When this woman had an argument with her husband over laundry, it went viral. This has led to a discussion on how to deal with people who aren’t as strong as they used to be.
It’s not enough if the only thing your partner is giving to your relationship is being there for you. It’s said that Bonnie is a 31-year-old disability advocate and student from the Midwest. She has been “disabled to some extent” her whole life.
She told BuzzFeed that she was born with a number of genetic disorders. Some of the signs and symptoms of those disorders didn’t show up until around the age of 10, and some of them didn’t become very bad until her late teens and early 20s. I have a connective tissue disorder, a number of neurological conditions, a brain injury, and many other conditions that are linked to those conditions.
“My disabilities affect every part of my body and every part of my life, but I don’t think of myself as a person only because of them.” Bonnie is also married, and recently, she went viral on TikTok because she talked about how she and her husband have a long-running argument about how he doesn’t do laundry the right way. As you can see in the video, Bonnie has to teach her husband of 33 years old a lot of new things about how to do their laundry. People don’t trust him to do laundry because every time he does, “he totally messes it up” and says that he can’t do it. Bonnie says in the video. In English: “He’s a great execution engineer” and he can do it.
Bonnie says that years ago, she suggested that they put up a whiteboard with laundry instructions so her husband could see how to do it. This way, he would know what to do. For a long time, he didn’t pay attention to that idea. Recently, their marriage counselor told them to do the same thing. Bonnie still had to tell him what to write on the whiteboard, even though she has been telling him the same thing for years. No, she says, “It took him so long to do something, but when someone else says to do it, he runs all over himself to do it. Do I have enough of a reason to be angry? Is that right?
Bonnie’s TikTok got a lot of attention, and many people agreed with Bonnie that she has a right to be angry. People who don’t know about “weaponized incompetence” on TikTok have been hearing about it a lot in the last few years. To make someone else do something for them, they make it look like they don’t know how to do something. As a disabled partner, Bonnie said, “I realized that I’d been accepting the bare minimum (and sometimes less than that) because of both internalized and external ableism.” She said she decided to share the video because of this. It’s been a rough six or seven years for me in terms of my health, and I’ve been able to do a lot more now. Some brain surgeries, abdominal and spine surgeries, almost dying twice, stress, ableist people telling me I was just “lucky” he didn’t leave when things got bad, and I had the perfect recipe for ableist guilt.”
People were afraid and stressed out when they saw me go through what I was going through. I thought I had to “make up” for it. That’s what I did. It was my main goal to make things easy for my husband. Even though I had to travel a lot for life-saving surgery, I was able to do it. I thought I had to make up for being disabled, for the stress, and for him not getting to do “normal” things with me. Most couples went on vacation. We went to the hospital for surgery. Overcompensating for years, Bonnie told BuzzFeed, was a waste of time and energy because it didn’t work. “It hit me one day how much I was doing, and how little he cared about what I was doing.” In order to keep him comfortable, I was putting myself through a lot of pain. My own comfort had never been taken into account. So, I started to ask for help (something I have GREAT difficulty doing).
“I kept getting excuses and “I don’t know” far too often.” Having to take care of everything made me tired. I was tired of always being “on.” So, I did it mostly because I was angry, but also because I was unsure of myself. To be honest, I was looking for confirmation, but I was also looking for other people to share my pain with. On the “weaponized incompetence” comments, Bonnie said that “most of the time I agree.” As for us, our relationship goes a little deeper, but that’s not what I mean. When I made more videos, I said that laundry isn’t the only thing that is going on. It’s about being able to see and anticipate what your partner needs. There are a lot of things you can do to help your partner when you see them having problems and they’ve asked for help. A lot of people put the burden on their partner to “manage” them.
“Things like “weaponized incompetence” are more than the “lazy husband” myth.” People don’t like when they know they have to let their partner hurt and struggle for their own comfort. Selfish: TikTok is a big place for videos about this topic, and they have a lot of people watching them. People with disabilities often expect or accept less from their partners because “society tells us we are worthless,” Bonnie said. When we talk to people, we’re told things like medical devices, accessible spaces, and medical care are often too hard or too pricey. A “drain” is someone who can’t work or participate in capitalism like someone who is able to work and participate in capitalism like everyone else. If our partners stay with us even if we get sick, we’re told we’re lucky to have them.
“There should not be any praise for staying with your sick partner,” the woman told us. Part of the deal: I don’t think that having a sick partner is easy. You can talk about that, too. But if the only thing your partner is doing for your relationship is being there, that isn’t enough. I thought it was true. Stop begging, Bonnie told anyone who was having trouble with their relationship: I don’t want to know. Stop asking for help, and don’t say things like that. Do not give away all of yourself because you think you are less valuable because of your body. People don’t care about how good you are as a partner or as a person. Because you are who you are, you don’t have to “make up” Your disability is not a reason to treat you as less-than or not as important. State what you want. Firmly. Don’t make everything sound better than it is. Your partner is an adult, so treat them that way when you talk to them. Finally, “If you’re a disabled partner who is reading this, you are worth it a million times over.” Don’t settle for less than you deserve.”
