Trying to Help Sometimes Gets You in Trouble

Last week, my husband was packing for a trip. He was out of brown socks and he decided to be helpful. He put some dirty clothes in a basket, went to the laundry room, moved the clean clothes from the dryer to a basket, moved the wet clothes to the dryer and put the dirty clothes in the washer. He started all the machines and brought the basket of clean clothes back to our bedroom. This would have been in incredibly helpful if I wasn't all ready for bed. But I was. I was in my pajamas all ready to climb into bed and now there was a basket of clean clothes that needed to be folded and put away.

I could have ignored the basket and waited for the morning, except there was already a basket of clean sheets waiting to be folded sitting on the chair. And for some reason, in my mind, I cannot have two baskets of clean clothes needing to be folded. It used to be that I could not have any baskets of unfolded clean clothes lying around or I could not sleep but my standards have dropped over the years and the many, many loads of laundry that come with a family of 5. I am lowering my standards all over the house and we are in serious danger of becoming a pig sty. So I could not ignore the fact that there were now, not one, but two baskets of laundry needing to be folded. So I now had to fold the clothes. There was a rule that must be followed. And since I was folding the one basket, I had to fold the other basket as well.

I was a bit annoyed at my husband. How did he not understand that by starting a load of laundry he was creating more work for me in that moment? How insensitive of him to make more work for me because he wanted brown socks? And right before he left on a trip. Not to mention the fact that I had spent a lot of time getting all the laundry done a few days before. I was also really frustrated because by starting the load of laundry he was of course telling me that I was not doing a good job. Right? That was what he was saying by trying to help. If he has to start laundry I must need help. I must be falling behind on my job.

Marriage is full of landmines. We were all set to have a peaceful night. And then my husband started a load of laundry. All because of the brown socks he couldn't find. Poor guy had no idea that his wife would take such a kind gesture and turn it into a judgment of her housekeeping skills. I am sure if he had he would have been happy to wear the grey socks in his drawer.

The grey socks right next to the brown socks which were in his sock drawer the whole time.