My partner and I have been living together for almost a year and his lack of punctuality at his job is a problem for me. For as long as I have been working, I’ve held the sentiment that 5 minutes early is on time and being on time is late, so I understand that I may be a little more uptight about it than most people. He’s usually 2-5 minutes late most days and maybe 10-15 minutes late once a week or so. His workplace allows employees to get a free meal and free drink every shift so long as they are no more than 5 minutes late, so my partner considers himself on time if he makes that cut-off— even though he’s scheduled at 9:00am not 9:05am.
This is incredibly stressful for me. Since we live together, I consider this behavior, not only disrespectful to his coworkers, but disrespectful to me as well. I am in school full-time and have a part time job and he works 5-6 days a week; we do not have lots of money. If he were to lose his job over tardiness, we would be so financially screwed. I’ve tried to mention it to him a few times, but he kind of gets grumpy and shuts down.
Am I being unreasonable about this? It feels so silly that I get as anxious as I do over this.
Tl;dr: My partner is frequently late for work and I am very stressed about our financial situation if he were to ever get fired over it. We live together. Am I being unreasonable?
12 comments
How many times has he been reprimanded for being late?
Oh man this hits close to home because I was somewhat in your shoes a couple years ago when I dated and lived with someone that could never be anywhere on time. The only difference was they moved into a house that I’d already owned so I wasn’t too concerned about covering the bills, but I did have a small concern that I’d have to help keep them afloat with their bills if they were suddenly unemployed.
Honestly I just had to try and let it go and hope that they’d be open and let me know if they were getting warnings / written up for being late. It helped a bit, but I can’t say I it never stopped bothering me completely.
Unless he’s on the verge of being fired, I’d say let it go. I think part of building a life with someone is trusting them with things like this until they give you reason to.
If he just knows the culture of the company well and knows what he can get away with, then *shrugs*
If its causing you anxiety, you need to do one of two things:
1. Sit down with your partner and express how his actions are affecting you. It is not healthy to bottle up your anxiety because it will eventually blow. If they don’t engage in the conversation, you may need to make multiple attempts, or come at it from an angle of what is causing them to be consistently late, what can be done to help them get to work on time, etc. Then also tell them how it is making you feel and why.
2. End the relationship. If they aren’t willing or able to act like a responsible adult in their workplace, then that usually filters over to their home life. Also, if they are unwilling to have the conversation on something such as being on time to work, what other struggles will you have done the line?
I would say your feelings about this are valid. Can you elaborate on your attempts at talking it over with him? If I were you, I would try to make him understand that it causes you anxiety and worry, and ask whether he worries about it too. But that’s just me
Not your responsibility.
I’m wondering how you even know the exact time within 5 minutes that he arrives
I think you guys might be at different places in life and he’s acting like a normal mid-20s guy that is pretty selfish.
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It SEEMS he has ADHD. My ex would do the same thing except he owns his business(that’s his workaround) BUT has lost a few clients due to it as well. Not enough for it to matter though. My son used to do the same thing your BF did thinking he knew the work culture until one day he went to work and told he was fired because of it. He exclaimed how everyone did it etc. Some people love to cut corners and find all sorts reasons to and when they are reprimanded they deflect the blame. Your BF need to grow up and make adjustments and/or get assessed for ADHD.
Yes, you can’t go around worrying about everything your partner does wrong all the time. No one is perfect.
Is the behavior giving bad consequences for you? If so adress that. But you need to be able to handle your own emotions.
Arriving 2-5 minutes to a shift is not gonna get him fired, especially if management has not expressed any concern. I don’t think this is really the issue you are upset about. I think you may be overwhelmed with the responsibilities you are carrying. This would be a good place to start if you’re looking to get to the root of this stress