Family psychologists say that in order to maintain healthy relationships in marriage, especially after many years of sharing one roof, spouses sometimes need to spend time separately. Wise advice – which, however, does not work at all in the one situation which, it would seem, completely gives you the opportunity to “take a break” from your spouse. We are talking about long flights, when couples have tickets for seats in different parts of the aircraft.

Indeed, we know many stories of how spouses were ready to do anything to sit next to each other – and even threw a tantrum in the presence of the other passengers and the whole cabin crew, when their whims, sometimes quite entitled, were not fulfilled. Want another story like this? Voila!

The author of the post once flew from New York to Cairo and booked a seat on the window over the wing

Image credits: Jerry Wang (not the actual photo) 

When everyone was on board, an elderly man approached to the author and asked her to swap seats with his wife

Image credits: u/Dicecatt

The author at first didn’t mind but when she saw that the woman was sitting in the middle seat, she refused politely

Image credits: Nata Romualdo (not the actual photo) 

Image credits: u/Dicecatt

The man, however, didn’t give up and insistently started trying to persuade the author to change her mind

Image credits: Stas Knop (not the actual photo) 

Image credits: u/Dicecatt

The author ended up just asking him to stop, but he went on grumbling at her throughout the whole flight

So, the Original Poster (OP) tells how one day she flew from New York to Cairo, and the flight was supposed to last about eleven hours. The departure was in the evening, so the author of the post planned to sleep safely for most of the flight. However, while booking a seat, she chose a window over a wing. This was many months before the trip, and now, comfortably seated in her seat, the woman was about to relax and unwind. But it was not meant to be!

At that moment, her aisle neighbor, an elderly man, approached her – and quite politely asked to change seats so that he could fly next to his wife. Well, the author didn’t mind, but when she asked where exactly his wife was sitting, it turned out that her seat was in the center of the middle seats. No, the OP wasn’t ready to go for that, so she politely refused to swap places.

What should a man do in such a situation? Probably apologize and reconcile. Or, for example, offer his wife’s neighbor his seat – since he so wanted to fly next to her. But the dude chose the third option for himself – at first slowly and carefully, and then more and more insistently, he began to urge the original poster to change her mind. After all, according to the passenger, she would still sleep through most of the flight, and it is unlikely that a beautiful view would open from the window over the wing.

The author of the post admits that her patience snapped at the neighbor’s words: “if you had a husband, you would understand me…” The woman firmly stated that she had a husband, but he would, firstly, definitely book a seat with her, and secondly, if such a situation were to repeat itself, he would just go to his wife’s neighbor and offer to swap seats with them. The man sat down ashamed, but throughout the whole flight he continued to grumble something indignantly at her. “He was still grumbling when we deplaned,” the post’s author concludes her narrative.

Image credits: Tim Gouw (not the actual photo) 

It is interesting that such situations are repeated quite regularly, and Bored Panda spoke about similar cases several times. For example, there was a whole heated debate on Twitter a few weeks ago on whether plane passengers should give up their seats to let parents fly together with their kids, initially fueled by this pretty controversial tweet.

Then the opinions of netizens were divided, because on the one hand, if you specifically paid for your seat on the plane, then you have every right to fly there. On the other hand, the issue of parents and children is very delicate by default. For this very purpose, this Department of Transportation online dashboard has appeared recently, which shows, in particular, which airlines guarantee free family seating. But children are one thing, and adults, and even elderly spouses, are, you see, completely different.

Therefore, people in the comments to the original post did not express any sympathy, even the slightest drop, for this hapless hubby. Moreover, the vast majority of commenters simply praised the author for a fine retort. As for the annoying neighbor’s bugging throughout the flight, the headphones and movies with series, according to the woman, did their job perfectly. The only time she ever heard the man’s displeased growling was when she took the earphones out of her ears.

Also, people in the comments are just delighted with the label that the original poster gave to her neighbor in the post: “He continues to bug me like the mosquito he may have been in a former life.” Damn it, it was really spot-on and brilliant! “I just love that sentence! Thanks,” one of the commenters agreed and admired. And what do you, our dear readers, think about this whole situation, as well as about the wit of the heroine of this story? Please let us know your opinions in the comments below this post.

People in the comments simply praised the author for a fine retort, and admired her brilliant wit a lot

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