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.

I agree that you should each do your own washing.

It can’t be nice for him either walking on eggshells feeling that you will make him go back to couples therapy if he shrinks a jumper.

Helpful lol. So your advice is don’t own anything white!

If you bought a car and your partner crashed it, would you not be annoyed?

If my partner kept crashing my car every week, I’d probably stop him from driving it. Why don’t you stop him from doing your laundry and do it yourself instead?

Wait. You're having therapy over laundry. Jeez. If he's picking up most of the domestic chores and mental load then surely you can, you know, just do the washing or at least do your own. This really is a non issue and I almost hope there's more to it for both your sakes.

I wouldn’t keep buying him another one.

I would love not to be annoyed but having your belongings ruined by someone who is supposed to care about you is not easy to remain breezy about I’m afraid.

Relationships are about respect. I know that DH doesn’t like his things being tampered with so I don’t touch them. He knows I don’t like by clothes being ruined but he still ruins them. All the fucking time.

I didn’t ask him to do it. I’d made piles of laundry so that I could spend the weekend working through it.
I got home and found that he’d done it. Wrong and badly.

Full time teacher here too, I’ve done 3 loads of washing today, none of which ran, despite being mixed colours. What the hell temperature is he using? And more importantly, why is he doing the washing when he persistently ruins stuff? I’d knack him! I’m dropping sizes so most of my stuff is new (to me). Can’t you leave washing til the weekend?

Im not sure why OP is being criticised here.

You dont go to therapy over washing or cars, but you do over relationship difficulties caused by intransigence, lack of respect, communication difficulties and this sounds like that. He just carries on doing the same thing despite being asked not to, despite saying 'I'll do it differently'

And no the answer is not to have to do everything separately, might as well live like lodgers then. The answer is to have some common sense, put a millisecond of effort in to following what was agreed and understanding 'this is my job and I'll do it in a way that does it correctly'

Im sure in OPs case, the jobs that are hers she doesnt fuck up?

Of course there’s more to it. Why is everyone so dense on here!?
It is clearly about respect.
I don’t go into his to kit and break his tools so he shouldn’t heel wrecking my clothes.

Keep a separate basket for anything that can be ruined by indiscriminate washing? Personally I am baffled because I chuck everything in together and nothing has ever come out ruined.... I don't really understand separating laundry!

Yep, this is what happens here as well, Im planning and sorting and then comes along and just takes over. He is obsessed with things and just wont change what and how he does something

I highly suspect he is on the spectrum and unfortunately at times its unlivable.

Have you asked him to not touch your laundry?

YANBU @Aplatterofpuss and I would be frustrated and upset about both the laundry and the wider disrespect.

Make him replace every single ruined item. Might focus his mind. Or go with your suggestion and put his laptop in the dishwasher 😆

Oh poor little manny wanny walking on eggshells. You’re right. Maybe I should be giving him a bj whilst hanging out my shrunken grey clothing.

Are teaching hours that much longer than your husband's hours? Seems a bit unreasonable that he has to do the lion's share of the domestic work.

I haven't read the whole thread but there's obviously an issue here. He's doing it deliberately- either consciously or unconsciously. He doesn't care. He may say he cares and believes that when he says it, but his actions tell a different story. I had an ex like this. Would say things that, to me, were blatant lies, but which I believe he did believe at the time. Then he would repeatedly do the opposite. We also had couples therapy and he would often look askance when I recounted things he had done which were indisputably awful. It's a mental health condition- male self absorption. He will grind you down as my ex did as it's essentially gaslighting.

You seem like a total arsehole.

I voted YABU because I just don’t believe that your clothes get so ruined so often. I might save the odd completely white wash to do altogether sometimes but white pants get washed with coloured pants and if there aren’t enough whites I just shove pale stuff in with other stuff. It has literally never gotten ruined.

I think you should do as I do-put my whites on first and then I know there is nothing to be wrecked.
DH once shrunk a pair of wool trousers to tight pedal pushers…he replaced them though.

You sound quite unpleasant. I think I might just grey your white clothes if this is what you are like all the time.

Yeah, it’s revolting when people don’t do the washing up properly. Yuk.

I've never separated my whites, unless it's a brand new red dress or something, but coloured items that have been washed have never affected my whites

So you do it then.