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 feel your pain, exact same problem here. In general my DH is not allowed to do the washing, not fail safe, he still does it sometimes. However this has reduced the damage! He is good at other stuff, but just doesn't have attention to detail with the washing. Perhaps it's time to accept that.

DH also pulls his weight at home but is shit at the washing - our main issue is him putting stuff into the tumble dryer which shouldn't be in there and shrinking it. After several big arguments, assurances he wouldn't do it again and him having to spend money replacing my clothes, I now do all the washing. We have a separate delicates basket where he puts anything which needs to be washed on cold or by hand. He does his own hand washing. I sort it out and put it away whilst he is bathing the children, so we've adjusted our chores/childcare accordingly. It's slightly extra work for me but what we eventually accepted was that I had a very particular way I wanted it all done which I wouldn't compromise on, and it was more important to me to keep my clothes in good health than to have him doing an equal share of the laundry.

Then that's is a problem.

Have you made sure it's not in his path from A to B?

If he it's not in his way tell him to leave it well the fuck alone.

Btw I have older brothers who have been marked for 30+ years who do their own laundry as their wives screw up their shirts/exercise clothes. They started after a year or two of being together. As a result their now adult children from teens have done their own laundry.

The poor fucker must be dreading the summer holidays.

Where's he hiding from you today?

But he’s not asking you to look after his tools. You’re asking him to look after your clothes.

You don’t touch his tools because they matter to him and are his responsibility, he doesn’t touch your clothes because they matter to you and are your responsibility. Done.

I don’t think it’s anything to do with respect. If you honestly think this is his way of passive aggressively telling you he has no respect for you then the relationship is probably over.

I work a 14 hour day he only works from 8:30-3:00. One day a week from home.
On the weekend and in the holidays I do everything.
I earn more money than him and I do bed and bath time when I get home all of the other shit that naturally falls on women’s shoulders for no discernible reason like organising clubs, social life, dentist, family visits, hosting, holidays, making beds, mowing the lawn, communicating with babysitters, teacher presents, Christmas.

Sounds like it might be best to leave 😅

You can hopefully sort the grey whites with whitening sheets or glo-white?
Honestly, find him a different house task to do. Don't have him doing the washing. I would do the white stuff first so if he does decide to be helpful there's less chance of him wrecking things.
I hope things either work out for you or it's soon clear if it's not going to do so. Teaching with an incompetent (whether deliberately or otherwise) other half isn't any fun.

Yes. Teaching hours are long.

@Aplatterofpuss yoy are on AIBU so it’s deep in handmaidens.

if I was you I would just start breaking DH’s stuff. Smash his favourite mug. Shrink is favourite jumper. Stop buying the brand he likes, maybe put sand on his side of the bed (just a bit). Replace his expensive whisky with famous grouse and see if he notices. Piss in his shoes.

see if then can work out how to do laundry

I’m not asking him. He just does it.

Has the therapy helped in any way, or is this pretty much his approach to your marriage?

Oh, and kindly, it's the end of term, end of year and you're probably on your knees so your tolerance levels will be way down. Look after yourself.

Yes this sounds healthy

The atmosphere around you must be pretty awful if you made your flatmate cry just by opening your mouth tbf.

Separate.

From each other.

How are you doing bed and bath time if you work a 14 hour day?

🤣🤣

Thank you for the suggestions of having a separate laundry basket and me doing my own.

I will do that.

He can fold and put away. Good day! 👋

Your supposed to separate the washing?!?!

I just stick a colour catch thing in.

Honestly it would annoy me
But. Piles of "sorted" laundry all over the place would annoy me. As would clothes thrown by the washer.

Fault on both sides

Because I do this after the 14 hour day of course. 😂

I feel for you, OP. It's taken me years to persuade my husband you can't just put everything in the tumble dryer.
I appreciate him doing the laundry but can't afford to keep chucking out shrunken items.

This sounds like the route to a healthy relationship yes.

If the marriage is so terrible op thinks he is doing it deliberately/carelessly op could always leave. It sounds like she doesn't feel he contributes anything anyway so presumably her life will look no different

Only fault if it bothers anyone. Neither of us are married to you, so your needs aren’t taken into account here! 😂