So, I’m (35f) currently out of work and looking, so I currently do most of the housework me and my partner (36m) has, including laundry. Until now, I do our laundry together, and fold while watching TV in our living room, splitting up folded laundry piles by which drawer/open storage shelf the article of clothing goes into. My process is to take the clothing upstairs to the bedroom once everything is done, in order to assist me in maintaining even, neat and organized stacks for the open shelving for our clothes so it doesn’t look sloppy and cluttered.
The problem is, this takes us a long time, often running into the next day or two, so we so end up with stacks of folded laundry around for a little bit. My partner doesn’t like seeing these piles around the house, and before I can finish tends to put all the neatly stacked laundry into baskets all together and take it upstairs, meaning I have to re-do a lot of the work of folding to make it look neat and tidy in the open shelving the next day.
I can’t get it all done in one day before he gets home. So I am considering changing the rule, and separating our combined laundry and do all of mine first, which I can get done and put away before he gets home, and then do his only after mine is done, if he won’t come to a compromise and allow the tidy laundry stacks to remain in place until they get out away. He is responsible for putting away his own laundry, and does not use the open storage shelves that I do.
I think I might be an asshole, because it means that he has to wait longer for his laundry, while simultaneously refusing to get more clothing that fits because “he’s trying to loose weight” but isn’t actually taking steps to do so, despite having the money and space to get a few more clothing articles to get through a longer period of time.
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So, I’m (35f) currently out of work and looking, so I currently do most of the housework me and my partner (36m) has, including laundry. Until now, I do our laundry together, and fold while watching TV in our living room, splitting up folded laundry piles by which drawer/open storage shelf the article of clothing goes into. My process is to take the clothing upstairs to the bedroom once everything is done, in order to assist me in maintaining even, neat and organized stacks for the open shelving for our clothes so it doesn’t look sloppy and cluttered.
The problem is, this takes us a long time, often running into the next day or two, so we so end up with stacks of folded laundry around for a little bit. My partner doesn’t like seeing these piles around the house, and before I can finish tends to put all the neatly stacked laundry into baskets all together and take it upstairs, meaning I have to re-do a lot of the work of folding to make it look neat and tidy in the open shelving the next day.
I can’t get it all done in one day before he gets home. So I am considering changing the rule, and separating our combined laundry and do all of mine first, which I can get done and put away before he gets home, and then do his only after mine is done, if he won’t come to a compromise and allow the tidy laundry stacks to remain in place until they get out away. He is responsible for putting away his own laundry, and does not use the open storage shelves that I do.
I think I might be an asshole, because it means that he has to wait longer for his laundry, while simultaneously refusing to get more clothing that fits because “he’s trying to loose weight” but isn’t actually taking steps to do so, despite having the money and space to get a few more clothing articles to get through a longer period of time.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I think I may be the asshole because he currently doesn’t have the amount of clothing he needs to get through a longer wait for his clothing to be done.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
YTA. You’re needlessly taking waaaaay too long to put away the freaking clothes. Like, you put away a load before the next one is finished. This sounds like a symptom of “out of work for too long”.
YTA.
I also do the laundry for our household, but I know everyone has their own exact workflow.
> I do our laundry together, and fold while watching TV in our living room, splitting up folded laundry piles by which drawer/open storage shelf the article of clothing goes into.
Sure, sounds reasonable.
>My process is to take the clothing upstairs to the bedroom once everything is done, in order to assist me in maintaining even, neat and organized stacks for the open shelving for our clothes so it doesn’t look sloppy and cluttered.
Sure, also sounds reasonable.
>The problem is, this takes us a long time, often running into the next day or two,
Am I missing something? Folding laundry takes like, 5 minutes. 10 minutes as an absolute maximum. How can folding a load of dried laundry possibly take so much time it spills into another day? Unless there is missing something.
INFO: is there a reason you cannot do the folding in the bedroom?
Mild YTA. Why would it possibly take you this long to do laundry? I work from home and do most of the laundry on Thursdays, which is typically between 5-7 loads. Start at 9am and it’s typically done by 3pm. It’s all done before my wife gets home, and this includes all the towels, bed linens and bathroom rugs. All put away and bed remade.
When you’re done with folding, put it away–why would wait until everything is done? And you’re not even working?
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YTA
Do all of the laundry together.
Fold the laundry into separate piles, your and his.
Put all of your own laundry away immediately instead of leaving piles of stuff all over the place.
Put all of his folder laundry into a basket for him to put away later.
This is not rocket science.
If it takes too long to do all of it in one day, then do laundry 2 times a week instead of once a week.
This isn’t making sense. You say you fold the laundry upstairs but then say your partner takes the folded laundry, unfolds it and puts it back in the basket to go upstairs where it already is? If it’s folded, why isn’t it put away to the point it can be picked back up and unfolded again. Why is your partner unfolding it and putting it back in the basket? Why is it taking you so long to do all this unless you’re doing like 6 loads at once
INFO: can he not fold his own laundry? Separate your items, fold yours and put them away, then if his stuff isn’t done then he can finish it.
I’m going to go with YTA on this one.
For a start you are leaving the house cluttered with piles of clothing because you want the cupboard to be neat and organised, that sounds like a terrible trade off to me particularly when you say it can take a day or 2 for you to fold the laundry.
how much laundry are you doing that it takes multiple days to get it folded and put away? why cant you do it in smaller chunks, folding each load as you go rather then having so much built up that it takes multiple days for you to get it put away?
if not why cant you just put the piles away each day rather then leaving them all over the house?
That’s not to mention expecting him to buy more clothes, because it takes you days to put the laundry away, not that it would solve the problem as its just going to result in more laundry to be folded anyway.
It feels like there are so many solutions to this problem that you could consider and work out what is going to work best for everyone rather then making the problem worse by leaving things un finished for even longer.
YTA – I (42M) do the laundry for the entire family, 3 children and ours. It takes me about 2 to 3h to do the ironing. The laundry itself is separated when it comes out of the dryer: underwear and to iron. Underwear goes directly into the drawers where they belong; ironing stack remains in a box until Saturday/Sunday, depending on when I have time to do the ironing. The ironing happens on the kitchen table and when it is done, we just put it in the closet as it doesn’t belong on the table. I sort them by person, and In the rooms I sort them by stack. not sure if it would be more performant to stack it separately during the ironing/folding. Anyway, I think you are making it more complex than necessary and created tension in the household that could easily be managed by organization. – IronMan
Besides my husbands and my clothes I have two boys currently in football and baseball so I do a lot of laundry. So I have to say this sounds ridiculous. Maybe turn off the tv because I think it’s slowing you down or something. It should not take you this long to fold and put away clothes for only 2 people. Unless it’s a month’s worth of laundry or you’re ironing and steaming every single piece of clothing there is really no excuse for this. YTA
Can you clarify on why/how it takes you so long to fold a load of laundry? Like, I’m folding while watching an 8 month old baby and it doesn’t take me all day.
Why cant you get all done in one day?!
How much laundry is there?!
YTA you have too many clothes if it takes you DAYS to fold and put it away. We have 7 people in our family, we do at least one load a day, generally two, wash, dry, (sometimes hang) fold, put away. My children started doing their own laundry at 10.
OMG, it’s laundry 😫
YTA Just take what is done up & put it away. It doesn’t all have to be done before you put it away. “Neat” stacks around the living room overnight are silly just because you don’t want to put it way twice.
This would drive me insane. You didn’t mention how many loads but it seems like just a few loads. Maybe turn off the tv and just do the laundry.
YTA
NTA. You’re doing the task, have a method that works for you, and the inconvenience to others sounds minimal. Complete yours and the children’s, and ask hubby to be patient or finish his own.
INFO
If he doesn’t like how you do his laundry, what prevents him from doing his own laundry?
You are, and I’m saying this with love, putting way too much emphasis on keeping your clothing stacks tidy. It seems to me, from the outside, that that’s not really what this is about.
Also, why don’t you take the laundry upstairs and fold it there, putting things away as you go?
NAH, but y’all need to figure out what the conflict is really about.
YTA. Just get all folded and put away.
YTA. Your system is creating the issue so your system needs to change. Stop folding into such detailed piles. Fold everything into general piles (pants, underpants, shirts) then go upstairs and put it away.
There’s no reason for this to take long.
I wash and fold and he puts away. My kids do their
own laundry.
Your process sounds excessive and compulsive. Also sounds like you do laundry once a week instead of washing once there is a single load ready.
YTA
It’s been taking me less than a day to do all my own laundry since I was a teenager. You’re clearly doing something wrong.
YTA
For everything everyone else has said, but also because you don’t work but you want to do your laundry first and make the person who is working outside the home wait to have clean clothes?
Really? I’m sorry, his clothes are priority here, because he works outside the home. He is your income. He needs to be clean and presentable. Making him wait and telling him to just buy more because you can’t do his first is ridiculous.
Especially since, from the sounds of it, you need at least a new dryer. 90 minutes isn’t inherently too long for a wash cycle, depending on load and dirt level, but 3 hours on a single dry cycle? That man doesn’t need new clothes, he needs to be putting money back to replace that dryer before it fully goes out, and until he does, do his laundry first or stop being so precious about appearances.
It takes a normal, functional person around 15 minutes AT MOST to fold a very large load of laundry and put it away. You absolutely have 15 minutes. This post was exhausting, and so are you. In the time it took you to type, you could have just put away the laundry.
How much laundry do you have that it takes you days to fold it, and that’s without ironing.
INFO: Does any of his chores take multiple days? Are there not more efficient ways to do this? I’m really leaning WAY more to Y T A because I will do 3 loads of laundry in one day.. OUT OF APARTMENT CLEANING!! And it’s still all folded, TIDY and neat, and put away within a few hours. I feel like this is some weird power play on your part or some kind of weaponized incompetence since you can’t grasp to just fold the laundry near where it goes? This is such a strange thing to be upset over considering it’s a chore that could literally take 10 minutes if you just do it.
Just fold it already, and put away whatever you get done. YTA for your sense of organization…
YTA. I do laundry for four people in our house, while working from home as a senior level person, and doing other chores. How the heck can you not get two people laundry done in one day as a SAH partner?
Not to mention, I had a spinal fusion and reconstruction last year and it’s painful for me to even move and I still get it done. I think it might be watching tv that is slowing you down.
Sounds like poor time management. Do what you are able to get done before proceeding to the next task.
YTA
Your “process” sounds ridiculous. Why are you sorting things into folded piles next to the shelf or drawer they go into? Just put away a load before you start folding the next
Wash —> dry —> fold —> put away, repeat.
When cleans go into the dryer, the next load goes into the washer. When dry clothes come out, the first two steps repeat while you fold/put away.
Do you do laundry every day? I just have to ask how much laundry can two people make every day? I do laundry once a week and it is just me.
Huge YTA. A few things that don’t make sense here:
First, you are cluttering the rest of the house for days so that your shelving looks neat? How is that less annoying?
Second, how much laundry could you possibly be doing at once that it takes two days to fold? You are two adults, so I assume you are not going through clothes like babies and little kids might.
Perfect is the enemy of good. You have to figure something else out—put curtains in front of the shelves so that you won’t be bothered by non-origami-level folding, put stuff on hangers and get them into a wardrobe, I don’t know. But what you are doing now isn’t working. What did you do when you did have a job, just have stacks of laundry in the living room in perpetuity? If you can’t get it done in 8-10 hours (assuming you spent that much time per day at work), then there’s no way that you would have been able to keep up with this “system” on top of a regular work schedule.
If I was your spouse, I would be livid. It cannot possibly take more than a day to do this, unless you are washing clothes once a month. A week’s worth of stuff, for two people, should not take more than an hour to fold and put away, unless you’re doing a lot of ironing or something. Seems like this is some sort of power play or other game, to prove to your spouse that you’re so so busy, or they’re just so sloppy and don’t care enough about your shelf aesthetic.
I hate open storage as things have to be so neat when put in there or it ruins the whole room and looks messy. Get different shelving or storage for your clothes and it would be easier to do.