A question for you old married men & others who want to comment
6Being married as long as I have, one falls into habits (good or bad) that sometimes need re-evaluation. Since the Meh community contains some of the great minds and thinkers around, I figured I would put this question out there for consideration.
When one takes off their dirty clothes at the end of the day, where should they go?
- On the floor right where you are taking them off so your wife can pick them up and wash them.
- In the laundry hamper assuming you have one or can find it.
- Someplace where the accumulating pile of dirty clothes does not impede your access to that area.
- You should pick them up and wash them yourself.
- Other (please detail).
My wife and I have different thoughts on this matter as might be expected.
- 28 comments, 47 replies
- Comment
I put my clothes in the hamper. My wife throws hers on the floor. I wash my clothes when they’re dirty. My wife starts repeating things when she runs out of clean.
Stereotypes don’t always work.
Early in marriage would wash clothes together (just whoever was doing a load, usually me) but that didn’t last long, we do our own now. I insist on no fabric softener (makes no-iron shirts need ironing and damages clothes over time). . she insists on fabric softener.
If she your wife or your mom and which one do you want her to be? A MOM picks up after you and wipes your ass. A WIFE is a partner who will happily help you but will not wipe your ass.
@Star2236
/giphy good answer
@Star2236 as a mom… no way!!
I make my kids pick up their own laundry. My 9 year old’s chore is laundry.
@Star2236 I agree with you figuratively, but having been in a situation where my first wife needed her ass wiped (and I did it) and my wife having recently taken care of two important people in her life who were quite incapacitated, I’ve thought about this a good bit. Yes, if I’m fully functional, I want no one to wipe my ass but me. But the reality is that either of us may be in a situation where she or he is literally unable to do that for herself or himself, and I’m gonna have to say that in that situation, the spouse is exactly the one who will be wiping the ass. And, going back to the metaphor, one might say that that’s exactly what being the partner means—if the other is in need and not just being lazy or whatever.
As it happens, our moms are both dead. So there’s that.
Moreover, my mom taught my siblings and me how to take care of what needed taking care of and not to be entitled little shits.
I’ve always hated that fucking “your mom doesn’t work here” sign. My mom didn’t raise me to treat her or any other woman or any other human as a slave. If my mom worked where I worked, honestly, I’d be even more attentive to doing the right thing and not only being responsible for myself but doing more for others. Just being honest; I always wanted to impress my mama, not abuse her. Sure, my mom and dad wiped my ass when I was an infant. But I grew up. Who makes this shit up that your mom is there to wipe your ass and clean up your messes? Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with people? Seriously.
For the record, my mom always did everything she could for us, and was effortlessly joyous, generous and loving. She also worked two and three jobs at a time.
@joelmw Your mom did her most important job right: Raising you! She would be quite proud of that comment.
@joelmw
It’s nothing against you, your mom, wife, way you were raised or anything. It’s just a metaphor plain and simple. All I meant was put your own dirty clothes in hamper/laundry basket and don’t leave them on the floor for your wife to pick up. She’s your wife not your live in maid. Sometimes it’s the little things like that that can drive someone over the edge. (I worked in a psych hospital and you don’t know how many stories I’ve herd from woman about tedious little shit that drove them to have nervous breakdowns).
And just for your information yes I have worked with my mom (not directly but different units) for about 10 years and it was fucking awesome, my brother and aunt also worked their too. I had to wipe patients ass on a daily basis, it’s a lot better when it’s a loved one. I’ve also done it for my father after he broke his neck and needed help getting back on his feet. I still take care of my dad as he can’t swallow and can only eat through a peg tub and is blind. I’ve been his caregiver for 7 years now.
MEALS! DEALS! EELS! AWESOME!
@Star2236 And the wife might kick his ass too if he didn’t deal with his laundry properly.
Not much research has been done in this area, I’m afraid. There was someone who spoke about color morphs at the raptor research meeting this year and I tried to ask a similar question and I was given a roundabout answer.
My biggest concern with these birds in the wild isn’t really predators. Chicks in the nest all look like little white cottonballs, and when they get their adult feathers in, they are too big for common nest predators to get to. In addition, sometimes this leucism progresses or changes as the bird molts; it’s possible that a bird has fully normal juvenile plumage and molts into the white.
Pigmentation in feathers is a part of their structural makeup. If you notice on both of those birds, the feathers that are white look absolutely trashed, while the normal ones look relatively still decent.
This is likely due to the structure of the feather breaking down because of lack of pigmentation. Specifically, if you look at many birds with light or white feathers, the tips are usually very dark.
This helps keep the feather intact despite having a decline in melanin, not to mention that these birds above are not exhibiting any color mutations.
All in all this is an extremely speculative area of bird science that is very hard to study. I would have liked to do something with this, but in all honesty looking at behavior and food habits are more beneficial to species than looking at color mutations.
I recently read an article that argued against allowing chicken ownership in cities due to the fact that urban chicken owners might be more “ignorant of husbandry needs of chickens” and anyone could decide “on a whim” to purchase chickens
This is an absurd argument considering the VAST collection of extremely high-maintenance and fragile species that are freely available as pets without any concern for their husbandry requirements. It is incredibly easy to purchase a sugar glider or a chameleon on a whim, and both of these animals are far more difficult to keep happy than the sturdy chickens that humans literally domesticated thousands of years ago. Chickens are useful and personable animals that make great pets, and if you’re worried people won’t know how to care for them the solution is to improve education rather than thoughtlessly banning an animal that is actually a great option as a pet for low-income families. I would much prefer to see people choosing chickens as a pet over the dozens of high-maintenance and non-domesticated animals available at the corner pet shop.
Can confirm, yes, it’s a good and safe thing! I don’t know about Oregon Zoo’s protocols specifically, but I know a lot about what goes into that type of encounter. I wouldn’t worry about it at all, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an incident where that type of enrichment walk ended badly (e.g where animals got loose or hurt).
Doing enrichment walks while the public isn’t present ensures the environment is calm and there’s a lot of control of the situation. There’s at least two people on those walks - the primary trainer and the person filming - and I would bet for many of them there’s someone else around as well. The other staff will also have been made aware, so nobody does anything nearby that might spook them.
Also for the most part, animals going on walks are trained! I don’t know exactly how it’s done with groups of penguins, but you can see the porcupine in the recent Oregon post is following a target pole the trainer is holding. Other species with greater mobility or small predators are often walked on a harness and leash to ensure safety. What this means basically is that those animals aren’t coming out unless the staff are confident that they’ll stay focused and stay with them, and that their training is solid enough to recover their attention if they get distracted or scared.
Going to other enclosures is pretty normal too, and carefully monitored. They’re only going to be going to areas where they know the other animal is okay with it, and will have a plan in place to identify signs of distress and leave if that happens. It’s also worth nothing that novelty/enrichment can be positive even if it’s a little stressful - the goal is to keep it to where it isn’t overwhelming or detrimental.
In addition, there totally will be contingency plans for what happens if something goes wrong or an animal gets scared or spooked. It’s all thought out ahead of time so that nothing is a surprise.
The two “dangerous” animals I’ve seen go out on enrichment walks are cheetahs, who are always leashed and accompanied by a whole team of people, and elephants, which is an incredibly rare occurrence in the US now (because most zoos with elephants have moved to always working with them through a fence). I know of maybe one or two places that still take any elephants for zoo walks, and at that point it’s always because they’re geriatric and that’s been their routine for their whole lives. It’s not common anymore because it’s less safe, and is being phased out. Cheetahs going for walks are very, very carefully trained and everyone has planned every detail. I believe in the US they’re required to have at least two types of gear on (like a harness and a collar) and be attached to at least two leashes, so just in case one is dropped they’re always attached to a person - even when the zoo is empty! Different zoos do it differently, but there’s a ton of work and forethought that goes into taking them out.
So yeah, I don’t think you have to worry about those walks being a negative thing. If the animal is moving along voluntarily (including following a target or on a loose leash), and they’re not showing behavioral signs of stress, it’s a pretty solid and positive thing for them to do!
@halfling
Umm so which answer do you pick for his laundry needs?
@halfling
@Star2236 Probably chickens, honestly.
@Kyeh
@halfling I would pick cheetahs. But everyone knows that cheetahs never win.
@halfling i actually read the whole thing and was a bit confused by the sudden changes without context, intros, or outros to the subject change.
Also, chickens do make good pets… and even better dinners. Although i have het to eat any of the chickens I butchered this fall.
@halfling But how do you wash your chickens? And do you separate them by colors?
@blaineg @halfling And do they dry on the line outside, or hanging over the tub, or on any particular cycle? My dryer doesn’t have a “poultry” setting, do they go in one at a time and run like it’s a hamster wheel? Please don’t tell me that they have to be blow-dried and styled…
@halfling If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with bullshit!
The better question is who makes sure the lint trap is cleaned out? I recently got a dryer vacuum attachment because I don’t trust the dryer here since it was left by the previous owners and I know how well they took care of other things. Sure enough, lint compacted all the way through the machine to the lint trap.
I miss my old dryer. I bought it new and even repaired it myself when the rollers went bad. But I knew how well take care of it was. All of the appliances in this house feel so foreign to me yet.
Also… do your own laundry
@mbersiam I feel seen.
I have been married twice and in a few domestic relationships and I have never been with someone who cleans the lint trap. I do it every single time the dryer is used and I don’t understand how this isn’t just basic protocol for using a dryer?!
Also, thank you because now I know about dryer vacuum attachments and I’ve got one en route now.
@brooks My 9 year old’s chore is doing laundry and my teen does her own. Both of them had run downs on how to properly use both machines, including basic maintenance questions.
I’m glad you got a vacuum attachment. I was happy with how well it worked and it’s been on my wish list for a while but it became a necessity with the new house.
@brooks @mbersiam
Guess it’s just not something I ever thought about. Having grown up in a family who had a appliance and TV store that services everything we sold, ALL of the regular maintenance that goes along with household appliances was/is second nature and done without thinking.
Cleaning the lint trap has always been just as important as adding laundry detergent and I’m totally surprised to hear that not everyone knows this.
@Lynnerizer how do i figure out where my fridge water filter is and then replace it? (And where do i get a replacement)?
@Lynnerizer @mbersiam
In my experience it is generally in the fridge compartment. Most likely towards the top. Most of the time they will have a number on them to make ordering a replacement easy, and Amazon is always a good source for those things.
To paraphrase Buffalo Bill, “It places the laundry in the basket/hamper, or else it gets the hose again.”
@ircon96
Jesus Fucking Christ, this shouldn’t be a question. Put your clothes in the hamper. Do the laundry sometimes (at the very least know how to do it and be able to wash your own clothes so that it’s not on her; be willing and able to wash her clothes if you’re both comfortable that you’re not going to fuck shit up).
Also, wash some fucking dishes.
If you don’t do shit around the house because “that’s woman’s work” (which is what that shit sounds like, so let’s just meet it head on), you deserve to be slapped repeatedly then left alone.
@joelmw growing up we had a dishwasher at my house and it was called my mom.
@joelmw @sicc574 growing up it was us kids. We each alternated a week doing dishes. Mum was hardworking and nonstop at work around the house, but insisted us kids do the dishes.
Our house was over 100 years old and no room for a dishwasher in the tiny kitchen. (The washing machine was in the bathroom, the only dryer we had was a clothes line, and the microwave was in the garage
)
Every dish had to be handwashed and that was up to us kids. Nowadays my kids have the same chore, only we have a dishwasher for them to use. They complain nonstop when it’s their week and do a terrible job, even though they have a friggin machine to do most of the work for them.
2 and or 4. Many many years ago I stopped doing my husband laundry if it wasn’t in a basket. If it was in the basket it would get washed. The kids pretty much got the same treatment, so they started doing their laundry before middle school. I hate laundry as it is (I need to go switch my laundry over soon) so I’m not making extra effort for someone else that won’t bother to use a basket.
@remo28
My mom taught me the same way that you are teaching your kids.
By the time I was in 3rd grade I knew better and I never again put clean clothes in the laundry basket. (My way of getting out of putting away clean clothes or not picking up my room/clothes) By the 6th grade I had to buy my own clothes, that’s after wanting new items and never wearing them. BTW, she’s the best mom ever aaaand she wasn’t even a stay at home mom. Go figure!
@Lynnerizer @remo28 My kid started doing her laundry in 4th grade. I told her if she ever put clean clothes in with the dirty (what she did to clean up her room) again she would be doing her own laundry.
Well that day came. She refused to learn how so when she started wearing dirty clothes I took all of the dirty stuff and locked them up. Then she complained she had nothing to wear. I told her she had several things in her closet. She didn’t like them so didn’t want to wear them. I told her she could go to school in her PJ’s or naked for all I cared. I’d call her teacher and explain what the deal was. She wore something she hated and asked me to teach her how to do the laundry that night.
There was an all pink load once too but by 10th grade it was safe to let her even finish filling her load with my stuff. She had even learned not to put some of her things in the dryer if she didn’t want it to shrink.
@Kidsandliz @remo28
I love it! That’s exactly what my mom did when I put my clean clothes in the laundry. She’d keep them in her closet and I wasn’t allowed to have them back for at least a month. She was the main diseplanary in our house, no physical lock was necessary, her words were golden! I wouldn’t change anything, I bet your kids will feel the same way.
@Lynnerizer @remo28 I told her until I was blue in the face, “There are consequences to choices. If you don’t like the consequence to a choice you made, make a choice that has a consequence that you like”. One time she did what she knew she wasn’t supposed to. I asked her why. She said she thought it was worth the consequence. I told her perhaps then I needed to institute a “worse” consequence for that particular kind of choice. She looked horrified. I’d also overhear her tell her friends that I meant what I said so they’d better listen to me.
Clothes go into the hamper until there is enough to sort into loads of white, dark and heavy. Yes, my son tells me that millennials do not sort their laundry, well too bad for them.
@Herbikeness I think they like all of their clothes bring the same shade of dingy grey or dirt-colored.
@Herbikeness @mike808 The only whites in my household are my socks. In a 2 year test there was no difference between the socks washed with colors and those exclusively washed with only whites. I was able to eliminate one sorting hamper.
Perhaps the effect only occurs on certain types of clothing, or perhaps detergents or clothing dyes have changed since the laundry rules were established.
@Herbikeness I’m not a millennial (gen x) and I do not separate my whites. Honestly most of them are socks. I’ve never separated them with really no problems. Some still look new, some may be a bit less bright, but they aren’t weird colors from colors bleeding. They also make ‘color catcher’ laundry sheets now that can go in the wash to help with colors bleeding.
@Herbikeness
I’m born in 83 and consider myself gen x (I don’t fit the millennial guidelines at all). My boyfriend is gen x and doesn’t sort anything but he doesn’t have a lot of whites. I still do a white load especially in summer time when I wear it more. But I’ve slowly started to add my white socks to my darks bc I have less of them. I haven’t been able to find good white socks that the elastic doesn’t get all stretched out on.
@Herbikeness @Star2236
Whites get sorted out and washed separately, mainly because I generally soak them overnight with laundry detergent and bleach before I actually do the load.
Colors most likely get separated into two different piles also. Primarily because my wife’s stuff gets washed on a more gentle/delicate cycle than mine.
Work clothes are all scrubs. They are all color fast so they all get washed together.
And EVERYTHING goes out to the 30 ft solar dryer (i.e. clothes line).
@fibrs86 @Herbikeness @mike808 I think dye technology has improved a lot over the years to stop the bleeding.
That said a lot of it depends on the fabric type. Natural fibers absorb dye a lot more than man made fibers.
Socks tend to not very often be purely natural fibers… Frequently some man made fibers are reinforced into the socks, also to give them some stretchiness.
A pure white cotton t-shirt would be a bigger risk for washing with color clothes than white socks. White athletic socks would laugh in the face of dyes that come out of your average clothing.
For us, everything that doesn’t need special handling goes in the hamper. If special handling is needed, there’s a basket for that. Either one of us might run a load when the hamper is full, but I do it more often than he does because my schedule doesn’t have an eight-hour workday in it. The cats are willing to provide their own kind of supervision and “assistance”, of course. Machine maintenance is my gig, as are repairs in general; I fix everything from clothing to drive axles to woodwork & drywall.
And to make an obscure thing clearer, I used to be the “he” in the household, but many things have changed. Laundry isn’t one of them. I did it before, and I still do it now. And despite being mischaracterized as a “boomer” (accurate solely as to date, not attitudes), I mostly don’t sort laundry. There are a few things that get washed only with “no-bleed lights”, and some that have to be bagged, but most of it just goes in as-is without regard to much of anything. His button-up shirts have to be run while I can pay attention to the dryer so that I can pull them out quickly when it stops, because I hate ironing.
Two hampers (one is R2-D2, not sure if that’s relevant, then again, maybe it’s critical), colors in R2, whites in the other. One us of will do the washing whenever it needs it.
Things have changed over the years. SWMBO used to iron everything, including socks & underwear, because she found ironing relaxing. It took a while, but eventually I talked her out of ironing the underwear & socks.
Fast forward a few decades, and ironing is pretty rare now because it changed from relaxing to a chore.
@blaineg I honestly believe that only white clothing or laundry should go in R2-D2 and it shouldn’t be any other way.
@sicc574 Well, R2 has some color on him, and the other hamper is plain white, so I think we’re stuck.
@blaineg Just another 2 cents: For most of our marriage she’s done most of the cooking (because she’s better at it - I gained 30 pounds in my first year as a married man!), and I’ve done the dishes. One of our “rules” that goes back before we were married is: “The cook don’t clean up!”
@blaineg Our general division of labor is I take care of the cars, the house (mechanical, electrical, roof, plumbing, etc.), the computers (and anything else technical or electronic), and the yard. Dad fixed everything when we were growing up, and he taught all of us to do the same.
She’s taken care of most of the cooking, laundry, and “household” stuff.
But we’ve both been through some rough times with health issues over the years (fortunately we’ve taken turns so far) and the healthy one has carried a bigger load for a while.
Just because she’s a better cook (maybe “instinctive” is a good way to put it, she considers recipes as a good place to start) doesn’t mean I can’t cook or I don’t know how.
I guess what I’m saying is there’s no “woman’s work” or “men’s work” in our marriage. There are things one might be better at, or enjoy more. But she can swing a hammer, and I can cook. And we both can cook or do the laundry.
We each put our clothes in our baskets and do our own laundry. I won’t wash my stuff with his bc he works construction and I don’t like him washing my stuff bc I high end detergent that smells nice and hang dry certain stuff. Although I sometimes put away his clothes bc I’m home. I used to do it a lot more than I do now. I also am in charge of washing everything everything else in the house. But I just looked and saw his clothes on the floor also and I won’t pick them up.
I’m really surprised anyone who is married for a while feels the need to post such a survey.
The way to stay married is to leave bad habits behind, not pick up new ones.
(Presuming you care about being happy).
I am female, on the spectrum and a terrible housekeeper … typically worse than my husband or partner at any given time.
Regardless of gender, most mates ultimately get turned off by slovenly habits, even if they never gather the energy to leave. It’s a foolproof recipe for a dead bedroom!
At this point in life, I finally know better than to ever again live with someone I have romantic feelings for.
We don’t live living alone (I have two dogs) but it’s better than letting someone in just to drive them away.
Sounds like you need a magic basket (and possibly table).
@macromeh I love that!
We might have the converse situation in our household.
I put mine in the hamper. Wife throws her on the floor.
If I need clean clothes, I will wash whatever is in the hamper. Any clothes on the floor remain there.
We keep a laundry basket in the master closet - dirty laundry goes in as needed. My wife handles most of the laundry duties - I can do it if needed, but that is the division of household chores that we have settled on over the last 30+ years of marriage.
I have my own set of chores, which has expanded to include most of the dinner-time cooking and subsequent kitchen cleanup since I retired last summer (I’ve always done some share of the cooking, I just do more of it now - I rather enjoy it). Other meals are most often (not always) prepared individually.
Works for us - YMMV.
Since my dad is being beaten up by all your responses, in his favor he does make all my meals, clean my perch and cage, and wipe up more of my poops than my mother does.
@Walterbird Don’t take it personally, some of us still love your dad no matter what he does or DOESN’T do with his dirty clothes! People can be so judgemental…
{{{HUGS}}}
Maybe relevant, possibly not:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
I will say my Ex husband was an ass and I washed his clothes until he stopped putting them in the hamper, then complained that he had no clean underwear… I said I wasn’t his mother and I wash what’s in the hamper, so if it’s not there then it’s his fault he doesn’t have clean underwear. His answer was well if I have to do my own laundry then I’ll just break the machine… he didn’t last long after that… lol
My current husband puts his clothes in the hamper, I wash everything in the house from his clothes, younger sons ( 13) clothes, towels, mine, even my older kids (22&25) when needed or home. This I do for a few reasons. 1. I like to know they aren’t overstuffing my machines, 2. I like to feel useful 3. I have the time to do it, 4. I’m the mom and the house wife since my husband is working hard so I can stay home and take care of the house and such. ( I’m old school and I like it this way, and he likes to be “the man” so works well for us) just to throw it in there I am college educated and did work, he is my 3rd husband and didn’t like me to work since he makes enough for me not to work and my health declined.
We all wear black socks so no need to do much sorting, and all our socks are either different brands, or different cuts. So I find laundry easy… putting it all away the hard part because I have to hang dry a lot of my husbands clothes so things don’t shrink or get ruined since he wears a lot of jerseys. And my older son… he wears long sleeve button ups, collared shirts, so I have to do a lot of hanging for him… have to get them out of the dryer quick to avoid the wrinkles so I don’t have to iron…
IMHO, they go wherever the person who does the laundry requests them to go.
If you do your own, then wherever you want, so long as it doesn’t infringe on some other area of jurisdiction. Someone else does your laundry? Then a simple “hey, where would you like me to leave these?” will answer your question. In a hamper, on the bathroom floor, by the laundry room… wherever they say. Where I leave my clothes at my house is of little relevance to any other house, since we all distribute our duties differently and the doer-of-the-particular-chore will likely have a different preference than what someone else says they do (especially if a stranger online).
At first I was surprised by the strong opinions folks were answering with, but then I realized that OP did in fact ask the question, which, I guess is what I truly find surprising coming from a lengthy (inferred) relationship. Not judging, just find this all kind of odd.
Wife here. For the original question: At night we each set our dirty clothes aside but take care of them in the morning when we get dressed. Jeans might be worn again, dirty clothes always go in the hamper.
I do the laundry and separate colors/materials, I don’t want towels to get clothes fuzzy. We have enough laundry that it’s not an issue.
My son does his own dark clothes. I wash and dry the sheets but he strips and re-makes his bed.
Like @sviz99 above, I don’t want my machines overstuffed or clothes left in the washer.
@callow
Yes … That!
No I’m not a man. And I would probably make a terrible wife. But I do some of each of those answers. I don’t care because I live by myself. Right now I have a small pile of clothes in the bathroom a small pile of clothes beside my bed in the bedroom and a small pile of clothes underneath the table right in front of the washing machine waiting to go in. I could however use a wife. Preferably a male wife about 60 years old or a little older that is a good cook and can clean the house pick up after me and do laundry. He also must do dishes windows and own a boat. To reply to my ad please send picture of the boat.
@fairchild521 Rich and 1 foot in the grave does not hurt. Let’s spend your children’s inheritance!
Reading through these responses I just keep thinking “damn, am I lucky! I hit the jackpot.”
I do the laundry, but there are only the two of us and fifteen cats and one dog. We’re on tiered energy use, so I do the laundry on the two days of the week with cheap electric until two in the afternoon.
He brings his dirty clothes into the laundry room and sorts them. One hamper is for sweats and jeans, the other is for shirts and underwear and socks. I can get through four loads in a day if I start early enough.
When I take them out of the dryer, I just dump them on the bed. I like to wait until all the laundry is done to start folding and putting it away, but if he sees the pile before I start on it, he’ll fold and put his stuff away.
I guess it’s because he started doing his own laundry at home when he was a young teenager. Five kids, one foster daughter, mom and dad both worked, and he wasn’t the kind of person to wait for someone else to do it. He still isn’t.
Daughter of a married couple here. Ever since I was young, I was raised that we all did our own laundry. Once my brother and I were old enough, we were in charge of doing our laundry. We each have our own hamper. My mom and dad shared a hamper, and would just pick through the hamper on laundry day to get out their specific clothes. The towels would be circulated between myself, my mom and my dad to wash. We never really cared about separating (well, my mom and brother did but they worked it out amongst themselves). My mom and dad would always lay out a specific outfit that could be reworn on their side of the bed (like their pajamas they may wear two nights in a row), and the rest of the clothes from the day went in the hamper.
If your wife does your laundry, put it wherever she says. Unless you want that or your marriage to stop.
If you do your own laundry, you can put it ANYWHERE that your wife can’t see, or doesn’t piss her off.
This topic brings another thing to mind: In the 31+ years that my wife and I have been together, we have never had what I would call a fight. We have had some minor disagreements, a few “spirited discussions”
, but never an angry or hurtful word to each other. Ever.
Having experienced, and observed, other relationships I realize that this is somewhat unusual. This is the second marriage for both of us, so I guess we must have learned a few things along the way.
BTW, neither of us have ulcers, nervous ticks or other signs of repressed rage, so I don’t think it is an issue of bottled up feelings. I give most of the credit to my wife - maybe it is a product of her mid-western/Scandinavian roots - her family maintains very close ties and are all very pleasant folks.
@macromeh My husband and I celebrated 10 years together in 2021. Same thing, we’ve never been through anything that felt like a fight/argument. We’ve been through some very traumatic things, though and it only feels like it makes us a stronger couple.
Wedded bliss, bald eagle version.
https://imgur.com/gallery/1zCd9EZ
@blaineg
That’s great. I liked this comment:
The branch manager and assistant branch manager at it again.
@blaineg @Kyeh That comment cracks me up, closely followed by by the classic, “Pivot!!”
Wife and I share. She doesn’t want me messing with her “system”. So I put it in the hamper, bring it to the laundry, help fold and sort if she asks or if I read her mind that she feels stressed and would like me to volunteer to help. Sometimes I do think she forgets that I managed to do my own laundry and cook food for myself for 20 years on my own before we met, just like real grownups do.
On the other hand, I don’t ask her to get the internet working, charge the car, schedule recordings on the Tivo, pay the bills, get the repairmen out to fix stuff, hire and oversee the landscapers and lawn service, and the most burdensome task of all, funding the checking, vacation, and retirement accounts.
It works for us, we are better together for it, and we don’t put much stock in what other people think about stereotypical gender roles.
This isn’t anything personal against you @Felton10 I just don’t go for the men’s work/woman’s work mind set.
Anything other than number 1, that’s just wrong! Maybe if it said “laundry person” but to assume it’s the wife’s job/woman’s work is absolutely not acceptable. (neither is the statement man’s work)
In our house it’s definitely changed over the past 30+ years! When we first lived together he’d have a line of dirty clothes from the front door all the way into the laundry room. (Being a landscaper he couldn’t get out of his work clothes quick enough!) One time I tried leaving them there until HE picked them up and after 4 day’s of walking around his dirty socks I gave in and did it myself. Back then I did ALL of the laundry, both his and his 14 month old little boy’s. It was after years of bitching that I got everyone into the habit of putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket or straight into the washer and I’d separate, wash them and put them away.
Fast forward 30 years and the laundry is now his gig! He not only does all our laundry but he does his mother’s too. Of course I’m right there giving special instructions for spicific items, ie bleach, cold/hot water. He’s not that good yet! Lol
@Lynnerizer Even though my dirty clothes usually end of on the floor until circumstances (the cleaning people coming or the pile getting too high for even me) make me deal with them, I do have a few things to say in my defense.
My actions are not a “it’s a wife’s job” justification. I do the majority of the grocery shopping for the house for a couple of reasons. I basically know what we are low on, what is on sale and what I want to and enjoy eating (I did buy some Branzino yesterday at Costco because my wife wanted to try it)-I kind of plan ahead so we have dinner components for a couple of days in advance, And then, of course, there is Walter who needs a good supply of chicken legs and juicy melons.