Dirty Laundry

I mentioned in a response a few days ago that I was going to blog about an ugly altercation Todd and I had. At first, it was too raw. When I get shook up emotionally, it’s hard to function. That’s how this was-- the worst in a long time. It was familiar ground. I guess it just goes to show that just because something is repeated doesn’t make it any easier. I’m coming to think that if there were an illustration in a dictionary of phrases for the term “irreconcilable differences,” that illustration would be a picture of Todd and me.

When one looks at the little things that can “set us off” in isolation, it’s easy to label our differences petty. Oh, is that all?

This was a laundry room quarrel. I’ve heard newly weds bump heads over “little” things like him leaving the toilet seat up or her putting a “weird” spice in the quiche, but usually those things get worked out over time and are looked back on as silly. Compromises have to be reached in order for people to live together well, and these things are wonderful opportunities to show concession and respect. Some pet peeves are nothing more than miniature cases of OCD, but others are indicative of deeper problems. Tell me if you think I’m being petty here...

We have our laundry in the garage. Right next to the drier is a freezer (the chest type). It’s the perfect height and location for folding the laundry as it comes out of the drier. The freezer is heavy and difficult to move, but how often does one have to move a deep freeze?

Todd and I don’t mix our laundry because I like fabric softener and he doesn’t, so he does his and I do mine. That’s really not a problem, because it means we each get it done the way we like it. I do the household loads (towels, sheets, etc.) and the younger kids’ clothes, and the older kids do their own. That means the laundry area is shared by at least five different people, which I think is good practice in getting along and being considerate.

I’d venture to guess that anyone who has ever shared a laundry room in a dorm or apartment building has dealt with the people who leave their stuff in the machines too long so it has to be moved for the next load. I remember observing at college how different people reacted to such inconvenience. Some would get mad and intentionally wad the clothes that were in the way, others would carelessly wrinkle them, and yet others would take the extra effort to lay the clothes out in a manner that would prevent wrinkles. Laundry room inconveniences, it seems, offered golden opportunities to exercise the golden rule.

When I choose to spend the extra minute or so to treat the laundry of another as I would like mine to be treated, I don’t feel like I’m great, kind, noble or anything like that--I just think I’m doing a decent thing--something that I think should be expected of me as a person who believes that people have value.

Todd has a habit of taking other family members' laundry out of the drier and leaving it on top of the freezer, only to go out to the freezer later and open the lid without moving the laundry, causing some to get trapped behind the freezer. I have repeatedly expressed how much this bugs me as it means clothes get lost, wadded, and dusty, and have to be re-washed (wasting both time and money.) When Todd leaves his laundry in the machines (which he does all the time--much more frequently than I do), I smooth out his shirts and fold his pants and carry the neat stack into our room and set it on the bed. It really doesn’t take that much more time than it would have to have thrown it on the freezer and left it there. I’ve told Todd that I really don’t care if he folds the clothes as long as he brings them into the house when he comes back in. He could just toss them on the couch for the kids to deal with.

Our daughter was getting ready for a dance recital the other day, and she couldn't find the clothes she had left in the drier (her costume). We thought her sister had brought it in the house, but she couldn't find it anywhere.

Todd suggested that maybe it had fallen behind the freezer.

I asked how that could happen. He said, "When you open the lid, it just slides back there."

"Who would open the lid with laundry piled on it?" I asked (knowing full well the only one in the family who does that).

"I did several times today," he answered.

Our daughter was running late, others were depending on her to be at the theatre on time and in costume. I ran out to the garage and checked behind the freezer. There were a few missing socks and wash clothes and things like that, but no costume.

When I rushed back into the house, I didn’t tell him the costume wasn’t there--what did he care anyway?

“I just don’t understand why a pile of laundry would be left on top of the freezer in the fist place.”

“Maybe I didn’t have time to deal with it,” he objected.

“But if a person is coming back in the house anyway. How much longer does it take to throw some laundry on the couch?”

“Well, maybe my hands were dirty!”

“Your hands dirty? When you were just putting your own clean laundry into the drier?”

He came up with one excuse after another. What it boiled down to was “I’m busy,” and “My time is too valuable for that.” I can’t even remember all the excuses, but they were so ridiculous I finally said, “Do you hear yourself? Do you even hear yourself?” I said it, firmly but calmly, without judgment but rather as if pleading for an answer, an answer that was not to be had.

“Do you hear yourself?” he mocked back at me. What, I thought, did we just time warp back to junior high?

When I mentioned that I didn’t always “have the time” to smooth out his shirts, but I did it because it’s the decent thing to do, he retorted in the most sarcastic, and even venomous, tone I’d heard in a long time: “Well, aren’t you wonderful? I guess I’m just not as wonderful as you are.”

I can’t remember all he said after that, but he kept drilling it in like a knife, without mercy.

The emotional torture has never felt so much like a physical beating. I wasn’t going to be the doormat, though... I was thinking about what some of you have been telling me: Call it out. Let him know when his behavior is not acceptable. Make sure he knows so he has the opportunity to make a right choice.

He insisted that he didn’t have time for such things, to which I replied with something about how if he didn’t have time for such simple consideration then maybe he didn’t have time to live with other people at all. That really set him off, but I don’t regret saying it.

I could have said, “I can’t talk to you,” as he has said so often, but I knew that never went anywhere--that did nothing but encourage him to go on a faux pity party (I call it faux because if he really believed the self depreciating things he would say at such times, he would do something to change, but rather his words dripped with sarcastic mockery that really said, “You’re wrong. My time is worth more than yours. My opinion is worth more than yours.”) All he could utter was justification for him protecting his time from inconvenience.

“I’m sorry that the children and I are such an inconvenience,” I said.

Did he answer with, “No, you’re not an inconvenience, Sweetheart. I love you”? Of course not. Instead he just repeated my words in a mocking tone.

I walked away. I just walked away pondering the words, irreconcilable differences. My chest hurt. Hours later, when we were in the car together, going to our daughter’s show (and I was only going with him because I had already ordered the tickets--otherwise I would have made an excuse to go to a different showing than him), my chest still hurt. This is going to kill me, I thought. This is really going to kill me. And he acted like nothing was wrong in the world--like his venomous words had just evaporated into thin air instead of drilling deep into my chest.

Studies have shown that men who are married live longer than their unmarried peers, while the opposite is true of women who are married. If other marriages are like ours, that makes sense.

Kate Middleton married her prince last week. I’m not a huge Royal Wedding fanatic, but I do hope that it will work out better for them than it did for Princess Di and Prince Charles. I know that fairytales are not true--that we have to work for our happy endings... There comes a point, however, when one has to acknowledge that the work is getting them nowhere. I’m thinking when every argument is a déjà vu, it’s time to stop the cycle and deal with the laundry.