DH always being late

[Mamma193838]

I just need to vent as I’m so annoyed at DH. He’s always been careless with time from day 1 when I met him, always late to things, underestimating how long it takes to get himself together, or not caring thinking it’s ok to have one last drink of water or do the dishes, even though he’s already late. When we go somewhere together I am the one pushing us along to get out in time, getting the kids and all their stuff ready, I just leave him to sort himself out.

Today he is taking DS to a special unique event that is only 1h long, that is organised for kids like him and he wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise. It’s a 1h drive each way. DH usually commutes an hour to work as well, and we also have other stuff going on today before the event so i knew it would be a lot of tiring driving for him and I asked repeatedly if he wanted to go, that it was ok if he didn’t, but DH assured me he wanted to take DS, so we told DS about it who was wildly excited about it. (I can’t go as have to stay with the baby at home.)

The time came to go. It’s literally pick up a bag and leave, but DH was faffing about so much at home, to the point where they were definitely going to be late. Poor DS was ready to go and just waiting for DH. They’ve just arrived 30 mins late. It’s such a waste of a journey, and such a shame that DS will only 30 mins of it - the time will fly by and it will be over. I’m SO annoyed for DS.

DH has lots of great qualities, does a lot for DC and me that I appreciate. But this is a very sore point for me.

This is obviously not true otherwise people wouldn’t miss crucial appointments, international flights etc, and they do every day.

He needs a proper time management strategy. Next time he arrives late to something just leave before he gets there.

Can you have a word with him in regard to how this is going to affect his relationship with his children. I think it is wildly unfair when parents don’t learn to manage their time blindness whatever the root causes. Your children will end up knowing they can’t trust him and will always be embarrassed by being late. Or they will miss something genuinely important because he can’t preplan and set alarms on his phone.

My DB is like this. He is very high up in his profession so basically cant be late for work because work starts when he gets there. He will saunter onto a flight moments before the gate closes.
BUT when he is visiting family ( he lives on another continent) he knows not to pull that shit with us because we wont stand for it so he will set multiple alarms ect.
Id honestly leave him go nuclear on his arse if I were you, poor DS missing out.

Definitely isn't a male preserve, I'm a bloke & my partner, well now ex partner was & still is like this. One of my kids sports lessons for example are 30 mins, I've never been late to it in 3 yrs & do 95% of them, but on her days my kid gets there late, always, so gets 15 mins if lucky, no reason, same commute, same traffic etc. Same with parties, kids gymnastics, childcare changeovers, airport runs, anything!

I'm a bit last minute at lots of things & have Olympic gold medal level levels of procrastinating, but last minute, not late I'll often arrive somewhere in a rush, not ideal, but not missing half of something!

Does my head in!

Exactly. I have ADHD and struggle with time blindness, but I will be ready an hour early if that’s what it takes to ensure I don’t let my kids down. If you’re late all the time you put strategies in place to fix that problem. It’s just downright rude.

I wouldn’t let him be in charge of getting kids anywhere important . It’s weaponized incompetence on his part as you’ll have to do it all now. Or tell him it starts an hour earlier.

Whilst I absolutely agree that your DH needs to step up, an exclusively BF baby doesn't mean you can't take your DS to an event an hour-ish away.

Why didn’t you stand in front of him, take his shoulder and say very loudly “the event starts in an hour, and it is an hours drive. Get in the car now and go.” And then start walking towards the car with your hand on his shoulder?

You really need to be doing that if this is something that will negatively affect the kids. They can’t be missing things they’ve been told about and got excited about because he can’t sort himself out and you don’t want to “nag.”

Was he at least sorry, @Mamma193838?
Did he connect the facts that his son missed most of the even with the fact that he didn’t leave on time because he didn’t organise himself and pay attention to the time? Does he understand what he did?

Why would you apologise for mentioning adhd? Because some idiot upthread said ‘don’t you dare’ to a group of people on an anonymous internet forum?
it sounds as though you think your partner might be nd, and that he might suffer from time blindness.
The fact he hasn’t put anything in place to counteract that might also be because he has issues around task execution and doesn’t have the capacity to make changes to a lifelong pattern he probably doesn’t fully grasp is a problem.

If you know this is an issue and you believe he might have a neurological disorder you should a) encourage him to seek appropriate support
and b) safeguard your child’s happiness and mental health by ensuring you take responsibility for getting him to and from places on time until your husband has learned some strategies and put them into practice.

We have a member of the family like this and always tell her that the time she should be there is at least half an hour before the usual time

I'm rubbish with timing. The way my family and i solve it now is by working backwards i.e. if i need to be somewhere at 6pm then i calculate how long the journey will take (including allowing time for parking, getting out of the car, doing seatbelts etc) e.g. 1 hour, and then calculate the time it will take me to get ready - let's say 30 mins. So that means to me that at 4.25 pm i need to start getting ready so that i have time to fill water bottles, pick up bags etc. it also means that if I'm not walking to the car at 4.55 then I'm running late. I actually have to sit and work all of this out every time there is an appointment booked !

Mine is the same. He has missed planes. I think he has ADHD . He has gotten better and can, barely, make it on time for work things where it really matters, but his work is very flexible.
Usually he'll do the dishes, drink his water, change a bulb, get his sunglasses, remember to go get his tablet, then express surprise that , like every other day, there is something he can't find or something he needs to do that he didn't think of. 1000s of days, it happens in every one of them. How can this pattern not be clear?

I have concluded after nearly 20 years that there is little to be done about this. I plan for him leaving 19-15 mins after I have said and we've agreed we need to leave, especially for a day out or a trip (if going away, 30 mins). For work it's now only 5-10 mins I need to figure in.
If there is an expensive 1 hour thing, he cannot take DC to it, it's not worth it, so don't plan for that. Leave him home to do chores and take DC yourself.

I wish mine understood that other people see this behaviour as incredibly disrespectful and rude. He apparently cannot fully understand this. He is otherwise a smart man with a good career in a technical field where they are very tolerant of very odd people. (Mostly men) .

I'm assuming he can take care if himself if she decides the relationship is not worth it. She already has a child to parent without having to mother another...

I have ADHD and build in an extra 10-15 mins so I’m not late. Always have done, even before I was diagnosed. My ex has ASD and likely ADHD and is exactly as you describe OP. Whenever I discussed it with him, he literally didn’t understand how to factor in time. In his head, X thing begins at 9, and somehow he would just magically teleport to be there at 9. Obvs that didn’t work out. He’s mid 40s now and still does it. Despite knowing he does it, he doesn’t care enough to create strategies to stop doing it. Said he’d pick the kids up at 10am, arrived at 1pm. They’re upset, feeling rubbish, feeling forgotten - how I felt through most of our marriage. It’s cruel and unfair. He won’t change now so I have to mitigate it and manage the kids’ expectations as best I can. Always forgets or is late for stuff for me or the kids. Never stuff for himself. So not only did he have time blindness and various diagnoses, he just didn’t GAF. It was chosen. Someone can be ADHD or whatever, but also an immature selfish person. Your partner’s behaviour, whatever the reason, is negatively affecting you and your children. At what point does it stop being rude/inconsiderate and just downright neglectful and abusive? His incompetence and lack of care is affecting your mental health and causing your children to miss out. He needs a serious wake up call here. My ex said me leaving was his…then changed nothing at all whatsoever. But I at least don’t have to live with it anymore.

I think it is worth him potentially seeing about adhd testing, this was basically me until I was on adhd meds, I was late for everything, the time blindness and just not understanding journey times, even planning early didn’t work. No amount of strategies or anything seemed to work for me before

What did you say to him? was the key part of that comment.

He was very sheepish and sorry when he got back, acknowledging that a 2h round trip for an event that was meant to be 1h but ended up being only 30 mins was a pretty poor on his part, especially as DS had such a brilliant time (he didn’t know any better) and it would obvs have been even better if he got the full allotted time. He said he thought it started 30 mins later than it did (though if it was me and I had 10 mins to leave I would be racing around to get ready and shoving DS in the car.)

So adding calendar blindness to his time blindness - the time was in the calendar and we’ve talked about the event multiple times.

There’s no point in having a go at him if it was a mistake, or talking strategies as I’ve said it before and nothing ever changes. I organise all the kids stuff which I think is why he doesn’t register them until the last minute. This one just got me riled up because it was a special event for DS. I do appreciate that DH drives DS to lots of things even though he has a miserable commute and he’d rather not drive long distances during the weekend if he can help it. They are doing a similar journey, different activity next weekend.

Also I didn’t drive because EBF baby hates the car so it would have been an hour of screaming each way with nothing for baby to do at the other end, plus I would need to be supervising DS and I couldn’t with baby in hand. (I don’t want to be too outing, but it’s a physical activity.)

It’s not good enough and you are going around in circles with him. He says sorry and you accept his apology till next time it happens when he will do the same again.

Id put money in it that he will be late for his son’s activity next weekend too. What are you going to do if that happens?.

So you didn’t say anything? Seriously?

The marriages on MN genuinely baffle me. If it’s what you need to blow off steam, then venting to strangers online is helpful, but you ultimately need to talk to your husband. Surely that’s fairly obvious?

Next week is fine, it’s a flexible start time and lasts for hours so no problem if they are late.

It’s just one of those things I have come to accept and need to help him with, hence me organising all the kids activities. I have stuff that he probably finds annoying too but he puts up with.

This was just a vent. There are no solutions here.

🙄

Huh? 🫤 so you just… didn’t do anything then?

What sort of marriage is this? I don’t know any couple who wouldn’t have had this out, and I don’t know any mum who would have just stood there watching it happen while he was getting later and later without stepping in and telling him to just leave and walking him to the car - especially when there is history of it.

You sound so passive and your kids are suffering from useless dad and passive mum.

I didn’t have to say much, he was apologetic when he came home and acknowledged his mistake and I agreed and I said it’s a shame for DS. He saw DS having an amazing time and he felt guilty that he only got to enjoy half of it because of him. He’s going to make it up to him by taking him out again in two weeks. What else should I have said?

How about you start working as a team? Instead of you organising all of it, and then having to fall apart on the few occasions he is responsible.

It isn’t always going to be ok, like this time when your kid only got 30 minutes because neither of his parents worked as a team to get out on time. Next week might be fine to be late but what about the time after, and after that? As your kids grow up and need to rely on you both but neither of you bother.

Now is the time to sort it out. So, next week, you work as a team to get him in the car on time. And you do it every time until your husband learns to find coping mechanisms.

Stop letting your kids suffer because you can’t be bothered and he’s useless.