I'm just going to say it. I am so mad at my husband tonight. And, conversely, he is so mad at me. What's the rub? Laundry. A basement full of clean and unclean laundry, so scattered and disorganized that I have worn summer skirts to work all week because I can't find a single pair of clean slacks. Don't EVEN get me started about the amount of unmatched socks currently in our possession. It's another level of Dante's Mismatched Sock Inferno down there, and I'm mad as hell about it (Ha!).
So, here's the story. Like many American families, we juggle quite a bit: three kids, two full-time jobs, and one feral dog who is better suited for a farm. Because of this, we don't have clearly defined roles when it comes to housekeeping. We do what needs to be done. Sometimes I mow the yard and sometimes he does. Sometimes I do the laundry and sometimes he does. He makes school lunches. I do the grocery shopping. We bicker from time to time about the way in which a task should be completed, and we playfully compete over who gets to do the more desirable chore, which in our household, happens to be whatever allows us to slip in our earbuds and tune out the busy world for a while.
Over the course of our ten year marriage, I have, at times, had a sense of pride in our indistinguishable gender roles of managing family. However, at other times, like tonight, I realize that this lack of clearly defined roles is one of our biggest sources of conflict. These conflicts arise because I want things done my way and he wants things done his...and nary the twain shall meet. And occasionally the twain can't take it anymore and they have a big fight about it in the basement after the kids go to bed.
You see, I like order and despise clutter. I want things done and I want them done efficiently. The more quickly I finish a task, the more tasks I am able to complete. This means that I can accomplish a large amount of chores in a short amount of time and it is unfathomable for me to leave something unfinished. How awesome am I? Well, not really so awesome. In order to get things done quickly, I cut corners. I often ignore washing instructions and shrink things, sometimes things that don't belong to me. I have seven junk drawers too many (out of sight, out of mind). I am sometimes wasteful because if I'm honest, I value peace of mind over being a responsible global citizen.
I realized tonight that some of the things that make me the angriest, that get under my skin the most, that send me out on long, cathartic Target outings, are also the same root of my greatest admiration and love for Dave. The basement looks like a Los Alamos test site because he follows ALL of the washing instructions on each item of clothing. He washes loads of our children's clothing together, while I do them separately, because it KILLS this man to do half a load. A waste of water, he says. And he's right. My side porch, which I spent hours and hours and hours painting, is currently filled, like some mild version of an episode of Hoarders, with Triscuit boxes and Diet Coke cans and wine bottles. But this is because he is a passionate and thorough recycler. We recycle EVERYTHING, so living with trash piled in areas of our house until we can get to the recycling center has become a part of our lives. He buys nothing if it's not on sale, irregardless of trend or fashion. It troubles him to spend money superfluously, especially when there are others who are in need around us. This characteristic, above all, is what I love the most.
He thinks about things deeply and critically. I am impulsive and just the slightest bit reckless. He's the substance; I'm the fluff. And it works.
Most of the time it works, this yin and yang of our marriage. Without Dave, I would have clean, neatly folded clothes, all of them two sizes too small; without me, he would be sitting in an enormous pile of mismatched socks, saving the world one Triscuit box at a time. Our marriage allows me to see how the failures in myself are shored up by the strengths in him. And vice versa, of course. It's beautifully imperfect, and at the very heart of the complimentary nature of a marriage relationship.
And so it is. The anger that began tonight in the laundry room of broken dreams has become an opportunity to reflect on why Dave and I work, and for the most part, work well. Tonight I remember why I fell in love with him, and continue to love him deeply. He is the yin to my yang.
That's something to be happy about, mismatched socks and all.
.
