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.

Its clearly not about washing. Couples therapy?

I agree, your relationship is dead in the water. Why bring up his being Oxbridge educated - is that a point of pride to you? Last I heard they didn’t teach domestic skills at Oxford.

It's not obsessive to want your clothes to come out of the washing machine the same colour as they went in.

I don't think being a teacher is a good enough excuse for not doing your full fair half share of the chores and mental load.

Make laundry your job (alongside the rest of your share of the other chores and mental load)

I don’t think you’re old enough to be giving relationship advice based on your comments.

Exactly

Or he could learn to tell the difference between white and dark. At the very least.

DH is an Oxbridge educated 50 year old man with a good job in computer programming.

I feel you pain but take my hat off at you for keeping hope alive. I realised mine was never going to change after seeing him go out of the house wearing two ties and different colour shoes.

My advice? Segregate work by ability, I chose to do the laundry in exchange of him taking full ownership of the kitchen. That kept us living in harmony for many years.

YANBU, he could clearly do laundry properly if he really wanted to. For some reason he doesn't want to. Given you're already taking about this in couples therapy though, there isn't much you can do but continue to thrash it out there. Eventually you'll either sort out your problems, or you won't. In the meanwhile, I don't think I could be doing with the drama of dealing with shared laundry. I'd just do your own laundry until you've worked the issues out. Presumably this isn't the only issue?

Do uour own and he does his own .

Been in a relationship for two decades (it has helped that neither of us are mimsying fannies about laundry etiquette)

It's not that hard. I'd be annoyed too.
You could do what everyone suggests and concede to his weaponised incompetence or you could thrash it out in therapy again.
It's baffling that he still finds it so difficult.

He's doing it on purpose. You need to decide if it's worth your while to try and find out why.

Sure you have 😉

Are you ok?

My husband does this and the whites all go grey. It is so so frustrating. The bottom line isn’t that he’s incapable but that he doesn’t see the value in separating the colours because to him, slightly greying whites are not an issue. He thinks I won’t notice. But I do, they look shit.

This guy is being bloody awkward on purpose. Or bloody lazy. Or bloody thick.

My husband does this too, and I have never felt anger like it after it happened for the millionth time despite numerous conversations with him about it - I completely feel your pain x

I can understand your anger but I do a very vague sorting - lights and darks - but random stuff including tea towels get in there all the time and I've never had a situation with colour running and ruining my clothes.

Similarly I have a friend whose kids clothes are all colour faded within a few washes - we bought the same swimsuits for our daughters (unknowingly) and when I saw her recently her daughters was all faded and mine was still bright. So she's clearly doing something different to me. I wonder how you wash to make this happen?

Ignore all the shitty comments OP. I'd be furious too. My DH did this once - and never again. It's so disrespectful that he's done this to your stuff again.

This sounds like passive aggression on his part. He is not stupid (from what you have described) so he knows what he is doing. Sorry but you have a bigger problem.

A lot better than many of the husbands of folk on this thread, it seems. Sorry, the "DHs" 🤣 much loved, obviously

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.

So you put a dark wash on, and had a white wash pile ready to go for when the first one had finished. You went out and and he emptied the dark wash when it had finished, and then put the white wash on but added to it blue towels? If that's what happened then, unless he cannot tell white from blue, he must have done it deliberately. Especially if you have had this conversation before and he knows it upsets you. And if that is what happened then yes, I would probably wash his laptop in the next cycle, whether or not it was light or dark.

If you wanted grey knickers why would you buy white ? Yes whites would be ruined after one single wash with a blue towel. They could be rescued but the point here is that her husband choose to put coloureds in with whites after many discussions about why she doesn't want her whites looking old. And more to the point why does he feel it is ok to put a t towel in with knickers, yuck