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.

lf your husband knows that little about laundry what is he doing putting loads on? Have him doing something with much less brain work like stripping and making beds- it will just happen again if you leave things as they are.
l t sounds to me that your DH resents having to do laundry, otherwise it would not have happened a second time when you specifically asked him to be careful- put him on bed duty instead, look on ebay for the jumpers, generally better for quality items than Vinted.
lf you can't trust him to do laundry even with strict instructions, how on earth can you trust him to trawl TK Maxx or Vinted. Stop him doing laundry now, he is obviously not that bothered if he ruins things- oh as a sidebar you should be washing cashmere by hand anyway, which would have stopped this happening.

If your husband complained about you ruining his clothes, accused you of weaponised incompetence and pointed out you should have separated the jumpers and that you should have read the label, you would tell him to do his own laundry and that it’s his responsibility not to leave delicates in with everything else.

If you posted about it, you would be asked if he was crap in other parts of your life and there would be comments about being a man child.

Why is a person so incompetent allowed to use a washing machine?

Why is a person who can’t separate her expensive clothes allowed to have them?

My DH has a throw it all in approach, it's what worked for him when he was single. He still has a similar approach but over the years has come to realise not to wash whites and light colours with dark colours, though he wouldn't segregate to my standards at all. I prefer to wash my own clothes as some are hand washed or washed at 30
degrees and spun at a low level. I have my own laundry basket. It works for us. DH is well able to spot when a laundry basket is full and to do a load. He might sometimes wash something belonging to him or the children that I'd have hand washed or washed on a different setting but has only ever destroyed the odd thing (haven't we all) and I acknowledge that my laundry standards are higher than his but not enough that I'd say, I'll do all the laundry myself because I shouldn't have to, nor do I want to.

Use a separate basket for delicate items in the future. You knew he didn’t pay attention but continued to use the basket. I have a small white basket for delicate things.
Neither paid attention to the issue.

Of course they can. It isn't rocket science, it just isn't important to some men and they don't care.

There's a difference.

And that's fine really, isn't it ? The OP is capable of washing her own clothes to her own standards. She can do her own laundry to her own standards and leave her DH to do his laundry and their children's laundry. Personally, I'd have no wish for my DH to be separating our my clothes, handwashing some, low spin others, and then to know what I'd tumble dry and what I'd air dry. I can do that myself. DH does other things for me/our family that I don't particularly like doing.

Nothing OP has said, makes me think the washingate is a reason for divorce!

It’s not important to some people - there, fixed it for you.

I don't think this is your fault at all. I do have a separate bag (it's just a free tote cloth bag that hangs on a hook) for my whites, cashmere, wool and silk stuff, but it's not just because DH would wash it on 30 with everything else, but because I am just as likely to do that!

But when you've told him right before he does a load not to wash your things ... Come on, a minimum of effort is required.

DH has ruined some whites of mine before and he went without something for him to replace them.

I don’t allow my bloke anywhere near laundry for this very reason. Having said that I absent mindedly put a pair of my own wool/silk socks in the tumble dryer the other day and they came out like bootees.

Obviously replacements should be bought but why would they come out of “family money” @PILinOz. Do you not both have personal spending money?

I was responding to pp claiming that men somehow can't manage laundry.

And I corrected the statement - you’re welcome!

Without correcting pp's statement which is what I was responding to in the first place. Odd.

Not really.

First and MOST IMPORTANTLY! I thought you would laugh until you did yourself an injury at this video. How many DHs think there IS a magic table?!?

Less important: I’ve disagreed with most posters from the beginning, but this is because my partner has ADHD and he’s not shrunk anything yet. He knows he needs to devote FULL attention when doing laundry. It doesn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to determine if a magical new sweater that feels super soft has MYSTERIOUSLY appeared in the laundry pile, he needs to check the label. I’d double check he even knows how to read the label (it sounds possible that he has ADHD, and people with ADHD have a nasty habit of not learning basic things that don’t interest them, myself included. His other issues point to a possible ADHD diagnosis, as does the fact that he’s a self-employed tradesman so has developed systems that work for him).

Stop putting them on the laundry basket. I have a cotton laundry bag for anything that needs handwashing or dry cleaning. Also, wool doesn’t need washing often. Hanging outside to air is much better for it.