DH and his big washing day…

[99problemsincludinghavingteenagedaughters]

Family of 5 for context.

DH doesn’t often do a wash (unless he needs something specific for work) that’s my department, no moans on this as DH does other stuff and with 3 DD’s has no idea what belongs to who.

DH does sometimes have a flurry of excitement that he must take over the washing and prove that it’s not as hard as it looks and insists that he is being very helpful.

Yesterdays flurry came off the back of our tumble dryer not working and quite a back log of washing to get through and a work day at home for him.

Credit where credits due he did get the tumble dryer working and I left for work with with his 1st load on…

Skip 8 hours to me getting back from work and I came back to what can only be described as an old laundry, there were clothes everywhere, on radiators (fine) on back of chairs, up the bannisters, over the top of drawers, and doors we also discovered that DH isn’t particularly good at telling the difference from loads that are dry or damp and had piles of clothes everywhere from the tumble dryer. I bit my tongue though even when DD1 moaned about all her damp Nike socks and DH told her to hang around her bunk bed!!

It came to a head this morning when DH obviously very delighted with his successful washing day (as I couldn’t find a fucking thing and had girls moaning that all their tights were damp and found my makeup bag under a dumped white wash on the floor) asked if I had any dark things as he was putting on another wash before we left for work and I truly lost my shit with him.

Apparently the way I wash isn’t fast enough his way is much better and I should be grateful.

AIBU to think what he is is doing is not “doing a wash” putting it in the machine and half drying it and leaving it in mixed damp piles all over the house for me to sort is not at all fucking helpful and further more illogical as most of it will end up smelling and need to be rewashed.

As soon as he gets home from work all of the stuff that can be tumble dried needs to be put in a big bag (an IKEA blue bag is perfect or one of those plasticised plaid storage bags from the 1970s) and he can give up his evening taking it to put in a launderette dryer to get it done. Even better if he has to sit in a cold car using an outdoor machine at a petrol station. This has to come out of his free time and his play money and his tea can get cold or he'll never learn. When he gets home he can sort it out and put it in the correct room to put away...
Actions need consequences! After a debacle like yours 20 years ago I do all the laundry & wardrobe procurement, repair & disposal in my house because I do it right i.e. I keep the process going without overrunning the house with mould & damp & rags but in return DH has a long list of jobs he does right that I won't because there should be an equal load of tasks.

Similar bit different here. Dp has put a load in before he left for work. I'm wfh today, v busy and di travelling the time or inclination to clear the clothes horse of dry stuff, empty machine and sort out stuff to dry. So it'll have to sit in the machine....

Tell him to stay away from the washing. I can’t bear it all not washed, dried and then aired properly and men have no idea. Even when I’ve been ill in bed no one else gets their hands on the washing.

My DH does this a bit - not quite as bad as OP - and I have to remind him a) we have limited drying space and b) clothes will not be dry after being hung up for a few hours in a house in winter - usually it'll be more like 24-36 hours, especially if it's a lot of stuff. That said, he is better at hanging the stuff up than I am.

My DH leaves it all to me which I’m perfectly happy with as he’d mess the drying up too - as PPs have said, the tricky part isn’t getting the laundry basket empty and everything washed, it’s getting it all dry afterwards. It’s like a mental game of Tetris in winter, making sure there’s space and time to get everything dry before the next lot. The vast majority of our things either can’t go in the drier or wouldn’t last as long if we used the drier regularly, plus it’s so expensive!

This ^ Washing is the easy part, just about anyone can shove in load after load of washing but making sure it all dries properly does take a bit of thought., especially in winter when you can't just hang it all out. Plus the folding/ironing and putting away is the really tedious bit. Some men do seem to have a bit of an obsession with having an empty washing basket whereas I accept that it will never be completely empty.

My husband does this too. He will leave damp washing in the basket to be hung up and the "forgets".

The whole lot needs to be shoved back in the machine and be washed again. It's a nightmare and totally illogical.

Plus it's really environmentally shit!

A job must be finished all the way to the end to be done. I've often complained to my husband about this. Half done/started/researched/thought about is not done and the hard effort in doing a job is doing it from start to finish. He's got much better and we do share the load a lot between us. But this kind of big once off display is only helpful when everything is dried and put away correctly. Otherwise a job hasn't been done, just disruption.

Honestly my DP is the same. HIS mum NEVER had even a tiny washing pile don’t you know……..so obviously I don’t do enough according to him! But then he has the cheek to moan at the tumble dryer being on or the clothes horse being full so what does he expect me to do. He goes through phases of putting on extra loads and then is hit with the same problem as me - where does this wet washing go exactly. Not a problem in the better weather when you get loads out on the line of course.

Definitely a case of giving him enough rope to hang himself. Leave him to it. He'll pay the price.

What you now need to do is NOTHING to sort it out. He hasn't left it for you to sort out of you don't do it!

Tbh though, I have a similar style to your DH but I do see it through to its conclusion AND am the one more likely to declare things still damp (so probably slightly less irritating).

Leave it where it is until he finishes the job. Redirect all child complaints and queries to him.

We just wash at weekends. We are both competent adults and it works really well for us.

He needs to get a lot better at it.

It's called strategic incompetence.

DH put a load onto the heated airer once. My stuff was so badly creased that I had to rewash it all but his got placed into a pile on the ironing board and he was told to crack on with it. We now have a peace treaty - I wash and dry it, his gets put into a basket and he puts it away/irons it. I spend most sunday afternoons listening to performance sighing as he tackles it

🤣🤣 hang them on bunk beds made Me laugh!

This would drive me insane. I do the washing. That's my job. Dh will help, but it's at our normal rate so 1 or max 2 loads a day. If he gave help more regularly he could work out how much you can realistically dry in a day. Sunny? 4 loads max fit on our lines. Damp? Max 2 via the dryer and indoor hanging space.

He does it differently to you. That's fine. If you don't want him to do it then keep telling him he's doing it wrong. And tell your dds to put their damp socks and tights in the tumble dryer themselves.

meh. If you are going to "do the washing" and the family system is that everyone puts their things in the basket and they come back to them dry - that is the family system and you don't get to upend that and then moan when people complain.

However, OP, if usually builds up like this you need to refine your system. For us (family of 4) it meant not washing clothes after one wear unless they really needed it, and people taking more responsibility for their own folding/ironing and putting away. Age of DCs is a factor here.

If you don't like how he does it tell him that and do it yourself. However don't expect him to do it again, and stay on top of it yourself.

I tend to do all laundry (I wfh), and sometimes I get behind and do a huge day of washing. It leads to a HUGE pile of clothes to be put away, and often washing hanging odd places. Sometimes that's what needs to be done. Tbf, if there was that much for him to do it sounds like you were quite behind and like your gradual method wasn't working great either.

We live in a hot part of Australia and have 4 children. I do a lot of washing but it’s been so hot lately a lot is usually dry on the line after 2 hours. I often wash in the morning, hang it out before we leave.

Last week I had to work earlier than DH and he washed the clothes and then put them in the dryer! They would have dried on the line in no time. Lazy bastard.

we do need the dryer though because when it rains it can pour for days and days.

Or, more kindly, enough rope to hang the washing?

I like the UFYH (housework for the organizationally challenged) instructions on this:
’There are three stages to washing anything. Wash it. Dry it. Put it away goddammit’.

I feel your pain. Though my exH probably didn’t know where our washing machine was …

my favourite laundry / DH story was a friend who came home to find hers with her favourite large Le Creuset boiling all the whites. I think the phrase “ it’s not effing 1860” may have been used …. 😂

DH is not allowed to do the washing, unless he follows the chart I have in the washing machine cupboard (the chart is a reminder for me - I’m beginning to suspect I have some kind of executive function issue).
One wash goes on per day, that means everything gets washed weekly and the big stuff (towels, bedding) are spaced a few days apart to allow for indoor drying without stuffing up my system.

If you don't like how he does it tell him that and do it yourself. However don't expect him to do it again, and stay on top of it yourself.

the point being that OP neither asked nor wanted (?) him to do it. And it is typical that some posters thing we should be pathetically grateful for a half-arsed job when A Man (Behold!) does it.

My DH used to do all the washing, drying (we have a boiler room, so no need for dryer) ironing, sock pairing and putting away until our DCs were old enough to take over some/all of it.

Mostly living with other people is about allocating jobs to those who are best at it or those who hate it least or drawing straws (or a combination of all). If there is a system that works, it is best to stick to it unless there are really obvious ways to improve on it. But just striding in willy-nilly and disrupting a system that works, and not thinking the process through (I can do 26 loads of washing but i can only hang 3 at a time and it takes 2 days to dry) is just bollocks. And worse than doing nothing at all IMO.

But then he'll never learn-he'll just think he did it properly.

Mine's not allowed near it. He likes to get one load out of the machine, hang it with lots of space and then is bewildered that I have fury because there's another 3 loads needing to be hung and his stupid hanging arrangements mean there's no room.

Don't get me started on the time I asked him to stick a quilt in the machine and he was so proud of himself for hanging the feather quilt on the pool fence and hosing it.

Why are you putting up with this crap?? 😳

I collect and sort the washing into whites/darks/towels.. etc and bung the wash on choosing the wash cycle/temperature etc.

My DH is 70 next month and he’s responsible for drying and sorting the washing when the machine finishes. He mostly hangs it out if it’s not raining and puts it on the dryer rails in the airing cupboard if it’s still damp. He then sorts and folds it and puts it away into the various wardrobes and drawers. He also does most of the the ironing.

We also have teenage DC.

Just to add, he’s a tall Glaswegian bloke so you can’t get much more blokey. 😂

Bloody hell, I could have written this post!

We are also a family of 5. DH seems to think that he only needs to do washing 1 day a week (which means on a Saturday his washing takes over our entire lives). It's like he's stuck at uni aged 18, when you probably could get away with doing one wash a week as a single adult.

Occasionally he does frantic bursts of the kids' stuff and it is just total chaos.