To feel murderous rage at DH's faffing

[Oysterbabe]

Anyone have a faffer in their life that leaves them fighting the urge to kill?

In laws visiting and I cooked a meal. Was just serving up and asked DH to lay the table and sort out drinks. A few minutes later I pop my head round the door and he has one of the chairs upside down on the table and is tightening it with an allen key. Apparently it seemed a bit wobbly so he thought he'd tighten them all. They are no more wobbly now than they were a year ago.

The other day he suggested we go to the allotment straight away as DD would probably nap and we could get some stuff done. Half an hour later DD is asleep on my lap and DH is reorganizing the medicine cabinet.

He can't just do anything ever. Is it too much to ask that we just leave the house sometimes?

You do wonder how faffers just survive from day to day and hold down a job.

Omg I have found my people!!

THis thread has had me laughing out loud! I am married to a total faffer! It drives me nuts. I’ve just read some of these out to him and he’s denied all of it. He just has an excuse for all of it and blames my impatience. I’m not impatient but as someone else has said I can get myself and our 6year old twins ready, fed etc and waiting at the door and he still isn’t ready and then when he is “oh ok just going to nip to the toilet quickly” aghhh honestly one day I’m going to completely lose my sh*t :)

"I'll do it now in a minute", my faffer says this about everything! Drives me batshit!

Does anyone else's faffer have to have a conversation about what clothing they might need to wear.
Which coat?
Sunglasses?
Gloves?
Hat?

My DH is one too. His favourite is cleaning the windows. We will be having a party to organise. My priority is a tidy house, food on the table, clean toilets, children dressed, presents wrapped, games organised etc. He will be cleaning windows. Drives me mad!

Yep my DH is one too so bad that this week he took so long to get ready when he came downstairs I asked him if he wears makeup. He looked puzzled I explained to him that was the only rational explanation as to why he takes so long!!

He also is known to make having breakfast last hours and generally just takes ages getting up, showered and dressed.

Hello my friends! I too have this problem.

Whatever is going on, he will be found elsewhere/not ready to go/not able to help because he is 'just doing' something.

Generally, what DH is 'just' doing is something worthwhile but pretty much always not crucial, for example mopping the floors when we are trying to get out of the house with toddler and baby, when the cleaner is coming the next day anyway ARG!!!!

It drives me insane. The toddler now says I am just.... whenever we ask him to do anything. I cannot win.

I've been in stitches reading these posts.. And OMG whoever married the leafblowing DH deserves a medal for being so patient!

But I have a confession to make in that I suspect I have faffing genes in me. I recognise some of these traits in me.
In that, I do take ages to do something in the house because I get so easily distracted.

For example, I will wake up and decide to do a job such as clean out the cupboard under the sink. So I empty out the contents and notice there is a dirty tea towel in there. So I take it to the the laundry basket upstairs (in my head, very proud of myself as I am collecting a couple of things on the stairs as I go and I am actually multitasking!) whilst putting the tea towel in the basket, I notice it's full.

So I bring it downstairs to the washing machine. The washing machine is full of just finished washing so I empty it and open the door to the dryer which is full of clean dry clothes from yesterday. So I fold the dry clothes, and put in basket to go upstairs. I then put the wet clothes in the dryer and put another wash on.

I leave garage and head to the lounge to check my phone where it's on charge to see if I have had a reply to a text I sent half an hour ago. In the lounge, I reply to text, check MN for half an hour and then notice the carpet looks like it needs hoovering so I drag the hoover out and whilst hoovering I then decide to dust the glass TV unit (which is a bugger for attracting dust)

DH then returns from the supermarket over an hour later and shouts out to me why all the cleaning products from the under sink cupboard are left lying all over the kitchen floor! Which obviously have been completely forgotten about!

Does this make me a faffer?

jeremiah is your DH welsh? now in a minute means when I get around to it. my DH has the horrible habit of reprioritising jobs, so I'll say we need to do this eg make & cook the meatballs for tonight's lasagna but he'll decide he needs to check the cheese or inventory the beers

Funnily enough the faffing stops when it's something important to him. But generally it's the biggest waste of time known to man.

My Dh is like others described where it's more attention to detail than faffing. Like if people are visiting, I'll run around and surface clean the whole house so it's presentatble, where he'll do one job really well

Like cleaning the bathroom - It's a wet room - one time it was a bit grotty and had a bit of mould, so he pressure washed it in his boardshorts - it was sparkly! Lovely! meantine, I had cleaned the rest of the house, changed beds, shopped, cooked......

Love this thread.

Whenever we go anywhere dh claims he has packed the night before and is ready to go. In the morning I can manage to pack for myself and 3 children, sort out everything in the house etc while he manages to get up, dressed, fanny around doing goodness knows what irrelevant tasks ( check some unnecessary shit on the internet etc), then when it's time to go needs that last minute poo that takes half an hour while the rest of us stand around twiddling our thumbs.

Then when we get finally get to the car he suddenly remembers he needs his hat/sunglasses/etc. We never ever leave at the planned time.

And if by any chance he does happen to be ready for us, can he just wait until we are ready? Hell no, he has to do something which then means when we are ready we always have to wait for him to then finish whatever useless/pointless thing he's now doing because he couldn't possibly just sit and wait for us like we have to do every do every fecking time. Argh, feel better for that rant lol

I have a child and grandchild like this! (No man to relate it to thankfully!!)
I CANNOT bear to be late, it makes me highly anxious. I have a feeling because of MY anxiety my girls have kicked against it & are complete opposite. Although my db is similar. Be late for their own funerals 🙄.
I could not be in a relationship with a faffer.
My mental health would not withstand that at all.
I expect for those of you who are it's something you will need to accept at some point for your own sanity as it appears it isn't something that can be helped in a majority of cases?? Good luck & merry Christmas 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Oh God I so relate to all of this. I once went to do the weekly shop and asked dh to tidy the fridge when I was gone so I could quickly put away the shopping as I was in work later. I got home and he was cleaning the fucking gutters and the fridge was exactly as I'd left it. As others have said, he's great at doing a job thoroughly it's just not always the job that needs doing right now .

These stories are funny. But to be honest I couldn't deal with the stress and mental load. I bet they don't faff at work.

I'm married to a faffer. The best bit is that after he has faffed so we're already hideously late; kids are sitting in the car and screaming of boredom, I've been standing there with coat, boots and bags for half an hour and he FINALLY grabs the keys and declares he's ready, he always, always has to go through the 'have we got everything' list. Loud.
'So, we have the presents? Wallet, phone. Did we take some water?' and so on.

We have never, ever, not once realised we have forgotten something during this check. (If we have forgotten anything, we only remember once we're too far to go back).

Need to visit 2 households that are half an hour away from home then each other and get to family dinner for 4pm. Asked DH to look for a card I'd written out but sounds very quiet in other room for 10 minutes. Asked what he's doing "just looking how to charge something."

Makes sense that I mutter and grit my teeth.

My ddad was the faffiest faffer. You could time his faff to the journey to be taken and how far away. If it was to the local town for an hour maybe add 10-15 minutes. If in the area for the day say 20 miles away then 30-45 minutes. And God forbid an overnight trip to the other side of the country. Miminum 1-2 hours BUT we all knew and built his faffing into our schedules and told him one leaving time and the rest of the family the actual time.
One memorable time he came back from Glastonbury 2 days late (in the days before mobile phones). My mum just shrugged her shoulders as she knew he would be back - he had just faffed a longer return date. It was one of his quirks and we loved him for it.
Unfortunately ds1 looks like taking after him so I need to get my schedule adjuster muscles into gear once more. How does one 7 yr old take 30 minutes to brush their teeth!

This has broken my dream from last night. In it a vicious cat had got into the house and was attacking us. I managed to trap it under a bucket and was slowly pushing it towards the door. I called to my husband to open the door so I could shove it out and slam the door behind it. I was struggling to hold the bucket down and shouted where are you? And he said: 'I'm washing the celery.' Then I woke up.

That was a dream but that could have happened.

he pressure washed it in his boardshorts

My husband is like this. He loves being semi naked in the garden with his pressure washer in the summer cleaning up the paving stones. The thing is, the slabs are ugly concrete ones so look better with a bit of dirt and algae on them - not too messy and slippery - you just need to go over it with a bucket of water and broom which is a 15-minute job. He'll spend over an hour doing this so the garden looks like a prison exercise yard and he's covered in cack.

DF was another Bulldozer Faffer -
everyone had to get involved with his delaying tactics. The occasion that sticks most vividly in my memory, after 40 years, was Christmas morning. For the first time ever, the whole family was staying with me for Christmas. I was trying to cook the most important meal of my life so far. And he had the dishwasher spread all over the floor while he fixed a minor leak that clearly couldn't wait a minute longer (been leaking and working perfectly for months). Nothing like trying to get the turkey out of the oven to cries of "Don't step back!!!" or being unable to reach the potato masher!

DF was another Bulldozer Faffer -
everyone had to get involved with his delaying tactics. The occasion that sticks most vividly in my memory, after 40 years, was Christmas morning. For the first time ever, the whole family was staying with me for Christmas. I was trying to cook the most important meal of my life so far. And he had the dishwasher spread all over the floor while he fixed a minor leak that clearly couldn't wait a minute longer (been leaking and working perfectly for months). Nothing like trying to get the turkey out of the oven to cries of "Don't step back!!!" or being unable to reach the potato masher!

Love this thread. I have seriously cried real tears over dh and his faffiness

'I'm washing the celery.'