Am I intolerant and unreasonable or would you also find this infuriating?

My adult DD is the same. She was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD when she was 17. All through her childhood the feedback in every parents meeting was that she likes looking out the window, she daydreams a lot, difficult getting organised etc. We did try and get a diagnosis for her when she was younger but they didn't think it was bad enough. It definitely got worse the older she got though. It takes her absolute ages to just leave the house. Super frustrating for me who isn't the same.

Yes I'd like to know more about his response to the things that affect the DC particularly. Good suggestions from @Firefly100 and others for tackling this.

I remember an ex telling me that I needed to slow down and take my time over things more. I was streaking about walking when we were on holiday and I realised he was right, so I apologised and made an effort to slow down.

It's really not that hard to change your way of doing things, particularly if it's inconveniencing other people. But I do think consequences are the only way of showing him that you can't cope with his slowness. Cook and eat your own meal, let him faff in the kitchen as long as he wants - it won't affect you. Go when you say you're going, if he leaves you waiting in the car then get out and ask for the keys as you need to go home.

My husband can be a bit like this. Rather than a lifestyle choice for him, he gets distracted. Strategies that helped me are:

• If we are going out, agreeing what time we are leaving, then giving him reminders from 30 mins to go every 10 mins
• If we are walking / public transport somewhere (so no car share), leaving at the time I said I would if he is not ready and letting him make his own way.
• If he is cooking, ask him 1 hr before if he is still planning a meal for X time (as agreed). He will then usually rush to it, but if he says he can’t now, I cook for me only to my schedule and eat his next day.

• Get him to start daughter bedtime 1 hr before so she is in bed on time. if he refuses, is there any way to make him deal with the pain the next day? An early
• morning run for you maybe?
• engineering situations as far as possible not to rely on his timeliness - eg HE holds baby whilst you do nappy run. No, you can’t pop into the shop when getting petrol as you always keep us waiting - do it when you are alone. Tell you what, if you want to sit and discuss the pub choice I’LL drive whilst you do so as I want to eat

• if you have 2 cars, if he is not ready on time, leave and tell him to make his own way. Of course it might mean a day trip for 2 not 3 to the beach but you choose your pain
• If it is something you don’t want to do, when he is finally ready, tell him to go alone - you agreed to go at 8, he chose not to. You don’t want to go at 8:30 - have fun alone!
• For food, once your deadline is hit, cook for you and daughter. Tell him you will eat whatever he makes and eats next day as it’s too late now. So he then has to cook twice in a row as you and daughter are sorted for 2 days

1. limit situations where you might have to wait for him
2. If you can’t avoid it, have a Plan B if he tries to keep you waiting.

The tortoises and the hare springs to mind!

He is not even going to change and in his mind he probably sees you as rushing and being stressed.

Your energies don’t match and you have to decide whether to let yo and accept he’s like that or whether he’s just going to continue to drive you up the wall until you break and hit him over the head with a brick!

I bet he gets out of doing a lot of things because you have it done faster.
This imbalance will breed resentment.

I am not intentionally lazy by any means but I read something years ago that changed me, and it said, let’s say you leave a plate on the countertop instead of putting into the dishwasher ‘every time you do that, you are saying silently, f*ck you husband, you can tidy that up’

Which I absolutely was not doing!! I was so shocked to read that.

I just thought ‘I’ll do that later’ but actually it sends a really selfish message to your spouse.

Every time your husband does this he is saying. ‘F*ck you, we are going at MY speed’. Tell him this sentence and see if it sinks in for him like it did for me. Good luck.

I would think Flight of the Bumblebee might be more inspirational!!

Probably better to have noticed this a few years ago before you got married.

You have different basic speeds. Neither of you are going to change, so you develop a tolerance of each other or break up.

the one on the beach makes you sound uptight tbh.

I think some of this is you rushing about. Some he sounds annoying - I would be pissed off being left in a car for 25 mins at a petrol station.

Ooh another question: what does he do for work? He must be self employed or have a very understanding employer, or he's driving his colleagues mad.
I would have killed him over the food alone.

Are you married to my husband? 😂
Drives me up the wall. No advice but solidarity!

i could have typed this. We basically lead separate lives as I don’t pander to it or let myself be slowed down by it. It makes me really sad.

LTB

So I'm curious about the specifics.

Do you think he would get everything done that needs to be done if you left everything to him?
Is he apologetic, like 'sweetheart, I've just been thinking about our day out today and realised you ended up doing way more of the heavy lifting'
When you talk about it, does he claim that he would get everything done if you left him to it?
What does he say when you point out DD gets any?
What does he say when you say 9.30/10 is way too late for dinner?

DH does that too - it’s delicious when it arrives but my god how can it take so long? Why can I make dinner in 30 minutes but he takes 1.5 hours?? The worse thing is I then eat loads of crap while waiting for dinner to be ready. And then if I don’t eat the dinner (because of the snacking) then I’m mean and disloyal. Infuriating!

I’d go insane. With the dinner I’d just lose my shit and say I’m fucking starving and what will you do when ds needs to be fed by 6 before he starts screaming the house down? I’m getting a takeaway/ cooking toast and you can do whatever the fuck you want in the kitchen that doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do with preparing food.

how does he get to work??

I would have divorced him or killed him years ago if I was you. Even reading your original post I was getting so annoyed at him and I don't even know the man.

My DH is like this.

My mum says his get up and go has got up and gone.

He is almost certainly neurodiverse in some way (we have neurodiverse children), probably ADHD.

He has many other redeeming qualities, and luckily I'm super efficient so I carry that side of the relationship.

Yanbu. I absolutely could not deal with this. Some things are just a difference in personality or whatever but in my opinion, leaving your family waiting outside in the car for 25 minutes while you slowly browse the petrol station spar is rude. Saying you'll cook for your family then serving up at 10.30 is rude. If you know your toddlers bedtime takes an hour, then you start it an hour before you know they need to go to sleep, otherwise they'll be tired. OK to have a preference on how fast you do things but not OK to constantly keep everyone waiting for ages. If he genuinely struggles he needs to factor this into planning, start getting ready earlier etc. And you need to tell him to run when there is a nappy emergency!

The having to have a little pause between actions sounded like my ADHD DS but the rest of it didn’t.

OP - the nappy example is clearly unacceptable. And some of the others - like making your DC always be ready and waiting aren’t great.

Taking time over bedtime could be a nice thing though - she presumably gets a story with each of you, and maybe he’s just enjoying that with her?

My Mum has a habit of not starting to get ready until the agreed time to leave/ when everyone else is ready and waiting at the door, and it is very annoying.

I have been known to shout BIMBLE! across the car park DP was moseying across to fetch tissues for DS with a nosebleed.

At least it startled him into more of a trot.

We can’t go to the supermarket together. I have a list and work through it, he needs to stop by the papers and the magazines and browse.

My DH is lovely in so many ways but he is like OP's DH too. I am not very nice and I just say 'hurry up' or when he is (very slowly)thinking will he have gravy on his dinner or not I just snap 'yes or no??'

Mine's a faffer and I think it's easy to fall into the trap of rushing around to overcompensate. Also, he doesn't seem able to start and finish a job, so they'll be piles of tools or things he needs to take to the tip/charity just sitting around the house for months (usually in really inconvenient places). I can definitely feel my tolerance levels for this shit have dropped off now I'm in my 40s!

When did he change? Because surely he want like this before you decided to marry him? Otherwise you only have yourself to blame for choosing to marry someone you're so incompatible with?!!