Throwaway account. We’ve been together 6 years now and things are generally fine, but her tardiness and absentmindedness have really been causing issues for me. To give you a couple of examples:
After getting some groceries, I drop her off at our AirBnB and I go park the car a couple minutes walk away. She starts cooking and doesn’t bother checking her phone. We only have one set of keys but she didn’t want to walk from the car so she makes me drop her off first. When I get back to the apartment, I am locked out. No answer. I proceed to wait outside for 30 minutes. This is one of many times she locked me out, even when I explicitly tell her, I will be back at x time.
She asks me to pick her up from an event in the middle of a major city at 5. The traffic is bumper to bumper everywhere. I get there shortly before 5 and call her. Radio silence. I continue to call for 30 minutes but still no answer so I leave. She then proceeds to get mad at me because I left her in a place that was hard to get an Uber (because of the traffic). Instead, I should have known she was there and should have just waited even if she didn’t pick up her phone.
She asks me to pick her up from a dinner event. Again, middle of a major city with nowhere to park and bumper to bumper traffic. I call and there is no response. Then she finally texts after 15 minutes and says, “I’m coming right out.” Another 20 minutes pass until she finally comes out and she’s still chatting with other people and taking her time.
She asks me to pick her up from dog sitting. I call her and I tell her I’ll be there at 5:45. Again, traffic everywhere on a major roadway in the middle of a large city and I have to circle around. I get there, I call at least 10 times and again, she doesn’t pickup. She comes out at 6. She says I should’ve known she couldn’t answer her phone because she was packing up and that she gave me a “range” of time that she would be ready between 5:30 and 6, so as long as she was within that range, it was fine.
We agree to baby sit a neighbor’s 3 kids on Monday at 730. A week prior, she decides to get dinner with a friend early at 530. I ask her if she should just cancel and that I’ll go babysit by myself, but she insists that an hour and a half is plenty of time and she’ll make it so we decide not to cancel. Predictably at 6:50 she texts saying “sorry, I can’t make it” and also texts our neighbor to cancel so I end up going by myself.
I admit that I get really angry and I have not always reacted positively or maturely. We have had shouting matches over these infractions. On many occasions I have tried talking to her calmly and being very direct and very explicit – i.e., “This is not acceptable behavior. You need to be more respectful of other people’s time.” But every time this happens, she digs her heels in and feels justified for why this particular time is excusable, such as “The waiter was too slow, and I only see my friend so infrequently, it’s obviously more important to me to spend time with the friend than to go babysit.” She has never apologized once.
1. How should I manage my anger? Every time these things happen, my rage meter is becoming increasingly elevated.
2. Is this behavior correctable or is this just something I have to learn to live with? Is this behavior common? I am a timely person and I always try to be early. I understand some people procrastinate and have a different perception of time, or have ADHD.
TL;DR: My GF is very absent minded is constantly late or standing me up. How do I deal with this?
19 comments
Based on what you’ve said, she just sounds like a shitty, disrespectful person.
I personally wouldn’t learn to live with it, and it sure doesn’t sound like she cares to change in any way.
Have you spoken to her about how disrespected this makes you feel?
Can she put her phone on a lanyard that’s always around her neck with her ringer on?
This would drive me mad, and it seems to mostly happen when you’re doing her favors (picking her up, dropping her off, etc.). So stop doing that. Don’t drive her places anymore.
But really, if she doesn’t understand why it bothers you to the point where the conversation devolves into a shouting match when you bring it up, maybe she’s doing it on purpose as like a weird power move. It’s not “time blindness” if she doesn’t understand why it’s upsetting to you. Is she selfish in other areas of her life?
Right now she sees no problem with her disrespectful behavior. Start holding her accountable for her tardiness. If you say that you two need to leave at 6, you leave at 6 with or without her. If she says pick her up from dog sitting at 5:30 and she’s not there ready to go, I guess she can get an Uber home. She’ll either learn to be on time or she’ll be left behind a lot.
There’s strategies that would help if she was willing to make any effort. For example, my wife has ADHD and so anything related to scheduling goes in a shared Discord channel so there’s an external record for what both of us know as well as when we each had access to that information.
That said, you can’t manage this for her and she’s obviously not trying to deal with this by any method other than dumping problems in your lap. If you’re not willing to break up yet, I’d suggest you tell her that location sharing needs to be on all the time or you won’t try to pick her up again. I also recommend you never give her the only set of keys ever again, and remind her she has a history of locking you out when she asks for the keys.
This is me (27 F) and my husband (29M). Like to a t. I try to say things nicely and he doesn’t take it seriously. So then I blow up and he gets mad at me and says “you never have anything positive to say about me!”
Honestly, I don’t have a solution. And if we didn’t have a child, I don’t think I would stay.
It’s like having 2 children at this point.
This is the WORST kind of person! It’s not time blindness it’s just rude, inconsiderate, selfish, disrespectful, and garbage behaviour!!!
1. you shouldn’t “manage your anger.” she’s being a dick. she’s arrogant and entitled.
2. no this is not correctable
do yourself a favor and end this. you don’t deserve this kind of treatment.
Stop setting up situations where you have to do something for her
1) No more driving her places and picking her up… She drives or gets an Uber
2) Get a second set of keys
3) plan to do things anyway, even if she doesn’t show up
4) realize that her doing something in two hours isn’t gonna happen, so just assume she won’t be there
5) If you do have to pick her up, she hast to show you that her phone is not on silent before she’s allowed to leave
This girl needs a drivers license and an Apple Watch for phone notifications 😂 but no seriously, she’s a disrespectful dick that doesn’t value you or your time.
I hate that we keep giving names to awful asshole behavior and then excuse it. Time blindness? JFC. Anyone can and does lose track of time. She just doesn’t care. She’s not a good person and I’m not sure how you even think it’s okay to be treated this way. 😞
i have ADHD too and can confirm that not apologizing for wasting other people’s time is NOT a facet of time blindness. it is a symptom of being a dick. i have time blindness too and it absolutely makes me late but if i’m going to be late it’s a ME problem. I’d rather give the other person a later time, get there early, and have to wait for them to show up—because it’s better than pissing off someone else trying to do me a favor or meet me somewhere
I forget to check my phone often, so I wear an apple watch or else keep my ringer on. I have ADHD, and time blindness is a symptom, so I set alarms and calendar alerts for things I need to remember. the point is, if your girlfriend cared at all, she would find ways to work around her issues. the core of the problem is she does not care and she does not respect you or your time.
Time blindness is not a real thing. It just isn’t. It’s just inconsideration and laziness. End of.
She needs to stop relying on you for rides. It’s not your responsibility. She’s taking advantage of you
Consequences. She pulls this shit because she doesn’t have to face consequences. I’ll bet if she were locked out for a half hour you’d never hear the end of it.
Perhaps this relationship is not worth salvaging, she seems very checked out on just about… everything.
That would be exhausting to deal with.
Drop her off somewhere and forget her.. after she’s ten calls in answer thd phone and be like I’m sorry who are you.. 😂🤣
She just sounds inconsiderate as shit and you’ve let it ride so long that she’s confident in mistreating you. I would’ve been gone. I have a very low tolerance for people with shitty time management skills. That would severely affect my quality of life.
I have ADHD and timeblindness at times. If she is willing there are skills you can use to reduce these issues. If she is not willing then she doesn’t respect or see how her behaviour affects others.