AIBU to expect DH to replace my ruined jumper(s)

[PILinOz]

I love the feel and look of cashmere and wool jumpers but cannot justify paying full price. Instead I scour TK Maxx and Vinted for bargains.
Over the past few years I have managed to find and buy myself a few lovely pieces at a heavy discount. My lovely mother-in-law also bought me a lovely cashmere jumper last Christmas.

My husband has managed to ruin all of them by just shoving them in with the regular laundry. They’ve all shrunk and felted. Each time his reaction to this has been to go “Oops, my bad, sorry” and kind of shrug his shoulders and that was the end of it.

A couple of weeks ago I found a lovely, BNWT wool/cashmere blend jumper on Vinted for £20. The original price tag was £125. I wore it and put it in the laundry basket. A few days later DH announces he’s going to do some laundry. I warn him that a few of my newly purchased work items are in there and not to touch them please. Later on he comes to tell me that he’s really sorry but he’s only gone and completely ruined my new cashmere jumper. He apologises profusely. I tell him I’m really upset. This is the about the 4th time he’s done this and I specifically told him not to touch my stuff. More apologising. He seems genuinely sorry for once

Later on I find him scrolling the internet to find a replacement. Of course he can’t find the exact same one as it came from Vinted and isn’t current season, but he finds something similar by the same brand and offers to buy it. It costs £165

Here is where I may be unreasonable. We earn roughly the same and pool all our finances into our joint account. I cannot justify using £165 of family money for a jumper. That just seems wild to me. I tell him this and he gets annoyed. I try to explain that spending £165 of our money to rectify his mistake isn’t fair. That I spend my time and effort to find these items and only purchase them at a price we can realistically afford. He thinks that I should just go out and buy new replacement jumpers at full price as we have the money. As far as he is concerned he has offered a solution which I am rejecting so that’s the end of it.

I brought it up again yesterday and said again that I think it’s totally unfair that he’s now ruined 4 of my nice jumpers and has no intention of putting in any effort to replace them. He looked incredulous and said “What, are you really expecting me to go through the rails at TK Maxx or join Vinted to find replacements?” I said I didn’t think it was such an unreasonable request and why should the burden of finding a solution to a problem he caused by his repeated carelessness, fall to me? He told me I was massively overreacting and he’s done talking about it. AIBU? Yes: it’s just a few jumpers, get over it and move on. No: DH should use his time and effort to source suitable replacements that won’t cost the family a fortune.

Depends really on whether spending 160 quid on a jumper means you can't afford your other bills or it sends you into debt. If not then he should buy it to replace it for you. Maybe if you didn't pool all the money then it'd feel fairer

He should at least make an effort to replace it at a reasonable price. But tbh I wouldn't be holding my breath. And I'd be buying a small laundry basket for special items which can't go in the normal wash.

I bought cashmere from TK Maxx recently and the quality was awful. It didnt even make it to the laundry basket. It pilled and bobbled just from a few days wear.

I'd be taking a quick pick to the pockets of every pair of his trousers...

You should have learnt from the first couple of times and not put them in the laundry basket but washed them your self so sorry no sympathy from me

I wouldn’t put them in the laundry basket with the other laundry in the first place.

She put them in the basket with express instructions that she would wash them herself.

This is absolutely an incompetent DH problem; not OP’s mistake.

She has told an adult man who is capable of using a washing machine to be careful with her stuff on 4 different occasions and he has ignored her and you think she's the problem? How low are your standards? Once is an accident, twice is careless, but 4 times and her reminding him specifically?

Me and DH have separate laundry baskets for exactly this reason, he is not to be trusted. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect him to scout the internet for replacements himself (he’d probably get it wrong), but I’d expect him to pay for them.

I never put wool jumpers in the laundry basket. They don't need washing very often and I prefer to do it myself to keep control of the process and avoid accidents. I therefore decide when I will do a wool wash and do them in one load altogether. I do think you have been rather silly to repeatedly put cashmere jumpers in the laundry basket when your dh has shrunk them over and over again and it makes me wonder what dynamic is playing out here between the two of you.

Keep them separate in a hand washing pile! I do this even though I wash my own stuff!

Seriously? Did you mean he should have learned from the first couple of times? I’m sure you did.

It wouldn’t put us into debt, or mean we couldn’t afford other bills. I just don’t think it’s a good use of our money. We have better things we could spend it on- like putting it towards our summer holiday, or something practical for us all (we have 2 kids)

Might I make a recommendation? As DH has proven too incompetent to do laundry, which I assume was his intention unless he’s ND, he no longer does laundry - but INSTEAD, he needs to take over a household task you normally do. Because if he’s sitting here ruining your sweaters FOUR times, he’s either:

• an arsehole
• neurodiverse
• doesnt care about you
• isnt competent enough to do some laundry, even when you give him directions at the start

I recommend figuring out which it is. Because it sounds like you and he are on completely different pages about spending, saving, caring for items you own, etc. - this is stuff that will come up again and again in a marriage.

SIDENOTE: There does appear, in my experiments, to be a sub-breed of men that think if they just throw everything in the washing machine and press a button without paying any attention or giving a fuck, that means they’ve “shared household tasks equally.” I hope he isn’t one of these, because they’re always dicks. 🤷‍♀️

Funnily enough, he did suggest that going forward we should have a separate basket for delicates. It seems I have to be the one who goes out and buys this too

I think you need a separate laundry bag inside the basket for these items so it can't happen again.

Also, sometimes if you soak in very cold water covered in about a bottle's worth of cheap hair conditioner you can recover them And gently pull them out back into shape. It doesn't always work if fully shrunk etc, but has on one or two items.

Aw that’s a shame.I guess it just depends on the brand. The one I had from there was a lovely Jaeger sweater. It was lovely quality and washed up fine until DH ruined it. It would fit a small child now

Yes, really, you should have done this after he ruined the first one. It's not "fair" but sometimes pragmatism wins the day.

Sorry OP, you put them in the wash basket, if you didn't want them washed you should have kept them out. No sympathy from me, this is why DH and I have separate wash basket, one he can do and one he can't be trusted with. FOr all those saying I should train DH better, we also have two boxes of tools, those I can be trusted with (a few screw drivers) and tools I can't be (saws, drills etc). It just works better that way.

He's an arse. But I have to confess I don't allow my partner anywhere near the laundry because I do have some very nice expensive clothes and since he put my jodhpurs in the tumble dryer they've never been the same.

My DH leaves everything remotely like that and only does the standard coloured and white washes. The subtext is if it's anything remotely fancy that needs special washing instructions do it myself.

Tbh id want to sort my own replacements out than trust this incompetent fool.

Bill him the amount, add on £20-£30 for your time. Then, and you shouldn't have to do this, keep them separate from the other washing in future.

Mainly this.

but I'd have completely separate washing baskets if he didn't want me to do his, I can't stand anyone messing with my laundry! (I'd happily do his too if he wanted)

as for your actual question, I can't stand anyone see your point entirely, but for ME the chances of him finding anything I liked is SO minimal it just wouldn't be worth the hassle.

id get him to replace the one his Mum bought you at Christmas.

Why do you keep putting them in the laundry basket? Surely after the first time you would put them separately and wash them by hand yourself? Of course he should be more careful, but he is clearly not capable. It is infuriating, but sometimes people don't think/don't learn/don't care.