Anyone else's wife faff about un-necessarily?

Hoovering when already late to leave for a holiday is a peculiarity I've seen in almost every woman in my life.

I understand and agree with the principle of "it's nice to come back to a clean house", but now it's being traded against "increased risk of arriving at the airport too late and having to rebook flights, potentially at great expense and potentially not even possible until a few days later".

In terms of necessity it is equivalent to me deciding, as she's locking the door, that I'm now going to spend half an hour tidying up my workshop... Well, it's nice to return to a nice tidy workshop.

The one woman in my life who didn't do this was my Mum, who could leave for a holiday safe in the knowledge that my Nana would give the house an unrequested and very thorough deep clean before we returned one year she rearranged the living room (which really annoyed my dad) and polished the 1970s dining chair runners so thoroughly that they slid across the carpet like a luge.

We are off on holiday tomorrow.

I think she's spent £500 on clothing, for herself and forced me to spend £300 on clothes.

Admittedly, I've lost weight and also have few clothes.

However. Panic set in yesterday, because on the one weather website she uses, it says it basically going to rain most of the week. And she doesn't have the right clothes for rain or cold.

For context, it's Corfu, so unlikely to be snowing in May.

Yeah, but no.

Anyhow. I just don't get the packing methodology of my wife. Much as I love her, I'd rather not be involved in what took from 11 am.to now. Best part of 4 hours plus lunch in the middle.
So all week all her clothes have been sitting on the spare bed.

I wake up early, go to the loft room, and lay out my clothes into 2 piles. Half to go in each suitcase. (Just in case one gets lost.

Eventually after breakfast, she starts the frustrating transfer of her clothes into 2 suitcases. There's back and forward about stuff that needs to go in hand luggage, in freezer bags, because apparently eye wipes in sachets are a liquid. There's the shoe discussion. The extra jumper discussion. I want to scream, for fks sake let me pack it all and if you can fit anything else in then I'll pack it. She even measured my small rucksack which apparently is one cm too deep. Yes and squashy and 20 cm too short.
There's only one thing left to do. Split the 500 euro between us, and remove the unnecessary cards from.my wallet. Oh and I need my trunks in my hand luggage. fk knows why I can't open my suitcase on arriving at the hotel if I want to go swimming.
2 weeks ago I went to Holland with work. 25 mins to pack for 4 nights including ironing.
I just don't understand.

And all of that stuff you take with you, 90% of it will come home unwarn.

25 minutes to pack for 4 nights, what on earth were you fannying about with?

Clearly you were never a guardsman if you feel 23 minutes is sufficient time to polish a pair of shoes

Here's one that causes friction in the donkmeister household... The manifestation of sympathy.

When Mrs D is feeling a bit poorly she will act it up a bit in the hopes of getting some sympathy. I spot this and think "ah, she's feeling poorly. I better give her some sympathy". So far, we're on the same page. She wants sympathy, and without actually telling me this I know she wants sympathy.

However... she is expecting me to give her a cuddle and say "there there, poor dear, I hope you make it", but despite having trodden this path so many times in the past I think "clearly she is ill, so I will do her chores leaving her free to rest". No. That just makes her turn it up a notch because she thinks I haven't noticed.

We are improving; until a few years ago I assumed that people didn't like others to know they were ill, so pretended not to notice. Of course she thought I was ignoring her meek, frail act and turned it up a notch to try again. Once she got so bad that I tried to drive her to hospital because I genuinely thought she needed emergency medical attention.

Funny thing is, when she is genuinely seriously ill she's very stoic.

It’s so things can get lost in translation