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.

Interestingly men are less able to perceive subtle colour variations than women. Something to do with the structure of their eyes. So for once it might not actually be their fault. Women also have a better sense of smell. I guess it makes sense given women in tribal societies did most of the gathering, so would need to be able to distinguish what was edible and what could kill you.

It's also known that, for the vast majority of clothing items, men's are cotton or a cotton blend. Thus, relatively simple to wash. Literally all but 2 of my OHs items of clothing can go in the exact same load. Mine however, are a variety of fabrics and thus require different cycles and drying techniques.
I think there must be huge issues at play here and the focus is being placed on the laundry.

They do not struggle so much as to comprehend that their intellect does not mean they cannot wash things. It’s a kind of “I am too good for this” mentality.

My understanding from having RTFT is that she wants to do them herself and had prepared to do so but he ignored the instructions, beat her to her own separated washing pile and threw them in with his stuff and made her clothes grey. Apparently he does not do this with his own clothes.

If my understanding is correct, you have to admit - it would be annoying for someone to do that to your clothes, reverse or not.

I would, but I think you are wrong.

@cannockcandyI agree

Often times it's not intentional disrespect or weaponised incompetence. No one is pedantic or perfect with everything. Some people are not into laundry similar to some who doesn't like cooking or driving. So long as the couple works as a team and shares the load equally it doesn't help harping on one partner's weakness.

The important question to ask is whether he is pulling his weight overall.

That doesn’t affect their ability to listen to instruction in the first place though and not bung all the washing in together against some else’s wishes.

It does seem disrespectful though if she’s asked him to leave it but he still does it and fucks it up. That’s not a weakness that’s pig headedness.

Did OP ask him to leave it in that instance? I sounds like OP sorted out the piles and started on the first load then left the house. He might have thought laundry was still his responsibility so continued doing the rest and threw in extra stuff in the wash.

But in any case it sounds like OP reached an agreement that OP wash her own stuff.

True. Just commenting on why men don't appear to see subtle differences in shades of white.

I would weep with joy if my other half even washed the tea towels, let alone proactively collected them up and added them to a wash that he was already doing.

I agree it sounds like there is more going on than washing

Meh. Be helpful and wash his vinyl for him. A brillo pad will get it really clean.

As someone whose own relationship issues are projected onto the housework, I agree that there are bigger things at play here. However, as someone who is also in counselling for relationship issues, I think you probably already know that yourself!!!
It doesn't make sense if the clothes were pre-sorted that he would add other items into it anyway so I'd be angry too

You are not very pleasant are you?

Are you pleasant when you’re exasperated?
If so, well done, you’ve completed the game. 👏

Weep with joy if your other half washed his own laundry!?
You need to raise your standards quickly.

You can usually tell when someone doesn’t do their washing properly. Ie separating whites. They say they just ‘ bung it all in toget her’ and it’s fine. No, it’s not. Whites look grey and colours look dull. The less fussy simply don’t see it.
Many years ago, when I was quite young, an older colleague said, not unkindly, of a woman on the staff “ She just doesn’t know how to do her washing, does she?”
I was Intrigued then horrified. I made a point of researching how to do my washing properly. So glad I did. For example, I paid a fortune for beautiful White Company towels about 15 years ago. They still look fab.

You really don’t sound like the imploding type @Aplatterofpuss.

Implode, not.
More like explode, geddit.
Like Hysteria, wandering, and blowing up into the rose sky, and then
your ovaries burst open
like an alien is in your soul
planted by a face hugger that
was not kissing you that time but future-taking all that was left
of your Energy that was
set aside
for laundry.
Oh well.
England won 2-1.
So there's that.

E.J. Thribb-Cunk aged 17 and 3/4

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

Well you did better than the marriage counsellor! Maybe you should retrain?

Weep with joy if your other half washed his own laundry!?
You need to raise your standards quickly.

Says the person who has to go to marriage counselling over laundry.....

Who puts up with all this shit.

Maybe add up the cost of replacing your ruined items then take his lap top to CEX and trade it in and buy replacement items with the money.

I wonder how long it will take him to stop ruining your clothes if there are financial consequences to his actions

He's agreed to pay though and they've kissed and made up!

😂Exasperated. About a laundry issue that is very avoidable.

Although I think this thread is a bit of game.

Yet again, another person with comprehension problems.

What has become of the average IQ on mn?

The couples therapy is related to serious bereavement that we both experienced a few years ago. Within this therapeutic process, we are learning to communicate better with each other.

In therapy, seemingly benign topics which trigger arguments usually lead back to early experiences of powerlessness or feeling threatened in some way. The therapist supports the couple to navigate these without pressing self-destruct.

But you carry on with your very shallow view of things. Just don’t expect any real emotional intimacy or rich experiences with others.

Continue to blandly beige your way through. Be my guest.