Socks

It's a petty little gripe. I'm more confused--perplexed, baffled, puzzled--than angry. But I can't get an answer from my husband (he may be freezing up because he thinks I'm angry) so I'm tossing out the subject here.

Finally, at long last, he bought himself some new socks. I'd been concerned about that for a while. His old, stretched out ones have holes you can drive a car through. He now has enough new socks to wear a pair a day for two weeks, even if we don't do laundry. But we do two or three loads a week--so in other words, he has plenty of new socks.

Last week, when doing laundry, I noticed the hamper was still full of his old, worn out socks, and none of his new ones. When I put the laundry away, I saw that he hadn't even opened the packaging. OK, he's been busy, so I did that for him, paired them off, and folded them neatly in the drawer. I thought I'd be overstepping my bounds if I actually threw the old ones away, so I put them in behind the new ones.

This week, on laundry day, I'm still noticing the old socks in the hamper more than the new ones.

Of course, nobody can answer specifically for my husband, but are there reasons some people don't like to wear new socks? They're tight? They're scratchy? What?

My concern is that he does need to look professional at work, but his reasoning is that nobody sees his socks anyway, so what difference does it make?

I'm also aware that there is a personality disorder that causes people to seek out the damaged, inferior merchandise and use it for themselves. I remember seeing a letter in an advice column years ago, about a woman who always made sure she got the bent utensils and cracked dishes when the family ate together. It wasn't about being polite and saving the better stuff for other people, because she actively went through and looked for the damaged items to use for herself. I don't know the name of it, but it is a personality disorder. I'm wondering if the same thing is going on with my husband. Does he think there is some virtue in denying himself new socks, and wearing old ones full of holes instead? It took him long enough to buy them for himself in the first place--and I know he'd be much quicker to buy them for me if I needed them.

PS: Would I in fact be overstepping my boundaries if I threw the old socks away?

Easy to miss, but for information--this is the forum for Married Couples.

Honestly, this was supposed to be meant light-hearted. It's a small thing, I know. I'm just confused. The way I see it, the socks *are* worn beyond being serviceable, if they're full of holes, and are so stretched out they don't stay up. I don't understand still wanting to wear them when new socks are available, and I'm trying to see it though his eyes.

I'm from the "ring around the collar" generation. Anybody remember that ad campaign? Husband and wife are out doing something together. Someone notices and points out that the collar of the husband's shirt is dirty. Everyone glares at the wife, and she withers in shame. As another letter to an advice column put it, just once she'd like to see the wife glare back at the husband and say, "Well, why don't you wash your neck every once in a while?" Then there's the fabric softener commercial where the premise was that they are pranking a housewife, telling her they're taking the whitening ingredient out of their product. Wife throws a fit because if the family's clothes are gray and dingy, it reflects badly on her. So yeah, wife judged by husband's appearance. That's the society I got used to. Hard to deprogram that way of thinking sometimes.

By the way, some of them have been darned a few times already. He was resistant to buying new socks in the first place, but he would at least let me patch them up. Now the darning and patching is worn out too. That's how old they are.

Tamara224 said:

I tease my husband about not getting rid of his old, worn-out socks. I told him if I'm doing laundry and I see socks with holes in them, they're going in the trash.

It's just socks. Toss them. If he freaks out about something so small, you have bigger problems.

Also... did you wash the new socks? Maybe he doesn't like them straight from the package and just hasn't gotten around to washing them yet.

Click to expand...

Good idea there. I may toss the new ones into the next load, just to make sure they're nice and soft and fluffy for him.

What's Stiffy?

mkgal1 said:

Yes.....and to be honest, it's my opinion that you're overstepping boundaries being concerned more than he is about his socks. That's his "cushion" to be concerned about (I'm referring to a comment made in this video---if you're interested in watching).

Click to expand...

Watched.

I was raised by a codependent mother. I probably learned a lot of that way of thinking--and can unlearn it too, but it will take a while.