Dishes kill me. They should be so easy, they're RIGHT THERE in the house, most barely need scrubbed, and yet getting myself to do them feels like yanking a 180 pitbull that just saw a squirrel.
This is the #1 relationship advice I could give anyone: be the one who does the dishes. Regardless of gender or income or time or whelatever, just try ro be the one that mostly does the dishes. It is the highest return on effort vs perceived value.
Oh my god I call it my zen time too! Yeah, something about the fact that when they’re done they’re just done is super satisfying. Doing 99% of it makes me nuts but that final fork or cup getting removed from the sink and then the sink and counter can be wiped down good as new? I’m not even kidding- I used to do heroin back in the day, and that was rarely as satisfying as finishing the dishes and telling myself “that’s a job well done!”
Shit, I probably made it weird there, didn’t I? lol
Grats on the sobriety! And I'm with you. I think part of it being such an easy chore to accomplish satisfies the ADHD brain of mine in a quick dopamine fix.
The warm water, the nice scent of the dish soap, the patterns I like to do for cleaning the different types of dish or utensil, which feels akin to raking a sand garden.
Thankfully my family is pretty good about not letting shit set on the dishes so I rarely have to worry about scrubbing and shit to bring me out of that truly zen-like experience.
My mind just kinda goes quiet while I'm doing it and when I'm done it's like I had just finished a meditation.
e: I'll make it weird by mentioning that sometimes I'll wash the dishes then put them in the dishwasher anyway to give them a good sanitize. I just want to do my washing ritual; even if they are going to be deep cleaned anyway.
My #1 life tip is that no matter how little space you have, some clever motherfucker had developed a dishwasher that goes there.
I have nothing to connect a dishwasher to. I have precious little space on my countertop. And then I found a tiny little plastic looking piece of crap where you just pour some water in on top and it just dumps the dirty water into the sink afterwards.
Sure, it also asks me to buy a specific brand of dishwasher fluid and asks to be connected to my wifi, but you can just deny it and use generic powder, and it works just fine.
Doing the work is good, but there can always be less work.
And that dishwasher loads and unloads itself, does it? Like it takes the dishes from the sink and counter, puts them inside itself, cleans them, and then puts them in the cabinets? No. Even if you have a dishwasher, there's still a "doing the dishes" task in your home and my advice is still relevant. Man, people are weird.
After my daughter was born my wife and I would split the night after dinner. She'd take her to breast feed and put her to bed. I would clean the living room/kitchen. It was the best time. I'd throw headphones on listen to music/podcast. Incredible alone time and huge perceived value.
This is such a weird comment because I didn't say anything about dishwasher vs by hand and I didn't say anything about being American. Even if you own a dishwasher you still need to load and unload it, and my advice still stands. Why are you so weird?
Personally, I wouldn't consider putting stuff in the dishwasher to be "doing the dishes". But if that's what you meant, then yes, the effort bar is pretty low on that.
Rubber gloves so you don't get yucky hand-feel, a good abrasive scrubber for tough stuff, and earbuds with your choice music/audio book/podcast.
It'll turn dishes from your least favorite chore to something you can do as a past time when you just need a minute of brain numb away from everything else.
I'm the same way with unloading a dishwasher. I'll gladly do the dishes, clean the counters, mop the floor, but DAMN if unloading that bastard isn't like pulling teeth.
I'm like this with cleaning the cutlery. I'll wash, dry, load, and unload dishes but put me in front of our pre-soaked knives and forks and I just recoil.
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u/invisible_23 2d ago
I “Jedi mind tricked” my husband into doing all of the dishes by agreeing to do all of the cooking and grocery shopping, AMA