To implode about DH ruining my clothes every fucking week.

[Aplatterofpuss]

DH is an Oxbridge educated 50 year old man with a good job in computer programming.
We have been married for 10 years.
He gets the mental load stuff and does the lion’s share of the domestic stuff during the week as I’m a teacher and work longer hours.

I have taught him how to do the laundry 450 bazillion times. I have shown him. I have told him. We have hammered it out in couples therapy that it’s not an exclusively female skill-set to be able to simply wash plain whites, light colours, dark colours in batches, read the care labels on everything and basically treat all the clothes as if they’re his musical equipment.

After thrashing this out in therapy a few weeks ago and him apologising profusely and insisting he does care and is sorry, I came home last weekend to him having washed coloured items with whites rendering many of my things grey and ruined. I was angry. It was not nice.

We again, talked about it. He blamed me because he’s found some bits on the floor by the washing machine and ASSUMED that they were sorted by me so just bunged them all in together.

This Saturday, I woke up, separated ALL of the washing in to separate piles on the landing, put the dark wash on and went to leave the house. DH asked me if the laundry on the landing had been sorted by me and I said yes.

When I returned, I emptied the fucking washing machine to find lots of my white clothes ruined by the fact that he’d put blue tea towels, multicoloured teatowels and white and blue towels in with my pure white knickers and tops.

I told him I was annoyed and that he must be doing this because they’re not his belongings.
I said that he needed to pay me back for my damaged clothes and that if I decided to put his laptop in the dishwasher and insist I did care and I didn’t mean to damage it he would be furious. He said it was obviously not the same thing and was, again, very sorry.

I amso so so angry.

He must be doing this on purpose OP as some kind of bizarre protest at doing "women's work". I cant think of any other reason why he cannot manage a simple wash. The only solution is to either Bury him under the patio (I'll help) or to have two totally separate washing baskets and forbid him to touch yours.
Or you could just put his laptop in the dishwasher a d claim a women's hormones dysfunction as an excuse.
My exH note the ex used to leave loads of tissues in his pocket and every fucking washed item would be covered in tissue bits. He did this for years and it used to make me literally hysterical.

I understand OP. My husband is like this. He's genuinely a bad person. We met when I was 18 and through the poor student years he always mocked me for having bad cheap clothes. Fast forward 15 years and I'm an adult with a job who earns decent money. I like clothes and have been slowly building up a wardrobe I'm happy with one item at a time.over years, nothing fancy but good natural fabrics, wools, cashmere, and so on.

Anyway at least once every few months he throws my things into the wash and destroys them. Shrunken cashmere jumpers, frayed nice organic cotton bras. I hit the roof. He says sorry didn't know, thought all your stuff was shit and cheap? He has been banned from washing my clothes and still he will just do it every now and again. Infuriating.

This is an important point.

If the DH pulled his weight elsewhere, the OP wouldn't be feeling like this.

My DH does all the floors and all the washing up. So I do all the washing.
Because we share tasks. And I'm better at doing the washing.

Yes! Pop his laptop into the dishwasher, it’s looking a bit grubby?

No idea why you’ve got so many eye-rollingly thick responses here op. Maybe because AIBU attracts a specific type of person who loves to kick people when they’re down, likely because their lives are lacking something meaningful I assume.

This would honestly infuriate me, you have every right to be annoyed. I think there’s some level of internalised misogyny going on here- how dare the woman not do the majority of the chores, and have the temerity to complain when the man deigns to do the laundry, even if he fucks it up every time. I feel sorry for the people who can’t manage a wee bit of empathy for your situation.

He sounds awful

What nonsense.
I am angry with this DH after reading this thread.

Then you should stay single. Why do you want a partner?

We’ve got separate laundry bins, he does his own washing, I will mix his with mine if I’ve only got a small amount to do, I peg it out and he picks it in when dry!
occasionally he’ll ask me if I’ve got any washing if he’s putting on a small load, it’s usually only my work clothes that are dark anyway.
He knows to use Persil if it’s a mixed load and Ariel if only his 🤣
Hes well trained

Some of the comments on this thread are absolute bollocks. He knows that washing mixed colours will be an issue.

He's being a twat about it in such an obvious and weird way. These are not the characteristics we should accept in men.

Tell him you are onto him and he can do his own fucking washing, if he wrecks something of yours then bin him.

Yeah, imagine being his mother and can't comfort him over his inability to be a normal man.

Is there something wrong with you? Maybe you are just a doormat.

Can you fix a crashed car with a simple colour run remover?

It is not normal to obsess over household chores. It's depressing and awful and a waste of life.

How can people disagree with you, it's madness . I've had similar issues, told dh how to do something over and over again and still does it wrong. But not just one thing but several situations on most days.

How do you know I’m a female?!

“Poor man”!!!???

It's obsessing about a man's complete inability to sort clothes before washing them.
It's maddening and there's no reason for it. They just don't care and they pay no attention to the instructions you give them, over and over and over again.

It’s not obsessing. It’s repeatedly asking someone not to ruin your belongings and them deciding to do it anyway. This is upsetting. Why are there so many comprehension issues on here!?

Exactly. We do this. DH washes his clothes. I wash mine. And 2 DS clothes are done separately too. We have 3 laundry baskets.

its not difficult to do washing do it yrself, give him a job that it doesn’t matter if he gets it wrong.