Faffers!

[WhatsThisAllAbout]

Name changed, but regular poster!

I have an issue that's been bugging me, and have been meaning to ask about it here. I have written this post as thoughtfully and lovingly as I can, because the people involved are great (but annoying).

Faffing! Can you talk to me about it? Part of me genuinely wants to understand, and part of me wants to vent!

DH is a faffer. DD2 is a faffer. FIL was a champion faffer, and HIS sister was Queen of the Faffers. DD2 has a very slow processing speed (receives extra time for exams), and I'm fairly sure DH does too. I am sympathetic/ try to be patient with that. My mind boggles, however, at (a) what they are doing with all that TIME when we're actually trying to go somewhere, and (b) what purpose faffery serves. Does it increase organisation, reduce anxiety, help plan for all eventualities, or what?

Some examples... DD2 and FIL would use ten sentences to tell you something that could be communicated in one. You'd ask him how his day was, or what a TV programme/ talk was about, and he'd produce a notebook and recreate it for us in its entirety from the notes he'd made earlier. Five minutes after DH and I had got in the car to go anywhere (and running the engine), he'd come dashing out with no shoes on.

DH's late aunt was one of the loveliest, sweetest people I've ever known, but by God she was longwinded. We used to take turns between hosting her at ours, and visiting her. On the occasions when we visited her with the kids, she'd call us to the table to eat; we'd help as much as we could, but dinner was never quite ready. She'd pour drinks v e r y s l o w l y, then report on the progress of the dinner a few times. Once it was finally cooked, she'd usually decline assistance, but spend ten minutes putting all the serving dishes out on the table, then another 20 minutes serving up. In recent years, we knew to plan for a late lunch, and tried to enjoy the leisurely pace, but back when we had squirmy toddlers/ early primary school-aged children, getting them to sit nicely at the table for half an hour before being allowed to eat was excruciating at times (and they are well behaved!).

A few weeks ago, DH and I planned to leave the house early for a day at the seaside, and wanted to get a good parking space. I was ready to leave at the time he'd suggested, but he managed to spend another half an hour making coffee and doing 'things' to the SatNav before leaving the house... what things, I cannot say, because it's a trip we programmed in regularly, and in all honesty could probably do from memory really. Once in the car, he fiddled with it for another five minutes, for reasons I have yet to fathom.

This morning, we had decided that he'd drop me at work and then take the car for the day, to run some errands. I usually leave at 8, so I got myself semi-ready, woke him at 7.40 with a cup of tea, and went to pack my bag. The ONLY thing he needed to do was get dressed. At 8, he said, "Are you ready?" and I said yes. He then disappeared into the kitchen and then the bathroom for 13 minutes, while appearing to do nothing whatsoever. We finally got in the car, and he started fiddling with the CD player. "I can put that on for you," I suggested, but "No, it's OK," he replied, as he continued to fart about with it. It's lucky for him that I wasn't actually late for work, but it got me to thinking about this issue again!

If I ask him what he's actually DOING with the SatNav/ MP3 player/ CD/ cafetière, he gets mildly annoyed and says something like, "Trying to sort out this bloody thing!". I've learnt that holding my tongue and pretending to be patient tend to get me the results I want, with minimum moodiness and maximum speed.

DD2 also has OCD. She needs to leave the house at 8, so has worked out that she has to get up at 6, in order to get everything done to her liking. However, people like DH and his other relatives have always been late, because they don't see their longwindedness as a problem. This leads me to believe that there are two subtypes of faffers: organised faffers and disorganised faffers!

Apologies that I've now been longwinded myself. If anyone could shed any light, I'd be very grateful.

My first husband was a faffer. I knew about it before we were married, because his mother said he drove the rest of the family mad. "We're all ready to go and (XH) will still be pithering around." His habitual lateness had also been noted by his colleagues at university. Yes, I thought I could change him🙄He's almost certainly neurodivergent. Our oldest daughter is very intelligent, was diagnosed with autism in childhood and ADHD in her early 20s, and she's an arch-faffer with a very poor concept of time. They're highly intolerant of one another's faffing behaviour.

My DS, also autistic, is the opposite. If he's decided to do something, he gets stressed if he can't do it straight away, and if I'm taking him somewhere he'll be pacing up and down long before we actually need to go.

Faffers = autism/ ADHD in many cases.

If you look into the challenges neurodiverse people experience around executive functioning you will find the answer regarding why we faff.

We hate it too. It's just the way our brains work.

Interestingly, I work in a specialist unit for children with autism+++ (just autism is not enough to get a place, so they really are complex children). We have a few who move slowly and put things off, but more of the type that have tondo/ have things immediately. And one adorable and sweet little girl who is just extremely passive and likes to be told what to do.

I am ND and am both a Faffer (looong explanations, failure to remember things, as well as the obvious life chaos) and an Infuriated reciever of long explanations/unreadiness/failure to multitask in others (and obviously I mean DH).

It's awful actually, I feel torn apart a lot of the time.

@thestudio I'm sorry that your ND and husband both make life difficult for you. Are you able to talk to him about how your respective needs can be met, and about how you feel?

My DH and I are very different to each other, lead quite independent lives really (shifts that mean we can go a week at a time hardly seeing each other; different friends) and very tolerant, so it's mostly a case of live and let live. I let him do things his way and mostly keep my mouth shut, he lets me get on with being almost obsessively busy while he enjoys a bit of down time. It works, somehow.

I do feel like I understand a bit more now, so thank you all.

Why thank you, it took me an hour to write which did include serving dinner which included stages like clicking the tongs like castinetes to a beat of a song on the radio. It livened up the process of putting food onto plates no end.

The DCs don't like piping hot food anyway