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.

Mm but you're the one fussing over your ridiculous white underpants.

It’s absolutely weaponised incompetence. You say that he doesn’t like his stuff tampered with, so you don’t…well, if he’s crashed your car and repeatedly wrecks your clothes, I’d do something about that laptop of his (knock it off a table, spill something on it) and then apologise in the same way he does when your belongings are damaged by his lack of care.

Then I’d leave him. At least if you do leave him, the likelihood of you buying white clothes and still having white clothes is very high.

That entire article is how one single thing (leaving stuff next to the dish washer) fucked up his marriage. The same way that one single thing (ruining her clothes) is ruining her marriage.

Yes, the OP did make him sound like he was generally competent. But people don’t spend money on marriage counsellors unless there are serious issues there or they’ve got enough cash to use it as a general maintenance service, do they? Not in my world, anyway.

And power plays make no sense in general, do they? Who knows why he’s chosen to fuck the washing up? Actually, let me change that to who knows why he’s decided to fuck her washing up? He seemingly manages not to ruin his own clothes.

😂

OP you sound incredibly angry. What’s clear is you can’t stand your husband. Time for a rethink on your marriage perhaps?

That’s really horrible

Every load - colour catcher.

Tbh I'm not convinced he's actually doing irreparable damage to her clothes or that he's treating them any differently to his own. I think it's more that OP has a different perception/standards of what slightly greyed out is... I mix loads all the time without major casualty

I get that it's annoying and I would find it annoying but for your marriage you've got to let this go. I'd tell him never to wash my clothes ever again as it's causing too many arguments. I'd tell him that he could pick up the slack on some other chore.

If he can't handle it then stop letting him annoy you by not giving him the chance to.

This. You’ve known for a while he can’t or won’t do it properly so just avoid it. We wash our own clothes and have zero washing-based arguments.

Because it's in your original post

"We have hammered it out in couples therapy that it’s not an exclusively female skill-set...."

You're so bloody angry, you're being angry with us! Calm the fuck down!

While it’s good that he’s doing this, I fear you’ll find that this will become the get out of jail card he’ll use every time he wrecks things that you value, rather than simply being more careful to begin with.

You have got to be being either purposely obtuse or on a wind up.

What do you have in your home that belongs to just you and is nice? Handbags? A nice bottle of perfume? If your DH repeatedly allowed your felt tip wielding toddler to play with your favourite handbag, or use your perfume on their dolls, even after you’d asked him to just leave your things alone, you’d be fine with that, would you? Bollocks would you!

I agree you should each do your own washing but I never separate colours and whites and my clothes aren't ruined.
Maybe use one of the colour catcher sheets but I'm still confused about how your clothes ruin so easily.

Don’t give a toss if I’m not out of pocket.

Just came on here to say, this is me I could have written them! Also I love some of your sarky responses @Aplatterofpuss they are amazing. I top earn far more than my husband. He is on theory capable but just doesn't get it right and it also doesn't matter how many times I show him! I have pondered this many times on finding trashed clothes whilst I fingered the kitchen knives in contemplation of homicide, here are my theories:

1. Stupidity
2. Engineered incompetence
3. Not understanding women's clothing (after all tshirts and jeans are not particularly challenging shapes and many of their clothing are probably just cotton)
4. Covert narcissism - purposefully pushing your buttons for fun/domination
5. Years of devolution of mankind due to having women do it all for them. If you see your man getting extra hairy, be warned.

The only way as you have learned is make them pay and understand how much it all costs! Or put their laptop though a rinse cycle as you say. I have in fact stood on my DH laptop breaking it, so perhaps we are even. Mind you it was him that left it on the floor...

Also do not buy your husband clothes. He buys his own so understands costs. But let's be honest, if he's like mine he probably wears his stuff until it falls into rags..

Good luck and remember, it's not you, it's him!

You calm down.

I now have a jumper that was once a dress and numerous other ruined items. I now do all the laundry - clothes cost a fortune - I'm not letting my partner near them again!

I regularly did this before I left teaching. 7am - 6pm in school. Pick kids up, baths, homework, bedtime. Work from 8pm at home.

I'm calm, pal, having a glass of wine, watching the footie, my dh fucks my pants up in entirely the right way 😉
No need for couple's therapy here 😘

You come across as really aggressive and rude. Maybe your ‘dh’ is hoping you’ll leave him if he wrecks enough of your laundry 🤔

for this exact reason we have a wash basket with two separate compartments- we put whites in one side and colours/darks in the other.

DH is also not allowed to wash anything of mine or anything white any more because he never separates things properly, never checks pockets and never pays attention to washing instructions so everything goes on at 60!

he can ruin his own clothes but I’m not having me and the children looking like scruffs.

I’d be fucking furious. I too have a somewhat careless husband who has form for this shit too. He doesn’t wash my clothes anymore, I don’t wash his. We don’t share a washing basket although he does try sneaking his stuff into mine!

I do sometimes wonder if it’s weaponised incompetence but then he has continued to fuck his own stuff up and still wear it, so I think genuinely he is just that thick 😂

I haven’t separated my washing now into lights and darks for years, never had a single item ruined. Apart from the first wash, I had a new shirt of DS’s dark blue this week so made sure that was all darks, but otherwise I never do separate washes anymore as when son is at Uni it’s just my daughter and I and we often only have 1 wash at a time