To bin a ruined expensive jumper

Almost like he thinks his wife is the skivvy who owes him domestic services and he has the right to 'hold her accountable'

A drama, you say?

He's got a cheek. If he owns items that are expensive and he cares about them, he needs to wash them himself or bring them out for dry cleaning.

Sorry you're feeling apprehensive here. That's not a nice feeling.

I machine wash all my 'hand wash' and even 'dry clean' items on a cold wash and rinse/ gentle cycle, with Woolite. I haven't damaged a single item yet, and one of the items I've washed was a wool pea coat that a dry cleaner hadn't managed to clean properly.

The mistake here was to put it in a warm wash, and probably unsuitable detergent too.

What a sad situation when you’d rather lie to your DH rather than be honest.
I hope you don’t have kids together because it doesn’t bode well for either of you at all. 🙁

My husband has ruined a couple of my silk things by not reading the washing instructions. I said 'never mind thanks for doing the washing' and I keep my delicates that I care about separate and do it myself now. By my reckoning if someone else washes your soiled clothes you are grateful for whatever they do.

Why did you actively ignore the washing instructions?

It's interesting that the only reason you won't 'confess' is because it'll be a 'whole drama' of him holding you accountable for your actions. Almost like you have form for this

I'd blame him for buying an expensive, high maintenance jumper 😁

I suppose we're all different, but that sounds horrible

That sounds very sad as a relationship where you choose to lie to each other :(

Why is sexism allowed here if it relates to men? It's horrible. There's literally nothing to say the op is some downtrodden cinderella scrubbing away for her wicked stepmother husband, the op said she actively ignored washing instructions and ruined something very expensive belonging to someone else. Ridiculous

Tell him op imagine if this was reversed and your husband damaged something of yours and pretended not to know about it.

Seriously what's the worse that can happen he becomes annoyed that you accidentally ruined his jumper, you could look to replace it on likes of eBay vinted see if there's another similar jumper on there but seriously I wouldn't lie.

I once ruined my husband's shorts didn't realise they weren't meant to go in tumble dryer when they came out in bits I was mortified but accidents happen.

He's your husband, just tell him. If it was not dumped in the washbasket with everything else then an apology is in order, if it was... he took his chances...

In future let any expensive hand wash only stuff build into a pile and tell him "you know what I'm like for ruining that stuff... I'm not going near it"

TBF some machines (Miele in particular ime) do "hand wash" better than hands. My trusty Miele has always been used for hand wash because it does a better job than I can ever do ! The drum is honeycomb and the soft spin does a better job than wringing by hand. So honestly I never actually hand wash anything!

Sadly, won't work if it's 'felted', see my post a couple back.

Does he buy expensive items and expect you to handwashing them? Or did you just bung it in when you happened to be doing some washing?

Was going to suggest this too.

If I owned an expensive silk dress I wouldn't throw it in the basket to be gathered up with all the other laundry. I'd make sure the person responsible for laundry knew it needed special treatment or do it myself. Although it's more likely I wouldn't buy myself an unnecessary chore, which probably the OP's DH wouldn't either if it was him doing the laundry.

Has it 'felted'? ie, densed up, lost it's natural slackness?
If so, no amount of fabric conditioner, stretching, and stretching again will make any difference, I'm afraid.
I did this by accident to a cashmere jumper of mine that I meant to hand-wash but got scooped up by mistake and ended up in the washing machine.
I spent about 4 days on You Tube hacks trying to do this to no avail. Mine too, only ended up fitting a 5 year old, which is indeed where it went to. I was kicking myself.

FWIW, I'd own up, get him a replacement and also try to make something from the wool - a hat, wristwarmers, hot-water bottle cover, soft toy etc. The wool is still gorgeous and worth saving, even if the garment is too small.

I didn;t know this. That explains why the cold wash fast spin ruined my cashmere sweater when I was too lazy to wash it by hand

That is brilliant advice. I ruined a gorgeous cashmere sweater that would now fit a five year old. I will try this. Thank you.

Would you say the same if he'd just ruined her expensive silk dress? Serves them right?

If I was this scared of my husband's reaction, I'd be focusing on leaving him op. This is no way to live.

Or you have zero respect for him and are happy to gas light him about a simple mistake you made because you wAnt to save face