Does anyone else live with a faff?

[ExplodingCarrots]

(Lighthearted)

DH. A lovely man, great dad, lots of fun, caring, does more than his fair share of household chores, never raised his voice to me in the 12 years we've been together , but .....

He's a faff.

Me and DD are currently sat on the sofa ready to go out for lunch (which was planned yesterday ) but as we were about to leave DH decided he wanted to try and roll up an overgrown rose bush he pulled down yesterday and try and fit it in the car to take to the tip. So now we're sat like lemons waiting for him and he's been attempting to roll this thing up for half an hour. Now he's just come in and said it can't fit it in the car 🤦‍♀️.

His usual gems are :-

• suddenly needing a poo as soon as Wev got coats on and are walking out the door even though he's been doing nothing for the past half hour waiting for me and dd to get ready.
• he says get in the car I'll be there now but after 5 minutes there's no sign of him. You go back in the house and he's fixing something / cleaning something / suddenly looking for something.

Honestly he's lovely but it drives me nuts

I end up getting in a flap over time and he's so so laid back.

Anyone else live with one of these??

They’re waiting around to go out for dinner
He decided to garden

* It's not a, "Passive aggressive form of control calculated to annoy and stress you"*

It might be. It might not be.

One thing it is though is bloody inconsiderate

But the reality of this “small” thing is an entire family waiting. Time and time again whilst he does exactly what he wants to do

This.

It's the fact he is ok to have everyone wait on him. It's so disrespectful. I don't know why anyone be ok being repeatedly controlled like this. And it is control no matter you minimise it.

Would I keep people waiting on me when it's not necessary? Absolutely not.

Did you read the OP?

What you describe is what is happening

Right, but I am talking about my own circumstances since I'm also married to a faffer.

Ultimately, though, I trust the OP to be a better judge of her own relationship than anyone on this thread. It's so easy to put the worst possible spin on a situation you don't know anything about, but that doesn't make it authoritative.

There's a weirdly paternalistic tendency on mumsnet to see a lighthearted complaint from an OP and condescendingly assure the OP that she's married to a controlling, abusive bastard and is just too naive to know it. I find it very odd. There are many, many examples of abusive behaviour on mumsnet, and I've seen posters get good advice about that. But it's clearly stupid and unhelpful for people to assume that every single time a poster is annoyed by something her partner does, it's a sign of abuse.

I think people are stretching the definition of "faffing" on this thread. To me, faffing is being a bit disorganised and taking unnecessary time over getting ready to go out. I can see that it can be infuriating but I don't think it's really malicious or passive-aggressive. What the OP and others have described - waiting until everyone is ready to go out and THEN starting on a job that might take half an hour to finish, thereby making everyone else wait for him - is not faffing, and I would find that disrespectful. PP has even said that her XH admitted to doing it as a way of being controlling, so I don't know why that should be a hysterical thing to suggest.

We have a friend like this
He has no thought to time at all
He drives everyone up the wall with his faffing
Yesterday we took him to go and buy a snake
It should have taken about an hour and a half
It took 6 hours due to him faffing with family members having a smoke having a wee fussing the cats locking up etc
At one point we where sat for 45 minutes in the car waiting for him while holding his dog who could see him and was crying for him

Next time he can walk the 5 miles for a snake!

I live with 2 and another in the making. My DH and BFF (and DS who takes after his dad).

What gets me is when they ask if I would like a cup of tea and 30 minutes later, they've boiled the kettle 4 times but haven't made the tea yet because they keep getting distracted with other things. I get up and make my own tea and then they're all apologetic. I don't get visibly annoyed any more but do seethe inside. I also no longer wait for 30 minutes and 4 boils. If they're not doing it after the first boil, I just get up and do it. (I'm disabled, before anyone thinks I'm ungrateful or lazy.)

BFF would ask me to go outside for a fag and a chat. I go out and wait for her. She starts faffing about inside. While I wait I take out my phone and play a game, which I switch off the minute she actually comes out. She then me for always being on my phone. Aaaaarrrgghhh!!

I would not allow this behaviour because it is very disrespectful. I would just leave without him, you can be sure he would change if there were consequences to his poor behaviour. Also I would not want to know all about his shitting habits - tell him to take care of it himself and keep it to himself.

Yep absolutely including needing a poo as we are 5 minutes away from boarding an aircraft which stresses me no end!
I've spent my life trying to stop him faffing but to no avail! His mum is also like this but consistently late for everything. Annoying.

DP is the queen of faff. Whenever we go out we’re always waiting for her. She doesn’t even sit around and do nothing while we’re getting ready, it just takes her ages to do anything and she’ll find things to faff about. I’ll go round and close all the windows for eg, then she’ll ask me if I’ve done it and I’ll say yes, then 2 minutes later she’s going round to check.

She doesn’t do it as a method of control though, and she doesn’t think her time is more important, she’s just a bloody faffpot. She has ADHD so her mind is like butterflies and her time keeping is generally appalling. It does drive me up the wall though.

Re the men needing a shit thing: I think a lot of this is down to being too lazy to get off their arses untill they absolutely have to. Dsis’s DS has always been like this. He’ll carry on with whatever is grabbing his attention and not want to move, then shit himself because he couldn’t be arsed to go. He’s a tween and has been doing this for years. She’s taken him to the paediatrician and that’s what they came up with, not a medical issue, just a lazy little sod issue. He is like that though, he gets far too much freedom to do what he wants, which is playing games, he’s never expected to help out at all and he’s a selfish whining little shit when he doesn’t get what he wants, which DSis gives in to. Dsis has resorted to shepherding him into the bog every so often. He’s going to grow up into an awful selfish man. I think for a lot of grown men it’s the same thing, they just can’t be arsed to go if they’re watching the telly/playing xbox or whatever, they’ve just learned to hold it till they get to the loo. Basically yeah, my time is more important than yours. I wonder how many of these men shat themselves a lot when they were kids?

My dad is like this. Drives my mum crazy! He never did much in the house of child care. So I think he's always had the luxury of faffing. I think he's getting worse now he's semi retired / self employed. Seems a common thing amongst his age group. (he's just 61 though! >

Jesus just read the thread. How many men take ages to poo and do it at inconvenient times?! Somone needs to start a thread on this!

Sounds like anxiety to me, I'm just the same. He's getting nerves leaving the house it makes you need a poo classic sign. He not doing it on propose, please let him take his time.

I'd be murderous, it's probably for the best that I don't live with anyone.

My mum and step mum (both lovely, great friends with each other) turn restaurant faffing into a competitive Shakespearean play of six acts.

Neither one will pick up a menu first. Neither one will admit to having ordering any food when it arrives (cue waiter saying 'who wanted the prawns' louder and louder until one of us says Sandra you were the prawns weren't you and Sandra looks slightly put out and says yes that was me)

Neither will be first to put a coat on. Ever. They can sit in silence for an hour then when it's time to go they both suddenly remember ooh did you go to that film, have you got that book I lent you, how did Frank's operation go, are we meeting next Tuesday etc etc etc on and on it goes.

My dad walks out and back in again up to five times.

People are just mental, what can you do.

angelaEhen does anxiety make you need to suddenly spend half an hour trying to shove a rose bush into the back of your car as well?

@checkingout
Agreed, faff is looking for keys etc deliberately rolling up hedges, toilet, cutting grass when you know everyone is waiting on you is being an inconsiderate arsehole. Anyone with half a brain knows this is rude and there’s no way I’d put up with it, call them out, leave without them. Selfish fucks!

Neither one will pick up a menu first. Neither one will admit to having ordering any food when it arrives (cue waiter saying 'who wanted the prawns' louder and louder until one of us says Sandra you were the prawns weren't you and Sandra looks slightly put out and says yes that was me)

This is hilarious 😂

@Vasya
It’s not hilarious it’s beyond moronic and ignorant.

@Vasya

So when your husband is beginning a job - just as you’ve planned to head out, you just shrug and smile?

I suspect you feel extremely annoyed.

Add young children in to the mix - and annoyance probably turns to anger. Too right

It’s baffling that you don’t see this behaviour as disrespectful and rude.

I’m always ready first so I’ll sit and read or something while waiting for DH. He says he’s ready, I get up, close my book, walk into the hall to find that”ready” in DH language means except for - checking the back door, putting his shoes on etc etc! Drives me mad

* Neither one will pick up a menu first. Neither one will admit to having ordering any food when it arrives (cue waiter saying 'who wanted the prawns' louder and louder until one of us says Sandra you were the prawns weren't you and Sandra looks slightly put out and says yes that was me)**

This is hilarious 😂

Hilarious?
Ignoring waiter
Not engaged
Not aware of surrounding despite being in a restaurant knowing someone will be serving you soon
And then looking put out when someone draws your attention to fact waiter being ignored

Rude. Inconsiderate. Pompous.

@Whatisthisfuckery
I can’t believe I read that, your Dsis son will shit himself rather than go to the toilet? Jesus wept that’s disgusting.

Rude. Inconsiderate. Pompous.

That's why it's funny - it strikes me as a scenario in which two women are trying so hard not to be seen as rude or vulgar (by exaggeratedly waiting for the other person to go first) that they've ended up inadvertently being rude in another way. Isn't there a kind of comedic irony in that?

@vasya

Can’t you see that this may be funny to you as an outside looking in as a one off story

But the prospect of actually living with this kind of behaviour is to most - bloody awful. To you - a bit of a giggle, which I suppose is convenient given your DH!