Never Enough

One night, I noticed that my Ex put laundry in the wrong basket. As I planned on doing laundry the next day, I decided to ask her about it. To the best of my memory, I phrased it like this: “I explained to you how I organize the laundry baskets. I noticed that you put [a piece] in the wrong basket. I wanted to ask you whether you meant to do that, because I want to wash tomorrow and I don’t know whether I should wash [that piece] or not.”

She reacted with irritation and told me how I had explained the laundry baskets according to her memory and insisted that she did it right. I corrected her by saying: “no, I explained to you that I have three baskets and [they have this and that purpose].” She felt confronted and got visibly angry. I for my part was neither angry nor did I want to confront her, but I felt that I had to defend myself for bringing this topic up. As this only enraged her more, at some point I gave in, said “ok” to her, nodded and stopped arguing.

I remember that I didn’t speak out spontaneously. I had chosen my words in advance. This was my learning from the movie incident to avoid being gruff. Another learning was not to continue arguing, even though I believed I was right, but to agree with her to settle the argument. I didn’t intend to teach or shame her for making a mistake. I wanted to know whether I should wash a piece of her clothes and stated my observation to motivate my question.

When talking about the argument one day later, my Ex at the very least acknowledged that I gave in. However, she asserted that I belittled her. She adviced me that this issue was not worth discussing. She substantiated her point by telling how she at work didn‘t bother her colleague over a minor issue and just made a decision at the risk of doing wrong. Note how she turned the guilt around: it was not her, who got disproportionately enraged, it was me, who was at fault for bringing this unimportant topic up. The laundry incident would later become her relationship failure reason number three. I would maintain that this incident was a misunderstanding until the end of our relationship.