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.

It doesn't appear from the sound of it that it is beyond the husband to limit his involvement to just picking up the finished load and hang it out/fold after. If he's comfortable with it, then starting the machine is just a quick task they can redistribute to avoid conflict. Laundry is just not his thing and if he pulls his weight on other chores i think it's better to redistribute the tasks to play to each other's strengths.

If laundry is his main responsibility and he messes up then yes, that's a problem.

I have! But I use dye catcher sheets so it doesn’t ruin other clothes

Your interpretation of and projection on to my situation is very fantastical and sounds very extreme!

Colour catchers bought, I’ll do my own from now on, kissed and made up, vented on here, the end. 🙂

If you had read my OP accurately you would have read the full content of the sentence you are referring to and in turn, this would have helped you with your understanding.

Another woman determined to make his idiocy my fault!

You’ve said you don’t want him doing your whites, so putting them in yourself before going out instead of the darks seems the rational option, rather than leaving them in a pile on the floor.

Missing the point. Com

Alright, I’ll just pop in my Time Machine and lead my life perfectly just as you do.

My husband is quite good at laundry, but he's under strict instructions to NEVER do the whites because I'm very picky about them not looking grey! If he can't even manage it when you've already sorted the piles, it's weaponised incompetence and he really DOESN'T give a shit couples therapy or not!

@Aplatterofpuss
Glad you've found a solution.
Now I need one to prevent my DH from waving bleach about as he thinks it's necessary to get the bathroom and kitchen clean......... And he waits until I am out to use it, with the result that have to be really careful when I go to the loo not to inadvertently get it on my smart black or navy work trousers. I've lost count of the items of his clothing that he's runined this way, and it's impossible for me to have nice blue towels or bathmats, or pretty tea towels without them having white bleach splodges: and I really can't see me using all white towels etc.
I keep the kitchen perfectly clean, but he will insist on bleaching the sink. I don't buy bleach, but he does.

When I first read the OP I felt she was not BU. Having seen the tone of her responses I’ve changed my mind. I do believe that men should be able to do household tasks and that they should not be the preserve of women, but OP is coming across as someone who has to have the last, (and often unpleasant), word in any discussion.

If The situation had been reverse, the chorus would be, "Get him to do it himself if he's not happy. "

Wash your own clothes and it’s grim to wash knickers and tea towels together

He does it because he doesn't want to do the washing! My DP despite being shown zillions of times 'cant remember' how the washing nachine works. READ THE F$CKING DIALS.its not rocket science. How is he helping me if everytime he attempts the washing I get called to set it and switch it on. Only puts washing on when something of his that he needs is in th laundry bin.

I’m glad you’ve kissed and made up. Do you still think he did it to hurt you. Looking at the number of things that he managed to shove in with your whites ( blue tea towels, multicoloured teatowels and white and blue towels) is it efficiency as a PP suggested?

Same, I do all the whites because my husband can't seem to understand what's white and what's not 🤦

Also for all the people saying they bung it all in together and the colours don't run, they do. I can instantly tell which white shirts have come from my SDs mum's house because they are grey compared to ours.

I can always tell too

Agreed - I am mesmerised by the amount of people saying their clothes are fine in mixed washes.

They are not fine, they will be grey and look horrible. I do my washing at 30 degrees and one whiff of another colour in with whites and the whites look horrible and grey. My husband does his own washing and will happily bung his whites in with his dark colours, the whites look horrible but that's his lookout.

Can we do a test? People post photos of their whites and we guess how they've been washed?!

Thanks for update OP and thanks for a very interesting thread.

Best wishes x

Yes. Start a thread! I was wondering how to cope with white bras. I mean most white stuff should be done at 60 and bras should be done at 30, so something has to give. You can’t fill a washing machine with white bras.

So what? OP's husband isn't doing your washing, is he?

Embarrassed for you that the menfolk you know are so pathetic that you genuinely believe that doing laundry is "not in their skillset".

Omg I have literally trawled through 36 pages of comments back and forth between you and commenters and you are, despite declaring that "you're off", still here attacking others.
Here's the thing with posing questions on the Internet... people are, shock horror, going to have different opinions to you!
My OH works, I'm a disabled SAHM, I do the majority of the housework inc the laundry. When my conditions flare up he will take over the majority of them. The laundry however, is one thing he does not touch. He can wash his own clothes but has been banned from touching mine. He has, in the time we have been together, almost destroyed my pure wool coat (pure luck thay I saved it, broke a tumble drier and almost ruined several wool jumpers (my son saved those before the OH had the chance to put them in the drier). It was a very simple solve, he washes his and our DSs clothes only.
If this is the biggest issue you have then think yourself lucky. Clearly it isn't because you are in couples therapy. Maybe focus on what's actually a marriage breaker and something that can literally be solved by your husbands credit card.

Well said, that’s just how I feel!

My own mum destroyed my favourite dress by washing it (it was dry clean only). She thought she was doing me a favour, she just didn’t bother to look at the washing instructions and didn’t even ask if I wanted her to wash it. She’s my mum so I forgave her but if OP is finding that this is the straw that broke the camel’s back then there are deeper things going on.

I’m not convinced either are happy or like each other so I’m not sure if successful laundrying will lead to a successful marriage. If this marriage is going to work (if either of you want it to) you both need to relearn liking each otherwise you’re in Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf territory.