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.

Bloody hell. She should just do the laundry herself. Who behaves like this,

Buy a mesh wash bag and use colour catchers in every wash. They really do work. I do the washing in my house and still add them to every wash just in case I accidentally missed something that’s going to ruin my other clothes. I banned my husband from doing the washing when we had a young baby after he put a baby grow absolutely covered in poo on a short 30 wash and it covered the rest of the washing in poo bits which I got all over my face when I was smelling how fresh it was haha x

I don’t let anyone touch the washing machine.

It sounds like you have ridiculous standards when it comes to washing, I never separate anything and i don’t have issues with colours running when doing mixed loads, most items are colourfast nowadays. Are you sure you’re not just hyperfixating and imagining the colours to have fun?

I don't think we ever separate washing. It sounds as though you are setting him up to fail, knowing he doesn't feel the same way about doing the washing as you, so rethink and swap something over.

Pesumably you both work FT. If this thread was the other way around and your DH was making you do the bulk of the chores and whinging about it, you would be firmly told to make him pull his weight. Perhaps this is only one issue you're focusing on and there's a lot more going on.

Each do your own laundry.

Sorted.

This.

And I always wash lights and darks. My whites survive.

Thus!!! I cannot imagine going to therapy and talking about the laundry.

Meant lights in a wash.

Darks in another.

But I don't do a separate whites wash 🤷‍♀️

More than you would think, it took me years to figure out a so called respectable grown up would resort to these tactics.

Once you’ve reached that stage, it’s a war zone.

Rather be single and poor than dealing with that sort of hell.

I hate this kind of thoughtless shit from men. It was endless in my house. Now I do mine & DC stuff and leave DH to do his. I very often throw his crap up the garden when he’s been thoughtless, it focuses him for a while. I love your laptop and dishwasher threat.

It’s not just whites though. It’s fabrics, delicates, and just generally showing a modicum of care to fabric.

I repeatedly asked mine not to do the washing, that I prefer to do, to leave the washing alone, to stop fucking interfering in the washing!

Then I moved my clothes out of the laundry basket. It worked. He no longer touches my washing.

He apparently can’t remember to separate whites from colours, do you really think he would remember to also include a colour catcher with each bungled wash?

Unless of course, he isn’t actually a poor forgetful simpleton and is just weaponising incompetence.

OP - I wouldn’t be fuming too.

Dh sees no value in separating laundry. We now have a laundry basket with sections for whites/darks/brights and colour catcher sheets go in each wash just in case. That's done the trick for us? I think if you're that particular about it just do your own washing and have a him/ her pile instead? Laundry is one of my jobs like doing because it's quick and easy to do.

Just do your own washing. My partner never separates his washing. I'd not allow him to do mine.

It doesn’t matter how educated someone is, some of them still have absolutely no common sense whatsoever.

Don’t gave any whites.

I'm the same two shrunken cashmere jumpers and a grey muddied Kate Moss shirt later.

I've probably created a whole new problem in doing this however.

He's allowed to take the bins out, in fact anything but the clothes washing. He's a clever guy. He can do the hardest arithmetic in his head but clothes washing blows his mind. It's not even like he's lazy, he tries, he just gets it wrong a lot when it comes to washing.

he should be able to complete this task, however, one of the things I have found that makes my marriage work is accepting that neither my husband nor I is perfect. We each have certain things we are especially bad at. For my husband that revolves around food and how he reacts to food cooked by other people. Rather than try to change him, I simply stopped cooking for him.

Sometimes it’s better for your marriage to just change the chore assignments and do your own laundry.

as long as the division of labor balances out, it doesn’t really matter who does each chore.

Why do you not have seperate laundry bins/baskets for each type. Otherwise I think you should just sort the laundry and he can wash it and dry it.

YANBU. There is no arcane knowledge required to wash clothes without spoiling them.

He is an intelligent man who can work out much more complicated things than this. It's just pathetic for him to keep getting it wrong. Whatever his reasons, it basically has to boil down to him just not being that bothered to get it right.

I echo that you may have to give up on his laundry sorting skills and wash your own clothes. You shouldn't have to, but here we are.

Colour catcher sheets are your friends. Dyson are the best imo.

Colour run removal products are also available, and for prevention rather than cure, I think there are homemade ways to fix the dye in fabric so it doesn't run, possibly involving salt.

Your relationship sounds like a battleground. There is a lot of extreme negative emotion being expressed and it seems terribly stressful.

I'd just wash my own clothes, and let him ruin his own.

WTF is wrong with him.

Is it passive aggressive or what?

I’d just tell him never ever to touch my clothes.

You could fck with him a bit by putting an OOO battery in his laptop and saying you pressed something and oops it stopped working. ‘Sorry was just trying to help’ (Then obviously give it him back after taking him through your ‘journey’)

Why don't you just do all the laundry and leave him with bathrooms + washing up, or whatever he's good at? Life doesn't need to be difficult if you work out what version of "team" works for you both.

I do think you should address the cycle type or machine or products though. A colours wash shouldn't run like that, and a hot wash every not and then will brighten the whites/ yellows. Our teatowels go in with the whites on a warmer cotton wash and there is no problem at all. (Samsung series 5 if you are looking, I mention machine because we had a horrible time with a Bosch leaving stuff poorly rinsed (unclean) and colour wash runs before I had it sent back).

Also, we have sorting bins. Each holds one load of laundry. They are lined up in a row and we sort as we go along. The laundry is always sorted and it’s always obvious when there is a full load of a particular type.

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 think it makes sense that the person who spends more time at home does more housework, though?