A New Laundry Tactic

Tonight, I folded the laundry put my clothes and my son's clothes in the basket, and left my husband's clothes in the basement. I carried the basket upstairs and will put them away in the morning. My husband's clothes will stay in the basement.

You see, my husband is a good man, but he is not good at putting his clothes away. He has use of sixty percent of our closet space plus one and a half dressers, yet our bedroom floor and one dresser top is currently littered with his clothes. A mix of clean and dirty, which not only makes it frustrating to find space to put clean clothes, it also makes it difficult to collect the dirty ones to wash them. Although a little anger or spite may sneak up for a minute or two I am choosing to remain matter-of-fact in this new tactic. I'm a little annoyed that my efforts are taken for granted in this but I'm also not very stubborn. Actually I'm not even a little stubborn.

I've tried other methods. Nagging, silence, surrender. I stopped putting his clothes in the drawers years ago. For awhile I pushed any clothes on the floor under the bed just so I wouldn't have to look at them. But eventually, when we needed to pack to go away he pulled them out, I washed them and we went back to the usual routine. In addition to no longer bringing up his clothes I plan on getting a tall wardrobe with doors where I will put a basket inside and he can put all his clothes in there. Then the doors can be shut and what I don't know won't irk me.

Like I said earlier, my husband is a good man. He's hard-working, gentle, kind-hearted, and funny. He is not good at putting garbage bags back after the bins are emptied, or sharing the housework. When we married the agreement was that I would do the laundry, he would do the garbage and recycling and we would share the rest. The first of many agreements unfulfilled (ahem, dog training). So I'm taking a stand on this one. His clothes will remain on the dryer, as long as my willpower lasts. Though maybe I'm a sucker, I still folded them.