To just want to leave the f***ing house!? (faffing related)

[InTheBox]

Does anyone have family or a partner that does this sort of thing.

We're about to leave the house but no, we can't yet as a cushion needs to be plumped, the thermostat needs to be checked, perhaps even an 'interesting' ad on TV needs to be watched. Or something needs to be looked for or rearranged. Maybe even a cup of tea whilst all this is happening and then might as well check e-mails. I despair with this sort of faffing. Can we just leave!

I'm not military about leaving times unless we have to be somewhere but otherwise if we are about to leave the house then lets fucking leave! Rant over.

There is not one single person in my life who is not a faffer, and it drives me to the point of screaming murderousness. Even my partner, who thinks he is not a faffer, and complains about the trait in others, can faff for Britain. However, this thread has inspired me to think of a new strategy. Every time his faffing delays me for more than two minutes, I'm just going to go and find half an hour's worth of other stuff to do.

DH does that from time to time, leaving DD to me to get ready. On occasion when I'm fed up enough I just follow suit and faff about. When he says he's ready, I just smile sweetly and say "So am I" while DD is still in PJ's. The first time he was confused and flabbergasted that DD was BOTH our child to get ready. Now he helps out, or at the very least follows commands shouted down the house while I'm getting dressed. :)

Dp can faff a it but my mother is another breed. She's been about to leave (to catch a flight!!!) and suddenly remembered this small DIY job she has to do (that's not been done for months so obviously will cope for another 5 days).

I'm the opposite I'm always early and v organised so it does my head in.

No yadnbu!!! My dh is exactly the same - it bores me to death. I just leave him to it and wait in the car. He inherited it from his father and in turn has passed it down to our ds. Unfortunately for me, it doesn't just extend to leaving the house, but faffing about over every. single. fucking. thing. Everything is a drama or at least more complicated than anticipated. E.g - sharing holiday pics - the pils like to show you the snaps by linking the camera up to the tv for an hour long slideshow, kill me now but can never remember which SIM card they were using, or quite how to link the camera up with the correct cable and find the right motherfucking auxiliary channel on the tv. This has happened for every holiday for the past 13 years. One more time and I might actually shove the camera up someone's nose cry. My dh's personal faff point is setting up the sat nav before leaving for a long journey, he always ends up doing it 2 or 3 times.

I think I might be a faffer.

But for the same reasons as beardsrock. My DH wants to go out, he puts his shoes on and goes out. So simple isn't it?

I have to run around turning the tv off, finding kids coats, locking all the doors, shutting windows, making sure the kids have been to the toilet, checking the dogs have water and are shut in the kitchen, switching lights off, yada yada.

So everyone is by then in the car and I'm branded the faffer.

I get the kids ready, load dishwasher, general tidy of the house. Dh has a crap, checks the balance on joint account, polishes his shoes. I leave the keys I the lock, get In the car and bring it to the front of the house. Still waiting 20 mins later.

When going on holiday I book a cab, put his passport and ticket on the table. Separate his case. If he's not ready we go. He manages to get his shit together.

My exh was just like this. Absolutely infuriating. No sense of urgency at all. He'd start getting ready as we were supposed to be leaving. Luckily he was on flexi-time at work otherwise I'm pretty sure he would have been sacked.

My dp used to do it when I made a meal (I'm the only one who cooks in this house) I'd stand there with his plate of food in my hand while he finished off his game on his phone or had to pee or straighten up the couch. All of this after I'd said "tea will be ready in five" to help him prepare. One day I decided it was a control thing and tipped his food into his lap. He never did it again.

My ex fil used to do this. Everyone in the car, then realise he was still inside the house and faffing. After this happened twice, I insisted we meet them there in our own car as sitting in the heat with toddlers waiting for him wasn't funny. Cue big hissy fit from pil.

My ex dh did it as well, but as I always got the DC ready and out, I didn't realise he wasn't with us in all the fuss of buggys, bags, essential soft toys etc, so left the house, double locked the doors and got everything in the car, only to see him shouting soundlessly from the lounge, red with fury as I hadn't waited, and had locked him in. He moaned for days and never could see the funny side.

Mine does it at dinner time too. I warn him that'll be ready in 5 minutes then usually as I'm carrying it to the table he'll disappear for 10 minutes.

In our house the annoyance is something different: it's the anxious "did we pack this?" "have you remembered that?" which often happens just after we have turned on to the motorway; if the question isn't answered there's martyred anxiety all the way. For this reason, I insist on five minutes sitting quietly just before we leave for a long journey, and I say "keep racking your brains".

I realise this would a recipe for disaster with the faffers, who would immediately find something else to faff with!

My dh is an epic faffer. So are his dp's. I sometimes wonder how much time I've wasted over the years waiting for him while he faffs around.

My ex husband was awful for this,he'd wait till me and the 2DS were ready to go out of the door and then he'd decide he would like a bath after all.I think I could have quite happily exploded at him sometimes.I put up with it for 9 years,my Mum said I deserved a medal I think she was right.

I remarried and DH is really good at getting ready and getting out of the house but I still have to live with the faffing as oldest DS19(son with ex husband)is just like his father unfortunatly,I could seriously pull my hair out somedays and sometimes if were really lucky DS14 and asd and DD12 copy they're big brother.I don't know how myself and DH haven't screamed the house down yet.

It affects the whole household as well as we have 5DC and 2 of our children are disabled.I'm still praying they grow out of it.

My sister does this, it's become a family joke. Whenever we are going somewhere and she is driving everybody is already sitting in the car, ready to go and 10 min later she comes trundling out of the house seemingly unaware that we are all waiting.
She also can only walk one speed, not particularly slow but not fast either, drives my mother and me, who walk fast even if we have time, mad.

Haha this is me right now! Dp is constantly doing this and it drives me mad, just 5 minutes ago I asked are you ready, he said yes so I put on ds's coat, turns out that his version of ready meant he still had to brush his teeth, clean his trainers and go for a poo, so Im sat on the couch fuming messing about on MN.

He is the worst at faffing, he gets it from MIL. Just yesterday Ii took ds for a walk in his pram to try and get him to sleep, he had to stop every 5 seconds to fix something,

the blanket blew off an inch - this meant a 5 minute pit stop whilst he took it off and refolded it again, waking ds up in the process.

His trouser leg hitched up a cm, he had to stop to pull his trousers down incase he caught a chill on his leg - it was roasting yesterday here!

I ended up silently fuming wishing he'd stayed at home to piss about with something there, so When I saw him going for the bending down move to fix/annoy something I pushed even harder so it threw him off balance, he got the hint in the end and went home and I was happy to walk while ds got to sleep without being interfered with.

DH does this, he claims it's "efficiency thinking". He sees me busy with something and decides to get on with something else. Trouble is, the thing I'm doing is putting the last shoe on the last child, which takes 15 seconds, and the thing he goes to do is to email the guy who's fixing our house, which takes 20 minutes. It's basically arrogance - better you wait 20 minutes for me than I wait 15 seconds for you.

I find myself nodding in agreement with so many of you. DP and DSis are epic faffers if given the chance, I refer to this behaviour as Beadle-ing - messing around with silly unimportant things at the wrong time I realise that in both cases it stems from anxiety but gaahhh! its infuriating particularly as I m organised and have a pathological loathing of being late.

I deal with it by having a mental checklist and being a bossy arse - both seem to respond well to direct orders eg " Now get your bag, its on the table" a clear schedule - we do this, then this and then this and the phrase WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT NOW ???? in my best bossy school teacher voice.

The thing that I have found to be most effective - they are both aware of the fact I label this behaviour as Beadle-ing - is that when they start faffing I loudly and tunelessly (I was the only girl in school NOT allowed to join the choir) sing the theme tune to Beadles About - after less than a minute of my tuneless caterwauling - OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH You better watch out, cos BEADLES about, BEADLES abooooooouuuuuuuuuut" they stop the faffing, with DP I now only have to hum the beginning of it and he stops.

DH does this, and it is compounded by his belief that everywhere is ten minutes drive away, whether the local shop, the nearest large town or the south of fucking France, so 'there's no hurry' you see.

We have a key bowl. The only keys that are ever in it are mine.

I bought a key alarm thing which attaches to his keys and a remote control to summon them. He lost the remote control (despite it having a specific hook to keep it on).

If I ever do explode with rage and drag him out to the car by the ear manage to get out of the house on time, he will make a massive point of 'noticing' how 'early' on time we are. It is as well he has other redeeming features or I would end up on the six o clock news.

DH needed to go to the doc, and also get some medicine for the kids. Doctor's office closes in 40 minutes. He just confirmed what he needs to get for them, then sat back down on the sofa, still in his pyjamas. At my look, he said yeah, yeah and got comfortable. Aargh.

I've just been on holiday with four friends. We were hiking. Every morning I'd get up, get dressed, have some food and be ready to go.

They all took at least an hour longer than me. I have no idea what the fuck they were doing, we all had a tiny backpack, hardly any possessions and didn't shower in the morning. The level of faff was incredible.

DP was blacklisted from our village taxi service for taking so long to get in the bloody cab when it arrived. I refuse to get in any taxis and wait for him.

He also went through a stage of needing a "nervous number two" every time we left the house. Obviously he'd only need one when I had my coat on and was at the door. And it wasn't a short process. Drove me mad and eventually we had a big row about it. He said I was really mean because he couldn't help it.

Arghhhhhhh!

Wtf was he doing that stopped him getting in the cab

Oh and when we leave hotels I now check out on time and wait for DP downstairs. I got so sick of fielding endless calls and knocks on the door saying you were meant to be out half an hour ago, while he was taking a leisurely shower...

I'm quite tolerant of faffing in summer when inside temperature=outside temperature. In winter I refuse to wait, I am not standing there dressed for the Arctic in a heated house. I just leave, faffers usually manage to come running, scarves flying, pulling on coats on the way. My dad tends to mutter all day about stuff I made him forget in the mad rush (that would be 30 minutes notice that we leave at 2pm followed by him starting to get changed at 1:58), but by day two of being in the same house it is clear I leave at 2pm if I said 2pm.

I went on holiday with my bf and all his family, years ago - we stayed in youth hostels and drove places every day. There were 10 of us in total - 2 parents, 6 university students and 2 younger kids - and I was ALWAYS the first one ready. I mean I can understand the parents not being ready because they had to organise the younger ones, but yeesh. It got embarrassing because my bf's mum noticed how I was always ready and dubbed me the organised one; I then felt terrible because I might be making everyone else feel bad they didn't care

I think I ended up sitting outside and reading a book most days.