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.

Have you divorced him yet? 😆

Seriously though, is he doing all this because he wants to control the situation or is he genuinely clueless?

That’s an impressive list of ways to avoid something!
What do you think is making him so uncomfortable?

Mine changed my car battery on the morning of our wedding 🤨

My dad does this frequently and it's so stressful for my poor mum trying to get him out of the house. I wonder if it's slight social anxiety etc but bloody annoying for you O.P. I hope you are en route now x

I mean, isn’t this why the baby Jesus was born in a manger? Because Mary left booking a hotel to Joseph? I always assumed so, since men faffing about when Christmas things need to happen (including travel) is as old as time immemorial. Before Jesus, they were probably mowing the lawn before lighting the menorah on Hanukkah. Before that, they probably had to power wash the ziggurat on Mesopotamian holidays. YABU and you are not alone, @Bluebells81 😂Hope you arrive before Boxing Day!

My DH can be a bit like this but now we know on his case that it's ADHD. Like, we'd be on our way out the door and he has to mow the lawn or put up some shelves and it's always something long overdue (weeks, or sometimes months) so I feel like I'd better let him do it or it might be months before the mood takes him again.

It wasn't because he didn't want to go to where we were going but I think maybe something about suddenly getting into 'doing something' mode, but it does sound like displacement activity in the case of OP

My cousin’s ExH did this all the time. She was late or missed a lot of family events over the years because of his behaviour. He did this to control her. He was a nasty, abusive man. The entire family cheered the day she announced she was divorcing him.

When I was a child my usually lovely dad used to sit in the car waiting for my mum to get myself and sibling ready etc. Once we were all in the car he'd then announce he had to do something in the garage and disappear for half an hour. It drove my mum mad, and I can absolutely see why.

Sounds like a delaying tactic 😂

My DH’s best one was before a funeral. I was trying to get myself and the kids sorted. He was nowhere to be seen. He’d decided to weed the front garden for the first time ever. Wearing his funeral suit. 🤯🤬

My "D"H famously started mowing the lawn one year when I was literally sat in the taxi ready to go to the airport.

Mine does this. We moved house yesterday and we didn’t leave until 0100 due to the amount of faffing. My father was the same. I remember him deciding to mow the lawn on the morning we were due to go on holiday. We arrived too late to check in and had to run to the gate with all of our luggage. These days you’d just be told sorry, too late, you’ve missed the flight.

Please say you told the taxi to drive to the airport whilst shouting out the window "see you in Zante, prick"

My ex was like this. I got so fed up with it that for the last few years of our marriage, I would leave without him. We arrived at different times for most UK holidays, weddings, parties and family dinners. I refused to travel abroad with him because it was too stressful.

I NEED AN UPDATE!

We travelled on Saturday. Mine decided to spend the day updating the dash cam (which we've never used, in fact I didn't even know we had one), doing a load of washing (generally my job and I'd done everything that was needed before we left), and doing some Christmas shopping. While I dashed around packing etc. We left nearly an hour late.

The Call of the Vacuum Cleaner is a thing. My dh hears it and my late df did too. Never on a normal Saturday morning, and never when the house desperately needs it, but right before leaving for a holiday, it calls and those cursed to hear it are compelled to obey.

I really don’t know what goes on in men’s heads sometimes. I was speaking to a friend recently who said that while she was packing/ tidying the house ready to go away her husband decided to bring a box of photos down from the loft and asked if she would like to look through them with him !

My husband does this kind of thing too. We'll be up on time for a holiday or a day out, and he'll inexplicably be messing about with the sewing machine, satnav or car engine. If I ask what he's doing and why, he'll shout something like, "trying to sort out this bloody thing!" He's definitely NT, but comes from a ling line of faffers and just won't be rushed. To be fair, he does work really hard, is reasonably organised and will have packed correctly ahead of time. The last-minute jobs are so unnecessary and infuriating!

@Bluebells81 If he doesn't want to go to his own parents for Christmas why didn't he just say and save you all the pain of the prep'?
Hope you're on the road by now OP.

This reminds me of someone I followed on Instagram whose husband decided to start mowing the lawn and doing loads of other random jobs about 1 hour before they were due to leave for the airport for a long haul flight.

I’d be raging with this OP. Have you asked him WTF he’s doing?!

I am supposed to have left a big meeting nearby to go straight to the airport at 4pm.

The meeting got cancelled this morning, so I finished and sent out 2 overdue reports, wrote the cards to my team members, chatted to a few people. Came home, did a final load of laundry, cooked lunch, washed up after lunch (didn’t bother emptying clean dishes in dishwasher), repacked cases, cut out 3 shapes I needed to finish a craft present (not bringing the big cutting scissors), dumped the bins in the basement, got DD’s key to the apartment from the car in the lower basement).

I am about to get changed out of work clothes into comfy clothes…then see about an uber as it’s already half past 4…😳

Ahhhh the hour long poo isn't just my house then

My first thought was, "Fair play to him, he's got quite a lot done before 12pm, even if it was all non-urgent".

Oh god, I was literally about to type the same thing ! All the while I was herding children/ actual cats/ checking he’d locked the doors ( he usually hadn’t) etc . Usually ending in me shouting WE LEAVE WHEN EVERYTHING IS DONE AND I AM READY. Still well before the previously agreed deadline. Still married to him …