Letters to the Editor
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Get a big, open basket...
... maybe one that you really like from some fancy store or whatever. Put it in the laundry room. Put his clothes in it. Maybe get two.
Get on with your life.
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what Shandra L said
Except maybe not an open basket. You don't want to smell his stinky laundry.
When it's root, hog, or die, he will learn.
There's one thing I noticed about all of this: it started when he lost his job. He lost his job, which probably wasn't very good for his ego, and then you said, "Since you're basically a useless sack of shit now, why don't you at least do the laundry?" Not a good thing to do. If he had free time, he should have spent more time looking for a new job, not doing laundry.
He probably resents the hell out of you from that time on. It's no wonder this has become a power struggle.
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or...
... find a local laundromat that has a drop off service. The value of $10 or $20 worth of drop-off returned to you in nice neatly folded piles.... priceless.
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Just don't do his laundry
Don't reward behaviour you don't want to see continue.
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This really isn't that hard
Cary is completely right about this. It's not about the laundry, it's about a whole lot of power/responsibility issues in the marriage. Those are hard to solve, but the laundry thing is easy to solve.
Stop doing it.
Period.
Let it pile up as high as the sky, but do not do his laundry ever again, not even once.
I had a similar show-down with my husband some years ago. I informed him that the Laundry Fairy had left the building, and that was that. He lets it pile up for weeks at a time, but when he runs out of socks and undies he manages to get his laundry done. Your husband will, too.
Good luck to you, LW. It seems like you have a lot on your plate, and I wish you well!
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Theory vs. Practice
I get what the others are saying about just not doing his laundry for him, but I have a feeling that if you were the type of person who could just not do the laundry, you wouldn't be in this mess.
And another thing:
I have been where you are, sort of. I live with a guy who I am not romantically involved with. He's my best friend.
He is also a lazy bum about chores. He was also clinically depressed.
He went through some very hard stuff a while back, and my normally tidy, cheerful room mate who always pulled his weight turned into a slob who would eat the dinner I made every night (If I didn't cook, he wouldn't eat. He was that depressed) and then leave me with all the dishes.
It was like that for two years. Yep, two.
Then he got some therapy and into a new relationship and all of a sudden he was back. I never said anything to him about his slovenly behavior, because I honestly felt like he needed to be the way he was.
I mean, don't get me wrong: I got mad at him, and sometimes I wanted to hit him, too... But I love him, so I just let it go.
I think Cary is right, hire some help. And try to support your husband, cause maybe losing his job is making him feel like a loser and a failure and maybe he WANTS to help, but the thought of doing anything but sitting in front of the TV watching golf is too exhausting. Depression does that.
And maybe after you hire a maid, you can try to coax hubby into therapy. It helped my friend, that's for sure.
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"hubs?" The lack of compassion expressed by this LW indicates that this marriage is doomed.
Sorry, LW, but you seem to have little compassion for husband two (not to mention little maturity and insight when it comes to appreciating what no doubt has been your husband's depressive episode after losing his job) and I predict that this marriage doesn't survive another year. It is sad that people of your respective ages would behave like petulant teenagers.
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No washing machine?
Don't these folks have a washing machine? I am a single male and live alone (most of the time) and have a washing machine and dryer on my back porch. It takes almost zero time to put washing plus detergent in the machine and then take it out and put it in the dryer and then extract it when it is dry. I often launder while cooking or baking, and use the timer to remind me to take out the washing. Hence the amount of time devoted to laundering is negligible, especially when overlapped with other activities.
Now, the ironing--that is a different matter, but I have cracked that one by playing poker online while I iron sitting down. Both activities require a lot of folding, so they are a great match.
Show this letter to your hubby, LW. Then again, maybe not.
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just don't do his fucking laundry
how complicated is that
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Co-dependent no more
What would happen if you didn't do his laundry?
Once you've run that scenario through your head you will be free.
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Golf obsession?
Does the obsession with golf refer to him getting out into the beautiful sunny world, enjoying himself with the boys all day while you seethe about it? Or is it the tv-watching golf one of the other posters assumes? Because one implies that he really is beaten down and depressed, and the other implies that he needs to be beaten up.
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LW could use a bitch-slap herself
You do a lot of tough talking about bitch-slapping and face-punching. You do realize that you'd be called out on it if you were a man griping about his wife, right? That the harpies who infest this forum would descend upon you and rend you limb from limb for wanting your wife to do the laundry? Demeaning! Sexist! Violent chauvinist!
Well, I'm calling you out on it. That kind of talk won't get you anywhere with any reasonable man, and if you try to put it into action, you may end up attending a Mass for the Dead without having to kneel. At the very least, you could go to jail, if you happen to live in a jurisdiction in which men are not automatically held to be at fault in any incident of domestic violence.
So stop strutting your inappropriate violent streak and consider the power of speech and understanding instead. Have you asked him why he won't do this? Have you given him a non-threatening context in which to discuss it, one free of bitch-slaps, ill-mannered screaming, verbal traps, and interruptions? Try it. It may not work at first -- he probably has little reason to trust you to stay reasonable, and you may need to exercise some actual patience and love with him -- but if he sees he's safe to explore this without your using his every word as a weapon to be turned against him, he might be able to help you.
So give the aggression a rest, Punchy, and try using your brains instead. Maybe then you'll be worth staying married to.