AIBU to bring this up, or should I just move on?

[TheBerry]

A few days ago preschool DD was having a friend round for a playdate (her second ever playdate).

DH took her to her club first thing while I watched the baby. I did some tidying while they were gone and wanted to bake some brownies afterwards before friend arrived. I'd told DH the day before I'd like to spend the morning getting things set up for the playdate.

DH said he wanted to get ready, have a shower, etc. He can faff sometimes so I said, "please don't take too long, a shower only needs to take 15 minutes." He said ok. He didn't seem annoyed by the request or anything.

Anyway, he took an hour so I didn't have time to make the brownies. I really couldn't do it while wrangling DD and the baby.

I just felt upset that on this one occasion he couldn't just have tried to be a bit quicker when I specifically asked. I don't normally ask him stuff like that, he can take his time, but just on this one occasion I'd wanted him to hurry a bit. I feel like he heard what I said, understood, said ok, and then just totally disregarded the whole thing. Didn't even attempt to be quick. I feel like if it had been the other way around he'd have been raging.

I did raise it with him straight away but he got annoyed, said it was an unreasonable request, and that he'd had to shave, shower, cut his nails, etc. I said that even if he'd said something like, "oh, I'm so sorry, is it ok if I take a bit longer because of xxxx" instead of saying ok and then ignoring it then I'd have felt a bit better about it. He said he didn't know how long he was going to take until he was up there.

Anyway I'm still just feeling kind of sad. It's not about the brownies obviously, just about him making exactly 0 effort to even meet me halfway. Whereas if it had been the other way around and he'd made that request I'd have been anxiously rushing as much as possible to not keep him waiting.

Not sure whether to raise it again to discuss it with him or just let it go.

An hour long shower would piss me off . I would have marched up there with the baby and asked him to hurry up please because I need to do x, y and z. No one needs an hour long shower. However , it’s not really worth dwelling on at this point I think you may be over thinking it. Play dates don’t need to be perfect. An hour long shower is excessive but so is 3 hours preparing for a play date

For lots of autistic people having a plan in their head (making brownies) and not being able to carry it out can be really challenging. You said you didn't get much support as a child but I don't know how much support you've had as adult. So if you've heard this before I'm sorry. It might be useful ...if it's not useful for you just ignore me.

One of the strategies you might use for plans like that might be subject to change, is to change the language you use in your head. Instead of saying to yourself "I'm going to make brownies tomorrow before the playdate", you say to yourself, "I might make brownies tomorrow before the playdate if I can get the time". It psychologically softens the plan. Then when it doesn't happen, your anxiety and stress levels are lower and you are less likely to speak harshly to the people in your home. Another tip is to have a back up plan. Taking the brownie example....buy a pack of chocolate fingers or something. So you know if the plan doesn't go ahead you have a safety net.

There are lots of women who spend that long getting ready I can imagine the responses if a man complained about that

If I spent an hour in the shower when I agreed to my husband I wouldn’t take too long then he would come looking for me as well. When there is a small baby in the house there has to be some negotiation

I don't think this plan you seem to have formed, to run your relationship via referendum decision making, is a healthy one. Or remotely fair to your partner.

Does he know that every time you have some kind of disagreement, you throw it open to the internet to decide how you should espond to it?

My feeling is that forums like this exist for people in genuine need of outside perspectives, who can't easily get them anywhere else.

Not for someone to be told how to act in day to day life.

Plus, you do realise that many people voting on these threads will do so almost at random, perhaps having only read your initial post? They don't know your husband, or you, or any of the circumstances surrounding your situation. Some will click the wrong thing by accident and not even care, as it's only an internet forum and a split second out of their life.

But this is your and your husband's whole life!

If you find it impossible to know how to react and what you feel in day to day situations, then yes you do need help. But not from an internet chat forum. There are other, much more suitable, means of support our there - things that will build your resilience and self confidence so that you don't need to ask strangers how you should feel the whole time.

Good luck. Hope you get the help everyone deserves.

sorry to jump on your comment but how do you find old posts by people on here?! I’ve never done it before but now I’m feeling nosy!

'Plummeting dread'.......about brownies. Dear God.

Honestly if my DH took an hour to have a shower I would be so annoyed.

My bloke takes forever in the shower, he’s always the last ready if we’re going somewhere it’s so annoying.

If he does this all the time play the petty game, ask him what he wants for tea and then don’t make it, when he says something confused just say “oh did I say I was going to do something for you and then not do it? Oh well now you know how I feel when you continually do that to me” 🤣 he’s just selfish.

There's a communication problem, and there's really not enough info here to say who is at fault but I suspect that you might both be contributing. There's a big difference between the fifteen minutes he agreed to and a full hour. His saying he didn't know how long it would take until he got up there is ambiguous. If he knew when the two of you discussed timing that it MIGHT take significantly longer than fifteen minutes, he should have spoken up then. If he genuinely thought he could do it in fifteen and something went wrong that made it take an extra 45, he should have at least apologised and explained afterwards.

He may simply not have as much free time as he has had in the past now that he's parenting two small children and if he needs to develop quicker shower skills (and/or better time management practices) then he should make that a priority. On the other hand, I was hit with an immediate plummeting dread because I could feel my brownie plans crumbling away is a bit dramatic.

Plummeting dread 🙄 this is so dramatic

I don’t know how or why it would take anyone an hour to shower. If I’m doing a full body shave and washing my hair, it takes me 20 mins max. Without those things for a quick wash it’s 5 mins. He knew you wanted him to be quick and intentionally went out of his way to have a ludicrously long shower. He’s a twat.

What male spends an hour in the shower?
The mind boggles.

He could have helped tidy up before his shower. Is he usually helpful with the cleaning and children?

You’re management of things is all off to be honest. You should have made the brownies and while they were in oven, you clean the house.

Completely lost me at taking a whole morning to set up a play date, and for a preschooler at that.

You say DH took the preschooler to club before coming home for the play date? If that’s correct, why didn’t you just whack on the brownies while they were gone and you just had the baby, they take little time to prepare, the majority of the time is in the oven, so that makes little sense.

He works a lot. But when he's not working or doing DIY he will watch the children while I cook / clean. This is great for me as I can get things done and it is a break from childcare.

Probably I could have, but I didn't really wanna start the brownies while it was just me and the baby because if the baby needed something mid brownie process it could have messed it up a bit. Whereas it's easy to take a break from tidying and cleaning to tend to the baby.

Defo don’t bring up the brownies again. You are both parenting small children, you have to stop sweating the small stuff. A bowl of vanilla ice cream is better than brownies with minimal effort for 4 year old guests, allergies aside.

I'm not going to mention anything. The responses on here have been really helpful. I've moved on from it now. I actually think he may have kind of felt a bit guilty about it because he's been super nice and non-grumpy the last few days?! I like it! We're good now.

That's in no way an unreasonable time to get a house in order. When our weekend comes around, and we've all been a work and kids run amok all week, there's multiple laundry loads, two bedrooms and a play room full of toys, homework, craft stuff, DIY materials around the house, hoovering, two messy bathrooms, and a downstairs loo, kitchen is the worst, pets mess. All while trying to get ready yourself, get the kids ready and kids making more mess as you go. Three hours zips by.

When you actually have some real life problems, this is going to hit you hard.

Autistic people have sympathetic nervous systems that can react differently than neuro typical people. Some autistic people also have difficulties trying to describe their feelings and sometimes use hyperbolic language. That's ok. It doesn't really affect you. It must be pretty rough for the person experiencing the heightened anxiety though. A bit of kindness and compassion really doesn't cost you anything.

I'm aware of that, thank you. It's a discussion forum.

You didn't really discuss anything. You just left a critical, passive aggressive comment. My point stands - kindness costs nothing.