AIBU to be pissed off at my husband for making me miss out seeing an old friend on his birthday?

[Jessicoolaa]

We went to bristol (where we used to live) for his birthday. He was given £400 by his parents for his present, and he wanted to buy 2 specific things that added up to £400, then take a look in one other shop we dont have where we live. We also planned to meet up with an old friend of mine afterwards who i havent seen in over 5 years, but she was only free until a certain time. I found a shop that do ear piercing so wanted to get a new piercing. Unfortunately this took longer than we expected but didn't impact the plan too much. He then needed a wee, so we went to the toilets, but he had a complete meltdown because he didnt like the toilets and couldn't go. We then had to walk about 1/2 mile the other way to find more toilets that he could use, but by the time we we'd done that it was getting late, and we had to either sacrifice going to the last shop he wanted or meeting my friend. I had to cancel on my friend because we had to go to the shop, whereby he saw nothing he liked. Am I being insensitive to his autism and selfish in thinking he should've let me see my friend, given he'd already spent £400 on himself, or should I have just dealt with it because I spent a lot of time in the piercing shop?

Reading your updates, you gave yourselves a lot to do in one day … should have planned your time better.
Where were you meet in g your friend? Wasn’t there any toilets where you were meeting?

And they actually have children which is a worry.

So you both are supposedly ND, you’re in AA and you have 3 kids!?! This pathetic teenager argument should be the least of your worries!!

Happens all the time.
Sounds like an absolute shitshow.

Erm, ut was his birthday outing and you planned in a friend and a piercing. You didn't prioritise your friend anyway.

Yeah I get your points! A lot to think about, and was good to get your reactions so that i don't make a big deal about it with my husband. But I can let it go. yeah we have a 7yo, 5yo & 1yo. I dont know how they've managed to make it that far but somehow they're still alive and happy 🤔 i guess i reacted badly to everyone saying i was being completely selfish and made the whole day about myself, which partly i did which I understand now. I shouldn't have got the piercing tbf but i did because they were training someone how to do it so it was cheap af! Didn't think about out taking longer because of this for some reason oops! Will try and arrange to go up again to meet my friend when we can. It was my mum who was babysitting, not my husbands, but maybe she can do it again or we can take them next time. Thanks for your help, sorry i got a bit defensive! X

I think a lot of people have made a good point about ADHDers trying to fit too much into one day. Time blindness is a real problem in these situations. My DH used to be a nightmare with this, but to combat it he now writes an itinerary for days out with timings on it. If you could do the day over the best approach would be to fix the time you’re meeting your friend and work backwards from there. Write a list of everything you want to do and put a time on it. So if you definitely want to visit certain shops, write them down and write what time you must be leaving them by in order to keep to the plan, otherwise you’ll just run over time and it will have a knock on effect. Vagueness in these situations is your enemy. My guess is that you were at the piercing place with just the time you were meeting your friend in mind and an idea of what you needed to do in between but no sure idea of how long all the in between bits would take. If you have it all planned then you can know exactly where you’re up to, and be able to make a decision on being able to fit it in if you’re running ahead of schedule, make a decision to take something else out of the schedule to prioritise the piercing, or know at that moment that you definitely haven’t got time so you’ll have to leave it. It can feel like a lot of work to start with, but you get better with practice, and honestly it’s made such a difference for my DH.

Don’t know if everyone is aware, but there are loads of apps that will tell you where the closest public toilets are to you, Flush or toilet finder - not 100% accurate but good to have just in case!

Co7ld you not train him to pee in a bot5ke behind a tree or wall etc.
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I'm sure you can buy some kind of portable He Wee,at vastly inflatable prices at the usual suspects Camping Suppliers.

Was your piercing decision planned or spur of the moment? That makes all the difference when dealing with Autism.

Bless you i do see your points. It’s s shame he couldn’t have done the final loo/shop on his own and convened with you using public transport

Yes, it is hard. ADHD executive function problems/ impetuousness and AS rigidity are difficult to reconcile. Clearly, you tried to do too much and it didn't work out for the two of you. Maybe you should try to make plans together and stick to them, without getting sidetracked. As for his inability to wee where convenient - that really is an Autism thing, made worse by stress, I'm afraid.

Yes, I do know something of both conditions - being with my ADHD DH for 40 years with 2 adult children ADHD and Autistic

I’m totally confused. You were presumably at the mall if at John Lewis so the nearest toilets are not half a mile away. There’s loads of toilets there.

It sounds like a full on day if you were there and then planning to go to the other shopping centre (Cabot?) as by time you’ve driven through the roadworks and parked it would take almost an hour.

Why do you feel guilty asking him to mind the kids? They’re his kids as well.

Not his fault. You could have just told him to go to the shop and then met up with your friend. No one needed to sacrifice anything and it is disappointing to me when I see couples work on the premise that they have to do everything together and one party has to sacrifice for the other.

Sorry i realised he hadnt bought the watch by that point. We were in cabot, he didnt want to carry an apple bag around the town centre in case someone robbed him lol, so we were going to go from cabot to meet my friend where she works (gordano motorway services), then cribbs, because cribbs shuts late. also you get a longer garantee with john Lewis for the same price!

We went there in the morning (it was blue banana) and I decided I would like to have it done, which was spur of the moment, but they told us to go back at 1:30 when they'd be starting appointments. Yeah he very often does tend to find it stressful when a plan changes, but he was fine with that, maybe it helped that there was a specific time to go back.

Ah no didnt know that, im sure he'd find that very useful going forward, thanks

That's really helpful, thank you! Will have a go, i do have such an issue with time blindness! Thanks

You went off piste with the piercing, that was the problem.

Yeah that's a point 🫤 that's why i haven't brought it up with him, just needed a bit of a vent and perspective. 9 months sober though wheey 😁

You put the baby in the pram and get your piercing. It’s not hard.

No we're complete assholes tbf 😉

Was just trying to add some perspective, didnt mean to make excuses but I get where you're coming from.

Sounds like instead of focusing on his birthday outing, it was rushed through so as to try and fit your friend in.
Not good.

Somewhere else where we needed to drive and he couldn't wait