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.

What is even the point of him? He’s good for nothing.

Leave the fucker. He sabotaged your laundry.

Bloody love how MNetters focus on 'I washed mixed in clothes all the time and MY whites have never gone grey'
Well, I was reading this post wondering how it can happen every time. Is it the machine? Is it the powder? Washing things that shouldn't go in the machine?
Simply because I have never separated colours/clothes and never had that problem. Wasn't going to post that though but, although clearly NOT the issue, its a consideration going forward WHOEVER washes what. 🤷‍♀️

We generally wash our own clothes here, though I'll call out if I'm doing a load in case someone wants to throw something in so I don't relate in that way either. I also wouldn't do the same thing week after week knowing the outcome, i the anger it causes, but doing it anyway.
I would NOT absolve him at all if this is the way OP wishes to split chores, that is not what I'm saying but HE can find the solution to having the clothes washed properly. He can arrange and pay to outsource the washing. Or be responsible for all the washing except the OPs. Maybe he can pay for hers to be washed and folded with all the responsibility that goes with arranging it.
Not wanting to repeat the same scenario week after week doesn't mean 'giving in' or 'letting him get away with it'. It means preventing anger and resentment you know is coming.

I know it's not the point of the thread, but I wash everything on 40C (jeans, whites, towels, black t.shirts, coloured stuff) and everything comes out the colour it went in at.

Now and again I'll wash the bed linen and towels on 60 and wouldn't put dark clothes in with them.

What temp are you washing your clothes at OP?

Your husband sounds like a high functioning academic, often people in this category are unable to cope with menial tasks such as sorting laundry.

My husband and I have been together 30 years and I wouldn't let him near the washing machine, purely for this reason. I am not sure why this is such a drama why don't you do the washing and divide up some other household tasks for your husband to do which doesn't involve ruining your clothes.

if I decided to put his laptop in the dishwasher and insist I did care and I didn’t mean to damage it

Actually do this. Then follow up with divorce papers. Stop flogging a dead horse shitty marriage.

I don’t do dh’s laundry. He does his, I do mine and the kids as he’s ruin our stuff. He’s managed to date turn a white bra grey, trapped a bra in the washing machine door resulting in him having to buy a new washing machine (I’m still waiting on the bra replacement, but that was 7 years ago) and he’s turned his own stuff pink after he put in a red sock with his whites.
Some battles are best left.

Your husband sounds like a high functioning academic, often people in this category are unable to cope with menial tasks such as sorting laundry.

This high functioning academic is a lone parent and has had to learn how to cope with menial tasks. I'm sure he can learn, too, even if it means following the sort of step by step instructions you give to a child when they're learning something.

Well, you seem to.be tolerating some pretty useless washing powder and giving yourself a lot of unnecessary work and grief in the process. But if for some reason picking up a different box when you go shopping is too much for you, by all means get your husband to do it.

What I don't understand is why you alone seem to have so many clothes that are instantly ruined by being washed with clothes of a different colour, when the rest of us aren't encountering this problem more than once in a blue moon. I don't separate stuff out, the last time I remember having a problem with colours running was around 15 years ago with a red shirt.

YANBU to be upset about the laundry. It’s clearly weaponised incompetence. DH and I are very much equal with the laundry chores and we both just chuck everything in and hope for the best. However, if he came to me and asked me to do something differently, I would.

YABU for letting the behaviour happen week in, week out. Doing the same thing over and over again is insane. After the 2nd time he ruined my clothes, I’d be keeping all my clothes completely separate and doing my own laundry. I’d be offloading a different domestic task though to him, where I didn’t care quite so much about the outcome.

Do his washing - just as badly. He'll soon learn when he's got teeny tiny shrunken underpants

And why are you doing baths after a 14 hour day, if he finishes at 3.30? He should be. Aside from the fact if you are working from 7am - 9 pm everyday bath times must be v.late!

The correct answer is YANBU, I’d also be angry about someone ruining my expensive clothes.

OP, perhaps you should have told us how you required us to answer in your original post. Might have made for a bit of a dull thread, mind you.

Wash your own clothes. Simple.

Please do tell me how you shrink underpants?

This!

Yet the issue is washing , which takes a lot less time than bath time!

I'll solve your issue OP, it goes like this..

Hey DP, you do the bath time, I'll sort the washing.

Unless of course he'll put the children in the bath on the wrong cycle?

If you are spending £50 on a pair of knickers I don't think you can claim to be on the breadline

This anger is so clearly not really about the laundry

I hate to say this but this is exactly why I do all the washing. My DH seems incapable of not ruining things. Could you take on this task if he takes on one of your current responsibilities?

It works in our horse because the tasks are still fairly split, and there are some tasks I don't want to do/am not so good at, that he takes full responsibility for.

We have found splitting tasks like this has stoped a lot of frustration and arguments. More difficult though if you work significantly more hours than him.

Yes, doing the washing isn't a need for MC so must be more to this.

I have self assigned to washing because of these issues and when DH interrupts this it's because he needs to. I usually put on mixed colours and some whites, no problem if they've been washed a few times so don't bleed. X

I don't understand these people who are not separating their washing and don't have grey whites! Or loads of colour run. I do separate loads for:

Whites
Lights
Darks
Mixed white/colours
Bedsheets (split into similar colours)
Towels (higher temp)
Teatowel/cleaning cloths/mop heads (higher temp)

I once tried to mix lights and darks in an effort to simplify and got colour run from one if the darks do haven't gone there again. How people ere doing this with whites I have no idea!

Nice list! That's like washing machine top
trumps.

Mine get put in the washing machine when I have a mixed load big enough to fill it, all come out fine,

😂😂😂 Maybe I should do cards lol!!

If he hadn’t offered to replace I’d have taken scissors to his favorites. ‘This is what you’re doing to mine. Of course it’s deliberate. You know what blue is. You know what white is. You know all your colours. You know when you pick up a blue tea towel and chuck it into the whites wash that it’s not white. This must be deliberate,so I am matching it. If you feel bad, that’s how I feel.’
i have been through something like this. Silk dresses and nice underwear. The apologists on this thread would not like what I yelled at my husband about his ability to read and whether this took a little bit of intelligence, a lot of intelligence, or whether stuffing it up indicated brains must have long since dripped out of his ears. Being married does not mean you can’t have nice things. Or white clothes.

Don’t have new clothes? Only have white towels maybe?

Only time I get nervous is new clothes. And to be fair it depends on the white. I try to avoid buying proper white white. I buy an off white from the start. Like a beige, buff etc.

Proper white white blouses are the only thing I try to wash separate.

Yes I do the same, really try to avoid white if at all possible! Personally I find whatever you do it goes grey over time.