Things my DH has found to do while we are trying to leave for Christmas

[Bluebells81]

6hr car journey to PiL today. Thought it would be good to leave in morning. Stop for lunch etc So got everyone packed and ready yesterday, or so I thought...

So far DH has filled the morning with:

1. Buying special fuel for garden tool.
2. Filling said tool with fuel on allotment.
3. Buying Xmas present for child that I could have bought yesterday if I'd known he hadn't done this.
4. Vacuuming (he never vacuums under normal circumstances)
5. Winding DCs up with playfighting to the point that everyone got sent to separate rooms.
6. Buying (separate shopping trip) extra food for pet and present for next door neighbour.
7. washing and drying a load of laundry.

I can't even pack the car because he keeps using it for his errands.

There is no end in sight to this sudden domesticity. Nearly 1pm... still a 6hr journey ahead.

Presumably she doesn’t want to ‘just get the children in the car and go’ because she doesn’t fancy a six-hour drive on her own to stay with his parents, who are expecting him to be there.

Don’t do it, then. It’s obnoxious.

Mine too and honestly it's a moment when i have zero sympathy. I offer to help him plan so he doesn't do this and he tells me he won't behave this way then does anyway. He won't get stuff ready the night before although everyone else does, this is a decision he makes nothing to do with adhd. One DC has adhd too and works really hard at it, plans and organises in advance to avoid this exact scenario. He knows his brain goes into overdrive and can't cope so he counteracts it, dh does not.

I'm still angry from about 5 years ago when i was so afraid of being late for a family event that I insisted we stayed in a nearby hotel just to avoid this..and you guessed it... he lost something in the room and delayed for so long we were late anyway, a few minutes only but still. I went to so much trouble to avoid stress but ended up arriving stressed anyhow

He’ll need to wash the car, too, before starting your 6 hour journey, if he’s anything like my DH.

I get this as well. Mine would be deciding to cut the kids fingernails and/or toenails, or chopping fruit to take in a Tupperware container, or trimming his beard, or doing his FF team.

Another shining example of the totally unacceptable shit so many people are putting up with. And I say that as someone who has ADHD and Autism! (But a modicum of self awareness) This shitty, selfish behaviour which boils doen to 'avoidance at any cost to myself and my family' would make me hate my life and likely very much explains why I'm single by choice.

Well, they can be mad at him and themselves for not getting his shit together. They raised him.

She might want to go, she might not. I'd say at this point it's her choice.

When you leave them behind a time or two or refuse to progress the relationship unless they get their ass in gear and show up on time, it's amazing how that behaviour changes.

Does this kind of thing happen a lot? When he has something important & time-sensitive to do, does he often find himself doing anything but that thing? If yes, you might have a chat in the new year about an ADHD assessment because that list is classic.
Sorry he's being gormless, whatever the cause, all v frustrating for you. If he's driving, I'd consider tossing back a couple of festive Snowballs to take the edge off.

OMG this is exactly my life every time we try to go anywhere. Somehow a “quick morning prep” turns into a full-blown to-do list from hell. Hope you finally get on the road soon!

As someone who sets a time and tends to leave 10 minutes before this....I would have exploded at 10 mins late never mind now...

@BauhausOfEliott @IidentifyastheGrinch

I am fully aware Im a pain in the arse. But I have ADHD/OCD so no matter how much I try I just end up needing to do something. If I don’t do something I feel compelled to do it can trigger a nervous breakdown. All fun and games in our house.

Oh god this is my husband. Whenever there is any sort of household task that needs to be completed with a sense of urgency, he finds something to do that is useful in the general scheme of life, but of absolutely no use to the urgent task at hand, we had guest coming round at the weekend and I needed to clean and cook, alongside ferrying the kids to various activities/parties. My husband was found upstairs organising the box of spare lightbulbs. I feel your pain.

No comment!

Ah yes I know how this goes. Mine hates doing paperwork and when it's due he suddenly declared it is essential we all spend a day at the beach or he discovers a deep love for baking

You posted at 12.40 so he'll probably want his lunch before you set off 😁
My Dh is the opposit wants to set off at an ungodly hour in the morning, and if we leave even half an hour late, every little build up of traffic is because we didn't leave at dawn. 💐

I'd love a psychiatrist to explain!

We once travelled to collect my mum for a holiday with us (me, dh and two young excited dc) that she was really looking forward to. We all managed to get ready, packed and sorted to do the long extra journey to get to hers in time.

She wasn't packed and had been up on a stool taking her curtains down for a wash ( why oh why? They'd not needed washing for the previous year) .

I was so angry. The kids were looking forward to lunch out we'd planned to break the journey. It really spoiled the holiday.

Plus she'd twisted her back pulling the curtains down on her own and was in pain the full holiday.

... which will "only take 5 minutes". I swear time stands still for him when he's washing the car.
Once, when we were expecting visitors, he decided to paint our eaves. To be fair, the weather was perfect, but the visitors were convinced they'd arrived on the wrong day when they saw him up a ladder in his DIY clothes!

My FIL does this before every long trip and holiday, drives the MIL round the bend. After years of knowing him, I'd say if he were in school today, he'd have a diagnosis of some sort. He's chronically late, chronically disorganised and a huge procrastinator, his 'just mowing the lawn' 2 mins before they are due to leave for the airport is an extreme form of procrastination IMHO, only an imminent event of some kind gets him moving, but even then, it's moving to do something else, rather than get in the car and actually start the journey. It's got to the point that MIL doesn't want to go on holiday anymore. She says the run up is just too stressful, as she has to do all the organising, packing etc... or they just wouldn't go and miss their flight, which has almost happened a few times.

My DH is like this. Yesterday we were supposed to be leaving about 4 to get to my parents' house (just over 2 hours away) for dinner time. And yet it was absolutely essential that he watched the Biathlon world cup (he has never cross-country skied in his life) and write some emails to his Cubs parents about badge work before getting anything packed. We did not get there for dinner time.

It is absolutely infuriating, but he is otherwise a good egg. And me nagging just doesn't improve anything.

I know ADHD gets brought up a lot but my DP, who has ADHD, ALWAYS finds a whole pile of stuff that has to be done all of a sudden, when we’re in a hurry. Put out the recycling. Fix random loose screw in curtain pole. Hunt for missing multisocket. Wipe round the sink. It’s definitely a thing. He has known all this stuff needed to be done and it has all been swimming around in his head, but he has kept it in holding mode. Suddenly he’s under a time constraint and this gives him this sudden burst of adrenaline and off he goes. And yes, he does keep us late because he also has absolutely no concept of time. It’s really fucking annoying, but he can’t help it. If I tell him to hurry up, he invariably forgets to bring something with him and it’s my fault for puttIng him under pressure. If I just chill and keep myself occupied until he’s done, we end up even later because apparently the fact I was doing something else gave him the impression he had loads of time. Tis fun.

My husband decided to bath the dog when I went into labour with my son. I generously chose to put it down to the fact that he wanted to feel useful and couldn’t picture what that looked like but this is just one of a long line of incomprehensible decisions he makes on the regular. His brain confuses me so much.

Yep, Never forgotten mine deciding he had to mow the lawn when about to set off for a visit to his family and once, when the house was an absolute tip and the kids running riot and we had a phone call from friends 'we're in the area - all right if we stay over with you?' - decided that the thing to do was tidy out the shed.

He did admit to me when we divorced that he did it as a control mechanism. HE got to say when we left. The shed thing was just him not wanting to do any housework.

I come from a family with a lot of ulcerative colitis and endometriosis. It is quite normal for us to have to wait for things to 'settle down' in the morning before eating/travelling.

You sound a bit mean.

I just read this to my DH and he looked very sheepish. I will never forgot the year I was trying to pack the car and he was mowing the frigging back lawn.

You're a saint for tolerating this, OP!

My exH was the opposite (but still really annoying). We'd together decide that we would leave at, say, 12 noon. So I'd get myself packed up, finish off various housework chores (he did fuck all) all timed to be done by about 11.30 am. And then at 10 am, he'd say we had to leave, and why wasn't I ready 🤬 So, so glad he's an ex!