My (24F) boyfriend (25m) and I have been together for 4 years and living together for 2. I want to preface by saying this isn’t about housework. While I have my occasional gripes, I think he does plenty especially compared to most men his age. This is about this specific situation.
We both had Thursday-Friday off this past week. We were so busy with the holidays and had a lot of cleaning up to do around the house. I’ve heard it’s bad luck to do laundry on New Year’s Day, so we saved that for Friday. I washed our bedding, towels, my regular clothes and my work clothes, which was 5 loads total.
He has admitted laundry is his least favorite chore. I do most of the “communal” laundry but he is responsible for his clothes. Almost every time, he leaves them in the dryer. They stay there until I move them to the couch or a chair, then they stay there until they are gone. This makes it to where I *never* want to do laundry behind him. He ruins the flow. Yesterday, I knew he was waiting to do laundry but I ignored that for this reason.
When I started my 4th load, he caught on and said something. It was about 7pm at this point and his favorite NBA team was about to play. I told him sorry and that I’d start his load since I’d made him wait. I *also* said that I had one more load to do and if he wanted to go first, he’d need to keep up the flow once his clothes are dry.
He did not do that. I asked him several times to get his clothes so I could move the wet clothes out of the washer, but he straight up said “no”. I ended up moving them to a chair and bitched every step of the way. It felt like such a simple task. I had remade our bed, folded towels, folded clothes. I get it’s his least favorite chore, but damn be an adult.
He claims that if I had let him do his load earlier (like 3pm), he would’ve felt like folding them. I pointed out that there is zero evidence to support that considering he *never freaking folds them*. Not to mention that I wouldn’t need to hog the washer at all if he would just finish the job.
What bothers me is not the clothes, it’s that he is blaming *me*. I asked him today around 3pm if he felt like folding them now (petty I know) which just made him mad and turned into a fight. I’ve tried to meet him in the middle (“yes I shouldn’t have made you wait, but admit you probably wouldn’t have folded them anyway”). He won’t budge at all and this is driving me crazy.
The clothes are still there. I feel like I’m going insane. AITA here?
NTA.
This isn’t really about laundry, it’s about responsibility. He said he’d keep things moving, didn’t do it, and then blamed you for something he consistently does. You didn’t prevent him from folding his clothes he chose not to. That’s the real issue here, not the clothes.
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NTA. Maybe try trading your least favorite chore for all the laundry. Like maybe he washes all the dishes. You guys have to figure out a compromise that *works*.
I feel like we sort of have that agreement in the form of yard work. Right now it feels pretty unfair because I can’t even remember the last time he did it. But come summer, I’ll be skipping happily to the washing machine.
His clothes though, that’s a boundary for me. He is responsible for himself and I do plenty of laundry already.
If you’re really invested in him, I would suggest sitting down at a time when you’re both calm and explaining why it bothers you. Don’t accuse, don’t blame, just explain the emotion behind it. The aim needs to be working out what you can both do to make the situation better. He needs to meet you half way and you both need to find a constructive solution that works. Equally, it might help to dive deeper with him about what it is he struggles with about it. If you can create an open non-judgemental space to discuss it, there might be some other reasons why it’s not working.
As an example, I’m a woman and I am terrible at laundry. I forget to do it, I forget to take it out of the machine, I forget to hang it up to dry and I forget to fold it and put it away. I also struggle with motivation. It feels like an insurmountable task most of the time. The deal in my relationship is that my partner does the laundry because he finds it easier. My job is to clean the kitchen. In our house, that’s about equal effort. I know you’ve said elsewhere that he does yard work but that’s not really the same amount of effort on balance. You need to find something that you’re both comfortable with.
If he’s not willing to do that or willing to empathise with your feelings, then it’s up to you to decide what happens when your boundaries are broken. Often that means leaving if the distress caused by broken boundaries is too much.
INFO: Why do you get so entangled in his laundry process? Why can’t you just dump his dry clothes in a basket and do your thing?
You’re gonna stay with this child so who cares??
So in the end you actually did his laundry for him minus the folding and he’s MAD at you?! Wtf, he needs to grow up and you need to start dumping his cloths on the floor if he says no to collecting them himself. You are not his maid. Don’t put them on a chair, pull them straight out of the dryer and onto the floor.
ESH. Why don’t you do your laundry all together? Why is it separated and you each do your own when you live together? Why not just do it together or you take control of the laundry and have him do something else? If you’re living together you should be working with each other in partnership, not keeping things his and hers if it causes issues
That’s just not something I’m interested in. We have separate sides of the closet and separate hampers. We do work as a team in a lot of areas. It’s not like I divide the bath towels by his vs mine, and I’m not adverse to washing things that are “his”. Some things are just personal and I consider an individual responsibility. Washing your wardrobe is one of those things. I wouldn’t want him washing my stuff.
When I (35F) was your age I lived with an ex who didn’t do laundry. I would do it for him in the beginning, because I somehow thought love was best expressed through acts. However, he didn’t realise it was acts of love, but instead just stopped doing house the house chores I helped him with. In the end I got my own laundry basket and he walked around with dirty clothes for a month and couldn’t bring himself to do laundry. When I eventually moved out it was a stone off my chest. I would say you are NTA, but you might benefit from putting up a laundry schedule. And get a basket where you can put his clothes, so they’re not lying around in the house. That stuff can be long term toxic for a relationship.
ESH him for being petulant about this, you for knowing you’re going to get annoyed by the way he does it and participating in the whole process anyway. Either do it for him, dump it out and move on with your life, or get over being annoyed about it. Or break up, I guess, because he’s 100% NOT going to change because he’s not interested in changing or making this part of your life easier.
Yta
Honestly, you hog the laundry all day, knowing he was waiting to use it. Then you complain because he isnt living his life the way you want him to? He isn’t “doing his chores” when you tell him to? You’re definitely the AH in this situation. If you aren’t going to do it together then you don’t get to dictate when or how he does his.