Wife is super rigid about showing up on time

[Anonymous]

My wife has always been very rigid about showing up on time to places when we’re meeting up with other people. In her mind, showing up late shows a lack of respect for someone else’s time. While I agree with her somewhat, I think there’s some nuance to this. I’ve mostly just gone with it during our marriage, but a recent incident has me rethinking my approach.

Last night, we were going over to her parents house for dinner. It wasn’t for any special occasion, just your run of the mill Saturday night dinner. My MIL told my wife to come over at 5:00, which means we’d have to leave our house by 4:45. As we’re getting ready to leave, our three year old daughter was being a handful, nothing over the top, just typica three year old behavior (running around the house while trying to get her shoes on, spilling her water, etc) As we’re both trying to get out daughter situated and in the car, wife looks at the time, notices it’s 445 and says “we’re going to be late! I’ll go there now and you can meet us there!” And just walks out the door and leaves. I continued to get out daughter ready, which took about another 10 minutes, and then left in the other car. We got to in-laws house, and everything was fine.

After we got home, I asked my wife why it was such a big deal to get there on time. She reiterated that her Mom asked us to get there at 5, so they were expecting us, and it’s not respectful of their time to show up late. I countered with the fact that we weren’t tying to be disrespectful, but sometimes thing happen, and we were only going to be 10 minutes late. It’s not like this was a restaurant where they would have given away our reservation, if we showed up 10 minutes late, life would have gone on. However, my wife kept saying how it’s not respectful of their time, etc etc.

We didn’t really come to a conclusion about it, but is my wife being unnecessarily rigid about this? Or am I being too laid back?

[Anonymous]

Yeah, wierd. Does she have autism?

[Anonymous]

She’s being very rigid but as an on-timer myself I will say that I start to have an anxiety attack when we begin to run late. I will get unreasonably worked up and the best way for me to handle it is to leave immediately and be as close to on time as possible. I’m probably not quite as rigid as your wife is… in your example situation I would probably have stayed the extra 10 minutes to get kid ready, but it would have bothered me deeply and taken me an hour or two to recover from. Yea, probably unreasonable but I somehow got conditioned this way growing up and I can’t shake it off although I have loosened up quite a bit (I’m married to a very laid back on time kind of person).

[Anonymous]

sounds rigid but also sounds like you are someone who is frequently late and maybe she is tired of it, and has decided she isnt waiting for you anymore.

[Anonymous]

Doesn’t seem rigid unless there’s an intense pattern to it in many circumstances.

Also seems like you had a short way to go so if a kid or spouse isn’t cooperating they can indeed go later when they get their $hit together.

[Anonymous]

Not wanting to be late is normal, but running out to her parents house and leaving you and the child behind instead of just texting her folks that y’all would be late is definitely weird. What are her parents like? Do they seem like they’d flip if she was late?

[Anonymous]

At most you could have called and said you’d be there at 5:15 not 5pm.

But I don’t know your parenting style solo or together. With kids you always get ready earlier and leave earlier. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sounds rigid but also sounds like you are someone who is frequently late and maybe she is tired of it, and has decided she isnt waiting for you anymore.

Nothing in op’s post implies that.

[Anonymous]

My wife is enough of an on-timer & planner that she would have built the likelihood of three year old shenanigans into the schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anxiety? This can’t be new behavior.

[Anonymous]

I hate cooking a meal and timing appetizers, main course, sides and then the guests are late. Makes me want to just slough off in it next time with them.

[Anonymous]

Anxiety. And maybe some insecurity about her place in her parent’s world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sounds rigid but also sounds like you are someone who is frequently late and maybe she is tired of it, and has decided she isnt waiting for you anymore.

Nothing in op’s post implies that.

Pretty LONG elaborate nothing-burger post for a husband to write.

[Anonymous]

She learned that punctuality from her parents

[Anonymous]

Team wife