Reply to My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]op, Im a night owl with chronic lateness in the morning. ive gotten better about being on time during the day and at night, but im still kinda a disaster in the morning.

I think you may just need to accept that you should be in charge of the morning shift and let him do his own routine in the morning. if that means you can get the car and he metros, so be it. in return, he should take on more responsibility some other time in the day. I understand he is probably late throughout the day, but im guessing morning is the worst. I think he is being selfish, but I would give up on this front and play to his strengths. Is he more responsible at night? Give him the bedtime shift.[/quote]

To answer a few questions, as far as I know, he is not late with things at work. He's been at the same job since moving here in 2007 and has been consistently rewarded for good performance. I assume that if he was constantly blowing deadlines, they would probably not promote him, but honestly, I do not get involved in the minutiae of his work life, so I admit that I don't really know how he manages his time at work.

DD is almost 4 and is in preschool at a daycare center. It's not like she's missing math class or something, but if I left him in charge of the morning routine, she would show up at school after the deadline, without having eaten breakfast, and he'd make excuses about it. He'd know everything that happened on the internet, though.

He's not any less of a procrastinator at night. After a long day at work, he often states that he needs time to relax and unwind and enjoy life after working all day. Sometimes this translates into spending quality time with me and DD, sometimes it translates into making dinner for us, sometimes it translates into more reading of internet. What it never translates into is the completion of chores around the house. Those are reserved for a time when he has a large chunk of time to clean, and then it takes him two hours to put away clean dishes, load dirty ones, and vacuum the living room. That task would take me about 30 minutes, tops.

Things I have tried to suggest to avoid this problem:

1. I will just take the metro all the time. (He says that he likes driving in with us, and getting to work early allows him to get ahead on the day's work.)
2. "Chore time" together. (If he's not in the mood, he just doesn't do it. I stick to my schedule, but then I'm cleaning around him and I get frustrated.)
3. "We need to hire housecleaners" --> "We can't afford it."

I know there's not a lot to be done about it except adjusting expectations and trying not to let it get to me, but it does get to me and I'm tired of adjusting my expectations downward.[/quote]

OP--there is a classic rule, you cannot change someone else, only yourself.  So, if you cannot change him, you need to change what you do to make sure that you get what is needed.

There are two basic options:
- If you need to be out of the house at 8am, then at 7:45 if he is not close to ready, then you feed DD breakfast (so that even if she misses breakfast as school, she has still eaten) and then you go and catch the Metro to work.  He can then finish up his morning at his own pace and get DD to school.  If he has to be at work at a specific time, then that's his responsibility.
- The other alternative is, as I said before, set your time that you need to be out and then you take DD and the car and drop her off then head to work.  He can do whatever he needs to do and then find his own way to work.  Since you live close enough to the Metro, then he can take Metro and a cab to his office.

You can only control your own scheduled.  He controls his schedule.  You need to stop mothering him, stop the nagging and bitching and make changes in your own schedule that will make life work for you.  Let him deal with his life.  If he doesn't like your choices, then he can make changes in his life to accommodate your need to leave on time or stop complaining about your solutions.  You've given him more than long enough to make changes.  He clearly will not, so it's time for you to make changes and he will have to live with them or make compromises to ensure that you get what you need.[/quote]

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