Disabled Woman Went Viral For Slamming Her Able-Bodied Husband For Not Learning How To Do Laundry

A 31-year-old disability advocate had had enough with her husband who spent the past few years unable and unwilling to learn how to do the laundry.

Yes, you read that right. She is a disabled woman married to an able-bodied man that never did the laundry.

The Midwest student explained that she’s suggested ways to help him learn how to do it. But it all boiled down to “it’s just so hard, I can’t do it.” And “for the millionth time,” she’s told him what shouldn’t go in with what, basically common sense that you use when loading in the clothes.

The man successfully “bungles it” every time as well. And at this point, some of us are probably wondering if he’s disabled, too. Seriously.

But, no. We did say he was able-bodied and Bonnie shared, “He’s a perfect execution engineer. He can do laundry.”

Finally, they went to the counselor who suggested that he gets a whiteboard and has all the steps written by Bonnie on how to do laundry on his own.

But here’s the thing: Bonnie had actually made the exact same suggestion years ago and brought it up a few times over time. And her question was, “Do I have a right to be annoyed and angry that it took him this long to do it, and then as soon as someone else suggests it, he falls all over himself and does it, and then wants a cookie for doing it?”

Here’s the currently unavailable TikTok video.

Unfortunately, people think that things run deeper than just his “inability” to do the laundry and said this looks like “weaponized incompetence.”

“As a disabled partner, I realized that I’d been accepting the bare minimum (and sometimes less than that) due to both internalized and external ableism,” she opened up to Buzzfeed.

“It’s been a very rough six or seven years medically for me, and my ability levels have changed a lot. Toss in a few brain surgeries, multiple abdominal and spine surgeries, almost dying twice, heaps of stress, and ableist people telling me I was just ‘lucky’ he didn’t leave me when it got bad, and I had the perfect recipe for some pretty hefty ableist guilt.”

“The bar is six feet under,” concluded the woman. After sharing her story of her perfectly capable, but unwilling-to-learn husband, she’s received many messages from people that called her “lucky” he hadn’t cheated on her.

Spoiler: she’s split up from the man since! Her marriage of 11 years had ended, but with a smile on her face.

“I have heard (both from people outside our partnership and in) just how “lucky” I am that Derek is a “good guy”. How lucky I am he has stayed with me when I’ve been sick, dying, when I lost the ability to “give him children (not my words), when I lost the ability to work…”

“For the longest time, I did think I was lucky. I thought I was LUCKY that my husband, the man who made vows to be with me in sickness and in health, didn’t leave me because I was sick.”

“That’s not lucky. That’s the BARE MINIMUM. That’s part of the deal. I spent so much time feeling guilty and like I had to “make up” for being sick. And, recently I stopped doing that.”

“I would rather be alone than with someone who doesn’t respect me. I would rather know my worth and stand in my own power than spend one more second begging for scraps.”

“Disabled partners have value. We contribute (often more so) to our partnerships. We can love just as big, we can support, empathize, comfort… just the same as abled partners. We shouldn’t have to make up for anything.”

She’s further used her platform to encourage women not to drop their standards, educating others about ableism, and how one can learn to respect disabled people (and their service dogs!) in public.

“Here’s a not-so-friendly reminder that your worth as a woman or a fem being is not determined by what you can offer a man. We aren’t here for men,” wrote the woman.

“I didn’t see any value in me,” she warned others. “And now I realized how wrong that thinking was.”

@bonniedoes Reply to @claudibird who woulda guessed internalized ableism? Not me for once #ableism #internalizedableism original sound – bonniedoes

You are worth and deserving of respect from everyone, especially your husband! That vow ‘in sickness and happiness’ isn’t just about the cold.