AIO: My husband’s “help” winding yarn caused a big mess and he is indifferent about my feelings.
I crochet. A lot. I have been for the past 10 years. My husband is supportive of this and we tend to actually spend a lot of time together while I crochet. I talk to him about it often but he probably has about as much knowledge about the hobby as I do about building computers.
Recently I wanted to make a purse with cotton yarn and the kind I bought was in a hank (pictured below). A hank is made by wrapping the yarn in a large circle then it is folded and twisted upon itself to create a plait like shape. In order to use it you need to untwist it, cut the ties that hold the loops together then using something to hold the circle of loose yarn, you wind it into a usable form (ball or cake). The proper tool that one would put the loose circle of yarn on is called an umbrella yarn swift (pictured below). This expands like an umbrella and holds the loose circle of yarn while allowing the center rod to spin as you wind it. I used this project as an excuse to buy a yarn winder (pictured below) but didn’t want to buy a swift. There are several ways to do this without a swift but the way the looked easiest to me was having a partner hold the yarn with their arms and help the yarn unravel while I use the winder to wind it into a cake.
I asked my husband to do this and he agreed. I showed him a video of what I needed him to do. And told him where to stand. We started good but as we went I started feeling tension on the strand. When I looked at my husband he has the yarn sitting loosely in his hands with a significant portion hanging off. I stopped tried to tidy it up but I couldn’t figure out what happened. I decided to keep winding hoping I could save it and as I was winding I kept watching my husband. After a minute I figured out what happened. He was just holding the yarn draped over his hands and when the thread tugged on several loops he was holding he just let it fall. I finally stopped and was trying to untangle it so I could keep going but the more I worked with it the more I realized how bad the tangle was and that it was gonna take significantly more time and patience than I currently had. I huffed, took the yarn off his hands and set it aside while saying “You’re not helping”. And got up and left.
He defended himself by saying “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do”.
I responded “you hold the yarn, it’s not that hard, I showed you a video.”
He double downed and said “You act like I know what I’m doing” and because I was mad I didn’t respond.
After I cooled off and analyzed my feelings on the matter I realized I was angry because it felt like he was doing poorly on purpose. When I told him that he responded “Well, I didn’t”.
“But it felt like you did”
“But I didn’t”
And because I didn’t want to get into it with him I let the matter drop.
The next day as I was getting ready for work (I work nights) I told my husband. “I’m still upset, if you want to make it up to me you can help me untangle that yarn.” He made a noncommittal sound and I left without commenting further.
That was weeks ago. I’m still untangling the yarn when I have the energy. Now it’s causing me to fall behind on the project I need it for.
TLDR: I asked my husband to help me wind yarn and he made a big tangled mess that I am still untangling. I made several comments telling him I’m upset and to help me untangle the yarn. Am I overreacting? It’s just yarn.
Edit 1: As I said to one comment, this is not an isolated incident. I don’t remember every time he’s done something like this, I tend to let it go. If I did list them all this post would be too long.