To wonder how many people don't do their spouse's laundry?

[Goostacean]

I see this on threads quite regularly: OP says they do cleaning/laundry etc, next posters say "why do you do [his] laundry?"

Do many households have separate laundry baskets- one per person? Or do people mean they take turns to do communal loads? How many of you only do your own laundry?

I've only ever seen this on MN, although in fairness I've not made a habit of asking friends and acquaintances how they manage the load (excuse the pun) in their households...

AIBU to ask what happens in your homes?

@BillywigSting perhaps you only know morons? My husband, who has a penis, manages to wash my clothes just as efficiently as his. He irons them too, better than me. I have a vagina, by the way.

I do all the laundry, we have two communal baskets, one in our bedroom and one in the laundry room, just outside the bathroom. I don't really want DP messing up my system tbh, it's not his area. He does bins, cat litters, keeping his office tidy and earning all the money

DH does mine as well as his own. He's semi retired and I work full time so it makes sense.

@avalanching quite possibly!
Dp, mil, sil, and my df are all regular murderers of delicate stuff. My mum is alright at laundry but I mostly just Googled how to look after my clothes properly. I'm probably a bit precious over it too tbh

I also don't separate colours. I do hot washes for baby clothes, gym clothes etc and 30/40 degree washes for most of our normal clothes.

DH does his own by choice. If he's got room he puts some of the children's things in. I do mine and the children's.

I’ve never done any of my boyfriends ironing (unless they needed something doing like a shirt) but have always washed and folded their clothes. They have done the same for me. I think it’s odd to separate the clothes out.

When the washing baskets are full, laundry gets done. When its finished the cycle, it gets put in the dryer. When its dry it gets folded and put away/ironed if needed. I do all the ironing because I'm very particular, but I don't bother keeping track of who does what laundry.

@BillywigSting I'm a laundry moron, I have stopped buying white underwear 😂 black all the way.

DH has always done his own laundry. He says he doesn't like the way I do it. Fine with me as he is very particular about drying time, folding technique. etc. I do mine and did our sons and the household wash (sheets, towels). I taught my sons to do laundry when they were in their early teens and for whatever reason they just started doing their own shortly thereafter. I guess because they saw their dad doing his. Win/win I'd say!

We have 2 laundry baskets.... one for me and DH and one for the kids. I tend to do 99% of the laundry but DH will if it needs doing and I’ve not had a chance.

I prefer doing laundry and DH prefers hoovering so it works out well to split those that way.

I do all the laundry, all the housework, all the shopping, most of the running DC around, I do all the house admin. I don’t go out to work. My DP puts up to 12 hour days in at work (own business) sometimes 6 days a week. He cooks dinner most evenings because he finds it relaxing and I can’t cook for shit.
I know it’s not the done thing on MN but this is what works for us.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I've never done my husbands in the ten years I've been with him and I don't think he's done mine. We each have our own linen basket and put a load on when it's full. We have another basket in the bathroom for towels and one for my sons clothes, whoever notices that there is enough to wash puts them in the machine. No drama 🤷🏽‍♀️

I do both of our washing. He will do it if necessary but it’s actually a chore that I quite like that he doesn’t. On the other hand I hate doing absolutely anything in the garden other than sitting in it and so he does that along with most of the cooking. Everything else gets split to whoever is home when it needs doing, if we’re both home then we blitz it together.

Lizzielocket That's how it works for us too. I don't go out to work and my husband works long hours in a stressful job so it's only fair that I take care of everything in the house. We call it team work.

I don’t get the people who don’t understand how/why someone else might do it differently. We do separate, but I can see how in some set ups doing together makes sense.

I really don’t get the people who think doing it separately makes for more loads. Each week I do one bedding/towels/underwear load (mine and DD’s plus a few of DH’s if I can find them), and most weeks I do a light or dark delicate. Every 3-5 weeks DH does 1-2 loads of his stuff. If we did it together we’d probably do more loads, as I’d run at least one additional load of warm cotton clothes a week instead of him wearing wrinkled worn clothes because he never got around to washing them.

My husband does everyone's laundry.

I do mine and most of kids. He does his own. He has his own basket.
Why? Because he leaves his until he literally has nothing clean left and it’s horrible / smelly, and he never thought to do his share. So now he has to do it.

We both work full time, but I used to do my DHs laundry just for ease to get it done, but he is so particular about the best way to hang his clothes etc. I gave up. I haven’t got time for that shit! Just do mine and the kids.

Cleaners do our ironing and would do his, but he only trusts himself to iron his clothes... each to their own and as long as my workload doesn’t increase it’s no hardship for me. As another poster said “win/win!”

We have one laundry basket and I do the bulk of it, though DP will occasionally if I’ve not got round to it. What little ironing gets done in this house is done by me too.

He has ‘his’ jobs he does too not that we ever sat down and divided them up its just how it seems to have worked but it works out pretty even overall. We share cooking because we both quite like it.

My boyfriend does all of our laundry. He's better at it and he does them in separate loads because I was sensitive skin and can't use softener. I've never ironed anything in my life either.

I do all the cooking, makes life easier

DH mostly does his own washing, we don't have separate laundry bags we'll just put a wash on with mostly our own stuff and chuck in a couple of bits of the other persons to make up a full wash. He's pretty good as I hate hanging washing out so he does most of that and if either of us noticed the sheets/towels filling up either of us will put those one

There’s no sorting out whose socks and underwear are whose afterwards.

There's absolutely no risk of confusion possible between DH or my underwear

I do all the laundry in my house. If I'm unwell or away for a few days my DH will take over. We divvy up chores to make life simpler - laundry is my job, bins and recycling is his etc. If needed we help the other out but generally just stick to our own jobs. It's a good system.

When I was with exh we mostly just did the washing when we could and it was a mixed load. So I think we both did it for each other although my memory is a bit vague.

I think I got to a stage when o didn't like him doing mine as he would put stuff in the drier that shoudlnt go in, so at some point we possibly separated it out.