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This Man Apparently Stood For 6 Hours On A Flight So His Wife Could Sleep

This Man Apparently Stood For 6 Hours On A Flight So His Wife Could Sleep
Posted at 7:16 AM, Sep 18, 2019
and last updated 2020-05-07 14:17:18-04

How far would you go to make your partner comfortable? For one woman on a cross-country flight, her love language must be sleep, because her husband stood the entire six-hour flight so that she could stretch out across three seats for a snooze. Now that’s devotion!

Fellow passenger Courtney Lee Johnson took a photo of the couple, which she shared on Twitter.

“This guy stood up the whole 6 hours so his wife could sleep,” she wrote. “Now THAT is love”:

Wow! She appears to be fast asleep as the man stands while resting his arms on the tops of two seats.

Her tweet went viral, and has racked up more than 16,400 likes, more than 3,600 retweets and more than 6,000 replies. People were definitely divided in their reactions to the gesture, with some finding it super-romantic and others seeing it as a little strange.

Twitter user @CLE_SHONUFF said this definitely wouldn’t work for her and her husband:

“She couldn’t just lie across HIM?!” she asked. “I won’t judge their marriage. My hubs is the kind of man who would do this for me, but I am not the kind of wife to ask this of him!”

@_JohnDose thought the whole thing was enough to have the husband plotting divorce:

One user, @Ondi_F, compared the situation to the one at the end of the movie “Titanic,” in which some moviegoers think Jack died unnecessarily because Rose took up all the space on a large piece of wrecked door, keeping her fully out of the cold water but dooming him.

On the other end of the spectrum, @LaurenEffie wondered how in love she’d have to be to even consider doing something like this:

Shel Silverstein’s book “The Giving Tree” was also invoked by Twitter user @SomeBitterDude; the story of a tree giving up everything, bit by bit, for the love of a little boy, does seem to have some parallels here!

Others questioned the validity of the story, with one user noting that it’s unlikely that the man would be allowed to stand for an entire flight:

That pesky seatbelt light would likely prevent this chivalrous act!

Maybe she was taking a rest while the plane was grounded during a long delay. Whatever the situation was, it certainly makes for a thought-provoking conversation on relationships!

It also brings attention to the discomfort of flying. Of course, airplanes are notoriously uncomfortable. And they seem to be getting more so! USA Today reports that today’s airplane seats have less legroom than ever, with some airlines reporting a current “pitch,” or distance between one point on a seat and the same point on the seat in front of it, of 28-31 inches when it used to be 35 inches 20 years ago.

Additionally, seat widths have become 17 inches when they used to be 18 inches. Business Insider reports that difference in comfortable sleep between 17 and 18 inches is significant, pointing to a study that says sleep quality is reduced by two-thirds in 17-inch-wide seats compared to 18-inch seats.

Some companies are trying to rectify that, like Spirit Airlines with its newly-announced upgraded seats. But in the meantime, those of us without a spouse like this man are probably doomed to experience disrupted sleep on airlines.

Low Fare Airlines Offer Flights For Less Than A Dollar
Getty Images | Peter Macdiarmid

Would you stand on a plane so your significant other could snooze?

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