BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?

Subject: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:25 PM

My sister is asking for help in dealing with her husband, a hard-core procrastinator. She loves him very much, and he is a great guy, but she's tired of it taking a year to get the roof fixed, or pick out wallpaper, etc. Now she wants to have kids and is afraid that by the time he makes up his mind on whether to have kids, she'll be menopausal.

I have searched the web and the table of contents of many books on procrastination and have found nothing along the lines of "how to help the procrastinator in your life" or "how to get things done despite the procrastinator you married." ANy suggestions?

Funny story - by the time he got around to asking her to get married, she had already bought the wedding dress.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:29 PM

Trite as it sounds, to-do lists and deadlines often work.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Peace
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:32 PM

I'll think about it and get back to you.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:37 PM

I wanted to be a procrastinator but decided to put it off till later.
Unfortunately, some guys can be "made that way" and nothing can be done to change them short of threatening to leave or leaving to "wake their ideas up". Not always a wise thing to do of course....it has been known to backfire.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: gnu
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:46 PM

Procrastination is the thief of time, I always say.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:50 PM

I guess people usually procrastinate because...

It's someone else's idea, not theirs, and they really don't want to.

They'd rather do something more enjoyable at the moment.

They're avoiding.

They're afraid.

They have their minds on something else.

They're resentful.

They're demonstrating their independence.

And so on...

It's a really tough one to beat. I've had lots of trouble with procrastination. Writing down "to do" lists, and crossing them off as they get done definitely helps, though.

She could try prayer. After all, what has she got to lose? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:53 PM

Mu husband is a bit of a procrastinator....the closet he promised to build me 6 years ago is still waiting to be built. *Sigh*

Actually, he isn't bad about most things...just runs out of time. The important things that get put off are brought to his attention without nagging...more of a matter of factly kind of discussion.

One time he waited too long. We had a deck that was in need of repair. I went out one blustery, blue skyed day to hang wash on the line (which is just off the deck). I stepped out onto the deck and one leg went through the deck. I was trapped there for a bit as I couldn't get my leg back up without running the wood into my leg fish hook style. Luckily there was something nearby that I could pry the board off with or I would have sat on the porch all day in my nightgown, bleeding and freezing to death (it was in the 30's). He felt bad that he hadn't gotten around to it sooner and promptly made the repairs. It's a heck of a way to get something done, but that sure did the trick.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:57 PM

I'm trying to imagine how a to-do list will help my sister get pregnant.....

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 05:58 PM

Ummm...do you really think we can help with that????? *G*

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 06:00 PM

She's already married to him and they haven't reached an agreement yet about having kids?

Sorry, but there's some fault on both sides about this. Whether to have kids or not is something a couple should discuss BEFORE they get married.

If they did discuss it, and he agreed in principle that he wanted to have kids, but he didn't say when, then she needs to say, "Sorry I didn't bring this up earlier, but the time is NOW."

She should resolve to solve the one BIG problem before tackling the little ones. Too many people try to solve the little ones first, but that's back-asswards. Anger from the big problem will spill over into the little ones, and you end up blowing up over trivia.

Maybe after she gets pregnant, she'll find that she doesn't give a damn about the wallpaper either.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Once Famous
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 06:01 PM

Tell her to tell him no sex until he gets it done.

This has been known to work.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Scoville
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 06:04 PM

My mother starts calling professionals for estimates and the thought of paying them gets Dad motivated to fix whatever needed fixing.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 06:10 PM

Jim, that's an unfair assumption - they did decide they both wanted to have kids before they got married. They even picked out the names. The issue is when.

I figure she has a trump card in that she's 37 - it's pretty much now or never (or expensive fertility treatments). But she wants him to agree to have kids, not feel pressured into it, so she's looking for advice on how to broach the subject: "Honey I want to get pregnant now!" or "Have you thought about when we should start having kids?..." I'm always in favor of a direct approach, but I've never dealt with a procrastinator and I thought being too direct might trigger the delay response.

I was hoping some Mudcatters would have dealt with something like this sucessfully and pass along their advice.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 06:23 PM

Has your brother in law been made aware, really aware, of the potential health risks to mother and baby of 'geriatric' mothers?
Awful name, but that is what she would already be classed as in UK by the medical profession. I know it sounds drastic, but it can't be ignored. Good luck.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 06:48 PM

Doctor Phil...

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 07:14 PM

Susan-Marie, I suspect you didn't read past my first 3 sentences before you responded. Please correct me if I'm wrong in this.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 08:11 PM

I have one too, but let somebody else need help with something and he's right there!

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: heric
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 08:22 PM

Researchers recently identified a procrastination gene in chimpanzees. True. Google. Bioengineering cure may be too late for her, though. And me.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: mg
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 12:15 AM

Maybe go together to an obstetrician for a consult (husband and wife I mean)..undoubtedly if she is in good healthy they will be told to get pregnant ASAp..assuming things are financially OK, marriage are sound etc.

As far as home repairs etc. go..if he is going out and earning a living, and will be an active father...some things can be hired out and if there is a strong pattern it is better just to find a good handyman and reduce the stress around the house where one turns into a nag etc. Or, she can take classes at Home Depot if she is not yet skilled and do things herself, and teach her son or daughter when the time comes. mg

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Amos
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 12:32 AM

Here's my advice, FWIW: she needs to be willing to be an endless source of reminders, nudges, insistence and pushes, all delivered in the highest good cheer, without rancor or blame, just sort a benevolent ruthlessness with a spoonful of affection thrown in. As many times as is needed to get it done. She should focus on a set of perhaps three or four items, no more, or he'll get lost remembering them. And no yelling or blaming. Just an unlimited supply of cheerful reminders as to what he said he would do. When one gets done the next thing on the backlog gets added to the "current honeydews" set.

If its done with the right degree of benevolent affection, he won't mind, and it will work and suddenly one day he'll originate doing one on his own!! Mirabile dictu! Very very gradually the degree of friendly nagging will be able to be reduced after that, but slowly slowly catchee monkee. Until then, the key is being completely willing to repeat oneself as many times as it takes without getting het up about it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Davetnova
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 02:33 AM

I like Martin's suggestion. But how she'll get pregnant I don't know.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 02:37 AM

If the major issue is getting pregnant, then some contraception is involved... if it's him, she needs to talk to him. If it's her, stop taking it... that little blue line will make him think and give him a deadline of 8 months to get on with whatever.

They have already discussed children, I'm presuming there are no drastic money issues, and that the marriage is sound.... then it can't really be classed as 'entrapment'....

(If she can't get him to talk about his contraception, then taking him by surprise in an unusual location is a good way of 'forgetting' it, and may even get her some extra pampering, if my memory serves me right!)

Good Luck!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: GUEST,Hrothgar
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 04:01 AM

She's just damned lucky she's not married to me. She'd get a Masters course in the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: George Papavergis
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 04:32 AM

Procrastination problems can affect fertility.
Or was it prostration? Prostate? Something like that.
Sorry - couldn't help it.
But the wisest answer is Martin Gibson's. No nooky without cookie. Put a foot down (no, cancel that, wrong position).

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: freda underhill
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 05:04 AM

We went shopping together for the first time. I was walking down the first eisle, throwing items into the trolley, when I realised he wasnt there. I looked back, he was at the beginning of the eisle, with a can in each hand, reading the labels on each can and trying to decide which one he wanted.

that's when i knew for sure my partner was a procrastinator.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 05:55 AM

Martins comment reminded me of an old joke:-
On honeymoon, the guy took off his trousers and threw them to his new wife..."Put them on" he said!..."I can't wear them", said she and he replied "Then you remember that"!
A short while later she threw him her briefs and said "Now you put those on"!.... He said "I can't get into those" and she replied "Well just you remember that"!
Best wishes. Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 09:35 AM

Mary, that's a good idea, going to the OB together. I'll pass that along. ANd AMos, thanks for the positive life advice. I will be sure to pass that along too. Liz, she asked me about using the "Ooops - guess what!" method but a friend of mine did that and her spouse never got over feeling betrayed. SO I recommended against it. NOw, announcing that she is going off the pill - that seems like a reasonable compromise.

Jim, I did read past your first 3 sentences. The fact remains that you started your response with a thoughtless assumption:

"She's already married to him and they haven't reached an agreement yet about having kids? Sorry, but there's some fault on both sides about this. Whether to have kids or not is something a couple should discuss BEFORE they get married."

The fact that you added "If that isn't the case" later doesn't erase the initial mis-conception you interjected.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Gurney
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 03:49 AM

Hey, I was a good home handyman, very diligent, until I started doing it for a living. Now our house looks like a builders yard, and nothing gets done until it MUST be done. Ever seen a mechanic's car, a cobbler's barefoot children? What sort of job does the guy have?

As for the family thing, she should ask him if he wants to be the last of his line, or demand that he books in for a vasectomy.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Peter T.
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 06:04 AM

The classic advice about procrastination is that the urgent tasks trump the important tasks, so if you actually want to get around to the important (like kids) then you have to stop, plan and decide; otherwise the urgent will always bump the important on the priority list since the urgent is in your face demanding X be done now.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Jeanie
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 07:19 AM

The singer/songwriter Don Francisco turned Georgiansilver's joke into a song, called "Pants" (i.e. trousers)on the CD "Only Love is Spoken Here". The song and the joke are relevant here, I think, because my feeling is that the problem underlying chronic procrastinators in a marriage or partnership is one of *control*.

If you don't do things on time, or arrive on time, you immediately put yourself in a position of control over the other person. If a controlling procrastinator is clever enough at it, you can find yourself for *years* giving him or her the benefit of the doubt - there may always be some apparent logical reason why you have been left hanging on so long (for the wallpaper, the paving, the carpet..... the baby...anything). It is so easy for this pattern to become habitual and expected. The procrastinator's partner finds him- or herself colluding and allowing this to happen over and over again, with the pattern being increasingly reinforced.

My ex-husband was a procrastinator par excellence. For instance, I was without a washbasin in the bathroom for over 2 years, with a small toddler to look after; wallpaper peeling off the walls in the toilet for 5 years; no staircarpet (and nails sticking out of bare wood) - lost track, certainly more than 6 years - I had left by then ! Kitchen unfinished 21 years (I wasn't there for the final 6 of those, though). He would arrive home deliberately late on the night I taught an evening class (couldn't leave til he arrived to look after daughter), the trains being miraculously late only then. Too many examples to mention, and I really don't want to try to remember them, either.....but the issue was never really the washbasin, the wallpaper, the whatever: it was about his need to be in control and his fear of losing that. The non-decorating was but one symptom of many.

He stayed in the house after we divorced, and as he no longer needed this attempt at control - he started decorating !

The thing to do is to talk, to get everything out into the open. A procrastinator certainly isn't going to take the initiative on this. "Not doing things" is the very cowardly way of getting out of not saying what is on your mind. The other partner has to be brave enough for the two of you, and to be prepared for whatever is said. The sooner, the better, too, because the longer any kind of controller/controlled pattern is allowed to carry on unchecked, the more difficult it is to resolve. The sad thing is, a controller's partner can get to a point where they no longer have the energy or even the desire to make any changes to what has become the status quo. If anybody feels that time is fast approaching, summon up all energy and courage and take action now, or you, as a person, will disappear. Everyone deserves more and better than that.

Hope everything turns out well and the way it is meant to be.
- jeanie

Here's the song:

"PANTS" - Words and music by Don Francisco (from the album "Only Love is Spoken Here" 2001)

On the day before my wedding just a few short years ago
My dad sat down and told me, "Son, there's some things you ought to know.
I'm gonna tell you a little story about my wedding night
If you handle things the way I did, everything will turn out right.

"Your Mom and I went to our suite, and when the luggage boy had gone
I handed her my pants, and I said, "Honey, try these on !"
She tried, but said, "I can't wear these." I said, "You've got that right !
I wear the pants, and don't forget what you've just learned tonight."

So I took my dad's advice, and did just like he said to do,
But then my wife gave me her pants, and said, "Now you try, too !"
I said, "I can't get into these !" She said,"You've got that right !
You never will get in my pants 'til you learn to treat me right !"

Now my mind's not lightnin' fast, but all at once I had a hunch
That in this partic'lar area Dad might be out to lunch,
So I told my wife, "I've been set up ! I was blind, but now I see !
And if nobody wears the pants that'll be just fine with me !"

Well, Dad's got an apartment now - I guess Mom had enough
After all those years of knucklin' down, she fin'lly called his bluff.
As f'r us - we're really happy, tho', 'cause we don't play those games

I love my wife and she loves me, and we both love the same.
I love my wife and she loves me, and we both love the same.

************************************************************

Subject: RE: BS: advice for SO of a procrastinator?
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 10:18 AM

What a great song!! Thanks!!


A