Things my DH has found to do while we are trying to leave for Christmas

My DP is like this!! Or he was, until I very firmly tell him now "What time actually do you want us to be out of the door by, because that is the time I will work to, not some arbitrary earlier time" and laying that out to him has made him reel it in a bit more.

I got so fed up with him saying "We'll leave at 11" but then from about 10.15am onwards he starts doing his anxiety dance and "well think about the traffic, we'd really better get going now, SHOES ON DD!!!!" - and I'd be in a flap because my timings were all based around 11. I had enough of it and he's better now.

I do one better and start unpacking telling him I wasn't going at all. He could finish packing up the car and go by himself

I would love if point 5 applied to husband as well!

(Can totally picture this! 😂)

Then there is also the Ritual of the Satnav. Mine will either: spend 10 minutes fiddling about with it to find our destination, then halfway down the road he will ignore it and go a different way because he knows better, or he will jump in and drive off without setting it , then decides he needs it after all so I have to reach over and set the bloody thing. Then see above, he goes a different way because it’s better ..,

No offence but I just don't get this - to me that is so unbelievably selfish! What about the effort your parents had put in making dinner? Even without dinner turning up 2hours late is so rude.
And because he wanted to watch something? An absolute no from me 'Get in the car now or I am leaving' would have been the only sensible response!
Maybe this shit hits too much of a nerve.....my ex was a bit like this - he would have been happy for me to be late for my own sisters wedding because he couldn't possibly leave without having his breakfast first (should have got up earlier then mate!) but the upshot was that I was on time, he was hungry and it didn't take too much longer for him to become and Ex!

Ex would do this.
It is on purpose.
It is not funny.

So you’d smack into traffic at 7am then or you’d arrive well after bedtime? Why? What an odd choice

My grandad was like this. It was a control thing, he liked keeping grandma stuck there, getting stressed and begging him to hurry up. Made him feel important, "the man in charge", I guess. Twat.

I can't believe so many wives here are tolerating it - or even excusing it with ADHD. Come on! If "his brain is suddenly in doing-things mode" then he can bloody well do something relevant. He's purposefully wasting time. It's about staying in control and/or winding you up.

Yep, this is me too. Then get yelled at when we get wherever we're going because we came without some thing that I didn't bring because I got rushed out the door earlier than expected.

Oh god, I was literally about to type the same thing ! All the while I was herding children/ actual cats/ checking he’d locked the doors ( he usually hadn’t) etc . Usually ending in me shouting WE LEAVE WHEN EVERYTHING IS DONE AND I AM READY. Still well before the previously agreed deadline. Still married to him …

My first thought was, "Fair play to him, he's got quite a lot done before 12pm, even if it was all non-urgent".

Ahhhh the hour long poo isn't just my house then

I am supposed to have left a big meeting nearby to go straight to the airport at 4pm.

The meeting got cancelled this morning, so I finished and sent out 2 overdue reports, wrote the cards to my team members, chatted to a few people. Came home, did a final load of laundry, cooked lunch, washed up after lunch (didn’t bother emptying clean dishes in dishwasher), repacked cases, cut out 3 shapes I needed to finish a craft present (not bringing the big cutting scissors), dumped the bins in the basement, got DD’s key to the apartment from the car in the lower basement).

I am about to get changed out of work clothes into comfy clothes…then see about an uber as it’s already half past 4…😳

This reminds me of someone I followed on Instagram whose husband decided to start mowing the lawn and doing loads of other random jobs about 1 hour before they were due to leave for the airport for a long haul flight.

I’d be raging with this OP. Have you asked him WTF he’s doing?!

@Bluebells81 If he doesn't want to go to his own parents for Christmas why didn't he just say and save you all the pain of the prep'?
Hope you're on the road by now OP.

My husband does this kind of thing too. We'll be up on time for a holiday or a day out, and he'll inexplicably be messing about with the sewing machine, satnav or car engine. If I ask what he's doing and why, he'll shout something like, "trying to sort out this bloody thing!" He's definitely NT, but comes from a ling line of faffers and just won't be rushed. To be fair, he does work really hard, is reasonably organised and will have packed correctly ahead of time. The last-minute jobs are so unnecessary and infuriating!

I really don’t know what goes on in men’s heads sometimes. I was speaking to a friend recently who said that while she was packing/ tidying the house ready to go away her husband decided to bring a box of photos down from the loft and asked if she would like to look through them with him !

The Call of the Vacuum Cleaner is a thing. My dh hears it and my late df did too. Never on a normal Saturday morning, and never when the house desperately needs it, but right before leaving for a holiday, it calls and those cursed to hear it are compelled to obey.

We travelled on Saturday. Mine decided to spend the day updating the dash cam (which we've never used, in fact I didn't even know we had one), doing a load of washing (generally my job and I'd done everything that was needed before we left), and doing some Christmas shopping. While I dashed around packing etc. We left nearly an hour late.

I NEED AN UPDATE!

My ex was like this. I got so fed up with it that for the last few years of our marriage, I would leave without him. We arrived at different times for most UK holidays, weddings, parties and family dinners. I refused to travel abroad with him because it was too stressful.

Please say you told the taxi to drive to the airport whilst shouting out the window "see you in Zante, prick"

Mine does this. We moved house yesterday and we didn’t leave until 0100 due to the amount of faffing. My father was the same. I remember him deciding to mow the lawn on the morning we were due to go on holiday. We arrived too late to check in and had to run to the gate with all of our luggage. These days you’d just be told sorry, too late, you’ve missed the flight.

My "D"H famously started mowing the lawn one year when I was literally sat in the taxi ready to go to the airport.

My DH’s best one was before a funeral. I was trying to get myself and the kids sorted. He was nowhere to be seen. He’d decided to weed the front garden for the first time ever. Wearing his funeral suit. 🤯🤬