I’m working from home today and it’s dry out so I was going to wash the bedding. However my husband has the day off and was still in bed when I was going to put the wash on so I put other things I wanted to wash in the machine and asked him to add the duvet cover and sheet and put it on when he’d got up.
I just came down for lunch and saw the washing machine’s on but it looks pretty empty. So I checked the bed and lo and behold the sheet’s still on it. Weird thing is he’s done the duvet cover, just not the sheet.
When I asked him about it, he said he only heard me say duvet cover. I asked him why you’d ever wash just the duvet cover and not the sheet. He said he didn’t think about that just did what he was told.
Did what he was told?! What is he – my child?! My workplace subordinate?! He’s a grown-ass man – an intelligent one at that – he can think for himself!
He had been getting better at doing household tasks (without being told to) but since my dad died (almost two years ago now) we’ve both gotten out of the habit of regular cleaning, and now it seems he can’t do a basic thing like washing the sheets without being told what to do.
Any tips on dealing with this? I’ve tried talking to him about it but he gets pissed off when I try to talk to him about things like weaponised incompetence and traditional gender roles – to him it’s not about that, he just ‘forgets’ or ‘doesn’t think’ to do things. I don’t want to leave him over it, and like I said, things had been improving so he is capable of doing more.