To think DH needs to plan better or deal with the consequences

[BluetheBear]

My DH can be a bit disorganised and lack planning. He is intelligent and has a professional job, which requires him to use his brain and his diary, but at home he just seems to fail to think ahead.

An example today is he worked this morning from home, has the afternoon off and is going out with work colleagues later. His daughter (20) lives near where he works so he planned to meet her at 2pm this afternoon for lunch.

I am home as I don't work Fridays and have a toddler at home who is napping. I'm in the room with toddler while he is asleep just reading a book.

DH asked at about 1:30 if I could give him a lift to the train station. I said yes when child wakes up. No time discussed except he did ask how long child would sleep and I said hopefully another half hour to an hour. I said I could take him on the way to the supermarket. He said ok.

DH rushes into the room quite stressed at 1:45 saying he needs to get to the train station for 2:15 and can I give him a lift and get him there. I hesitated as he seemed so stressed and sometimes he gets annoyed if I say no to things. He did acknowledge he was wrong to have not checked train times earlier as it will take him over an hour to get there. We don't live in a city so it's two trains he needs. I said well child is asleep and I still need to feed him before we go.

He was fine with it and has called a taxi but it seems the taxi is taking it's time and I feel bad that he might not get to see DSD but also can't deal with how everything is always last minute. It's 2pm now and child is asleep so I'd have to put sleeping child into the car, drive to the station, then drive back home and feed him before going out again to the supermarket. It's not the end of the world but I can't imagine not looking at train times until half an hour before I'm supposed to be meeting someone and I know it's an hour away!

As intrigued as I am in precisely what you think I have said that is trolling - if you can't communicate on a public forum without breaking one of it's most widely publicised rules - no troll-hunting - maybe it's time to take a little break from the internet crumpet.

@TaunterOfWomenInGeneralSaysSayonarastu
i just wish there was a hide button for your posts.

never mind
no troll hunting, so report me

Sorry if I misunderstood the tone of your post @Crumpetdisappointment

He'a arrive home at nap time (which I enjoy as it's time to relax) and we've spent an hour arguing about money so I've told him we'll leave it for now and speak later. Arguing in the bedroom where child is sleeping is not ideal and I just wanted to read my book in peace!

It was really peaceful for the almost 24 hours that he wasn't here.

Sounds like my wife. She has ADHD. Organised at work but hopeless out of work.
I regularly have to drop everything for an emergency that is just a lack of foresight and now is urgent (such as picking up medication or some washing that needs doing for the next day).
It's annoying but I do it because I love her.
When things repeatedly happen we talk and find a way to stop it happening together, because we are a married couple.

If OP doesn't want to help her husband out of situations like this I dare say there are far deeper issues in the marriage not disclosed here, because supporting our families is basically hard grained into our DNA.

Not necessarily @Arightoldcarryabag as clearly a lot of people I agree I shouldn't pick up the slack all the time. I think if there was something that made him that way and he was trying to do something about it then that's different.

I'd just ignore all his flapping and let him be late, or not get there at all. There's no reason why you need to give him a lift to the station when it's highly inconvenient for you, he's an adult who can sort out his own transport. But I also wouldn't have Moonpigged a card to my MIL. I learnt very early on in my relationship with my OH that if I do that sort of stuff, he expects it, or at least expects a reminder, and doesn't think for himself. So I stopped doing anything like that for him. Sometimes I have to be awkward and point out to his family members that I don't have any involvement in their birthday gifts etc when he's forgotten, but most of them understand it now. I do think that letting him deal with the consequences of poor organisation is the only way to play it, it's not your responsibility at all.

Not everyone's partners have ADHD, in fact most probably don't. There's no reason why one partner should take all the burden of organising family life, and kinship keeping, because the other just can't be arsed. Most of the time it's nothing more than that, it's not because they have ADHD or are some other way neurodiverse, it's that this sort of stuff isn't deemed as important as paid employment, so they can't really be arsed to be organised about it. Its not fair to expect the other partner to then pick up the slack, why should they carry more of the mental load than they already probably do? They may be a partnership, but they're also adults with free will, who can make their own choices. If OPs partner chooses to avoid organising his personal life, he needs to deal with the consequences.

Holy Shit 😁

Yes indeed @jemimapuddlepluck . Why shouldn't she be oblivious to his plans?!

I have experience at work of people not doing things or doing them last minute and others picking up the slack.

Yeah there will be a lot of underlings and secretaries to wipe their arses!

A previous poster mentioned waking a toddler for school pickup for an older child.
Believe it or not, I have had this request, passed on by the school secretary (who had the grace to look embarrassed) that mum had just managed to get the toddler off to sleep and didn't want to disturb, so could the teacher in charge of the class drop her son off at home?
I wasn't even the regular teacher, but doing supply cover, and I'm just surprised that the secretary would pass this on; my gobsmacked expression must have said it all.
People with that mindset will show as much learned helplessness as they can get away with.

I dont even know what to say. Should we be anticipating what the men folk will want at any given time now?

It was really peaceful for the almost 24 hours that he wasn't here.

Perhaps that should give you pause for thought.

Dunno I'd have just done it tbh but my DH would be very unlikely to have been this disorganised.

it is ok, op has explained

Couldn’t he drive himself?

How often does he get together with his DD and how do you get on with her?

it seems like it was a surprise to you he had not planned but presumably if so ingrained - you would expected it so.

how is your marriage otherwise?

Is he close to his mother? If so then she will know he’s not one for cards for them at years he’s been an adult andYou weren’t there to get her a card (a personalised one no less!)

I know @jemimapuddlepluck i think we entered the twilight zone 😂

That's the thing @Cherryblossoms85 if he didn't do things like this all the time then I wouldn't find it so annoying. Of course partners help each other out when needed but if it's very frequent then I think ne needs to learn to plan

No he doesn't have a PA and has a job where deadlines are important. He just wouldn't have thought to check train times until he was done with work and thinking it's time to go.

MIL does know what he's like with cards. We've discussed how FIL in the same and I think I even said once that he even asks me to sort Mother's Day cards sometimes.

He can drive but we only have one car. We plan on a calendar when we both need it and he said he didn't need it as he would get the train. I had plans to go out and do things with DC as it was our day off.

I think I will do as some PPs have said and just let him get one with it. Help when I can as I want to be a good partner but I'm not always leaping to his rescue just because he can't be bothered to plan ahead and not feeling bad when I haven't done so.

He sounds like me (late diagnosis of ADHD). Thankfully, uber exists and DP is occasionally generous enough to drop me off). I am always grateful.

Oh, it’s not that I can’t be bothered to plan ahead - I literally can’t! It’s too hard. There is just ‘now’ and ‘not now’ in my head.

Does he have any other traits of ADHD?

But it’s also not on you to compensate for any executive functioning issues either btw, nor is it my DPs for me.

He doesn't have Uber. This is also a thing. He doesn't user things that could make his life easier like buying train tickets on the app when he's running late, moonpig for cards, Uber for taxis... last night he called when he didn't know where to get a taxi home and it would have been so much easier if he used Uber.

He doesn't user things that could make his life easier like buying train tickets on the app when he's running late, moonpig for cards, Uber for taxis... last night he called when he didn't know where to get a taxi home and it would have been so much easier if he used Uber.

Why would he bother helping himself when he has you?

Has he ever experienced concrete consequences for his refusal to behave like a grownup?

I hope when he called last night that you suggested to him he wouldn't have this problem if he downloaded the Uber app, and then hung up?

What he's doing is attention seeking. You need to cut off any attention or reinforcement he's getting out of this. Don't engage with him on the phone beyond reminding him Uber exists. Don't brainstorm. Don't problem solve.

You can sound sympathetic in the same way a teacher of seven year olds might sound sympathetic when a child wants her to button his jacket for him and find his lost mitten. In other words, "What a shame you've never downloaded Uber/ Moonpig/ the ticket app..." while not giving an inch. Practice the gently assertive art of hanging up.

He does use something that makes his life easier: you. Stop letting him. You are not his efficiency app.