Dear Amy: For as long as I have known my wife (20 years), she has been reluctant to do the laundry.
I politely ask her to do it, and she tells me that she will.
However, two days later, dirty clothes are still piling up.
To be fair, she follows through about 20 percent of the time.
She works part-time outside the home, and I work full time from home.
She has plenty of time in her day to do the laundry. Instead, she chooses to watch videos on her phone for hours on end.I used to think it was just a personality quirk. But after two decades, I feel she is taking advantage of me.
The root of this issue is not laundry, of course. It is trust, which has been shaken to the point that it threatens the integrity of our relationship.
How can we move forward?
– Wits End in Wisconsin
Dear Wits End: If your wife agrees to do something and then doesn’t do it, then I agree that she is at the very least unreliable. Some of your disconnect, however, might have to do with timing. She’ll do it when she wants to – not when you want her to.
But because you value having an empty laundry basket, I suggest that you should stop politely asking your wife to do it, and just do it yourself.
If you have a washer/dryer in the home, laundry is one of the easiest household chores to do. (Yes, your wife can even do laundry while watching videos on her phone.)
In my household, we each take responsibility for our own laundry. If someone else has dirty clothes to make up a full load, you toss whatever is in the basket into the machine and transfer it to the dryer when you’re passing by.
So yes, I assume that this laundry issue really is about other things, but – if you take care of your own clothes, it would be impossible for you to feel taken advantage of. This would remove one stressor in your relationship.
