I know everyone always jokes about divorces happening over someone’s dirty socks that never quite make it into the laundry basket, but seriously, I get it. I finally understand what people mean. Why the bin that never gets taken out, or the clothes that remain unfolded for weeks on end, can cause some of the most explosive marital rows under the sun.
My thing? The dishes that languish in the sink for days, willing some mystical force to wash them clean and stack them away. Pots and pans pile up in precarious formations, ready to topple at the tiniest sneeze; coffee stains in mugs collect dust; and every piece of cutlery imaginable is thrust between two-day old plates covered in grime and pools of greasy water.
It gives me the absolute heebie-jeebies. The sight of an overflowing sink, but not a soap sud or sponge in sight, makes me see red almost instantly. Even worse? Opening the cupboard to see empty shelves where clean cups and glasses once stood. Or pulling open the drawer to find that the 30-strong collection of forks we had has now dwindled to none.
If I point this out to my husband, Etienne, he just doesn’t see it. For him, crockery and cutlery piled high in the sink isn’t dirty or gross or a complete inconvenience, it’s simply a chore he can get to sometime. In need of a fork? He simply pulls one out of the mess and gives it a quick rinse, feeling that there’s no point in him wasting his time washing everything up right now.
But I also know that he knows that it irks me. That he can see how much the rising tower of crockery and cutlery gets me anxious. He can see me zip through other tasks and reorganise my plans just so I can make a beeline for the sink and get cleaning. In other words, he knows that if he doesn’t get stuck into the dishes, I will. Which means one less chore for him.
But what he doesn’t always know, at least not until it’s too late, is that with every scrub of the sponge, with every bowl I rinse and every glass I wipe dry, a little bit more rage boils inside of me. While I’m completing what I consider to be the most basic – and shareable – of marital chores, I’m busy plotting my revenge, seething with frustration. The steam Etienne thinks is rising from the soapy water is, in fact, pouring fast and furious from my ears.
All it takes is for Etienne to casually drop his single, rinsed fork into the sink as I clean away, and I explode. Suddenly wide-eyed Etienne is confused, and then I get the one line that really drives me up the wall: “But I thought you liked doing the dishes?”
Needless to say, Etienne has only ever thrown that phrase out once. (He values his life.) And yes, he’s since gotten a little better at trying to clear out the rapidly ascending tower of dishes in the sink. But it still remains that I’ll probably be annoyed by the dirty crockery sooner, and get there faster, and start cleaning quicker – so that by the time Etienne moves in to help, there probably is only one fork left to be rinsed.
But why does it make me so mad? Why don’t I get more irate over his late nights or annoying colleagues I have to spend mind-numbing evenings making small-talk with? And what about his in-laws, who on paper should drive me up the wall much more?
Post-washing up fight I’ve racked my brain about this: why do the dishes spell such disaster for our marriage? And I think (after yet another sink-fuelled feud) that I’ve finally figured it out: because it’s daily. It’s everyday, it’s mundane, but it’s daily.
It forms part of the routine, the grind, the little things that once in a blue moon mean nothing, but every single day as part of the unromantic reality of life, really, really grate.
Which also means another thing. The little things in a relationship can make the biggest difference.
Sure, the grand gestures are nice – heck, I’d never say no to a candlelit dinner at a swanky hotel or being whisked away for a weekend – but that’s not the stuff a relationship is made of. Because it’s not the day to day, unless you’re Paris Hilton or Oprah Winfrey or Melinda Gates.
It’s the day to day – the coffee made for you by your partner in the morning, the ironing done when you get home from a long day, the dinner already cooked or (please God) the dishes already washed – that add heart to a relationship.
These little things, made daily habits, amount to the gestures of love that can keep a marriage going. So I’ve made a list with Etienne of the little things that matter for me.
Top of my list: dirty dishes, which he promises to try and tackle to make my life a little easier. The downside to this exercise in marital bliss? Well, of course, he has his own list, too. And turns out it’s filled with irks that I just don’t get at all.
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