DH always late home from work, would this annoy you?

[RobertaFlack]

DH is always late home from work. We have a 14 month old. We have an agreement that he should be home at 7 and then we can eat together. Every day without fail he’ll be about 30 minutes late meaning I start the meal without him, or I try and wait with a hungry toddler. He never tells messages to say he’ll be late. Would this annoy you?

The thing is, if he's consistently half an hour late, he does have a functioning internal clock. He just needs to amend his conscious 'end of work' deadline.

I'd be annoyed a bit.
Does he get paid for the extra time?
In many places there's a culture of presenteeism, need to be seen working extra. I've worked in these places and found that either they're understaffed or they're just filling out the day doing 7hrs work in 10hrs.

The thing is, I'm a bit like him. I can be on time, because for things that matter and for which timings matter, I think through the 'when I need to leave' timings and adopt a cautious approach.

But for things that don't matter so much, or that I think are flexible, I can easily coast towards leaving time and be late.

So, does he perceive dinner and baby bed time as flexible? Or as not mattering? Could be either or both.

DH was very self absorbed when setting up his business. So I stopped keeping food warm, and let him sort himself out when he got home. Oddly enough, he started appearing when he knew I'd be feeding the kids...........

No prizes in this world for martyrs, OP.

This would make me cross. And to those saying he's some sort of hero stopping late at work to support the family, OP works full-time too and manages to make it back in time. I'd give him set days to be back to take over from the nanny and make yourself unavailable at these times. He's opting out of your family life and forcing you to be there every single day as you can't trust him to be responsible.

@notamilf I think this is bollocks tbh, its not her demands - it's him showing his priorities.

DH finishes earlier than I do, he gets home and is responsible for prepping the tea while I finish work pick up the 17 month old and 5 year old and then we all eat together at 6pm - pretty much as soon as we walk in the door. If he decided to stay late every night for no particular reason he would be showing me that it is my responsibility to look after the 2 children we both choose to have a created together and that my job is less important than his - instead, our time is equall shared between our jobs and raising our children and spending time with them as they grown.

Yes sometimes he will go to golf after work or do something, but this is talked about in advance (even as late as through the day on the same day) but a mutual respect and awareness of each other means he would never leave me wondering what is going on, nor I to him.

Oh god I do this

I genuinely do lose track of time when I’m working. I’m either keen to finish something off or I’m catching up with colleagues and suddenly it’s half six and my husband (who has the kids) is texting me like “are you coming home or..?”

This is one way in which working from home has been better for me (or my husband, depending on how you look at it).

Get him to set an alarm in his calendar, so it should appear on his phone or even his computer to alert him to the time so he can wind down and leave.

Dh and I shared nursery drop offs and pick ups. He made sure he left work at a particular time to be able to pick his child up.

But my husband is kind. He’ll feed the kids and wait for me before he eats. He just gets on with it really. I come home and take over and do bedtime.

@Hoolahupsaresquare

If it was all the time and he’s agreed then yes.

I wouldn’t be waiting for him that’s for sure. He can come home and make his own dinner if he’s going to be late.

If it was a work emergency then sure I wouldn’t mind. But not like this.

This. You eat when you're ready and let him make his own when he gets home. If he can't make 20 seconds available to text and say when he'll be back, fine but he can cook for himself and eat by himself.

Yes, this would annoy me. Why is it always you cooking? Are you a SAHP?

My ex did this. I would bust my arse making a meal for us all to eat together while looking after my baby when she was under a year old. It was super stressful. He would never message to let me know he would be late. (I would have understood if he had, though it would be disappointing).

I found it to be extremely disrespectful of my time and effort.

I later came to realise he was emotionally abusive, and his disregard of my time was just one symptom (Obviously this may not be the case for you!)

But my husband is kind. He’ll feed the kids and wait for me before he eats. He just gets on with it really. I come home and take over and do bedtime.

I'm willing to bet the kindness is reciprocal, you pull your weight when you're home, make sure he gets time off too and listen to him when he says that something is important to him.

That's what makes all the difference.

Mt exh used to do this too. Not as late as your dh but always later than it should have taken to finish work on time and get home. The odd occasion I wouldn't mind if he left me know but I felt it important to all eat together at the end of the day so it would really annoy me when there was no reason for the lateness other than just choosing to stay a bit later to do something or speak to someone.

Meanwhile, I had to leave work on the dot, to commute home (about the same distance as him) to get the kids from nursery/afterschool club/grandparents. I didn't have that luxury of "just staying a bit later" and I was always stressing about where I had to be at what time and then making dinner.

Anyway, turned out my ex was having an affair at work so that probably explained a lot of his lateness. At least that issue is no more.

In a previous job I was always running late for things. Someone asking questions as I was heading out of the door either in person or email. Something important from management and felt I was obligated to do.

Then one year I snapped and said no when manager asked me to do a project that would have taken all night. It was something that was expected and known about for months, just no-one mentioned it until the night before.

After several years of excellent work, going above and beyond I was demoted and managed out. Others had warned me this would happen in this particular department. When I mentioned this outside of work I and others just thought it was all paranoia and no way would this happen.

Before asked yes I took it to tribunal and won.

I find that the more senior the manager, the better able to end a task or meeting promptly and leave for the next thing (be that work or home).

Faffy presentees with poor time management skills don't get promoted.

I'm willing to bet the kindness is reciprocal, you pull your weight when you're home, make sure he gets time off too and listen to him when he says that something is important to him

Yes. Why do people settle for less than this sort of partnership?

Yes. Why do people settle for less than this sort of partnership?

Because many, many men only reveal their true selves and selfishness after a child is born. The equal, mutually supportive relationship of youthful dual employment evaporates, to be replaced by a deep-held expectation of archetypal motherhood as 'mother to the household'.

To balance out some of the comments, I think my DH is a bit absent minded and not fully aware of how the effect it has. I hadn’t heard of the witching hour before but it is a great term. That last hour of the day before bed is all a bit stressful and not knowing when DH will walk through the door compounds it.

So tell him. How he responds to that is what counts.

Can you get away with being absent-minded? Can he in other situations? Do you perceive any element of choice there?

I am married to a Police Officer so it really wasnt unusual for him to get a shout or an arrest that would delay him, and him be unable to tell me he'd be late. So I got into the habit of just feeding the kids an I at a time that suited. If he was home, great, he ate with us. If not he warned his meal up.

But, assuming your DH is just your bog standard office bod (I'm an office bod too) then there is no reason he couldn't manage his time better and get home.

I would set an alarm on his phone or smart watch and you make dinner. If hes home to eat it, great. If not, I'm sure he can work a microwave. I'd also start splitting dinner duties, so every day isnt you.

I 100000% agree with the poster that said they can be on time for things that are important to them. DH always gets held up when coming home on the, now rare, occasions he goes to the office but that’s because he just gets caught by the office talkers and he’s too polite to say ‘sorry- gotta dash!’

But he works from home since covid, does all his meetings on zoom etc. he’s got into the habit of finishing at 4/4:30 and playing Xbox til I’ve made dinner. However yesterday I was ill and said I’ll need him to cook, low and behold, he stayed on at work until the second he had to start dinner because he knew he wasn’t going to play Xbox. They’re not stupid, they have their own priorities, and they’re usually very different to ours.

But he works from home since covid, does all his meetings on zoom etc. he’s got into the habit of finishing at 4/4:30 and playing Xbox til I’ve made dinner. However yesterday I was ill and said I’ll need him to cook, low and behold, he stayed on at work until the second he had to start dinner because he knew he wasn’t going to play Xbox. They’re not stupid, they have their own priorities, and they’re usually very different to ours.

^ Hope you're feeling better. What a CF he is.

It used to annoy the hell out of me. Once in a while fine-everyone gets stuck at work. Every single night-Incredibly annoying. Verges on the disrespectful-felt like his time was more valuable than mine without any consultation. Unfortunately that set the tone for the rest of our relationship-we are now divorced. I'm not suggesting that in this case mind!!

Push everything back 15-30 minutes. Dinner at 7.30, toddler bed later, toddler up at 8.30. If he starts coming home at 8, then you know you have a problem.