To have challenged DH over the lack of organisation of his workload (in the morning)?

[Notadonkey]

DH is known for being disorganised.

However, after DC1 was born, we had a frank discussion about the need for him to be more organised and not leave huge deadlines to the last minute as it would impact me greatly (who was also returning to work at the time).

Fast forward 3 years, we now have 2 DCs. DH has worked until 2am for the last 3 nights to meet a work deadline he has known about for weeks. I return to work next week after ML and I am nervous that he has reverted to old habits. Last week, he socialised 3 week day evenings and so could have prioritised his work then. I have barely seen him for 2 weeks.

DH is stressed and irritable, I have been ill with a virus for the last week and DC2 wakes a lot during the night.

I could see that DH was stressed yesterday so I skipped my exercise class so that he could work (not that he noticed). I felt guilty that I'd not collected DC1 from nursery so that he could stay at work longer, but I feel he uses me and his parents as a back-up far too much and it was his one turn each week to collect him. He also needs to learn that he doesn't have the luxury of being disorganised when he has 2 DCs and I work myself.

I have put together rotas and schedules for the family and myself for when I go back to work so that everything gets done. A great majority of my work has to be done at home so I am anxious about DH not honouring this and using me to fall back on when he can't do his share of pick ups and childcare because he hasn't planned better.

Having not seen DH much in the last 2 weeks to discuss this and what the family needs from him, I spoke to him this morning. My timing was awful as he had just put on his coat to leave the house, but I naively thought he would let me say what I had to say in a few sentences and then go off to work so no chance of an argument between us etc and time to reflect on what I'd said.

What he actually did shocked me.
He began shouting "shut up!" "Shut up!" At the top of his voice. I continued talking because I'm fed up of not getting my say because he's "too stressed" or "too busy" or "too tired" there is never a right time.
He then started kicking the wall and breathing heavily in an absolute rage as he slammed his cup down and left the house.
I've never felt scared of him before, but I was.

He has been immensely stressed out but this could have been avoided with a little planning. I also don't get much time to myself and my recreation time has suffered, partly due to my own guilt about not collecting DC1 so that he could work longer and partly because I just wanted him to complete the task as he's been so wound up.

I've expressed many times over the last 3 years that he can not work this way anymore with a young family to take care of. It means that if we fall ill, everything falls to me as he won't ever miss a work deadline and never has! There has been evenings over the weekend where he has sat and watched TV and he could have atleast done an hour here and there. It impacts on all of us when he spends 3 days working religiously all hours without any warning from him that he's going to be doing it.

He knows he's always got me and his parents to fall on though,which I think is a big part of the problem. His stress/moods and sulking affects us all so we all have to suffer the consequences.

I'm shocked at his reaction this morning. I clearly pushed him too far by bringing this up before he left the house. He has messaged me to tell me how wrong I was to do so when he's stressed, but surely the lesson is for him to bloody organise himself to avoid outbursts like this in the future?
AIBU?

Thanks @redexpat. We have had loads of discussions and decided plenty of ways to deal with things in the past and it always works well at first.
Then DH forgets himself (or does he) and will plan in 3 outings in one week for example, the week before a deadline looms. He always, always goes back in ehat was said and pleases himself. It's lile I'm wasting my time 😥

Well then the nrxt question has to be how many times will he go back on agreements before he has to deal with the consequences ie break up of the marriage? Do you challenge him on it when you see 3 things in the calendar?

1 of the things wasn't on the calender, so I wasn't aware until a couple of days before. Although he had "mentioned it" a couple of weeks beforehand. I don't remember unless it's on the calender though, he knows this. I challenged him when he told me about the 3rd outing and he said it was a "one off" and that he would do less the following week.
I had absolutely no idea about the work deadline at this point though 😣

I

Sorry - accidental post! When DD1 was a baby DH was studying for specialist exams and working full time. I’d done them pre DC and knew they were hard and hideous and tried to ensure that he had time to study which meant that I did more child related care and housework. I remember going to see him in the study and he was messing about on the Internet and chatting with friends overseas.

I got shouty and pointed out that he had family responsibilities now and that I was sacrificing my own down time so he could study and also that the bloody things were expensive and we couldn’t afford the resit if he failed .

OP, he didn’t shout back and kick things, even though they’re exams that are stressful and horrible even without DC. He apologised and stepped up and stopped faffing about (and passed).

YANBU. You are supposed to be a team and his procrastination is at your expense.

He is massively out of line carrying on like that. What a bully. Has he apologised?

I agree with PPs, stop enabling him. His system doesn't work so let. It. Break. Let him look a fool and feel the consequences of his actions.

Raise this again when the current (self inflicted by him) crisis has passed, and make it clear that you will not be bailing him out next time.

Still no apology.
Just an argument about how he told me he was having to go out today. He did, but I assumed he wasnt going after he told me 2 days ago he "wasn't sure."
And it's on the calender again.

I don't remember unless it's on the calender though, he knows this.

It does sound like you like things done your way OP. Even the way you had it 'planned' to approach him before he went out the door as you thought it would give him time to reflect with no time for an argument.

I'm not excusing his behaviour but your posts come across like you're trying to manage him and as a result, he's shutting himself off from this, not wanting to talk, missing your nights together.

I don't remember unless it's on the calender though, he knows this.

Sorry, bold fail.

@Notadonkey he absolutely owes you a massive apology for his shitty behaviour. He's too busy to be spoken to but not too busy to throw a fucking fit at his wife?! It's just not on.

If my husband spoke to me like that I'd be expecting him to come to counselling with me. It's intimidating and frankly abusive behaviour, meant to silence you so you don't question him. It's completely not ok, and in no way equivalent to the fact that you chose a bad moment to raise the issue. Him turning it around and expecting an apology from you is just gaslighting, trying to make you feel like it's all your fault when clearly he is in the wrong. First for creating a crisis, and then for lashing out at you for daring to mention its effect on you.

Stop taking responsibility for his choices as an adult.

If he wants to read up on ADHD he is capable of doing that with zero intervention from you.

If he procrastinates then panics, leave him to it. Stop enabling him! I don't mean lecture him on life management. I mean just don't cancel your gym session, do go out of the house so he has to do the childcare he promised to do.

If he cares about missing deadlines then he will sort himself the fuck out after he feels the pain of missing a deadline.

Stop googling what's wrong with him and start googling what's wrong with you. You are scared of a man's sulks. You are scared your husband is going to be violent if you stand up for yourself. Yet you are hand wringing about him and his issues while mucking about with rotas he can ignore with the threat of a sulk or a slap. Focus on what the bloody hell is wrong in your head to make you pander to this shit.

Basic rule of life: never give in to a bully or a tantrum. If you find yourself avoiding something to stop him kicking off, then go and bloody pointedly do that thing.

What will you do when he escalates to actual violence? He's making it clear that's where you are "making him" go.

I don't remember unless it's on the calender though, he knows this

Is OPs husband mute, unable to communicate verbally? No. Clearly he can have an unpleasant verbal and physical outburst when it suits him. If he doesn't like the system, let him SPEAK and suggest something else since we've established he's capable of verbalising to OP. But has he done this? No. When OP has tried to talk to him (repeatedly) about what is/isn't working has he engaged with that (if this is indeed his preference for how to communicate about what needs doing as some are saying)? No - he shuts OP down when she tries to speak, so now she's getting flack from people for making a last ditch attempt to speak to him and get a response, when he's heading out the door - because at all other times he doesn't engage verbally with her. Verbal communication is a choice, engaging verbally (or not) with your partner is a choice. It can also be used as a weapon of an infantile, self obsessed or controlling person when it is withdrawn.

Is he unable to get his head round the timetable (aka family planner, loads of people have them) or doesn't know how to use it? No, quite clearly he can use it (passive aggressively) when it suits him. Yet for the rest of the time in a desperate attempt to know who's doing what each week, he ignores it and operates in his own little world for one where he does what he wants and adds activities that are of benefit to him only without referral to OP or as a PA/aggressive and combative fashion.

The aggression directed at the wall in the vicinity of OP was a controlling act of a bully intended to suppress OP from mentioning it again. The withdrawal of conversation and normal communication - a controlling act intended to put OP on the back foot, get her hopping to it again to placate him and address his needs. And OP is already adjusting her life (like giving up her exercise class) to enable his goals and gets absolutely no thanks for it - other than an aggressive violent outburst followed by withdrawal of communication!

There's one person in the wrong here and it's not OP.

I think those are all very good points Towel. Very, very good points. It doesn't bode well in my opinion either tbh.

He’s an arse

Really interesting responses.

Thankyou.

He has apologised whilst we were tending to the children this afternoon. I haven't yet acknowledged the apology or spoken to him at all as the children are around.

I don't really want to have a conversation with him about it in all honesty. It all feels a bit pointless. He will revert back again to doing what he likes in panic mode as I've seen so many times before. I feel I'm wasting my time. I think I'd be better off keeping my distance and keeping very busy for the rest of the week instead.

If you think he just won't sustain any improvement, I think other PPs are right. Deadlines etc, you let him fail. It's not your job to readjust every single other part of your life and take on extra when he's not engaging as he needs to and its affecting you. Apologised for what though - warrants a bit of digging after kids have gone to bed whether ultimately worthwhile or not, he needs to know that showing extreme rage to you at ANY time EVER in the future will result in you evicting him from your house - you do NOT need your kids seeing this in the future. And he can't just sidestep his reaction - it was completely inappropriate.

He said "I'm sorry I lost my temper, it was wrong."
He probably wont erupt like that again in these circumstances, but it wont stop him from being disorganised in the future either. He won't see the correlation between his:
disorganisation-stress-outburst
He sees everything in a stupid, isolated way.

Yes, the cause and effect element appears to be totally lost on him. Guess the only way for him to learn is to fail enough times that he does? Can't think what else to suggest but maybe someone who's managed to sort out a Procrastinator can be along to offer better advice than me!

It's all well and good if you're single but in a partnership I would find it v difficult if not impossible to put up with. As for anxiety (I have it), it wouldn't help it that's for sure, and my need to have clarity would increase, the less and less sure of it that I became. It's inevitable. I think you've tried really really hard fwiw and it's up to him now but I've no idea if this personality type (is it a personality type?!) can change or not...

So you need to make it clear you're no longer willing to enable him so if he has a deadline and needs to do childcare as well you're not available.

First he sounds like he can only really work under pressure. I’m very much the same, unless there is pressure my mind switches off into can’t be arsed mode! Unfortunately, when you are trying to balance family life this does not always work unless you use your down time to do more than your fair share and the other person can pick up the slack in your busy period. It’s all about give and take.

My DH works away a lot and I will sometimes have very tight deadlines. We do what we can when we can.

I’m afraid your DH will find it almost impossible to change. He sounds like he’s under a lot of pressure and suspect a second child has pushed the balancing act over the edge for everyone.

His shouting like that sounds like he’s right on the edge to me. I would recommend your DH gets some therapy before he has a breakdown and you both need to do some work as to how the new family dynamic can work, this might be on your own or with a marriage counsellor.

He sounds like my XP. He was chronically disorganised, procrastinated dreadfully, & had anger issues. He turned up at uni the weekend before his Master's dissertation was due, having done most of the research but none of the typing. And sat in my room to type it for two days straight, on the assumption that this would be ok with me. This was one of the things that made me realise that he really didn't take life seriously, & never would, because he was used to people enabling him. And I wasn't prepared to be part of that any longer.

Did he manage to change after that @AwdBovril?

So his reaction to a deadline is to avoid it by going out more?

@HeathRobinson Yes. I'd say this is true.

Have you asked him what his solution is?

So if he's on childcare duty and he has a deadline how does he cope with both without involving you in any way.