.... about the washing (Part 2)

[HostofDaffodils]

I posted before about our household laundry. A year or so after he retired my husband took on this task. This was because 'he was unable to see what needed doing' and 'I just needed to tell him what household jobs needed to be done.' So the solution was for him to take responsibility for particular tasks.

Unfortunately this meant having to listen to him talking a very great deal to me for days and nights at a time about the weather and how he might or might not do the washing and he might have to take it in or not peg it out. And then he'd drape thick towels over the cold radiators. After the boredom of this reduced me to screaming point I bought a tumble dryer. Things have been slightly better since then.

I had also discussed with him that his tendency to just take the stuff off the top of a full laundry hamper means that some garments, which may be needed/wanted, get left for ages. He nodded in the way which means he doesn't really think it's that important.

Sadly my husband has a new obsession at the moment and this has meant a deterioration in his ability to do the washing. We also recently bought new beds - so we have twin singles rather than a double. We currently don't have that many fitted cotton sheets for singles. At the moment it's just two on the beds and a spare two. The newest pair of fitted sheets are still rather shiny and starchy so - until the starch has worn off - I find I can only sleep well on the older softer two sheets in this warm weather.

Over the summer I am particularly busy juggling two different freelance jobs both of which are proving quite demanding. My husband has some social groups which are continuing to meet over the summer but can essentially just please himself.

Anyway over 2 weeks ago I changed one soft sheet from my bed, put it in the basket and put the spare soft one on. (My husband knows that we're currently short of single sheets and that I find the softer pair more comfortable)

I keep waiting for the old soft sheet to go through the laundry but my husband is very preoccupied so I keep reminding him to put washing on. And my daughter has come home and puts a lot of extra stuff in the hamper.

Two days back thinking the soft sheet on my bed is really in need of a change, I look on the shelf where we store the clean bedding. The spare isn't there. It's still in the laundry hamper, which is filling up. I ask him to put a load of laundry on.

Last night I think, 'Finally I can change my bedding.'

Only to find it's still at the bottom of the laundry hamper. My husband has been scooping everything off the top of the pile which means for weeks he's been leaving my only spare sheet unwashed.

I went and pointed this out to him. His replies were

a) 'Sacrifices have to be made'. (This means he can't wash everything that's in the hamper. Some stuff has to be left.) and b) I 'should have told him' that I particularly wanted the only spare sheet washed.

Would this make you feel fed up?

So I will tend to do general vacuuming, cleaning, food shopping, half the cooking, tidying up, most of the lawn mowing and hedge trimming, organising when stuff needs to go to the tip. I identify when objects need to be repaired and replaced/sourced -, and when redecorating needs to happen. I do painting. I also organise 90% of any holidays and outings. (He 'forgets'.)

So what on earth does he actually do?
The amount you are still doing is ridiculous.

To be honest I would question whether he has anything wrong, being obsessed but lacking abilities in other areas can be very early signs of some progressive conditions. That that to solved your problems now I suggest giving him a tick list for the week including gardening (mow lawn at least), vacuuming, etc rather that jobs like laundry which is simply loading a machine

Why doesn't he do more than one load of washing? If I put a load in and there's too much for one wash, when it's finished I put another one on, especially over the summer when you can get things dry quickly and easily. This seems odd. Tell him to clean the house. If he wants a list of tasks write one; hoover, dust, clean bathroom, clean kitchen, mop etc, put it on the fridge and just title it with do these things every week. That way I'm sure you won't mind doing some of the grocery shopping (online make it easy for yourself).

My husband has interests.

He goes to at least two language classes a week and reads and studies that language for some of the rest of the time.

He had a hobby/business which takes up a great deal of physical space in our house and which he purses intermittently.

He goes on numerous trips to London and other towns to pursue another of his interests. He is also currently putting in work on application to do high level academic study in this interest.

He currently spends a certain amount of time working on his son's (my stepson's) allotment which my stepson took on but isn't doing much work on. (Stepson is currently doing up a van which he will go travelling in.) Meanwhile our own garden is going to rack and ruin and the vegetables which my husband planted earlier this year are being smothered by weeds and neglected.

Essentially my husband takes up interests and pursues them obsessively before moving on to new interests and leaving a mess in his wake.

Perhaps understandably he has never found the routine maintenance of our slightly decaying 120 year old house and largish garden interesting for any sustained period - although occasionally a special project may catch his attention for a limited period.

At an earlier point in our marriage I'd felt some of this was inevitable. He had a demanding job, three young children and an elderly parent. I worked part-time and some of the time from home, so looked after all the domestic stuff considerably more. He'd cook Sunday lunch and do a big shop on Saturdays.

My (incorrect) assumption had been that when he retired, he'd have more time to be interested in our home and garden - and this would take some of the weight off me, freeing me up to do some of the things I enjoy.

Sadly my husband has a new obsession at the moment and this has meant a deterioration in his ability to do the washing wtf?

Tell him that the laundry baskets needs to be completely emptied at the end of each week.

Honestly no one is that stupid that they can't work out how to wash laundry. Men use having a penis as an excuse to be shit at housework. He's doing it on purpose and the pettiness of it would fuck me off. Stop cooking for him until he sorts himself out.

Its not about being interested in the home, or even about having lots of spare time. Its a basic household chore that most people manage to do even whilst holding down a full time job and 20 kids.

Not doing it is pure laziness and selfishness.

I honestly don't know how people cope with marrying men this useless.

Cool Agree. (And I love your username)

I would swap the laundry for the hoovering TBH!. I think hubby is not wanting to help with chores .Can you afford a cleaner ? Its not fair on you to have to do chores when you are still working,but you cant make him sadly .I think he should be doing lawn mowing and house maintenance .Can he do the big shop at all

To be fair he can do it... he just doesnt want to

If he won't do anything in the house or the garden, can he afford to pay for a cleaner/gardener out of his pension? TBH I'm not sure how long I could stand this, I think my level of resentment would reach boiling point after a while. If paid help will mean the jobs get done and the marriage survives then it might be worth trying.

He's a professional incompetent who has zero interest in doing the laundry or anything else. If he leaves stuff in the bottom of the basket for long enough, you will do it yourself, so win/win for him.

I wouldn't live with someone like this, why do you?

@Nesssie thanks

But seriously, I could cope with a partner as ineffective as this for about 5 minutes before I exploded. Some of you ladies are better persons than I!

Sometimes I wonder if my choice to live alone was the right one. Then I read stuff like this and realise, yes, it was.

He sounds maddening. I say divorce him and live peacefully on your own.

This level of incompetence has got to be deliberate. He’s been doing the laundry for a couple of years and still fucks it up on the regular. No wonder you’re sleeping in separate beds.

Are you reasonably well off? Can you pay a local to maintain your garden? Then you can tell your useless husband you’ve got no option than to pay for the stuff he neglects.

Or maybe just save your money for your post divorce life.

all i'm taking from this thread is

"how fucking big are people's landings/bathrooms that they have 4 separate laundry baskets?"

lights, darks, light bedding, dark bedding

do you have a 5th basket for stuff that's part light and part dark?

and how much washing do you have that you can't fit all the light/dark in the machine in one go?

we're a family of 5, with lazy football/mud-obsessed boys who chuck stuff in the laundry if they can't be bothered putting it away, and we manage to fit all the darks in one load!

Don't the americans call it 'klutzing up' ; doing a task badly so he doesn't get asked to do it again...
The endless convos about it would make me want to gnaw my own foot off....
Men in my family try to do this, along with... If you tell me what you want, I'll do it... .

Nope... As it isn't 'helping me'... It's not my responsibility... You're just doing a fair share...

Could you say to him... 'please don't involve me in conversations about it, it's just a task needing to be done and it makes me feel I just as well do it? '

Or... 'seriously when I was doing this task... How often would I involve you in long'-winded convos about it?'

In the time it took you write the post you could have put the sheet in the machine yourself.

Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill!

I've just re read your post... He sounds pretty lazy and entitled.... You sound worn down... Unsurprisingly...

This will get worse if he's registering for assuming Masters/doctorate... He'll have a fresh thing to be obsessed about...a thesis is much more interesting than ensuring that the washing is done or there is no edible food.

Which is fine if you had someone doing all these tasks...

If talk to him now about how he sees it going.. I'm sure he won't have thought about how the house will run...

You both sound very petty.

If he’s useless at the laundry why not take over that job and ask him to do a different one?

Honestly, this all sounds so miserable. My marriage would be over if we slept in single beds never mind anything else.

I think he's very selfish and passive aggressive. He fails to do the one task you have agreed he will do, and you continue to work hard and do the bulk of the other work around the house. Yes you could have done the sheet but then it's the slippery slope. He obviously doesn't value you or how you feel, I am afraid.

I WFT, and my husband is a househusband. He isn't perfect but he does almost all the chores, including the washing and ironing, and cares enough to do stuff that I value even when it isn't something he values.

Well you could try and have a conversation (maybe via counselling) that you are sick and tired of working and doing all the wifework. You can produce a list of all the chores that need doing and show him who exactly has what responsibility. But if it still doesn’t sink in and it still falls to you, you are the one who is going to have to change.

You therefore either have to put up with the status quo or end the relationship and move on with only yourself to pick up after.

Waiting for someone to magically change never happens. You can hope the frank discussion/counselling will work but if it doesn’t you have to be the one to change something if you can’t carry on like this.

I don't feel that I want to carry on like this if there is a chance of things improving.

My husband retired five years ago and in this time there have been numerous conversations initiated by me. I think he's been able to make and implement one or two small operational changes for the better as a result of many many hours of discussion. But that's been about it.

Essentially he does not seem to have been able or willing to take greater responsibility for looking after the house and garden. It's not an obvious sort of laziness, more a type of myopia/mental inflexibility. As if he thinks rushing through one or two jobs when he remembers or is reminded and making a meal of it and telling me all about them, really is pulling his weight.
I experience him as - though well-meaning/fond of me and civilised, quite disengaged from me - much more interested in his hobbies and interests, and very keen to talk at me about them.

On a practical level it might be better if I felt able to stay with him.

My own pension arrangements are not at all good and the work I do is low paid. That situation is unlikely to improve significantly before I reach retirement age in about 6 years time. The house we live in, though untidy and in need of some TLC , is fairly spacious and pleasant. The age gap between us means that I am very likely to survive him and the legal/financial arrangements he's made are such that I will not have to worry about being poor in my old age and struggling to meet my own needs. (Inheriting the house and his other assets seems like a fair return for having side-lined my own earning potential in order to support him in a successful career and spending a lot of time looking after his two children from a previous marriage. Not to mention bringing up our own daughter.)

I am going to contact Relate later today.