To find it enraging that my husband goes to the toilet for five minutes without fail every time dinner is ready

[Designless]

Why the fuck can't he go during the hour before dinner inevitably being ready instead of making everyone wait imaging him sitting on the shitter?

If I ever express annoyance he whines really annoyingly.

God it feels good to let this out.

I give my kids a “2 mins warning” before dinner as they will both inevitably decide they need the loo when it’s ready. Just wees though thankfully or the warning would have to be longer!

FIL does this when they come for lunch. Even with a 10 and 5 minute warning. I think it's so he doesn't get asked to help. DS also does it and I think with him it's laziness - he probably needed to to go for a while but only when he has to get up does he actually make the effort to go. It's a sure sign they're not ever expected to be the ones providing.

I don’t understand why you need to “think of him defecating”? We all do it, doesn’t mean we all actively imagine someone doing it?! That’s pretty weird

She can't help it. Her husband delays family meals by going to the toilet every every time. And he tells her. Every every time.

The OP hasn't shared with us why she knows it's a shit though. Presumably because he's five minutes about it.

I suspect this is a form of control and/or getting attention. Does he have a habit of making people wait for him in other areas of your lives?
I would start saying that dinner is ready at a particular time and just start without him.

I wish I had this superpower. I have IBS 😢

My initial thought was - if he's been busy working/focusing on a hobby/sitting/reading/etc. on anything in the time preceding dinner - he may not "realize" that he needs to use the restroom until you call him to dinner and his attention is broken from whatever he was focused on. I know I'll (accidentally) hyper-focus on a task I'm doing, and then a few hours will pass and I realize I've got to use the restroom, or I'm starving/thirsty, and I never noticed because I was so focused on my task/whatever I was paying attention to.

Not excusing your DH at all, since he's fully capable of taking a fast one/going earlier/holding it, but I know there have been many a time when I've been reading or focused on work and then something breaks my focus and suddenly I realize I've had to go to the restroom for quite a while.

Of course I'm the only one who lives in my home, so I'm the only one affected by my toileting habits, but I can imagine how utterly frustrating (and disrespectful) this must feel.

Why are you all standing on ceremony just start without him, if he whinges tell him to stop acting like a child and ignore it

Serve it up and leave his outside the toilet door 👍

I need to leave this thread here and cone back in the morning cos my baby has slept for over SEVEN hours now apart from a 20 min breastfeed from stirring. He's never done this. And I'll regret it if I wake him from laughing and I'm biting my lip at that post 😂

And then every time someone light a candle, say on a birthday cake you'll think "I can smell shit" 😂

I think it's innate. DS used to do this as a toddler, except that he would just sit in his highchair doing a poo actually at dinner time. We'd say 'do you need your nappy changed?' and he'd sit there straining going 'no I'm still doing it'. Not appetising.

I am genuinely surprised to learn so many men are doing this 😂(my OH doesn't).

My little boy (4) always has a poo in the evening though (just before bed), which I find strange, never in the morning.

My DH used to do this! It drove me mad but I never considered waiting for him. He had plenty of warning food was coming. So not a control issue, more a cue.

Now he doesn't WFH he doesn't do it as much. I had actually forgotten he did it, and I'm strangely happy to hear others have to put up with this weird habit as well.

Someone close to me does this too. Everywhere we go as well. So if we go to a restaurant and it’s only 10 mins from the house, he will go to the bathroom for a long while as soon as we get there. Ditto airports. Anywhere we are going he has to shit there. Very annoying and odd

I can understand how annoying it must be that he decides to go just when you want to sit down and eat, YANBU about that. But this aversion you appear to have at the thought of him shitting somewhere else in the house while you are eating is OTT and frankly a bit weird.

Yeah it's the signal from the brain that the gut has to move, but it's also a splendid disregard for everyone else by not thinking about when you might have to go, earlier in the day, and planning accordingly.

I agree that some people have a more urgent signal than others but surely most of us can go and sit there at a private convenient moment and within a few minutes open our bowels. Then we won't need to do it just before tea / in the middle of playing lead violin in a symphony / parent's evening / refereeing the cup final. Isn't that what all adults do?

Why? Just why???

Oh I am so jealous of this 😭

Mine was doing this. Every evening as I starred to dish up, five minutes in the bog. About a fortnight ago I snapped and told him to go earlier or his supper would be left by an open window and would get cold and soggy. Much to my amazement he now goes much earlier.

Well I wouldn't wait for him, let his dinner get cold.

What I find annoying is when my bloke always needs to go to the toilet when we are supposed to be leaving to go somewhere. I have to tell him its time to leave about 15 minutes earlier than we actually have to leave because he inevitably needs the toilet, can't find his keys, can't find his wallet, changes his mind about what coat he's going to wear, and various things like that. He has ADHD which probably explains some of it but most of it could be prevented by always putting his keys on the hook, and his wallet in the same place every time (but that one is a bit less simple than the keys thing as he can't just hang it on a hook)

God I wish my bowels worked like that! I have to shit about 5 times a day at work. Though on the plus side, about 5 times a day I'm being paid to poo.

I have to go to the loo just before eating because I get nervous about eating and it plays havoc with my bladder and bowels. Doesn't matter if I've "just gone", I will need to go again.

Yes has to be 2 doors. My mums bathroom was directly off the kitchen( house didn't have on built in originally) and when she bought it she had to put a stud wall and louvre door in to make to loo " seperate"

No, mine did it as well to the point where DD says, 'Sorry, I'm just going to do a dad', if she has to go to the loo before a meal.

My Dad used to do this every time, even before the Christmas dinner. Now, I am in the opposite position, my wife seems to do it, just as I am going to serve up the evening meal.