Q Hi Auntie, I need your pearls of wisdom to work out a messy situation in my marriage.
I got hitched a couple of years ago and my wife and I now have a two-year-old laaitie.
After we tied the knot and moved in together, we discussed and decided on how to divide the chores that needed to be done in the house.
You know, like washing and dishes and the garden and all those dinge.
It worked pretty well… until recently.
You see, Auntie, one part of the agreement was that I would wash the dishes, but my wife would be the one to gather the vuil things and put them in the sink.
Here’s the problem. My wife now thinks that everything our laaitie touches is dirty. Because he is a curious kid, he loves krapping around in the cupboards.
So most nights I come home and find that almost every single pot and pan we own is piled in the sink for me to wash. Now we don’t have a lot, but yoh!
We argued about this and finally, I put child locks on the doors.
Unfortunately, that made it even worse, because now when my wife sees an open drawer, she assumes our son got in there.
She is taatie even if she was the one who left it open!
I was gatvol of all the shouting matches, so what I did was that when she was not looking, I simply put the things back in their place without washing them (because they are clean).
Jirre Auntie, then it got even more mal. Now my wife pours oil on the things she stacks in the sink, “so there can be no disagreement that they need to be washed”.
We love each other, but can’t seem to work this thing out. What must we do?
From Dirty Dancing
A Yoh, Auntie definitely did not see that coming! Good grief boeta, your wife sounds like a real germaphobe!
And shame, man, it’s mos lekker for a laaitie to play with pots and pans. Now all his “toys” are locked away. The poor laaitie!
Auntie understands that some people like their houses very clean all the time, but seriously, your wife’s maniere is a bietjie extra.
Does she see your entire house as a vuil hok? Or is it just dishes?
It doesn’t really matter, because Auntie has a very simple solution for you: if she is so obsessed with washing anything and everything that your laaitie touches, then it’s time for you two to trade chores.
Let her do the dishes for a week or two and see how she feels.