Would you have thrown the shoes away?

[ChilliChilly]

I have young kids and they leave their shoes everywhere, as do I sometimes. We have a shoe rack but with 2 pre school kids shoes end up in strange places

I collected all the shoes in the house while tidying last week. Gathered them all in a large canvas bag. Put the canvas bag in the sitting room (nowhere near a door)

DH was at home by himself and took the huge bag of shoes to the clothes bin and they've all gone. Including some of mine.

He says I'm mad gathering them in a bag and he thought he was 100% safe to presume they were to be thrown out

AIBU to think a quick call or message to ask is a reasonable expectation?

Gathering shoes in a bag is a bit random but my DH would always check with me before throwing something away.

I was thinking this as well - none of his shoes got lost.

If there is no way to get them back from the clothes bank (thinking it might be possible to get some back if it's a local one), then your husband needs to get new shoes for your children and be more involved in organising their wardrobes etc in future. He can also think up a system for making sure that a similar mix up can't happen in future.

Has he admitted he made a mistake and apologised?

None of his shoes were in there. He checked before he took the rest! 2 pair of my trainers which I wear regularly and so many kids shoes. To be fair some of them were destined for the bin but that's why I gathered them all...to sort out!

No apology. In fact he got pissed off with me.

My dad took a pile of ironing to the charity bin at Tesco once. They obviously weren't bagged up or anything, just a pile of clothes in the usual place my mum put the ironing. I'll never understand what possessed him to do this. At least in the OP's case the shoes were bagged up and may have looked like they were intended for the charity shop. I'd have still checked though!

May I recommend our system:

Anything for rubbish goes in a black bin bag

Anything for charity / donation goes in a clear bin bag

Anything being kept but gathered up to be sorted out, moved around goes in a reusable shopping bag or similar.

I'd be livid that anything got chucked out on an assumption without some simple communication first.

i just like the thought that he rifled through the bag checking his own shoes weren't in there....looking at shoes worn regularly but me and all the kids. brand new sports shoes for the kids. i wouldn't really mind too much. just thought it was a bit much that he is literally annoyed at me about it! but yes, will get a system in place. he rarely tries to help so haven't needed one so far! he hasn't taken anything to the clothes bin in his life before!

He’s obviously the one who completely fucked up here. Obviously you don’t just take a bag of everyone else’s shoes to the charity shop without checking with the person who put them in the bag. I mean it’s ridiculous.

Of course you weren’t wrong to gather up the shoes, put them somewhere for safe keeping, planning to clean the rack when you had time. That’s how things happen with small children - in stages, but with stuff kept safe until you can finish the job.

Honestly, this is so one sidedly him in the wrong i can’t believe you’ve had some such contrary answers.

I’m assuming he’s going to replace them all like for like in his own time?

YANBU. It's the sort of behaviour I'd expect from someone who doesn't pull his weight around the house or make the effort to buy the essentials for his kids. I don't understand how anyone can be that unobservant to not think these are my kid's sports shoes, only bought recently, better check why they're in this bag. All he seemed to care about was that none of his shoes were in there! Sounds like strategic incompetence. I would expect him to go out and buy replacements and if you each have fun money budgets, the cost should come from his.

I'm impressed at the speed in which your husband physically took them to a recycle bin. If that was me they would sit in the cars boot for about a month.
But yes this is very unreasonable.

Hes a dick

what you have described there sounds…. concerning

so you think he did confirm to himself that none of his own shoes in there before getting rid of?

or that he just scooped up a huge bag of shoes and got rid of without checking any of his in there, which would have confirmed to him that not a bag to get rid of

either way… sounds a pretty crappy marriage

He is an idiot. And also an arsehole for checking for his own stuff then chucking yours and the kids out. How much of a shot dad do you have to be to not recognise shoes your kids are using?? And to get bad at you? Arsehole. He’ll need to use his own money to replace it all.

So this was the first time he ever took clothes to the clothes bin. And he managed to do the "job" instantly instead of leaving the bag lingering for weeks (which is what I do!)
What a dick.

Now you can never ask him again to do anything "in case he does it wrong" so he's happy with the outcome

This

Neither my dp or dad would dare do such a thing. Having a massive sort of things atm and there's several conversations about a what's going where in random bags but things are double checked before going anywhere

He is not sorry, won't replace them. When I said to him they weren't to be thrown he was laughing and doing a weird shrugging thing - like what did you expect. He said they all looked shit to him.

Does your husband randomly not throw your things away because you say to him daily don't throw my stuff away or does he just not do it?

So he doesn’t have any idea which shoes your children are currently wearing?

That is pretty crappy parenting.

He sounds like an arsehole. And what do you mean “he won’t be replacing them?”. How can he not- surely you have a joint account for children’s clothes?

Putting them all in one bag is strange as it implies they're perhaps to be got rid of, but getting rid of them without checking first is a bit silly.

On the other hand, it's all very well saying there were two pairs of trainers that you wore on a regular basis, but he is a MAN and given his reaction, he probably wouldn't have noticed what trainers you wear.

The solution:

1. Go to the charity shop and ask for them back. Explain the mistake and offer a donation, or perhaps even donate your husbands clothes to them?!

or

2. Buy yourself some nice new trainers, and the kids some shoes, and take it from the food budget, particularly the food your DH likes eating. e.g. when my DH pisses me off, the food becomes vegetarian as I am not fussed about eating meat and it's expensive!

We all know full well that in any functioning family/relationship there would be communication along the lines of “I’m just taking this bag to the clothes recycling, anything else that needs to go?”

The fact that he just took a bag with no discussion and you didn’t even know he was doing it suggests that there are serious communication issues going on here.

This is not a regular thing like taking out the bins.

And any normal man would be mortified, not smug.

Male dignity... He knows he's on the wrong and he's stupid, but it's too hard for him to admit or even bear the thought. So he behaved like this as a damage shield.

At first I thought maybe it's a mistake, I have a friend whose dh was having a wardrobe clear out and he places a load of stuff in a black bag on the landing. The place where my friend would black bags of rubbish from bedrooms when she's cleaning and she binned it.

She never opened to check because she had no reason to think that the man who lived with her for the last ten years and had been using the same system wouldn't have out clothes he wanted to keep in a rubbish bag in the area rubbish gets out to be taken down and binned and in their case they laughed and nobody was angry or mad.

Your husband sounds like a cunt. He checked the bags and made sure his own shoes weren't in there. He either mustn't pay any attention to you or his children or he'd have known they were shoes in use, or he's known and binned them anyway. Either scenario doesn't sound great to be honest.

He sounds like an arsehole. And what do you mean “he won’t be replacing them?”. How can he not- surely you have a joint account for children’s clothes?

Im assuming she means he won't be the one taking the time to find and buy them, he'll expect the op to do that. I won't be surprised if he doesn't even know what size their feet are, or he'd pretend he doesn't know how to buy kids shoes.

He sounds awful. Particularly from your follow-up post about his reaction - no shame, no contrition, no acknowledgement that he just didn't think.

Unless he was expecting to have a bag to give to charity waiting for him to take, there's no reasonable rationale for his actions. It's like seeing a bag of shopping by the door and going 'oh, I should throw this in the bin, the collection's tomorrow'. Things in a bag do not automatically equal rubbish.

What a selfish arsehole. So will he be explaining to the school why your kids can't do sports because he donated their shoes, then refused to buy replacements? He sounds like the type who won't take notice of a system anyway as he just does as he pleases.