I Don’t Like the Way My Wife Organizes the Dishes into the Dishwasher
I don’t like the way my wife organizes the dishes into the dishwasher. She doesn’t maximize space. Sometimes I open the door to load it up and am completely flustered by the one dirty plate sitting directly in the middle of the dish rack, or how she has already mixed the forks with the spoons. Who the hell does that? Who begins loading dishes in the middle? My wife does, that’s who! She knows how I feel about the dishwasher and continues her trends knowing I’ll come back around full circle and fix it anyway. I used to shake my head as a hint to her in my disappointment of her organization skills. Every. Single. Time.
But at the same token, I have to openly admit that I am not the best at taking buzzer beater jump shots into the dirty laundry basket with the socks I have worn all day. Typically when I miss, I am so discouraged from losing the game that my socks stay there balled up on the floor only for my wife to pick them up on laundry day for washing. In my defense, there is a belt hanger that defends over a section of the laundry basket most days, making game winning shots more difficult than what most men face in home. But I’ll agree to digress for now, as a loss is a loss, no excuses.
I know me leaving my socks on the floor bothers Liz the same way her inability to properly organize the dishes makes my eye twitch. Instead of leaving a breadcrumb trail of headshakes out like I do, she’ll sometimes insists on washing my socks without unraveling them from the form they were combined into for the jumper of the day. This sometimes, unfortunately leaves me to opening a pair of socks still moist and filled with grass clippings from mowing the lawn the previous week. A much worse fate than a “smh” she already knew was coming for putting the coffee cups in the dish rack all funky.
This upcoming May will be our 5-year anniversary. Which means I’ve been “smh” over dishes and she’s been slam dunkin’ socks into the washer for some time now. I won’t lie and say we haven’t had any disputes about these annoyances in those 5 years, but we haven’t had anything super crazy happen to claim. One would think that at some point one of these atrocities would have been the tipping point to a huge argument after a bad day at work or day filled with fussy kids, especially since both chores are done at the end of the day. An ironic icing on the cake type of thing, ya know? But we haven’t.
Moving along, a couple of months ago a good friend of mine (who shall remain anonymous for his own protection) was over watching some ball with me. As I was pinpointing and scrubbing over the details of what bothered me most about Liz that day, he gave me some solid advice, which was surprising considering he’s been married for less years than I have. Well just say he’s a quick learner for now.
“Don’t count,” he said. “Don’t count what?” I asked.
“Don’t count the things you do in the relationship right vs. that of your wife. It’s the worse thing you can do. Don’t count how many chores you do vs. her either.”
Now this was ironic considering I was being pretty nitpicky anyway and just doing some common venting. I was never a counter, never even considered it. But tell a man to not do something and what does he do? He does the exact opposite. So I started counting. Immediately. And you know what? My friend was right! Counting is very very very bad.
Anyhow, fast forward to lesson learned and on to present day to my current point. When you really get into the optics of it all, the last thing you want holding up your relationship is the fact that you cooked dinner last week 5 times vs. your spouses 2. Or that you vacuumed the house 80% of the time over the past month vs. their 20%. As long as everyone is contributing as best they can for the betterment of the other, no questions should be asked. And that, to me, is a big part of any successful marriage. That’s all I got. Worry about the big things people and the goals you want to accomplish together. Be a team. Be respectful. And communicate. I see a lot of y’all young couples out there counting nowadays.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a game to go win.
Peace and Carpe Diem.
