Nobody’s perfect. But that doesn’t mean you can just do whatever and say “I can’t help it, it’s who I am.” Especially when your actions are negatively affecting those around you.

Recently, Reddit user Striking_Still_3721 submitted a post to the “Am I The A***ole?” community about his wife not respecting other people’s time. You see, the man’s spouse is constantly late. No matter where she goes, everyone—her husband included—always has to adjust to her timing.

So one time, when the two of them were at the mall and the woman was shopping as if she was on her own, Striking_Still_3721 decided that enough was enough and simply ditched her.

However, when the couple reunited, they immediately got into a fight and now the Redditor isn’t sure if it’s his wife’s defense mechanism why she opposes him or if he genuinely misjudged the situation and acted like a jerk. Here’s what he wrote.

Ditching your spouse at a mall sounds like a horrible thing to do

Image credits: rawpixel (not the actual photo)

And this man wasn’t sure if he had the right, so he asked the internet to be the judge of his actions

Image credits: MART PRODUCTION (not the actual photo)

If what Striking_Still_3721 says is true, his wife definitely has a difficult relationship with punctuality. According to research commissioned by St Pierre Bakery, the average adult starts to feel stressed if they are just 10 minutes late for a social event or meeting.

A study of 3,000 American adults found “early is on time,” with more than half admitting they are “obsessed” with timekeeping.

Anything past 13 minutes is considered “late,” and 56% of respondents plan ahead to ensure they are never running behind schedule.

60% swear by being early, with 39% believing it’s socially unacceptable to be late at all.

However, 7 in 10 friend groups have a person who is especially known to be late, and a quarter admitted they are “that friend.”

47% of those surveyed said they have sneakily told these friends that a meeting time was earlier than it was actually scheduled, so if they showed up late they were actually somewhat on time. Which is understandable considering that it only takes 5 times of being late for people to feel upset with you.

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On the flip side, more than a third pride themselves on being typically early to social events or meetings, while 45% are usually “on time.”

But half of the respondents admitted they have been criticized for their time-keeping habits — whether too early or too late.

Interestingly, the covid lockdown has made people “slower” (35%) and 55% of them have enjoyed not having the pressure of being somewhere at a specific time.

The study also discovered the most used excuses for being late included blaming the traffic (37%), a morning alarm not going off (33%), and the car not starting (32%).

Americans typically feel anxious (43%), annoyed (36%), and concerned (28%) if it’s looking like they’re going to be running late somewhere, while the top occasions and events people stress about not making in time include job interviews (33%), medical appointments (31%) and the airport (29%).

While men are more likely to feel embarrassed and anxious about being late, women—just like Striking_Still_3721’s wife—are more likely to laugh it off.

However, as we can see, this doesn’t always work.

People think the husband did nothing wrong

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