Well? Am i? (Warning: woman on the edge here)

[theSuburbanDryad]

So yesterday I got some child-free time to go into town and do some shopping and have lunch with some friends. I don't get to do this very often, and it was in a direct trade-off with dh's free time that he had on Saturday (a whole day to go off on a jolly into London while I looked after an increasingly stroppy ds).

When I got back, the house looked like a bomb had hit it, but I can cope with that! Dh and ds were both having a nap upstairs - a nap which turned out to be 3 hours long and meant that ds was a nightmare to get to bed in the evening - but hey, i don't even deal with bedtime, that's dh's part and I can deal with that.

Dh had done a couple of loads of washing and drying while I was out for which I was very grateful, but when we got up this morning (both needing to get to work, ds needing to be taken to nursery) i walked into our spare room where we keep the clean washing, to find a massive pile of crumpled laundry on the floor.

Previously, there had been a vague system of a pile of stuff that needed ironing, and then on the bed, folded (and the key word here is folded) piles, sorted into three for me, dh and ds. Now there is just a tangle of clean, crumpled clothes on the floor (so half of it will need washing again) - I felt like a woman in a disaster relief movie picking through the rubble trying to find some clothes for ds to wear to nursery!

So I go downstairs to get ds dressed, and look in his change bag for a nappy. There are none.

"What are you looking for?" says dh
"A nappy," says I. "There are none. The cupboard appears to be bare. Why did you not tell me you had used the last nappy and I could have got some more."
"You are always telling me we have loads of nappies," says dh.
"They are in the fucking car," says I. "Had you told me that you had used the last one, I could have brought some in with me."

Ds by this time is screaming in the sofa, stripped to his (very wet) nappy and naked, so I can't exactly run out to the car and get them. Dh is running about 10 minutes behind, I am coming to the slow realisation that rather than going back to bed after dropping ds off at nursery like I had planned (I don't start work till 10) I'm going to have to spend the morning when I should be sleeping sorting the fucking washing out.

Why does he do this? It's like he's punishing me for having time off. Obviously I'm pleased he did the laundry, but he makes everything so fucking hard, now not only will I have to fold everything, some of it will need ironing when it wouldn't have needed it previously because it had been tumbledried - and if it had been folded/hung up straight away it would have been fine.

I know he's stressed with work, but guess what? So am i! He's not the only person who has to combine work and family and life and children. He just drifts through life expecting everyone to pick up after him and then seems surprised when i erupt into cataclysmic rage. It's making me seriously evaluate our relationship - i love him very much but this is making me ill with tiredness and stress.

[theSuburbanDryad]

AAARRRRRGH!!

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!

He has shrunk my brand new sweater dress which was the only thing I had which didn't need fucking ironing!!!



(Considers starting new thread entitled AIBU to phone in sick because my new sweater dress has been shrunk in the wash by my incompetent husband?)

[spookyrookie]

What a silly text. To be fair the way DH does laundry drives me batty too. He thinks he gets credits just for putting the bloody stuff in the machine and then switching it on and his method of drying is to throw all of it on the spare room bedspread which doesn't work terribly well.

However he is good at trimming garden hedges which I hate so I tend to steer him away fro mthe laundry because it is easier to do it myself and towards the jobs he is better at.

Not enough room in my head,,,, ha ha, thats a good one....

[spookyrookie]

Oh yes and DH also chucks everything in the tumble dryer when not going for aforementioned throwing of clothes on the bed, without checking if they can be tumble dried. Good job I have lost weight recently so I can still fit my expensive tops.

[QuintessentialShadow]

Arent you supposed to be in work in 15 minutes?

I am sorry but, should you not get off mumsnet, get some work gear on yourself, one way or the other and go?

Could you both do with some life coaching?

[harleyd]

what the fuck is life coaching?

[theSuburbanDryad]

Only takes 5 mins to walk to work QS!

(MN addict)

[theSuburbanDryad]

Did you know that if you type "shrunk" into predictive text, it comes up as "pistol"?

[nappyaddict]

I'm a bit confused as to why you couldn't go out to the car and get the nappies?

Still go back to bed though and tell DH he will have to do the ironing tonight.

[theSuburbanDryad]

And ds has spilled milk on my suede boots.

[nappyaddict]

I'm a bit confused as to why you couldn't go out to the car and get the nappies?

Still go back to bed though and tell DH he will have to do the ironing tonight.

[OrmIrian]

I think that people look at housework differently. If I say 'do the washing up' for example, I mean transform the dirty stuff into clean, dry stuff, put away in the right place, cleaning up the sink etc as I go along. DH means 'the washing up' ie cleaning the dishes, and that is all. And for me, one chore tends to lead to another - ie when I'm cleaning the sink, I might carry on and clean the rest of the kitchen worktops at the same time. For DH there is clear demarkation

[theSuburbanDryad]

Nappy - (v quickly as i am now late!!) ds was on the sofa, screaming and naked apart from his nappy. Dh was by the door. If i'd gone out to the car (which was parked halfway down the street, btw, we don't have a drive) ds would have gone totally mental and potentially flung himself off the sofa/attempted to dash out into the road with me.

Anyway - the point is, if dh had told they'd run out yesterday I could have got them then!!

[nappyaddict]

Could you not just put him on the floor and shut the door? Bit of screaming isn't going to hurt him? I assume you had to go out to the car and get the nappies anyway as I'm guessing you didn't send him to a nursery in a soaking nappy.

[cestlavie]

I mean - what kind of moron thinks that "Hey, I have a basket of clean laundry here, I know, rather than either leaving it in the basket to be folded at a later date, or folding it myself so it doesn't need ironing, I'll just dump it all on the floor, mixing it up with the pile of stuff which already needs ironing and making it impossible to distinguish between the two!"

Um, me... and most other guys I'm afraid! Actually, I've now been banned from 'helping' doing the laundry in our house because I don't adhere to DW's approach to laundry etiquette. When I help, I invariably make it worse - in fact, bizarrely, the approbation for doing it and not doing it right is far worse than me not doing it at all! (I also killed a favourite jumper of DW's, to the extent it now fits one of DD's bears)

I think men and women look at laundry, amongst other things, in very different ways. To me, and most other guys, clothes would sit on a steadily building pile on the floor and be washed on an utterly random and ad hoc basis solely by virtue of necessity. Seriously. And actually we wouldn't mind at all if that was the way things happened at home. If DW said one day "you know honey, let's just leave our clothes lying around on the floor and just wash them when we need to" I'd think "perfect, that'll save faffing around with the laundry basket". Clearly, this is utterly incomprehensible to most women but that's just a guy/girl thing. I'll bet a you a very large quantity of cash that if you that 99% of men, having done what your DH did, would think "boy am I being helpful doing the laundry of my own volition... I'll bet some brownie points are coming my way when DW gets home, oh yes....!"

Before I get flamed by the way, I'd like to say that I do plenty around the house (including all the cooking, ironing, DIY, gardening etc etc) but on certain points of household care, particularly laundry and cleaning, I fear that the expectations of men and women are never to be reconciled...

[theSuburbanDryad]

Could someone else please flame cestlavie? I don't have time.

Thanks.

[VictorianSqualorSquelchNSquirm]

cestlavie, It's not just men.
I'm baffled as to why UD would need to rewash clothes that had been on the floor
Presumably there wasn't a litter tray or something on that patch of floor?

[QuintessentialShadow]

How old is your baby?

In a way (and dont take this the wrong way, as I love my cousin dearly) but you remind me a little about my cousin and his fiance.

They set out in his yacht (i know, he is a financial wizzkid, he made £20k the other day on a 5 minute phone call while he was out hunting grouse in the mountains) headed for sweden. Problem was, neither of them could remember the name of the marina they had permission to dock in. They scurried hither and tither along the coast in their yacht, frantically reading the map, and swedish names, getting more and more flustered because they simply could not remember! That wouldnt have happened if they got the bus.

[nappyaddict]

VS - i didn't get that either unless the floor was especially dirty/dusty.

[harleyd]

so the moral of the story is dont leave the nappies in the car?

c'estlavie..im with you on the laundry, lifes too short to give yourself a brain explosion over making up different piles of laundry..only 2 piles are required, dirty and clean

and what is wrong with your floor that clean washing cant be sitting on it?

[QuintessentialShadow]

No, I got it. It is because the clothes were so crumbled up as they had been in the drier, and just left rather than folded right away. Impossible to iron and neigh impossible to fold quickly. Easiest option is to wash and dry and fold immediately again.

I have done that once, and it really wasnt worth the time and effort. I can live with crumpled cloths, somewhat.

[Witchka]

He is a bloke, they seem to be really oblivious and stupid with this kind of thing. They're all the same so there's no point trading him in for another better version. The only way to get round it is to get him to deal with the consequences of his lack of common sense laundry wise. Trouble is it is so easy to get annoyed with them and then pick up the pieces ourselves so they never really realise why what they do is wrong.

I blame their mothers.(D'oh, that means I blame me in the future for my son's marriage). From now on my 10 month old is doing all the laundry for the sake of his future wife.

[Witchka]

By the way, DH did some washing twice last week, which he never ever usually does. He is now banned from doing it. He always ruins things. First time he made his new white t-shirt grey, no probs. Second time he shrinks my expensive Reiss jumper. I suppose at least now my baby son can wear it.

[TeeBee]

My husband does exactly the same to me. I have found a good way around it if he is being a particular PITA. Don't touch it until it's time to make his tea (assuming you do). Then say very sweetly, I'll make the tea as soon as I've finished doing all this laundry. Then do it at a nice gentle pace. You can watch them getting more and more agitated that they will be waiting a long time for their tea. It's amazing how quickly they can become the most helpful husband on the planet!

[theSuburbanDryad]

Right.

I have just attempted to walk into work in my slightly shrunken sweater dress which i thought would be ok. It really wasn't. Hurrying home, I searched frantically through the crumpled laundry pile on the floor looking for my only pair of maternity work trousers (i am so fat now that i don't fit in normal trousers/skirts) which I cannot find anywhere. I know i put them on the top of the laundry pile. They must have been washed. I am no running seriously late. My work phone is engaged. I cannot phone and tell them I'm late.

I spot my trousers - on top of the dirty pile of washing, having been put to one side in favour of one of ds' (many) blankets.

By this time I'm hyperventilating and sobbing and having a serious panic attack. I have no fucking clothes to wear to work. I can't even spruce up the dirty trousers and wear them because ds spilled spaghetti sauce on them - there's no way that's coming out with some Febreze and a flannel.

Seriously, joking aside, I have just phoned in sick for this. Not because of the clothes although it's a symptom, but because I can't live like this. I have tried dropping my standards of cleanliness (and they were pretty low to begin with, tbh) but I just can't be rooting through a crumpled pile of laundry when running late for clean clothes that haven't been washed. I can't walk into the kitchen to make a cup of tea to be faced with the kitchen side covered in washing up and leftover kebabs.

I lived like a student, when I was a student. I grew out of it. I have no problem with dirty laundry on the floor. I don't have to hoover 3 times a day. I am not some kind of maniacal clean freak who can't stand a speck of dust anywhere. I'm just a person, who needs to be able to find clothing that is suitable for work in a hurry, because guess what? I'm trying to juggle house and life and kids and work and being a wife AND I AM FAILING AT ALL OF IT. I NEED SOME HELP FROM MY HUSBAND.

And then I tell him this, I tell him all of it, and all I get back is, "But I'm stressed/I don't have enough room in my head/shouting at me doesn't help." We're supposed to be buying a house. I can't live with him in our nice new house and watch him trash it because i don't have time to pick up after 3 children.