To think that this doesn't count as doing the washing?

[cheeseandfickle]

DH does nothing around the house.

Occasionally he will gather up an enormous load of laundry, of any colour and fabric (ie my new white bravissimo bra in with a pair of black trousers on a 60 degree wash, that kind of thing), bung it in the washing machine and then just leave it, and leave it....

I then have to empty the washing machine, sort the washing, dry it, iron, and put away.

DH claims that he does loads of washing, and that I am being unreasonable because I have said that doing this does not count as doing the washing.

AIBU?

[SquigglySquid]

I have 5 categories that our washing can be sorted into (okay , I may be a tiny bit anal). Everyone except DH has grasped this system instantly. 4 months since it's introduction And DH is still putting the coloureds in the whites bin. Is he thick? Is he colourblind? Or is he just trying to drive me into a murderous frenzy?

I have managed to teach DH the ways of the clothes sorting. It involved me grabbing his hand, leading him into the bedroom, pointing at the mistake and telling him to fix it (in a playful way). He still digs his feet in when it comes to doing laundry doesn't understand the washing temperatures and what's used for each category. I just do the laundry and dishes now, and he does the cooking.

But he's been taking the whole night shifts with baby so I can sleep so I let most of it slide. :)

[Timeisawastin]

When I first moved in my Dp (now Dh) we were both full-time students. I assumed we would share the chores but after a couple of weeks it was clear that it didn't enter his head to put washing on, or have anything to do with it so I stopped doing his. Twenty-one years later I still don't do his washing, I do mine and the Dc plus the towels etc but I don't touch his clothes. He does a couple of loads late on a Sunday night and sits in his underwear waiting for the drier to spit them out on a Monday morning. I care not.

[ouryve]

My DH is like Lilymaid's. He's in a technical career and can fathom out anything electronic, faff about deep in command prompts and even do simple repairs on washing machines. He pulls his weight with housework without being asked.

He has a complete mental block with laundry, though. It's not just using the washing machine, it's little things like repeatedly having to be reminded not to put wet towels into the laundry basket because they don't magically dry in there, they simply make everything else wet and smelly.

But, unless your DH is working a 90 hour week outside the home, YANBU to be fed up of his lack of contribution around the house, cheese. Even if he can't get his head around laundry, there's floors to clean and vacuum, windows to clean, beds to change, none of which are complicated (actually, come to think of it DH usually messes something up when he changes bedding, but I ask him to put it right and reserve the right to cry when he puts DS2's favourite duvet cover back into the overflowing laundry basket, even though I've washed and dried it that day, because he "forgot" that I'd said that and DS2 had thrown it on the floor to have a look at it, so he thought it was dirty....)

[BertieBotts]

But it's not really difficult, just say "Which setting do you usually use?"

I don't know what half of the settings on my machine do because I just wash everything on a normal 40 wash. I don't know what the difference is between the three 40 degree washes because the panel is in German. I just pick the first one. It works!

[BetweenDogandWolf]

Leave him to do his own but hope he hangs it up in time! I had a ex in a shared student house who did his own washing but left it in the machine for days afterwards. One day I emptied his out into a black bag because I needed to wash some of my clothes. I told him but he still couldn't be bothered to hang them up and he waited until they started to go mouldy and stinky before doing anything with them, when he had to throw quite a lot of it away!

[vanillavelvet]

Lily, that's exactly it. It's the choice of cycles and being able to change the temperature/ length/ time of the wash that make him not even want to try! How did your DH finally learn then? Any tips?

[TheresLotsOfFarmyardAnimals]

YANBU

I agree with PP. Get petty. Do your stuff and the DCs but don't bother with his. Or if you do wash it, leave just his in the machine.

That'll learn him. If he doesn't listen, hopefully actions will speak louder than words.

It'd piss me off rightly!

[ShatterResistant]

Sausage, my DH does exactly that. Last night he did precisely half the washing up, and often says he'll do it in the morning, before he leaves at 6.20. I don't think so. I once made the mistake of telling him that if he left food out or put it in the fridge unwrapped, he might as well throw it away. I meant, wrap it up. He TOOK me to mean, throw it away.

[Lilymaid]

My 'D'H still claims he doesn't know how to set a cycle on the washing machine. After 5 years of having this washing machine.
It took my DH 30 years to work this out. Meanwhile he had plumbed in several machines for us in several different houses, done basic repairs and diagnosed faults where we needed new parts.
He just didn't understand why there were so many wash cycles and couldn't cope with the choice. There had been no choice on the machine at the laundrette he used before we married and he had bunged everything into one wash.

[AMumInScotland]

We have white / greige / dark / boil-wash categories.
Plus towels or bedding that don't tend to get mixed with anything else as they are a load in their own right.

That probably counts as 5 or 6 types... and I don't count myself as an anal person in general.

[TheWomanTheyCallJayne]

I think 5 types is probably normal not anal.
I have four and I'm a bit of a slattern really
I sort mine at the machine though rather than having separate baskets

[sausagefortea]

Errr.....no, that does not constitute doing the washing. Anymore than my rant of this morning to my DH about how cleaning away the dinner stuff doesn't constitute shoving half the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and leaving half out. And leaving half used foodstuffs out of the fridge all night because he didn't put them away. His excuse for doing this is always that he will do it in the morning - but guess which muggins it's left for 99.9% of the time.

[Marcipex]

When I was visiting my parents in the house they'd had for thirty years, my father asked me one day if I happened to know where the washing machine was.

So yours isn't the worst.

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

I have 5 categories that our washing can be sorted into (okay , I may be a tiny bit anal). Everyone except DH has grasped this system instantly. 4 months since it's introduction And DH is still putting the coloureds in the whites bin. Is he thick? Is he colourblind? Or is he just trying to drive me into a murderous frenzy?

[ChunkyPickle]

DP does separate it out at least, and will transfer stuff to the tumble dryer... BUT despite my mentioning it a few times, he still doesn't use the delay start so that it'll finish at the right time to take out in the morning, instead he just sets it going and leaves the machine to beep in the middle of the night and make the clothes all crumpled when they aren't folded warm.

I've stopped folding his clothes because of it, and I noticed it did get through because he folded the last load. It's sheer laziness on his part - he's perfectly capable.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Good for you vanilla. Make sure you do...

[UncleT]

cheery in that case you're doing it all wrong. Mixing everything up and washing at 60, then failing to take it out the machine and hang it up to dry is...... well, completely wrong and a bit thick and very lazy really.

[ShadowFall]

Of course that's not doing the washing.

Doing the washing isn't complete until the clean dry clothes are put away in the appropriate wardrobe / drawer.

[AMumInScotland]

Two suggestions -

1. as other have said, don't wash anything of his, and don't do any part of it if he leaves it part-done.
   

Or 2. Make him responsible for it. Properly responsible. For all of it. Including paying for replacements when he ruins things. Do not touch another piece of laundry. He will work out how to do it properly, so long as he suffers from not doing it right.

Or, actually 3 - If not laundry, pick a suitable quantity of other chores around the house and make him completely and utterly responsible for those instead.

Any task which is partly his and partly yours is going to go the same way - with you picking up the slack because he is deliberately taking the piss.

[vanillavelvet]

Yes...yes, my DH is an intelligent man with a mobile phone, laptop etc. I absolutely know that he is more than capable of setting a cycle on the washing machine; he just has zero interest in doing it. I am going to put Murphy's plan into action

[fluffyraggies]

I'm so anal about the laundry i don't actually like anyone else doing it.

My question is: How hard can it be to put your dirty stuff in the right basket? Dark and light. Dark or light. Simple request, you'd think, for 5 people over 16 ...

and yet - no.

and don't get me started on bloody 'balls of sock'

[doziedoozie]

I would raid his drawers and get a load of his nicer stuff and stick it in at 90 and leave it. When he looks for it tell him you kindly washed it for him.

He is doing the 'if I make a crap job I won't get asked again' trick.

[BlackeyedSusan]

my two year old was capable of doing that. in fact he was better as he at least made an attempt to drape the cllothes on the clothes horse. how does he feel at being outsmarted by a two year old boy?

[TheLovelyBoots]

Presumably cheery you take it out to dry it?

[cheerybear]

Errr, I do my washing the same way your hubby does, OP