Part Six: Living As Roommates: Housekeeping Gone Mad

In this continuing series on living as roommates instead of husband and wife (for the rest of the blogs in this series click here), Dr. Wall exposes how living as roommates carries over into the area of housekeeping. It isn’t pretty. Proceed with caution.

The greatest among you will be your servant.

Matthew 20:26

Roommates are very conscious of everything being fair. As my Grandpa said, “the fair’s in August.” Fair and family life doesn’t mix. Family life is never fair. We ALL do more than our fair share. We do it willingly. We sacrifice. We give. It’s OUR deal. WE take care of it. We’re servants. We lead each other and our children by example. We treat others the way we want to be treated. It’s more blessed to give than to receive. We all help.

But not roommates. Here’s a good way to curse your family without even hardly trying. Many of us are really good at not really trying, so this will be of interest to some of you.

If you are the husband, don’t pick up after you. Don’t pick up after anyone else. Hardly any of it is yours anyway. Don’t do anything unless asked. Take absolutely NO ownership for anything around the house. No initiative. Never notice the garbage pilling up or the dishes needing done. Never. That’s how you do your job, right? You just sit there at work till your boss comes up to you and specifically tells you what to do? Otherwise you are just grooving? See how long that will last. I hear there’s a comfy spot just for you under that bridge down by the river.

This plan will turn your wife into a shrew. You just lay there on the couch flippin’ channels. Every 3 to 5 seconds. Convey to her by your absolute indifference that you could care less about her concerns. She’s expressed her consternation? Tell her she’s a control freak. Or a be-ach. That’ll get her goat. It’s fun to rattle her. Mock her concerns. Tell her all she does is complain and that what she complains about is absolutely trivial. Now you? You’ve got the real concerns. You’ve got the real job. You work all day for THE FAMILY and you are really, really stressed and now you get to chill. Besides you do the outside stuff and take care of the cars. That’s more your fair share given all you do at your job. You are way more tired than her. Way more. Beer, TV and your little remote. Heh, heh, heh. Make her feel crazy. Then you can blame her! What a fail-proof plan!

If you are the wife, get really animated when it comes to the house. Tell him everything he needs to do to reduce your anxiety level about the mess that is driving you insane. Don’t let any little thing go unremarked about. Micromanage him. He’ll be sure to respond to your feeeee—lings. Pick it up yourself, but make scoffing noises or demonstratively sigh loudly and negatively to convey your displeasure at the unfairness of it all. Accuse him of being lazy. If he does help, comment very specifically and often how he doesn’t do it the right way. Criticize him in no uncertain terms. Tell yourself you are NOT being negative. It works for those babes on VHI, right? Be ARTICILATE. Tell him everything you feel. Let those negative feelings out. You gotta be real. Tell him he doesn’t make you happy and you can’t take any more of this. The more he lays there the meaner you get. Or let the resentments sit and roast for a while and when they are finally done, medium rare, let him have it. Just totally freak and yell at him for his laziness and selfishness and that he’s not part of the family. And he doesn’t love you and he thinks only of himself and what kind of a man is he and this is NOT what you bargained for and how much longer do you think I’m just gonna pick up after you and I don’t need another kid and you can’t take it anymore. Read his mind. Tell him what he thinks and feels and when he says he doesn’t think and feel those things tell him that’s a bunch of crap and you could never trust a thing he said and…He’ll willingly pick up after that, right? He’ll just say, Oh, I’m sorry dear. Where do you want me to start? Thanks for reminding me. Maybe I’ll just start with the dishes. And do you know where the bleach is? I’ve got to clean those toilets. And then if by some miracle he actually does any of these things, tell him he didn’t mean it, because you had to tell him and he really didn’t do it from his heart.

If you are the husband, now it’s your turn to get all huffy and everything. Raise your voice. Get nasty. Furl your fangs like a wolf ready to pounce. Be all threatening. Raise your fisted arm in the air to make your point. Now pound it into your other hand as you exclaim these inequities. Accuse her of being a crazy woman. All she thinks about is the house and the kids. She never thinks about you. When’s the last time she initiated sex! Ha! You got her now. What’s she gonna say about that, hey? Use a bunch of f words and for added spice you can call her some of those taboo words. This will help raise her appreciation for your maturity and help her learn to respect you as her “man” and will also soften her heart toward you and she’ll quit complaining about the house forever and rip your clothes off.

If you are the wife, now it’s time to go on strike. Let him know how much you really do around the house. Test him. See how long it takes him to do the dishes or fold the clothes or vacuum or take out the garbage. In this test of wills you are sure to WIN! Winning is everything. Teamwork, working together, going the second mile, sharing, helping, contributing, encouraging: Forget all that crap. What a bunch of sappy words those are. You tried that and you got nothing on your investment. He don’t appreciate nothin’ you do or say so forget it. And while you are on strike, you lay on the couch. Flip those channels. Get depressed while you are at it. Don’t do nuttin’. And as every minute passes get more and more rattled. And mad. And self-righteous. Work out your lecture in total. Mull it over again and again. Then, when it’s been six months and the carpet hasn’t been vacuumed once, ‘cuz he never even thought of it, BOOOM! Totally lose it! Repeat those resentments you’ve cherished and nurtured for months and months to him verbatim. You’ve got him now. HA!

If you are the husband, this is your cue to never come home or completely shut down and never say a word. Start a hobby. Hey, you can hunt and fish in Iowa for something nearly year around! There’s always a new season! That’s just you, right? Or work on that stock car all winter after work and every weekend and then be gone to the races every weekend all summer! Just spend thousands of dollars and drink hundreds of bottles of beer ‘cuz that’s just you! Or work like a bandit. Crazy, crazy hours. She doesn’t seem to want you around anyway.

If you both do this right, you can save money by not needing to go to marital counseling and you can just jump right over to a lawyer. Then you can have a really perfectly clean house or let the place deteriorate into squalor to your heart’s content. All by yourself. You never wanted anyone else in your life anyway. That’s just you. Stupid roommates.

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The first five articles in this series on living as roommates instead of husband and wife are:

Dr. Wall takes a sarcastic look at what it’s like to be married, living as roommates. Since this isn’t satisfying, people divorce in spades. Maybe they should have tried living as husbands and wives instead.

In this second blog in a series on living as roommates, Dr. Wall scoffs at the notion that living together is preparation for marriage and suggests it’s training each other to be roommates instead of husband and wife.

This blog is the third in a series on living as roommates instead of living together as husband and wife.

In this fourth blog Dr. Wall continues his series on roommates vs. husband and wife by looking at the temptation parents have to invest in their kids and ignore each other. This is fine for roommates; not for husband and wife.