Anonymous
09/16/2013 20:52
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
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.
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.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 19:15
Subject: Re:My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
I am married to this same exact man. We have been together for 27 years and have two kids. The issues with time also occur with respect to financial management. For example, he is 50 years old and has saved $15K toward retirement. I have saved $400K on my own. He will not give a thought to saving for our kids' educations, while I kill myself to scrimp out of the household budget and my own income to do so. He won't finish any task. Our house is filled with half-assed home improvement projects that he has undertaken and never finished, leaving the house look worse than it did when it was "unimproved." I am stunned that he has not been fired from his job many times over. He has not pursued career advancement and at this point I guess he has just topped out in his career. I earn twice as much money as he does, because I have been aggressive in my career and he has been passive in his.
Having kids magnified these issues enormously, because with school-age kids and teenagers, there is just that much more to be done. Almost all of it falls on me. I also plan all the vacations, all the weekend activities. He takes no initiative - and I guess he doesn't need to. If I said, "I've planned all of our vacations, it is your turn now" -- we would never have another vacation again. It just wouldn't happen. He has been diagnosed with ADHD. He takes medicine and it does nothing for him.
There are times when I fantasize about leaving him, but I can't stand the thought that if we divorced, when it is his turn to have the kids, he would not get them where they need to be, wouldn't make sure their homework was done, etc. So, I consider myself stuck, at least until the kids go to college.
I want a partner in life. He is a good person, but my respect for him due to these basic issues of competence has eroded over the years and I fear it is past the point of no return.
Having kids magnified these issues enormously, because with school-age kids and teenagers, there is just that much more to be done. Almost all of it falls on me. I also plan all the vacations, all the weekend activities. He takes no initiative - and I guess he doesn't need to. If I said, "I've planned all of our vacations, it is your turn now" -- we would never have another vacation again. It just wouldn't happen. He has been diagnosed with ADHD. He takes medicine and it does nothing for him.
There are times when I fantasize about leaving him, but I can't stand the thought that if we divorced, when it is his turn to have the kids, he would not get them where they need to be, wouldn't make sure their homework was done, etc. So, I consider myself stuck, at least until the kids go to college.
I want a partner in life. He is a good person, but my respect for him due to these basic issues of competence has eroded over the years and I fear it is past the point of no return.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 19:00
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
Wow. I think OP you are the problem.
If my husband was making me late for work, I would just leave him. Take the car, my DD and go.
No bitchy tone, no issue, just smile and say, it's 8:00... Time for me to go. See you tonight.
He's a grown man, let him figure out how to get to work.
Are you his mother or his wife?
If my husband was making me late for work, I would just leave him. Take the car, my DD and go.
No bitchy tone, no issue, just smile and say, it's 8:00... Time for me to go. See you tonight.
He's a grown man, let him figure out how to get to work.
Are you his mother or his wife?
Anonymous
09/16/2013 18:53
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
So what you're saying is that he doesn't come quickly. That's a virtue.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 18:51
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
Wake up. He is lying to you. If he says "I will do X," and it is within his power to make X happen, and it doesn't that is a lie. He doesn't value your mental or emotional well-being.
If he was able to be honest with himself then he would want to fix this. He needs his time in the morning? Fine. You and DD leave without him, he goes in on his own time. He can't manage money to the point where you RUN OUT? Fine. His paycheck goes to an account that YOU manage and pay bills from and he gets a reasonable amount to blow on coffee and lunch and the rest can go to hire someone to do his share of the housework. If he breezes through his allotment, then he brownbags.
Bottom line is that he doesn't think he has a problem, and he knows how hard this is for you. He just doesn't give a crap if you're miserable.
If he was able to be honest with himself then he would want to fix this. He needs his time in the morning? Fine. You and DD leave without him, he goes in on his own time. He can't manage money to the point where you RUN OUT? Fine. His paycheck goes to an account that YOU manage and pay bills from and he gets a reasonable amount to blow on coffee and lunch and the rest can go to hire someone to do his share of the housework. If he breezes through his allotment, then he brownbags.
Bottom line is that he doesn't think he has a problem, and he knows how hard this is for you. He just doesn't give a crap if you're miserable.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 18:50
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
OMG. Your DH sounds like he is 12 yrs old...
Anonymous
09/16/2013 18:39
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
Anonymous wrote:"3. "We need to hire housecleaners" --> "We can't afford it." "
Oh hells no. If you think you can afford it, you probably can. Tell him that you are giving him one more month to step things up chorewise, and if he doesn't do more, you are hiring a housekeeper to come in at least twice a month. You don't need his permissions - you are a grown woman with a job. DO it.
It probably will come as no surprise to any of you that DH, who is not great at getting motivated to go anywhere on time and has very little understanding of how long simple tasks actually take, is not particularly great at expense managing. He overspends constantly, does not seem to recognize that that medium coffee ("Not even a latte, just a coffee!") that he gets twice a day, every work day, adds up over the month. If he gave up his Starbucks the way I gave up mine in favor of bringing coffee from home in the morning and making tea in the afternoon, we could afford a cleaner.
The bottom line is that I pretty much understand what is up with him. He's stressed out and depressed and has poor coping skills. I know why all those things are the case, and it's something we have been working on pretty constantly. I know it sounds like I am making excuses for his behavior, but it's honestly pretty hard to live a life with someone when you are constantly needing to hoodwink them to get them to show up on time or structure your life so that they're not involved in it. I try to trust the things that he tells me he will do, because if I just assume that he's untrustworthy and unreliable, that is a pretty shitty feeling. I try to set reasonable limits for myself and make my needs and expectations very clear. It works pretty well about 80% of the time. The 20% of the time when it doesn't work, when we run out of money at the end of the month because he needed to go out to lunch or needed to buy a new this-or-that, when I'm late to work on a day when he swears he'll be ready when I need to go - it's frustrating and it hurts.
Mostly I was just venting here this morning. After DD goes to bed, I plan to talk to him about it and hopefully he will at least recognize that how I felt about what happened this morning is valid, rather than going off about my "tone". (Note: I TOTALLY had a tone. Who wouldn't? But I'm truly working on not having one.)
Anonymous
09/16/2013 17:56
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
"3. "We need to hire housecleaners" --> "We can't afford it." "
Oh hells no. If you think you can afford it, you probably can. Tell him that you are giving him one more month to step things up chorewise, and if he doesn't do more, you are hiring a housekeeper to come in at least twice a month. You don't need his permissions - you are a grown woman with a job. DO it.
Oh hells no. If you think you can afford it, you probably can. Tell him that you are giving him one more month to step things up chorewise, and if he doesn't do more, you are hiring a housekeeper to come in at least twice a month. You don't need his permissions - you are a grown woman with a job. DO it.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 17:36
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
OP, I would just set it up where your schedule and his do not mix. In other words, do not depend on him in order for you to be somewhere. Have your own independent schedule and do not depend on him at ALL for assistance in getting out the door. Likewise for your child.
Sounds like your hubby will most likely be late for his own funeral.........
Sounds like your hubby will most likely be late for his own funeral.........
Anonymous
09/16/2013 15:13
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
OP, I actually think there is much that can be done about it, and what you're doing is not seeing the forest for the trees.
You are describing a scenario where you feel that you are shouldering more of the burden, more of the adult responsibilities, and being disregarded. You talk about his ongoing lack of attention to time etc... which can feel very disrespectful of you personally.
If you look at the big picture what would help would be marriage counseling. Seriously. This is about more than a morning routine or the chore list. I'm not saying he's a bad husband, but you are describing chronic patterns that have been enabled to some extent by the myriad ways you cope. All of which adds up to resentment, imbalance, hurt feelings and a damaged marriage.
I couldn't live with it and you shouldn't have to. Find a good therapist and I bet you and he can sort this out without too much hardship and both benefit greatly.
Good luck.
You are describing a scenario where you feel that you are shouldering more of the burden, more of the adult responsibilities, and being disregarded. You talk about his ongoing lack of attention to time etc... which can feel very disrespectful of you personally.
If you look at the big picture what would help would be marriage counseling. Seriously. This is about more than a morning routine or the chore list. I'm not saying he's a bad husband, but you are describing chronic patterns that have been enabled to some extent by the myriad ways you cope. All of which adds up to resentment, imbalance, hurt feelings and a damaged marriage.
I couldn't live with it and you shouldn't have to. Find a good therapist and I bet you and he can sort this out without too much hardship and both benefit greatly.
Good luck.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 15:03
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
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.
You need to stand up for yourself. All I see in your post is excuse after excuse. Just say that from now on you and DD are taking the train every morning. Maybe he'll learn when he starts missing your company. Your current way of dealing with it is enabling his bad habit while making you more and more upset that he can't get it together like you think he should. He's late for his own job? Tough. You and DD can both be on time if you just leave like you had planned. You can only control your reaction to him, not his behavior.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 14:44
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
Anonymous wrote:OP, if your DH had your DD around in the morning, I doubt she would let him take his dear sweet time reading his ipad.
I strongly suspect that he would put on a cartoon for her and continue as he'd begun. And she would be thrilled about this because TV in the mornings is not allowed.
Okay, now I am just being bitter. He's a good guy. A good dad. A good lover and friend. I am just annoyed about this aspect of his personality and will discuss it with him tonight, if for no other reason than to register my displeasure. Can't know if you don't try.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 14:40
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
OP, if your DH had your DD around in the morning, I doubt she would let him take his dear sweet time reading his ipad.
Anonymous
09/16/2013 14:37
Subject: My husband has never been on time for a thing in his life
Anonymous wrote: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.
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.