I think people who are chronically late are extremely disrespectful to the people who have to wait. I don’t blame you for bailing-it was the end of your day, the other folks had dinner plans and you needed to have your own dinner, and you had no way of knowing when they would show up. You had recently been left to sit by yourself waiting, and you didn’t want to do it again. Yes, if the 2nd incident was isolated, perhaps you would have or should have circled back for your sister in law, but I certainly understand why you didn’t given the totality of the situation. Given traffic and weather and a big city, a few minutes late is always understandable, but your brother seems to have an unwillingness to plan around the normal things that cause delays.
@oldfort it makes me absolutely nuts when folks are chronically late. There are many members of my husbands family who don’t seem to understand times. They are late for everything and think it’s just fine. It isn’t.
A number of years ago, I finally put my foot down…and just said I was not going to hold up dinner, wait for these folks or anything like that at all. If we had plans at a certain time that we all made, I wasn’t waiting for late folks.
It hasn’t made them more punctual, but it has greatly eased my life. I just don’t wait.
I would have done as you did. I would have gone home. And no, I would not apologize. At all.
A person who is chronically late may not be actively, deliberately disrespectful, but by default that person is failing to respect the fact that their way of doing things (whether by poor executive functioning or by personal choices) affects other people. If someone is very late to an event to which THEY invited me, and had some control over logistics, it may not be about ME but maybe it SHOULD BE a little more about me. People with poor executive functioning or poor multitasking (and I am one of them) can still learn strategies if they care to have other people in their lives.
My mother was always chronically late. Did she want to be? No! She was always running around in a panic. And she did apologize (at least to some people, not so much to family members). She was always trying to fit one more thing, one more task into her day and underestimating the time it would take. She felt that her industriousness justified her lateness. But what she refused to think about while she did more and more was that every moment she used up to get things done was a moment lost for the person waiting for her. I consider this a sort of disrespect by default. I used to wait for her to pick me up after school in high school for up to two hours in an empty schoolyard in every kind of weather (waiting only 30 minutes was a treat some days) because she was a workaholic teacher across town who just had to get her classroom ready for the next day (as opposed to the “slacker” teachers who left quickly). No, I was not allowed to take the bus. Yes, I was supposed to do my homework sitting outside on a cold bench when the weather was below freezing. So I guess the whole issue strikes a nerve and does feel pretty personal to me! Everyone is late sometimes… things happen. But ADD or no, people just don’t have a right to leave someone stuck in an uncomfortable situation on a recurring basis and expect to be accommodated.
I also can’t stand when people are always very late. To me it shows a lack of respect for my time.
That said, for the sake of family relations you may want to say something like you “apologize for the misunderstanding”. Tell your brother if he had made it clear to you that despite his being late his wife would be at the bar on time you would certainly have stayed and waited for her.
Maybe next time suggest that you meet up in your apartment and then you can go out somewhere together. This way you can bide your time in the comfort of your own home.
I personally would not chalk this up to Add. I have it and trust me. I need to be on time. My family was always late for anything as a kid. It drove me nuts that we always had to apply apologize for it. Most of the time it was family dysfunction and having three girls (me the youngest boy /man now) and one “bathroom”. ??.
I actually drove in from Chicago to Detroit suburbs and made my mother’s 90th birthday party before two out of my 3 sisters did.
I taught my kids to be early so they would continue this for college, internships, jobs. Etc.
I just think it’s really disrespectful to chronically come late…
Anyway, I find it difficult to believe that someone who manages to work and live in both California and New York City with a comfortable lifestyle would have significant executive functioning issues…
I have a couple of rigid kids and one who is the other extreme. The most extreme rigid kid loved our European river cruise. If they said the boat was leaving at 3 pm it was pulling away from the dock at 3. She said it showed that people can be on time if they have to be.
@oldfort I don’t think you owe them an apology. I would next time say I love seeing you but I feel taken advantage of when you keep me waiting. Or if he is always late I might just plan on arriving 30 minutes later. I had to do this with my son and it’s made a world of difference. I either stress with him that I don’t want to have to wait and if he can’t commit to being on time we should plan to get together at a time that works better for him. Or I just goin knowing I’m going to have to wait and bring a book. My friend told me a saying I keep in mind when dealing with certain family members. “Don’t go to the hardware store to buy bread” that I have expectations from someone who routinely disappoints me.
Or maybe one of those “seems like but isn’t” apologies: like: “Sorry, but when you said you’d be 45 minuts late, I was too tired…”
Just saying: our problewith my brother was when he somehow always “forgot” his wallet.
I understand it better now and would be just s peeved as you were.
That’s my brother. I do not live with him, but when I have gone on vacation with him, he would plan way more activities than time allowed. If we all plan on having dinner at 7, his family would be going back to their rooms to get ready at 6:30 and wouldn’t show up until 7:30 or later. We (10+ other people) would just go to the restaurant without them. My brother has gotten better because he realized we wouldn’t wait.
I guess in this instance, after long day at work, having to wait for 45+ min to have drinks, which then would mean no dinner until after 8 was a bit much for me. I was going to let it go and not make a big deal out of it, but when he called me rigid it got me thinking…
Boy, is this a hot button in my life! I am the multi-tasker who runs around like a nut all day making sure the house doesn’t look like a train wreck and the cat doesn’t pass out from dehydration. But me (and my kids) are ALWAYS the ones standing at the door waiting for my husband to be ready to leave. He is cognizant of all of us getting ourselves ready to leave yet chooses to sit and continue reading his book, or whatever, until we are all literally standing at the door before he begins his ritual of getting ready. I find it hugely inconsiderate but no amount of pointing this out to him has changed it one bit in 30 years.
He inherited it. His mother was 30 minutes late for OUR wedding (because she felt that one of the sleeves on her dress was slightly ‘lower’ than the other.). When we were graduating from grad school, I happened to be the youngest PhD that year and tradition at our university was the youngest goes first. So my job was to start the procession of 5,000 people into the stadium. She was told she MUST get to our house on time (they refused to navigate to the stadium on their own; we lived within walking distance and they wanted to park at our house). Once she was 30 minutes late, we had to abort the plan and we both had to RUN about a third of a mile in full cap, gown and hood so that we would not keep about 20,000 people waiting. When we told her what she had caused, her response was that she didn’t like he jewelry she brought, so it took her a while to get dressed.
So, in my life the tardiness seems to be due to extreme self-centeredness. The offenders have all managed to get to work on time for years, but that is to their benefit. When non-bosses are impacted, they don’t care.
That’s my story and I’m sticken’ to it.
Regarding being rigid: to people who manage (mismanage) their time like that, always late, very fluid, not allocating enough time…you are rigid, from their point of view. But as you’ve read here, don’t worry…you aren’t in the wrong here. He may still see you as rigid, cause I think it takes a lot for people like this to change their whole perspective and time management process, but perhaps explaining your point of view, like you have here (that you were hungry, and didn’t want to wait so long for dinner, and by the way, you also don’t like waiting alone for someone for indefinite periods of time) might help. And also you mention that he got better on vacations because he had some consequences (the family leaving without him), so he needs a little consequence here. But you can be kind about it, and try to explain to him your side of it.
You are not the one in the wrong here. His behavior sends a message to those who wait that they aren’t important, and that’s perhaps what his wife felt. It’s likely that he does this to her all the time, and she was hopeful that you and she would get together on time, and it was disappointing to her that this did not happen, and that she got her plans affected by someone else yet again. Sounds like this is an issue between the 2 of them, not you. You are being scapegoated. Sorry he can’t see that his behavior is rude. It is.
Actually, your brother is the one who’s being rigid because he’s always late and apparently refuses to change. I had an aunt like that. Everyone was always expected to wait for her no matter how late she was. She was one of those people who always tried to fit in one more thing before she left home, so it took her forever to get ready to go anywhere.
My mother used to say that being late doesn’t entitle you to see the whole play. Maybe you get to see the 2nd half if you’re there by intermission, or maybe you only get to see the cast take their leave of the stage at the end. But the world generally doesn’t wait to start until you arrive. Eventually, my parents decided to quit waiting. Once my aunt realized people would no longer schedule their lives around her it got better. It was uncomfortable for her to arrive at a restaurant when everyone else was already ordering dessert, or to have to be the one squeezing past people to get to her seat in the theater. If everyone was late to an event it masked her tardiness. When she no longer had that buffer she didn’t like it.
If I were you I’d tell your brother that his constant lateness feels disrespectful of your time. If he’s in town you could have him meet you at your apartment. That way, you can continue your day until he arrives. I wouldn’t agree to meet in a bar if he’s regularly more than 15 minutes late, but I would agree to a restaurant. I’d make it clear that I wouldn’t wait more than 15 minutes to order and I wouldn’t be hogging the wait staff’s table longer than a reasonable time to have coffee. If that means he only has time for an appetizer and coffee, that’s his choice.
@oldfort, I totally get it about your brother and about NYC in the rain. I think I would have gone to the bar and stayed until 6 (the original meeting time, right?), maybe 6:10, to see if SIL showed up. Although texting is a great tool, there are times when it just doesn’t work immediately (on the subway, in an elevator, wherever). One drink with SIL and done. I think I would apologize to SIL for this particular incident. But that’s just me and I am sure it reflects my experience with my brother and sister-in-law!
Tardiness drives me crazy. Of course sometimes events come up out of your control, but you certainly can let others know as they unfold. I feel it’s bad form and disrespectful.
That said, I do think there are people just wired differently. They don’t mean anything by it; they just have a different spatial relationship with place and time.
I’m pretty structured. My wife is artsy and all over the place. She is virtually always late. S is similar to me (and always early / on time), D is much more like mom and ALWAYS late. I’ve actually spoken to her about that many times. “You know you need to be there at 9, and it takes 30 minutes, and there may be traffic, and it takes you 45 minutes to get ready, and…” Funny thing, she gets up early enough or gives herself plenty of time but then something just happens. She is off in “artsy land” and all of a sudden she’s late. I never understand it and she is never going to change. I’m convinced her mind just works differently.
So I guess it’s more my problem than hers.
I think promptness may be an inherent part of people’s personalities.
I care about promptness so much that I used to lie to my naturally tardy mother about when I needed to be somewhere. If it was 1 p.m., I would tell her 12:30, and then maybe we would get there on time.
Later in life, I drove my own kids nuts by always arriving at places early, which meant that we always had time to kill before an event started.
Now that my kids are out of the house, I carry my Kindle, arrive early, and happily read or go for a short walk until the time when I’m expected. But I live in a suburb; I can wait in my car or in pleasant public places. I would not be as comfortable in a city, especially at night.
You’re not going to be able to change your brother (any more than I could change my mom), but could you arrange to meet him in a setting where you would be more comfortable waiting – such as your own home? If you could happily read a book or watch a video or do a household chore until the uncertain time of his arrival, perhaps you would feel less frustrated.
I’m with you. I don’t care if you call me rigid, not being able to count on someone to show up on time makes me not want to make plans with them that will cause me to sit around waiting.
I have a few known late people in my life and I just either come late myself or make plans where it doesn’t matter. When waiting for friends I’ll order a drink and appetizer.
I would give I’m sorry your husband is always late. When he said how late he was running and you couldn’t reach the wife, it was reasonable to go back home imo.
My brother’s older son is like him. This nephew has missed flights numerous times, including one to his cousin’s wedding (had to pay up to get on the next flight). This nephew was also late on his first day of work. The younger son is more like my SIL, very punctual. I am not sure if there is any correlation, but the younger nephew is doing much better career wise than his older brother.
I will let my SIL know that I was sorry not to have met up with her. I think she is a saint to have put up with my brother for all those years.
OP- you are great. Good to let the SIL you are sorry to not have met up with her but no apology. Being sorry about something is different is different than taking blame. Your brother is the one who needs blame for inconveniencing people (you and his wife this time) more than once. He should be apologizing for his lateness. He is a frequent New Yorker and should have a better sense of its timing et al. Like the 15 minutes timing for editing on CC that seems to be the time I would wait. Then decide based on contact.
I am guilty of dragging my feet forever- always running late to appointments, lectures et al. because I tend to cut things too close, trying not to be waiting. There is some psychology to it- guilty. I know time precision- to the second- as an anesthesiologist (long retired) and know part of me rebels at timing. H is from India and often wants to be early, sigh. He is also more patient waiting for others. We know Indian culture and neighbors’ cultures- never expect the Indians or Puerto Ricans to be on time wheras the German lady is always punctual (to the minute). But- none, even me, are as rude as your brother with his timing.
Isn’t family wonderful??? Hope our posts help you feel better. You do have correct timing sesnse. I like your last post words about your SIL.
I’m on your side! I would have left too and thought, Oh well. Next time!
Re: your brother & SIL? I would probably do whatever was necessary to keep the peace.
Maybe it’s all those years working in hospitality & needing to apologize and make amends for things that were not our fault.
Meaning, it doesn’t really bother me to give an “undeserving” apology. I can even fake grovel, when necessary, but that takes quite a bit of concentrated ninja effort to come off as sincere.
Good luck! It’s likely neither of you are going to change!