To wish my husband was less of a faffer?

[LennyCrabsticks]

Like now for eg. I'm sitting down with a glass of wine and his job is to bath the littlest child.

He's been preparing for twenty minutes now. He's been to the loo. He's looked for a towel. He's asked where the clean flannels are. In a minute I expect he'll actually run the bath. Meanwhile dc3 is bouncing around the living room spoiling my relaxing wine and TV time generally being not bathed and in bed.

He's the same with everything. There is no such thing as a quick job. He cooks the evening meal everyday and it takes him so long that he doesn't get much else done in the time between the end of school and dinner time. If he ever washes up (if I've cooked) it takes him over an hour. We have a dishwasher. I asked him to check the online banking the other day and by the time he'd finally fired up the laptop, been to the loo, put some music on and made a coffee before sitting down to log in, I'd done it on my phone. And then he got all huffy.

Is there anyway of training him out of faffiness? Or is it a trait I have to live with forever?

Gelf

The 4 hour car-washing is hard to beat :o.

Mine does at least have forearms, which is a relief. But he does the slow painstaking organising of dirty crockery before sticking it in the dishwasher thing, and it drives me crazy. And unpacking shopping - he'll slowly extract the tin of tomatoes from a bag, look at it, place it precisely on the side and then extract another tin. It doesn't seem to occur to him to put the tins straight in the cupboard - there has to be a pointless sublevel involved. So we end up with a kitchen covered in shopping, but hey, at least the bags are empty.

Waltonswatcher - So why are you with him? Why do you give a F? If you do all the chores, all the gardening and DIY, and he for example takes 4 hours (excessive I do admit) to wash the car, why give a F what he does? I couldn't give a F what DH does so long as he's not under my feet. He's usually the one waiting for me when we go out, and it annoys me when he's just lurking by the front door saying, "Are you coming?" But when he washes the car or does the dishes, if it takes him an hour I don't give a damn.

3 hours to cook dinner 3 hours !! 20 mins to make a cup of coffee, just how ?? Also a complete inability to get up and out without waking the dcs grrrr.

Don't SAY in a minute if you MEAN in half an hour. Actually, in half an hour might be fine... But only if I know that's the timescale!

Has anyone actually observed on what all the time is spent on. 20 mins to make a cup of tea, what is each minute spent doing? I'm very curious about these faffers.

Hassled Mine is the same with unpacking the shopping onto the kitchen work surfaces. And he never finishes putting the shopping away: there's always something left in the bag and/or left on the kitchen table. Grr. And as for the length of time it takes him to make a cup of tea in the morning...

I've related this before on MN, but I once watched an entire episode of EastEnders in the time it took DH to arrange some mushrooms on a pizza. That really is all he seems to have done. I still take the piss out of him about it and we're talking at least 15 years ago.

Ooh - a fellow extra sub-level unpacker :o. They should form a club.

Forearms were considered to be an attractive part of a man, rather than a nice-to-have optional extra. Rolled up short sleeves, nice watch, strong forearms, that kind of thing. Combined with manly decisiveness to devastating effect.

Shirt sleeves, not short sleeves. Clearly if the sleeves were short they would not need to be rolled up to display forearms.

Dh does have nice forearms to be fair.

Faffer with ok forearms here. He's a sahd so I don't see a lot of the faffing but it's mostly the inability to do anything without making a cup of tea first! And yes it's easier to get me and ds out alone at a certain time than with DP. I just do my own thing as he faffs.

Ooh yes, forearms plus decisiveness, yum!

My DH is not a faffer, but I did date one when I was younger. Lovely bloke, but drove me insane!!

My dh is a master faffer too. He has to 'just have a coffee' before doing anything!
I really cant understand it.
Last week he needed to do some online banking. He wasn't sure of his password. So instead of trying one of the two options that it could have been, he phoned up to get a new one. This was posted out to him
a few days later he was going to finally do the banking. First he put the laptop on. Then checked e mails. Then put son music on, and went to the banks website. Then he needed to search for the letter that he had abandoned in the kitchen somewhere. When he found it he needed to make a coffee. He finally logged on, changed his password AND LOGGED OFF. I was just . I asked why he hadn't done the banking. His response,was 'now I know the password I can do it another day' But it needed to be done three days ago!!!
Truly the master of faff.

Iloveithere that is UNCANNY.

Pretty much that exact scenario has happened here. More than once. He is horrendous with passwords.

Really curious, OP, what your DH does for a living. My best friend is a gold medal faffer BUT just got an award at work...not sure what for...

He has a really senior job as a software engineer...

It's not just housework, it's everything. EVERYTHING takes bloody ages. Makes my blood boil. I think it runs in the family - MIL and BILs are the same as DP. Unable to leave the house before midday for no good reason etc.

FWIW in DP's case the faffing is caused by:

• v poor timekeeping skills (DP, in a panic: "what's the time?" Me: "check your watch" DP: "what? 8:50? I have a meeting at 9:00" work being 20 mins away etc)
• inability to focus on one thing / the task at hand
• general messiness and disorganisation (constantly losing keys, wallet)
• inability to plan in advance (DP doesn't even set his alarm clock for work then is surprised when he oversleeps every single day )

I gave up trying to help long ago and just watch the daily drama unfold while I have a cup of tea MNing

What job does he do?

I'm a bit like this at home but only because the pace of my job is a million miles an hour. I cannot be arsed to multi task at home too...

Sorry YABU, if you are a team you play to each other's strengths. We all have weaknesses and strengths.

I thougt I was the only one with a faffer. Mine needs a snack every 2 minutes for his supposedly low blood sugar and also needs a wee every 5 minutes. He cannot put the kids to be without having several wees and popping down for a drink and a snack. His dishwasher unloading/reloading takes a good hour. In the morning, I can get myself showered, hair dried, make up, dressed, both girls ready, bookbag packed, nursery bag packed, my work bag sorted, breakfast sorted in the time it takes him to faff with his tie. It gives me the rage!

Oh, thank God. I thought it was just mine. Honestly, I deserve a medal for not having killed him yet. It doesn't help that he's an academic, so he's actually paid to waft around being cerebral at work, but it is actually physically painful watching him get ready to leave the house, and heavens help us if he has to get a child ready to take with him.

Thermo, has he been to the GP if ruination is that frequent?