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.

Do the washing yourself. It only has to be put in a machine, you don't have to hand-wash it 😂😂😂

Considering it's been a decade and the only assault has been to crisp, dazzlingly, white clothing, I think OP will be safe...

@CaribouCarafe how do you know it takes 20 mins to mow the lawn? Rather depends on the garden surely? Mine can take a couple of hours to do front and back and strim the edges so its actually done properly. I think its very clear that this is a wider issue hence the OP bringing in other things.

i don’t understand why op should do her own washing. Just separate the whites and don’t put anything else in. The pile op made, just put it in and don’t add tea towels etc. he really cannot be that inept not to be able to manage that. So… is it malicious? Or when it comes to washing is his brain not at 100% cause he doesn’t care enough (even though OP clearly cares v much and has made that crystal clear to him) either way it’s his fault. And of course this should be brought up in therapy. It’s affecting the relationship! It’s not a minor thing if you are having your wishes repeatedly ignored.

@BibbleandSqwauk that is true, although OP did say they're not rich and that she's the main wage earner so assumed she probably has a similar garden size to my own which really doesn't take long to do...

This thread is wild!

OP: I’m really upset and angry about this thing my intelligent abd capable husband does every week that he knows it’s important to me.

MN: do it yourself then and don’t be so angry. 😥

@GetThatBloodyFaceOff why should she have to?

To save herself the stress. He's not changed over 10 years so he won't change in the next 10. He can pick up a different chore that OP is less nitpicky about

Women really hate women, don’t they? We’re doing men’s dirty work for them.

This thread is fucking horrific. Women falling over themselves to find the OP at fault, making deeply insulting remarks, telling her it’s her fault because she didn’t spot he was a cunt at the ‘dating stage’, it’s her fault for having the audacity to purchase white clothes, it’s her fault because she should be doing the laundry, it’s her fault for nagging the poor man, it’s her fault for being so ‘angry’…

Fuck that noise. What the fuck is going on?

He wasn’t asked to do this one. He just did and fucked it up. Again. Presumably deliberately.

How is this about hating women? I simply can't imagine myself in a scenario where I'd prime myself for disappointment repeatedly and expect different results. I'd also resent being lectured to by my DH on how to do laundry repeatedly so just sharing my own perspective.

Genuinely don't see how this is a feminist issue. He's happy with the way he does laundry and according to OP does the lion share of housework most days of the week, how is that him leaving women to do the dirty work for him?

Personally I liked the bit where responses weren't going her ways so she topped up her chores list to include things like mowing the lawn - a 20 min activity that only takes place every 2 weeks in summer 🤣 and a few other items that really don't take much time/again depend on your keenness to do them rather than objective standards or obligations (e.g. social life...whatever that means and unnecessary presents for teachers...) So she drip fed about the state of her marriage. Not the worst crime, many other posters do it and quite understandable if she’s not ready to face up to it yet. Maybe she thought she’d better be a bit more open because she was getting some fucking ridiculous responses. And it wasn’t just mowing the lawn or buying the teacher a voucher. It was coming home after a 14 hour day and starting work again. It was doing absolutely everything at weekends and holidays. It was making appointments and ensuring the kids had everything they needed.

Ultimately my sympathy is low for OP because I simply don't believe that she hasn't catastrophised the whole event What part of ‘my husband is repeatedly ruining my things’ would you say is catastrophising?

She's been inconsistent in her account Again, drip feeding about the state of her marriage- understandable. blown up quickly to any level of dissent One woman’s dissent is another woman’s misogyny. and had some pretty mad ramblings about Trump/Boris/patriarchy in response to people telling her to maybe give less of a shit about laundry and simplify/improve her process If you didn’t understand why she referred to Trump/Boris and the Patriarchy, then that goes some way to explaining why you think that this is about sodding laundry 🤦🏻‍♀️

Forget about what items are being damaged or how they’re being damaged. Concentrate on the fact that her belongings are regularly being damaged by her DH because he is taking it upon himself to handle them without being asked to. If you had a car that you loved, it would be the equivalent of your DH leaving scratches all down the side because he’s leaned on it with his keys. And you telling him about it and him being very apologetic, and then doing it again and again. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether he’s scratching your car on purpose. Or if you don’t care about cars, then insert something you own that you do care about. Do you still think it’s about laundry?

And even if it was about laundry, it’s not her who needs to improve her process. She’s not the one ruining anyone’s clothes.

I think it boils down to me not believing the clothes are actually ruined rather than salvagably slightly greyer... I think she should have banned him from touching her laundry sooner, just as I'd tell my husband not to touch my car if he was repeatedly damaging it.

I honestly don't see it as a feminist/misogynist issue - if the shoe was on the other foot, people would be calling the husband controlling

@CaribouCarafe

Genuinely don't see how this is a feminist issue. He's happy with the way he does laundry and according to OP does the lion share of housework most days of the week, how is that him leaving women to do the dirty work for him? 🤦🏻‍♀️ Fuck me. Most of you lot have got degrees, haven’t you? The dirty work is not housework in this scenario. It’s convincing women that men are so helpless at domestic stuff that they can’t possibly be expected to comply with things like washing instructions, even if it does mean that someone else’s things get ruined. And the only possible solution is for the woman to take that chore away and do it herself.

Life’s too short for this, do your own laundry.

Swap it for another chore...then it's equal again. And if it is truly weaponised incompetence then leave him. Solved.

I wouldn't marry or stay with a man who didn't treat me as an equal and share the load.

It doesn’t matter whether you think the clothes are fine though, does it? It only matters whether the OP thinks they’re in the same condition they were in before they got washed. And she thinks they’ve gone grey. So, to her, they are ruined because they are no longer the brilliant white clothes she spent a lot of her hard earned money on.

I think she should have banned him from touching her laundry sooner And this is why it’s a feminist issue. He gets chores taken away from him because he pretends that he’s too stupid to understand washing instructions. So she adds it to her list of things to be done every evening, weekend and holiday. More work for her because of his weaponised incompetence.

She’s not his mum or his boss. She shouldn’t have to chore manage him! because he’s pretending he can’t remember something really simple. And they’re in marriage counselling; I’d say the thought has crossed her mind.

I think this is a thread where if a man had posted the opening post he would have had a completely different response. ( Torn to prices). Imagine-“ I work longer hours than my wife so she does most of the domestic load. AIBU to implode because she continually washes my pristine white shirts in mixed loads when I have instructed her repeatedly on how to do the laundry “. In a happy marriage a couple is equal and work out fair ways of sharing the load. They don’t treat their partner like a servant. Also they don’t do tot for tat passive aggressive stuff if that really is what’s going on.

One of many reasons that I left my ex was his ability to shrink all of mine and dc nice clothes. He felt hard done by because we weren’t grateful.

We had very different ideas on dressing well and one of his solutions was to suggest that we buy all of our clothes at Asda.

I love your posts and admire the way that you have expressed your anger.

It's not about being a mum or boss, it's about working as a team and playing to each others strengths. My DH doesn't like the way I wash windows, so that's now his job. I have different standards to him on cleaning the toilet so I do that job. What I'm not gonna do is hover over him as he cleans the toilet and tell him he's doing it wrong every week. But equally I'm not going to spite wash the windows just to upset him, so if that is what OP's husband is doing then that's a total lack of respect.

Oh you are deffo an incel. A Male incel at that.

This thread is getting more and more odd. Lots of people have odd blind spots; I do and I'm a smart, well-educated person. I cannot cook for the life of me - following cooking instructions is just beyond me. If DH goes out for the evening, he makes sure he cooks for me/sorts some food me before he goes. And cleans the kitchen. I do the laundry because I'm specific about it and because my DH is totally oblivious to that stuff. He would spend an anxious hour debating if a white and red stripy tea towel goes in with whites or colors. And he has shrunk my stuff before, not deliberately but because I just know he switches off when it comes to laundry (and I do when it comes to cooking)

Unless op's dh is deliberately and systematically going after her stuff (which seems odd as he is paying for new stuff and going to therapy), I'd say choose another hill to die on. Lot in marriage is about putting up with someone's blind spots, flaws etc and working out a system both are happy with.

Give it a few weeks, make a post pretending to be a man who leaves "the lion's share of the housework" to his fully employed wife, and when she makes a mistake with his washing, he self-righteously threatens to destroy her laptop and ability to earn.

Let's see if mumsnet rallies to his side and your women hating women theory is true.