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.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

From reading your posts I believe there are two possibilities.

1. He is a selfish prick and you should ask him to live elsewhere for all your sanity.
2. You are all neurodivergent and need to find a way for you to all be able to cater to those needs.

Tell him if she’s late he can ring the school and explain as a grown man he can’t get his arse in gear enough to let his own child have 15 mins in the morning to get herself washed and teeth cleaned.

Good grief. What a selfish man!

You could get daughter up sooner and let her have 15 min chill time before school.

You could also have one last go at explaining the situation to him and asking for his agreement to get ready sooner.

i personally couldn’t be involved with someone this self centred.

There is another loo in the house. Read the op's updates.

I dont get the read all thing on my phone and theres like 28 pages about a bathroom schedule to go through 🙈
Why is there such an issue if theres two bloody loos?!?

Two parents doing whatever the hell the want, sounds like a marriage made in heaven...

All the women here suggesting this lady and her child change their routine to accommodate an overgrown selfish manchild, have a fucking word with yourselves.

Sadly, glad I am single. Gives me palpitations imagining the stress of me and DD having to ‘avoid’ arguments before school/work with a selfish git like your husband/dad sounds.

How old is your DD? I would encourage her to stand up to him - ‘Dad, I need to use the bathroom at this time as otherwise I will be late to school!’ If both of you are expressing your needs clearly then hopefully he gets the message. He is clearly used to thinking solely about himself. That doesn’t work in family relationships. Good luck! X

Well im not spending my life arguing with my family over 15 minutes in a bathroom. Kids are always at school on time, happy and not listening to their parents fight every morning. So yes, I think it is. If you love living by loads of rules and that works for you then go for it.

Who can more easily navigate a full-height kitchen sink: a seven year old autistic child or her father? Who can more easily navigate putting on shoes and heading to a garden toilet with spiders in it: a seven year old autistic child or her father? I suspect that, at seven, she still uses one of those bathroom stools to help her reach the sink and loo.

The child needs 15 lousy minutes in the bathroom at a pre-booked time. She shouldn't have to budge up and make way for a grown-ass adult who is more capable of using the alternative facilities than she is.

No, most comments suggest that the OP's routine with alarm clocks is absurdly weird. Sure, DH could use the other loo! Who wants to shit in front of DW and DD? But OP says it is too expensive to make that loo welcoming and anyway she keeps her mops in there!

My brain went to The Wrong Trousers - for DH. Would solve all their problems!

It's the obsession with 'pre-booked time' that gets me. DH does what most humans do in the morning, get up when they need to. Some days he has to leave very early, so he gets up very early; some days he is wfh so he doesn't get up till it is nearly time to start work. Both perfectly reasonable and not lazy. OP seems to think that family life ought to be regimented, DH clearly doesn't agree, but generally tries to keep out of the way of alarms ringing every fifteen minutes to regiment his DD's preparations for going to school (DD is autistic and will like routine and get very upset when it alters, but it does not have to be so rigid nor alarm driven). Surely not too much for OP to organise her schedule (and it's hers, one she has kept to all her life, and pre-DD) to accommodate DH's rather changeable schedule? Get bathroom bit done first - shouldn't be cleaning teeth straight after a meal anyway, as it can damage the enamel of the teeth which can be softened by some foodstuffs (and if breakfast includes fruit then should not clean teeth for an hour because of the acidity of fructose). Compromise is the essence of a marriage. OP does not seem to understand the word, but people here are trying to explain.

Or you know the DH could compromise by getting his arse out of bed and getting his own daughter ready for school instead of defaulting to sleeping in and letting his wife do it all

that way he could do it as flexibly as he wanted, or as the DD could cope with

I’m sure @Spelunk doesn’t want to spend her whole life arguing over 15 minutes in the bathroom, @Amumof287, and maybe she would prefer not to need regimented routines in the mornings, but the fact is that she and her child benefit from having those routines, and she wouldn’t have to argue with her dh if he just avoided one 15 minute period in the bathroom in the mornings.

@Spelunk‘s dd has needs your children don’t - she has a disability - and is it honestly that hard to understand why she feels she needs the routines, or to expect her dh to accommodate his autistic daughter’s needs?

On 1 post the OP states that she has always timed her mornings even before having her DD. I think honestly that she would do the timer even if DD didn't have autism as that is her way and that is how she wants it. Should the father go into the bathroom? Of course not! But Im not convinced that the timer is for the DDs benefit. I also think the marriage is generally unhappy with a lack of affection, respect etc on both sides.

I'd like to introduce you to a concept called "the agent of change principle". This is a principle found in, amongst other contexts, planning law that makes the entity who is making a change responsible for mitigating the impact that that change has on others.

It is not the DD who wants to change her morning schedule each day. It's not the OP who wants to change her morning schedule each day. It's the "D"H who wants to change his morning schedule each day, so it's the "D"H who should shoulder the burden caused by his changes.

I would expect an adult to know that he can't just do whatever he wants when he wants and keep changing his routine with no regard for the impact it has on others.

Do you brush your teeth after every meal through the day then? Nope! You brush once at the end and once at the beginning of the day. I’d hate to eat breakfast with a fuzzy smelly mouth from the night before.

Why can’t you all just share the bathroom at the same time? If she’s brushing her teeth in there and your DH comes in to brush his like you’ve mentioned; I don’t get what the issue is with that. Others have suggested lots of ideas - keep a toothbrush in the kitchen, get your DD to brush her teeth as soon as she wakes up etc, but you seem unwilling to compromise and just want everyone to agree with your opinion that you DH is selfish. If this is how you speak about your DH online, I’m not surprised he called you horrible in real life.

Wondering why she dresses before washing. 7.15 wash then dress would solve the problem

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable and people who disagree with you have clearly never seen or had any experience of autistic children. They need routine and the smallest deviation can cause them frustration. I’m sorry about your situation with your husband at home, I hope he makes some changes.

? Even though the thread is full of parents of autistic children disagreeing?

No one in your household is coming out well itt. Sure, he could be more considerate, but then so could you. Details are sketchy, but I assume he has to be out of the house by a certain time too, in which case you all have to give a little here and be a bit more reasonable, not just him.

@BlueInk1234 I have an autistic adult child. My late DH was also autistic as is his father. As such I have a huge amount of experience in dealing with people with autism. I tried very hard get all of them to be more flexible because, in the real world, most people are flexible and won't accommodate such rigid schedules.