Selfish DH preventing DD getting ready for school

[Spelunk]

I get up at 6.30am and get ready, then wake DD at 7.15am. She has 15 mins to get up and dressed, 15 mins to eat breakfast, and 15 mins to have a quick wash and brush teeth. So DD bathroom time is 7.45am-8.00am, then we put shoes on and walk out the door at 8.10am.

DH is repeatedly using the bathroom during that time and making it difficult for DD to get ready for school. I’ve told him repeatedly that he can use the bathroom any other time but not during that 15 minute slot.

Today he was bending over brushing his teeth in the sink while I was trying to get DD toothbrush out of the cupboard above the sink, and bonked him on the back of the head with the corner of the door. DH was furious, and I was equally furious because he shouldn’t be fucking getting in the way during those 15 minutes.

He’s a grown adult, he’s capable of getting up 15 minutes earlier to use the bathroom. He’s just fucking lazy and lying in bed as late as possible. Then he ends up needing the bathroom right before he leaves for work at 8am. It’s selfish and I’m absolutely sick of it.

This sounds an awful environment for a child. Two parents bickering about who uses the bathroom. A father who (according to the post is rude and selfish). A mother who (according to the post) bangs her husbands head with a cupboard door. A mother who calls her husband lazy and uses words about him in the post that hopefully she does not use in front of the child.
A father who goes to work full time and does not help out with his child.
A mother who is only with the father because she does not want to go to work full time.
An autistic child who is made to have rigid 15 minute routines. If the activity does not fill the 15 minutes it has to because the mother finds it important. A child who then fills the time with play and imaginary game, this is the first bit of normal behaviour I have read in the post.
I feel so sad for the child. There seems to be so much going on in this home. It makes me feel anxious and stressed just reading it. I do wonder if the 15 minute alarms are realistic and will benefit the child in the long term, they seem to benefit the mother most. I can’t help but wonder if the father is excluded and thus does his own thing or maybe he is just selfish Idk. I feel as though this should not carry on and that the three need some professional outside help.

Why should a little girl have to get ready in a garden loo, which is not a full bathroom BTW, that her grown-ass father won't use?

The man is the problem here.

This thread is the First Rule of Misogyny writ large: the mother and her daughter are deemed responsible for what the man does.

He could use the bathroom for his morning routine before his daughter. He could use the spider loo if caught short during his daughter's slot. He could brush his teeth in the kitchen if he's got up late. But no, it's his disabled daughter who has to move out of his way and his wife who must facilitate that, because he's the man with the penis and all mere vulva-owners must make way for him.

“An autistic child who is made to have rigid 15 minute routines. If the activity does not fill the 15 minutes it has to because the mother finds it important. A child who then fills the time with play and imaginary game, this is the first bit of normal behaviour I have read in the post.”

I agree. My autistic DCs do need routines, but making them more rigid than in the Army would be too much for them. Routine means having the same things happen with regularity and lots of advance preparation and warning for major changes in routine. Routines are more like around 7 pm we bath, then brush teeth, then stories and then bed. There are no alarms for each activity. If the DCs want to bath a bit longer due to the shark needing to be released in the wild from the rescue and have a few practice swims to be sure he is ok..that is fine…finish your imaginary storyline, I will just suggest a bit shorter story so bedtime isn’t massively later than usual.

Morningtime similar…yes we wake them up at 7am and out the door at 8:15am. And the order is eat breakfast, go get dressed, checking and putting of school bags by the door, go upstairs and select friend to go with you to school (every day a different stuffed toy goes with them), brush teeth, have a looK in mirror and ready to face the day! I think alarms and no allowance for needing a 5min snooze or dressing a bit slower one day, or lingering over breakfast for 5mins because comparing the cereal box ingredients is especially interesting is a bad thing. They need some freedom and flexibility. The alarms and rigid, nope tooth brushing is in 3mins, you can’t start it now lovey, we must wait for the alarm. It sounds pretty grim and joyless.

This marriage is dead in the water. OP clearly loathes him. He is fed up with the faffing and farting about.This set-up is the very opposite of what family life should be about.

To add on, from the start I have said it’s both the OP and DH that are “the problem”. I don’t know why so many posters have such black and white thinking where one parent is the baddie and one the goodie.

I don’t think @Spelunk is expecting her dh to defecate to order, @Grammarnut - just to avoid the main bathroom for one 15 minute time slot whilst his dd is in there. He has all the rest of the morning, plus the (admittedly unappealing) downstairs loo if he is desperate.

The OP has a system that enables her to get her dd ready for school in a way that makes sure she is calm and happy - does it matter if that method looks too highly regimented to other people? It works for her dd and for her, so I am struggling to see why people think it is so dreadful.

It's at least as normal to have timed bathroom slots in the mornings. We did. There was a scullery loo and sink (similar to OP's setup) for emergencies and slowcoaches.

I learnt how to stick to a morning routine when I was in my early 20’s and living in a house share. You have a conversation about who needs to leave the house at what time, and work backwards to figure out who needs to get in the bathroom and when. And you stick to it, because if you don’t you make everyone else late for work.

I’m a bit surprised people find this odd for any group of people sharing a house, nevermind a family with an autistic child for whom routine is particularly important.

It would be a tiny effort on his part, but he expects everyone else to adjust their whole routine.

OP - I am concerned that he is being snappy and “mean” to your daughter when he gets her ready for bed. Yes I agree he needs to man up and do some parenting, but she shouldn’t have to suffer for this.

It sounds like you haven’t loved each other as a couple for a long time. If you are staying together for your daughter, you need to make your home environment less toxic. I think you should seriously consider having counselling.

@IbisDancer - you do what works for your autistic dc - but surely @Spelunk is doing exactly the same? She has a system that works for them - it’s different from your system, but does that make it wrong?

It works for the OP, not exactly sure how happy the DD is with the rigid alarms, autism doesn’t require it afaik from parenting my DC or any other parents I know who also have autistic DC.

I can’t imagine the DD being happy with her dad pooing in the bathroom with her there.

I do wonder if the DD is allowed to have a choice to wait and brush teeth later or have her hair brushed in her bedroom?

I have a feeling it works more for the OP than her DD, especially given her DD has been wandering off in the middle of 15min slots and doing other things so has to be brought back and chivvied along. That sort of boundary crossing by the DD indicates she doesn’t need and might not like the rigid 15min slots.

All I am saying is that there are hints that OP can compromise with her DH without it harming her DD. Their current barging in on each other is harming their DD and cannot continue.

A mother who is only with the father because she does not want to go to work full time.

This is such a gross misrepresentation. She said that if they split up, she'll have to work full time and won't be able to give her autistic daughter the same support. She's also concerned that the father will then be free to yell at their daughter without intervention.

These might not be insurmountable issues, but it's clearly not as simple as "just doesn't want to work full time" and I have to wonder why so many posters are misrepresenting it so badly.

I don’t know if @Spelunk’s dd is happy with it, or would like more flexibility, @IbisDancer - but it seems reasonable to assume she is OK with it, because if she wasn’t happy, it wouldn’t work to get her ready for school in a happy frame of mind.

The DD isn’t happy, OP places 100% of blame on her DH for forcing bathroom sharing. I don’t think that is a fully reasonable assumption based on what I have read. I think it is a bit more complex after reading how rigid the 15min slots are, each with its own alarm, and zero variation- ie can’t start brushing teeth 3mins early even though doing nothing and it’s the next task. That is OTT to me and I suspect is part of reason why the conflict and unhappiness is happening. The DD can be unhappy due to both what her mum is requiring of her and what her dad is doing around her. Her privacy- which is should be the priority is apparently not as important to her mum as obeying an alarm, and not as important to her dad as ignoring an alarm.

If her dd was unhappy, then surely @Spelunk would be trying something else?

Even if this is right, you seem to be saying the child should vacate the bathroom if her dad wants it. And would have to ask him if he wanted the bathroom before she used it.

In a situation without autism, I'd call this unreasonable - the man isn't a god, he's an adult human who's being asked to stay out of the bathroom for 15 minutes at a known time. I wouldn't want to train my daughter to prioritise a man's needs like that.

It's counter intuitive, but toothbrushing should be BEFORE eating, not after. It's to protect the enamel.

Everyone has a routine, but the OP's is something she has always done and has imposed DD (who is autistic) and DH (I daresay you are right and he does not have ADHD, just several posters have suggested it). Alarm clocks and 15 minute slots are extreme. One needs a little leeway. So the bus leaves at 8.20, so we have to be at the stop by 8.18 latest, certainly, but a 15-minute bathroom slot? And why is OP doing her daughter's hair while she brushes her teeth, very difficult (my DD had long hair that had to be plaited every morning, certainly not possible whilst she cleaned her teeth). OP seems unable to see DH's pov that everything does not have to be regulated. She regulates everything by alarm clocks, e.g. she complains he gets iffy when she explains she can't do 'x' yet because it is 3 minutes till the alarm rings. That's obsessive and disruptive. I am not a spontaneity freak (spontaneity means no bread to make sandwiches for the picnic, etc. from my pov) but alarm clocks for everything? Does she have an alarm clock - no, I won't say that.

I see that, but OP has not suggested she is autistic, though says DD is. I am left entirely confused at what she is doing.

How do you propose this family reach your ideal of 1 bathroom per person?

People are antsy about it because it is upsetting DH and thus disrupting the relationship, and the routine is not 'for' DD, but what the OP has done all her life, and she will not (or cannot?) compromise. Probably needs to sit and talk to DH and discuss it, not say 'stay out of the bathroom in DD's set 15 minute slot. The likely outcome has a strong possibility of not having to worry about DH and the loo because DH will decamp. The routine is not working, and also OP is obsessive, saying that until the alarm goes off she cannot do a task.

You need to learn about autism. It means you are a better human being who can understand and accept all different types of people in the world

@Grammarnut but DH is not compromising in any way, is not thinking about DD, is not parenting in any way in the morning, is happy to shit in front of his child. OP's routine helps her and her DD get the morning done. Now it might be able to tweak it slightly, maybe less rigid, but that should be for DD not DH.

A reply worthy of a 15 year old.