one thing I really like about my relationship with my boyfriend is that we can express negative feelings about each other's actions without assigning blame or requiring apology. I mean like for morally neutral things like "it drives me crazy when you leave a wet towel on the floor instead of hanging it up"
cause now like instead of "oh I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to drive you crazy, I'm terrible and unsocialized" or "um well that's dumb, who cares" it's like
"it does? I didn't know that. how come?"
"because it will mildew and I keep tripping over it and I don't know whether you intend to reuse that towel or whether it needs to go in the wash"
"okay so usually if I intend to reuse it I hang it up, and if it needs to go in the wash I drop it on the floor. I guess because I thought I shouldn't put it in the hamper because it would get all the other dirty clothes wet and then THEY might mildew before we do the laundry."
"that's valid. what if we have a specific place to hang wet towels that need to be washed? how about this one hook here"
"perfect!"
no hurt feelings, nobody being made to feel shitty and sloppy on one hand or uptight and bitchy in the other hand. just, we're partners right? let's workshop this