the ‘nut’ here is you. IANA doctor, but maybe you should talk to someone about your anxiety issues.
This post is very rude. His wife and kids are on the road between North Carolina and New Hampshire. 9.5 hours is a long time to be out of touch when it comes to your wife and kids on the road, especially when she is not answering her cell phone.
I think you are way out of line to accuse him of being a drama queen or having anxiety issue…
Makes me want to review some fo your posts to see if you tend to just be mean… :mad:
I’m not offended by your concern for you wife and kids. However, unlike newscrasher, I don’t think your wife did anything wrong, and I don’t think you are any sort of a good husband for freaking out the way you did.
For instance
Your thread title is a HEART STOPPER. You made my guts drop to the floor when I saw that. Then I read your OP and how, 'she always so irresponsible as to be out of touch for hours at a time. HOURS? She is an adult right? She dresses herself and wipes her own ass right? You had no reason to worry and you had no reason to make everyone on the board worry with you. IMHO, you owe me an apology.
You need help man. I’m saying that as friendly advice. I’m not going to congratulate you for irrational behavior. Some people might think that makes them a supportive friend, but it doesn’t.
Hey, if you’re cool as cucumber when your family is on a ~1000 mile drive & can no longer be reached on cell phone you bought less than 72 hours ago, that’s great. I’m happy for you. Guess I’m just not as stoic.
I apologize for needlessly worrying you. I suspect I may not have been in the most rational state of mind.
The thread title stopped your heart, yet a guy is supposed to remain calm when his family is AWOL for 9.5 hours?!? Adults get into car accidents too sweetie.
Next time you see a similar thread, don’t worry. Really, don’t. Whatever you do, don’t post to the thread.
His wife should have answered the phone or made a call herself. Period.
So sorry that this thread made your guts drop to the floor, maybe next time there’ll be some carnage to justify it. :rolleyes:
Zebra, get off it. There’s a difference between irrationally demanding to know where your spouse is AT ALL TIMES, and being upset when you expected to hear from them but didn’t, or when they are supposed to be home at a certain time, and aren’t. I often go for most of a day without seeing or hearing from MrWhatsit, and it’s all good. But if he’s out at his board gaming club and it’s 2 AM, he’s usually home by midnight, and I haven’t heard from him, I start to freak out a little bit.
If he were on a thousand-mile road trip with our children in the car and was unreachable by cell phone and did not appear to have reached their destination, I would be MAJOR FREAKING OUT REALLY BAD. Before reading your post, I would also have thought that this was normal human behavior to be expected from anyone who has a reasonable attachment to their spouse and children. Lord.
Earthworm Jim, buy your wife a clue, since buying her a phone apparently didn’t work.
When I read the thread title, I assumed there was going to be a joke, as in “My wife & kids are missing … out on Channel 64’s marathon of Twilight Zone episodes because they went to the zoo!” or something like that.
I accept you apology Jim and no I’m not that stoic, but I wouldn’t post to a message board about an on going incident the way you did but as you admit and as nobody else seems to get is that you were not acting rationally.
Discuss this with your wife and not a bunch of internet strangers. Maybe she is being irresponsible. Maybe you are smothering her. I don’t know for sure, it’s probably a combination of both.
Personally, in my family, we always made a ‘we got there safe’ call on a long trip, but not every family is like that. In fact some people think it is a bit weird.
And to you others, why are you complaining that I’m being honest to Jim? I am not being insensitive. EJ himself admitted to having anxiety issues. Something I was sensitive enough to pick up upon, and was sensitive enough to wait till after his wife and kids turned up safe and sound, to point it out to him. I’m not suggesting that he dump his wife like newscrasher did. I’m suggesting things that I hope would make his marriage to the mother of his children better.
Did it not occur to people that, one, she shouldn’t talk on the phone and drive at the same time, or two, that she may have been simply, [dun dun DAAAA!] out of service?
True, his wife should know by now that he is like this, so I suspect that some little game is going between them and that where this issue belongs. Between THEM. I think people who are telling him to dump his wife and playing up his fears that his adult wife can’t handle a little road trip by herself with the kids are not being good to him.
Seriously, what world do you people live in? Where adult women should be out of touch for more than a few hours? What? Are all of you from Saudi Arabia?
Out of courtesy, I call my husband when my plans change. Out of courtesy for me he does the same. If I am expecting my husband home by 6pm, and he decides to stop off for a beer after work with his friends, that’s fine. I do expect to hear from him by 6:30 at the latest, just to let me know.
Similarly if I’m driving to visit friends in Lake Tahoe and I say I’ll call when I get there and 3 hours pass (it should only take 2½), I call to let him know I’m not there yet but everything is fine.
We call, not because we need to “keep tabs” on each other, but because we care about each other and can be bothered to let each other know when plans change.
Come off it. It’s not a matter of dominance. It’s a matter of concern and consideration. His wife and kids were gone longer than expected on a long drive and he was concerned. If I was in the same position that his wife was in, I’d give a call just to give spousey a heads up.
I had no idea that that was such an unreasonable idea.
I hope you realize he wasn’t really apologizing. He was being a bit sarcastic. I was glad he posted so we could all send him warm thoughts and pray for their safety if we wanted. My wife and kids AWOL for 9.5 hours on a trip and I would be worried too. And someone like you, who has over 10,000 posts really should check yourself before you comment on people’s use of internet message boards. I am sure all of your posts were completely warranted and adhered to the Zebra code of message board postability. We don’t follow those same ethics. This is the SDMB, and people are free to post things even if you don’t like them.
Your guts fell to the floor when you read the title? And you fault him for being worried about the whereabout of his wife and kids?
And you saying I was telling him to leave his wife is disingenuos. That is NOT what I said. However from what little I know of you, I am not suprised you twisted my words.
Then I came to your last sentence. Do we live in Saudi Arabia…? And I realized you are completely and utterly a hyperbolic windbag worthy of complete dismissal. Our paths have not crossed thus far on the SDMB. Seeing how unfeeling you are when a man fears for the safety of his kids makes me glad to have our paths remain separate. I don’t think it is out of line for me to point out that someone who throws out “you need help” so quickly and freely probably needs it himself.
Your further replies, on my part, will be met with echoes…
It is not an unreasonable idea. It is exactly what reasonable people do. Family members let people know where they are and check in when plans change. This is how adults behave.
That’s just daft. Why do you assume that this is an issue of control? As far as I can see, it’s a matter of concern. EJ may have made a little too much of a drama over this, but I think you’re quite wrong to impose this implication on his behaviour.
And (apropos of nothing) the “Why are you being mean to me? I was only being honest” line is just really lame.
I checked this thread as soon as I got on the computer this morning! Jim, I’m really glad everything’s okay.
I used to live with my irresponsible brother. He soon trained me not to worry about him when he didn’t show up when and where he was expected. If that boy ever gets in a car crash, it’ll be a long time before anyone starts looking for him!
I don’t think EJ made too much of a deal of it myself. Zebra, considering that every single person here except for you considers it perfectly reasonable to be concerned at the point EJ first started the thread, I think “nobody else seems to get it” may be a little inaccurate - it seems more likely that *you * don’t get it. Do you have anyone in your life for whom you feel responsible? I would think EJ’s four children certainly qualify for him! You worry about them. Funny thing about that. Also, he apparently loves his wife, so he worries about her as well. And the woman was supposed to be driving some 300 miles, for Pete’s sake!
In general, people don’t worry much about being kidnapped or attacked - these things don’t often happen to mainstream people in the US. But to be concerned that there might have been a traffic accident is an anxiety disorder? Traffic accidents are enormously common, and it’s not in the least implausible that someone might have one, *especially * with small four children in the car! I think your definition of “normal and sane” is probably “just like Zebra.”
EJ, that kind of behavior consistently would be a 100% deal breaker for me (although I’d probably feel differently with kids involved). I think it would be perfectly reasonable for her to ask you if she cares about you so little that she can’t be bothered to take 30 seconds to tell you when her plans change significantly. In Oy!World, people who love someone don’t do that to them. And it seems as if this is par for the course for her! To me, that’s inexcusable, and only forgivable if backed up with immediate reform.
Please share your secrets for a worry free life…when you cannot narrow the location of your children down to smaller than what state they are in for several hours…
I am late to the party, but I have to tell you it has made me smile.
Out of touch for 9 hours!
Ya know it wasn’t that many years ago that cell phones did not exist. People managed to travel for days even weeks without contacting home. :eek:
Funny how our perceptions and requirements change isn’t it?