How to get through to DH that doing 80% doesn't count?

[Anonymous]

Get a laundry basket for every family member. Have the kids sort the clean clothes into the appropriate basket. Everyone puts theirs away, folding or organizing as they prefer. It’s really pretty quick.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

Look we found the DH who wants extra credit for doing 30% of the laundry.

Oh so no we’re to the point where sorting, washing, and drying is 30% and folding and putting away is 70%.

Do you nuts even hear yourselves?

This is legitimately true. Sorting (why sort? toss everything in together on cold), putting in washer and moving to dryer takes max 4 minutes. Folding, hanging, matching socks, sorting by person etc and putting away a large load of clothes easily takes 10+min. If it takes you more than 4 minutes to dump a basket into one machine and then move that pile into another and then move it back out into a basket....something is wrong.

Written by someone who has clearly never done a child's laundry before...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all keep pretending wrong that sorting, folding, and putting the clean laundry away is the same amount of effort as pressing buttons on the machine.

Seriously.

“Starting” the laundry is so fast and easy that we do it and leave the dry clothes for the nanny to deal with the PITA part - sorting, folding, putting back in correct bedroom, dresser, drawer or hanger. Some of it, gasp, goes right into the correct sports duffel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the household-related task is, DH will walk away and leave the final 20% of a task undone. It could be literally any task, but he has what seems like a pathological need to walk away before a task is complete.

Examples:

He'll go to the grocery store, but he'll leave 3 empty paper bags on the floor and non-perishables lined up on the counter.
He'll buy grass seed and sow some of it, but the half-filled sack will be left gaping in the front corner of the garage for the next 3 months and then he'll never water the grass seed so it doesn't germinate.
He'll run a load of laundry, but it will sit unfolded in the dryer until someone else sees it and deals with it.
He'll do the dishes, but leave the "weird" stuff in the sink and make up an excuse like he didn't know how to wash it or there was no room on the drying rack and it would take too long to dry the stuff on the rack.

I'm the only other adult in the house, so if he doesn't do something, I'm doing it.

When I call him out on it and/or argue that it's not doing a task if he leaves it for someone else to finish, he'll throw a fit and say I should be happy he did anything. This seems pretty unfair because it means I'm doing 100% of my chores plus 20% of what he's supposed to be doing. I'm exhausted because I know that not only is my work never done, but the moment I want to relax or use something or start something, I have to clean up his surprises first.

He gives me attitude for not celebrating him for doing his share.

Has anyone tried to reason with a man like this? Translate "you're acting like an immature parasite" into rational adult language for me, please!

What’s that personality called that always peeters out on most things…..
sanguine, melancholy, choleric, what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all keep pretending wrong that sorting, folding, and putting the clean laundry away is the same amount of effort as pressing buttons on the machine.

Wait, you sort your laundry AFTER you wash it? How does that work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all keep pretending wrong that sorting, folding, and putting the clean laundry away is the same amount of effort as pressing buttons on the machine.

Wait, you sort your laundry AFTER you wash it? How does that work?

Shirts, socks, the kid pajamas that ended up in my hamper…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all keep pretending wrong that sorting, folding, and putting the clean laundry away is the same amount of effort as pressing buttons on the machine.

Wait, you sort your laundry AFTER you wash it? How does that work?

In our family we wash by color. So we need to sort each load (after it’s washed and dried) by family member.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

Look we found the DH who wants extra credit for doing 30% of the laundry.

Oh so no we’re to the point where sorting, washing, and drying is 30% and folding and putting away is 70%.

Do you nuts even hear yourselves?

This is legitimately true. Sorting (why sort? toss everything in together on cold), putting in washer and moving to dryer takes max 4 minutes. Folding, hanging, matching socks, sorting by person etc and putting away a large load of clothes easily takes 10+min. If it takes you more than 4 minutes to dump a basket into one machine and then move that pile into another and then move it back out into a basket....something is wrong.

Written by someone who has clearly never done a child's laundry before...

Haha, right? I know I love a dryer full of crayons or a washer full of disintegrated tissues. Or rocks.

And of course we NEVER have to pre-treat stains, or if the kids spill stuff they ALWAYS bring it to us immediately so that we would never dream of actually looking at the clothes before we throw them all into the same load!

And obviously it’s zero effort (and more importantly, takes practically negative time) to carry hampers from multiple rooms of the house up or down one or two flight of stairs to the washing machine. Nope. It’s just a simple matter of pushing a button. Not nearly as difficult or time consuming as… pairing socks?

Anyway, to all of the incompetent and inefficient ladies on here who find folding clean clothes so incredibly arduous, enjoy your inevitable divorces! Your husbands all deserve better

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get a laundry basket for every family member. Have the kids sort the clean clothes into the appropriate basket. Everyone puts theirs away, folding or organizing as they prefer. It’s really pretty quick.

Sorry so you sort the clean laundry into each basket, deliver it to each room… and then the husband and kids magically fold and put it away within a day or two.

Woozers.

It doesn’t just sit there and sit there in the basket for weeks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all keep pretending wrong that sorting, folding, and putting the clean laundry away is the same amount of effort as pressing buttons on the machine.

Wait, you sort your laundry AFTER you wash it? How does that work?

In our family we wash by color. So we need to sort each load (after it’s washed and dried) by family member.

We wash it all together on cold- all four people all colors. Sheets and towels are their own day each month.

So the sorting is part of putting away clean clothes correctly by person and clothing type.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

Look we found the DH who wants extra credit for doing 30% of the laundry.

Oh so no we’re to the point where sorting, washing, and drying is 30% and folding and putting away is 70%.

Do you nuts even hear yourselves?

This is legitimately true. Sorting (why sort? toss everything in together on cold), putting in washer and moving to dryer takes max 4 minutes. Folding, hanging, matching socks, sorting by person etc and putting away a large load of clothes easily takes 10+min. If it takes you more than 4 minutes to dump a basket into one machine and then move that pile into another and then move it back out into a basket....something is wrong.

Written by someone who has clearly never done a child's laundry before...

Haha, right? I know I love a dryer full of crayons or a washer full of disintegrated tissues. Or rocks.

And of course we NEVER have to pre-treat stains, or if the kids spill stuff they ALWAYS bring it to us immediately so that we would never dream of actually looking at the clothes before we throw them all into the same load!

And obviously it’s zero effort (and more importantly, takes practically negative time) to carry hampers from multiple rooms of the house up or down one or two flight of stairs to the washing machine. Nope. It’s just a simple matter of pushing a button. Not nearly as difficult or time consuming as… pairing socks?

Anyway, to all of the incompetent and inefficient ladies on here who find folding clean clothes so incredibly arduous, enjoy your inevitable divorces! Your husbands all deserve better

We may have discovered the root of this debate.

We do not pre-treat any stains on our kid's clothes and most of our kids clothing doesn't even have pockets (and they aren't in the habit of sticking crayons in them when they do) so we don't go through them. Our washer dryer are in a closet directly outside our kids' room and there is one hamper that is maybe ten feet from the washer.

So starting kids laundry means walking a single hamper 10 feet and dumping it in the machine then adding detergent and pressing "start." A conscientious person will go in their bathroom (like 4 ft away) and grab any towels or clothes on the floor but people are not always contientous.

This is unquestionably the easiest part of laundry and is the sort of thing I do literally on my way to something else -- I don't even consider it a discrete task. It's like carrying a glass from the dining room to the kitchen -- it does not count as "cleaning" on it's own but only as part of a set of such activities.

On the other hand once those clothes are dry... you have to sort the kids' clothes from each other (and they are girls two years apart and wear really similar things so this means either having their wardrobes memorized or looking at the tags) plus into socks and underwear and shirts and dresses and leggings. The kids are both under 5 so even if they are helping with this it's not useful -- it's another parenting task to facilitate them helping and show them how to do things and convince them to do it. To minimize folding we have small closets for them and all shirts and dresses get hung up (keeps them more orderly and is easier for the kids to do themselves plus if they take something out it doesn't totally make a mess of everything else like it does in a drawer) but then socks and underwear and shorts and leggings have to go in separate bins. Socks have to get matched up and their socks all look kind of similar but if you get it wrong the younger one in particular will freak out. Hoodies and other outer layers have to get hung on specific hooks or they won't be found when they are needed. Folding is also when we usually discover holes or other issues that reveal the clothes aren't wearable anymore (since we don't do this pre-wash) so there are sometimes also judgment calls.

In our house the front end of kids' laundry is like moving chicken from the freezer to the fridge to defrost -- necessary but easy and only laudable in that you remembered to do it. The back end of kids' laundry is like making dinner -- where all the work is.

Obviously everyone's house is different but if my DH claimed he "did laundry" because he tossed some clothes in the wash and nothing else I would just laugh at him.

[Anonymous]

The laundry conversation is beside the point. This is one example of a person who believes that the task doesn't count until it's complete, where complete = "no components of task left to accomplish at all."

The issue here is that that pattern - doing most of a thing but not finishing the task - is pervasive in a lot of y'all's marriages, including OP. Husbands who seem to do only part of a task routinely whose wives then do the rest of the task while seething in resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all keep pretending wrong that sorting, folding, and putting the clean laundry away is the same amount of effort as pressing buttons on the machine.

Wait, you sort your laundry AFTER you wash it? How does that work?

In our family we wash by color. So we need to sort each load (after it’s washed and dried) by family member.

How do you wash by color if you only sort laundry after you’ve washed it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The laundry conversation is beside the point.

+1

Anonymous wrote:This is one example of a person who believes that the task doesn't count until it's complete, where complete = "no components of task left to accomplish at all." The issue here is that that pattern - doing most of a thing but not finishing the task - is pervasive in a lot of y'all's marriages, including OP. Husbands who seem to do only part of a task routinely whose wives then do the rest of the task while seething in resentment.

It’s no coincidence these people end up together.

How do we discourage them from breeding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The laundry conversation is beside the point. This is one example of a person who believes that the task doesn't count until it's complete, where complete = "no components of task left to accomplish at all."

The issue here is that that pattern - doing most of a thing but not finishing the task - is pervasive in a lot of y'all's marriages, including OP. Husbands who seem to do only part of a task routinely whose wives then do the rest of the task while seething in resentment.

Correct