The laundry basket fight

[MumJ21]

Why oh why can DH never put his dirty clothes in the washing basket? I have asked 100 times, told him anything left on the floor is going to stay there, but then it’s there for days he just walks over it, so I always end up picking up after him!

Now it’s just like an ongoing joke between us but I know this can’t just be my DH who does this. The washing basket is right outside our bedroom door and I even put another downstairs but still he seems totally oblivious to it.

Tell me I’m not alone in this!

Where the hell do you find these gobshites ? I've been married for 26 years and DH has always acted like a fully functional adult.

If you don't want to keep stepping over them, move them out of the way and leave them there until he's ready to start behaving like a responsible grown up.

Why are you enabling him to behave so shittily towards you?

DH tried this when we first moved in together.

I binned each and every single item he left on the floor.

He soon started putting his clothes in the washing basket when he had no matching socks, no 'nice' jeans, no expensive shirts and half of his footie kit missing.

Fast forward a few years later and he can even separate colours and take wet washing from the machine and put it into the dryer.

Don’t mention it again, quietly put all his washing in the wash basket. When you do the next loads of washing, you just do everyone else’s washing and leave his in the wash basket. When he very suddenly runs out of underwear or clothes for work, it miraculously enables them to start “playing the game.” It works every time.

To say my husband is acting shittily towards me is an unfair comment to make. This thread is light hearted, jokey, it is not serious. Of course he is a fully functional adult and holds down a brilliant job as a DI. Not everything is always so serious, lighten up.

AHH, but stuff like this can erode respect within a marriage, seen it happen unfortunately.

Does he go through the house lining for dishes to wash,out does he expect to find then in the sink so he can wash them?

What oh2beatsea said.

Wow some people do get arsey about these kind of threads

I realise it’s lighthearted, and he’s great otherwise but don’t you feel disrespected? He cooks and cleans the kitchen, so it sounds like there’s fair division of labour, how about if you made his task difficult in some way so it took longer. Put ingredients back in the wrong cupboard, the best knife in the wrong drawer etc. Then you can have a laugh about that too.

LittleMe03 DP does this, he mostly seems to do it when I'm sorting out the laundry anyway so by the time he's back it's already in the washing machine .

I thought DP was bad for not putting stuff in the right laundry baskets- we're actually going to have the 'if it's not in the right place, it doesn't get washed' conversation tonight.

Ahhh. “Near to” happens a lot in our house.

I’m tempted to serve him raw chicken and say “I put it near to the oven for an hour”

Not much you can do to change it, either get used to picking it up yourself or do what I do and refuse to wash anything not in the basket.

Op Mr dh is similar he will not put clothes in the wash basket. I don't know why. When i met him he bragged about how he kept sick a clean house and blah blah blah. Since ds was born he had gotten worse. I no longer do everyone's laundry, just for me and the kids.

Everyone in this house has their own washing basket. Mine on my side of the bed, DH has his on his side of the bed.

Couldn't care less if his washing is in it or on top of it, it's his washing do with it as you wish. I'm not his maid.

Why do people get stressed over simple things? He doesn't care about his washing, he is an adult. Why are you doing it or even caring about another adults washing?

I do the washing for the whole family because I have A System that would fall to bits with everyone doing their own, but I do enforce "if it's not in the basket it doesn't get washed" and things go through the washing machine exactly how they go in the basket: underpants and trousers still inside each other? in they go together; socks bunched up in a ball? You get them back in a ball, too bad they didn't wash properly. DD actually had a go because I put her school shirts back on hangers but still buttoned up and inside out with the sleeves rolled up. It gave me the opportunity to point out I'm not a laundry service and it's not my job to turn her clothes the right way round. She got the message. Still puts her shirts in the wash inside out but if she doesn't care, neither do I, and she hasn't complained since.

Mug.

Dh often has three lots of ‘not clean but not dirty’ clothes on the go.
He does 2 jobs so has 2 lots of uniform, plus his casual clothes. He leaves them in little piles around the place. The bedroom chair, top of the washing basket, on the bed etc.
He doesn’t see the problem as he is going to wear them again.
I am seriously considering pouring a glass of water over every set that I find.

Mine is hit and miss with the washing basket. He also never put his clean washing away. I have a system where I dump all his clothes, clean or dirty in a pile on his side of the bed all mixed up. I get sick of looking at it but from time to time he'll have a sniff at each item and throw the dirty stuff in the washing basket and put his clean stuff away.

I don't personally think there's anything lighthearted about an adult woman picking up the dirty laundry of her husband who is deliberately not doing his washing. If he can catch a killer, he can wash a fucking sock, imho.

He knows you will pick it up. Don't.
He thinks you are beneath him and it's your bloody job.
Nowt lighthearted about that.

I have a DH of 20 years and DDs aged 11 and 13. I do most of the washing because I have a system and don't trust them to check pockets for tissues etc. However there is an iron rule that anything not put in the laundry basket does not get washed.

Why is doing someones washing making you a mug?

I don't pick up the dog poo or mow the lawn. That's his job.

We both work hard and share things because we think that's what people in relationships do. I can't for a minute imagine not picking his clothes up off the floor and washing them whilst having a lighthearted grumble about it being annoying.
Do people actually just wash their own clothes and ignore their partners, am not being goady am seriously asking.

I dealt with it lightheartedly but firmly from the minute then-DP moved in. I told him the laundry fairies were very shortsighted and couldn't see washing if it wasn't in the basket. For all his myriad other faults, he has always been able to put washing in the basket. If only I could persuade him to stop blocking the loo...

This is my teenage DS not my DH, but after telling him 1 million times to move his dirty washing off the floor now, each and every single time, I pile them into his bed so he physically has to move them when he gets in bed and occasionally lose my shit over it.
The message is veeeery slowly sinking in.

My dh can do whatever he likes with his share of the housework, I don't mind in the slightest if he chips in or not but you know, if I get too tired... I just won't have any energy to.... ;)

I don't pick anyone's washing up off the floor, never have. My husband and sons have always been able to push their own clothes in the washing basket. Anything not in the washing basket doesn't get washed.

Don't pick up after him.