page forty-three: The Dishwasher Disputes

A friend recently forwarded a funny little video of an interview with an elderly couple. It begins with the interviewer asking the woman how long they had been married. Sixty-five years, she replies. Wow, says the interviewer, that's amazing, did you ever think of divorcing him? No, never, she says, pausing to add the punchline, but I did often think of murdering him!

I laughed out loud watching the video. Violent as it sounds, the sentiment is relatable in long term relationships. Anyone who has lived with another person long enough knows that rage has a way of showing up in the most unexpected and sometimes ridiculous moments. Socks found on the floor, a toothpaste lying open with its cap off, dried empty coffee cups unearthed in forgotten spots around the house, and the worst of it all, the mis-organized dishwasher!

Over the years I have found the dishwasher to be an unsuspecting battlefield, and discussions about this dispute come up often in our classes. Someone mentions it softly, as though confessing something embarrassing. And right away I can see others smiling and nodding in resonance. They know exactly what she means.

Times have changed, and the home manager today is as likely to be a man as a woman. And yet this particular dispute is, more often than not, a woman's cross to bear.

Laughable and silly as it sometimes feels, I have sensed something deeper underneath these domestic storms. One of my own teachers, Anodea Judith, would refer to it as a "charge," an energy waiting to be uncovered, seen, and acknowledged.

So let's look deeply at what this appliance altercation is really all about.

The dishwasher, for many of us, is the one place we feel we have complete and unquestioned control. We have poured our talents into figuring out how to get the "best bang for our buck" in organizing the dishes to the dishwasher's maximum capacity. Everything that's in there has a reason for being exactly there. Not many others have an appreciation of the engineering and spatial skills that go into it.

But beyond the engineering, it is ours. In a world that has spent centuries telling women how to think, speak and defer, the dishwasher is one small domain where our authority goes unchallenged.

And then someone else comes along, often our clueless partner, quietly reorganizing dishes behind our back. In that moment, what might look like a simple innocent gesture feels like something else entirely. A power move. A transgression into carefully held territory. And a volcano of emotion erupts, releasing the simmering lava that nobody knew existed.

The dishwasher just sits on the fault line. It is what lies beneath that is calling for our attention.

Stepping back, we recognize the underlying magma, older than the dishwasher. The angst of having spent a lifetime making room for everyone else, often at the expense of ourselves. Raised to be accommodating, to be helpful, to be everything to everyone, there lives a resentment we ourselves may not even realize is there.

All kinds of unprocessed emotions show up unannounced. And as unwelcome as they are, it is time to pause, feel, and look deeper. When the charge is named, something shifts. Understanding transforms tension into compassion. The dispute becomes a doorway for true connection.

So perhaps the answer has nothing to do with who is right. Let the home manager be the undisputed expert of this small domain. Ask to be trained in it, even. Let them have their small victories, and in doing so, begin to acknowledge the larger one.

Because the work of holding a home and family together has always been the quiet backbone of everything. Undertaken with love, rarely acknowledged or rewarded for what it truly costs, it enriches the lives of everyone inside it.

This Mother's Day, as you celebrate the one who has held the home and family together, even if it is a father playing that role, celebrate them in a special way. In addition to the flowers and the meals, give them the bigger gift of being truly seen. Let them know that you see not just what they have done, but what they gave up to do it. That the life they chose to give so generously, so others could grow, has not gone unnoticed.

As for the dishwasher? Give it a day off!