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.

Let him buy the £165 jumper, then don’t put cashmere in the laundry.

Out of interest when should the husband be expected to have learnt to listen to a specific instruction and act upon it?

Isn't that usually a primary school level sort of expectation?

I’ve banned DH from doing laundry for us (washing) he still does hanging out for drying and ironing and putting away as I was sick of him destroying our clothes. Nothing white was white, things were shrunken etc. arguably he’s got the shit end of the stick but I was sick of the fight about ‘holy mother of God what did you do to my underwear / the kids school shirts’ every time he went near the laundry basket.

Do you not separate things by fabric or colour? We have one general laundry basket but it still needs sorting. Can't imagine just washing everything together.

OP, you have my sympathy.

Neither DH nor I were trained in laundry, but I don’t expect to be inconvenienced by his choices and vice versa. I can’t expect him to memorise which items of mine are silk/wool/cashmere/polyester/cotton as I have no idea what his clothes are made of. Very reasonably, neither of us are willing to check every care label at every wash load because that’s a ridiculously onerous task.

A starting premise of everything in the wash basket needs washing is very reasonable, and any system that departs from that does require training by the person who decided to implement that system.

Oh fgs, stop complaining and do the obvious thing. Buy two separate baskets. There is NO way I’m sorting through anyone’s delicate items if it goes in the basket. It goes straight into the machine and TOO BAD if you left something precious in there. Even my kids know to put their items in the separate baskets.
if this is the fourth time then more fool you.
If dh asked me to sort and separate and read labels I would tell him to do it himself.

I’ve had a few washing disasters over the years
so anything that needs special attention wouldn’t go in the laundry bin

I’m in the fence because I wash my own stuff and I keep it separate

Seems like the correct adjustment would be to buy from joint account and move on.
Get a bag for delicates in the main laundry basket and put your fragile garments in there.
yes it’s annoying but your attitude is horrible . How do you want him to fix it? He’s apologised and offered a solution.

Exactly this. Sort your own special items out! Can’t believe op would have this happen 4 times rather than buy a laundry basket for special wash items. Common sense really

Amazon is your friend for this item! No going out!

The reference to training was because someone upthread had suggested he needed training on how to do laundry if he didn’t know already, and if he did know, then he needed a refresher course 🤷🏻‍♀️

He doesn’t have a PlayStation, he does have a couple of nice guitars though 🤔

Honestly, I think it might be good to have some separate finances, if only for situations like this. Just individual bank accounts for each of you, with a (probably fairly small) set, equal amount of "pocket money" transferred in automatically every month from the joint account. To pay for individual hobbies, nights out with friends... and clothes.

Then he can pay out of that when he ruins your stuff.

At the moment he has absolutely no consequences for his actions (or at least none that don't impact equally on you).

I don't really understand people saying that it's reasonable to just thoughtlessly chuck in laundry at whatever temperature.

Maybe I'm incredibly cautious about laundry but surely anything knitted, bras etc. shouldn't be washed at 60C full spin if you want them to last. Handwash or dry clean only items fair enough, keep them separate, but I'd expect an adult man to be know not to chuck in jumpers and cardis with underwear and pillowcases...likewise colours and whites. It takes a few extra seconds to think about as you load the machine.

Why do most men seem to struggle with this??

Stop putting them in the laundry basket!!

This is what my original comment was based on, @PILinOz . I appreciate that you said your DH is neither an arsehole nor ND so… which of the other two options is it? I think that’s the problem. Maybe it is just him not paying attention, but eventually, when he can perfectly manage all that and more at work, you will start to resent his incompetence at home. I appreciate that you’re trying to step back a bit from household tasks, but I would really recommend having a “come to Jesus” with your husband.

I know people who do this kind of stuff (ruin all the wife’s sweaters, forget to order tickets to the children’s show, etc) and eventually they either end up resented by the wife and children or treated as a write-off (“oh, you can’t trust Daddy to do it so you just have to do it yourself”). Maybe a conversation now about what he would think if you ruined his items four times (his work tools, especially? Because work clothes are part of YOUR “tools”), and how this can’t continue going forward.

And I really resent people saying you need to buy the bloody handwashing basket yourself. It’s the least he could do! But judging by how much he’s used logic to do household tasks so far, you’d get a fuck-ugly one that says “Life’s a beach and then you die” or something.

Bonus points if you already have a laundry basket that would be easy to match and he still buys a fuck-ugly mismatched one.

But he isn't paying for them

They are paying for them

My husband ruined one of my jumpers after being told not to tumble dry it. He got me another one. Hasn’t ruined any more.

@PILinOz
If either your mother or your MIL end up in a care home, make sure you wash cashmere stuff yourself. All laundry in a care home seems to go in at boil wash temps. OP, you can bellyache about insisting they wash delicates by hand etc but it won't happen.
When my kids were teenagers, one did all the washing and ironing. They regularly emptied the laundry hamper, hung out the washing and then ironed it. I was beyond grateful. I had enough intelligence to save anything slightly delicate and deal with it myself. It did not seem fair to make someone else deal with itsy bitsy fragile garments that I chose to wear. .
I await with interest the complaints from the same posters when either they or their parents move to care homes.
Remember, women are much more likely to end up with dementia and in care homes than men. Some of you will inevitably have to deal with laundry and care homes policy. It might make you less precious about your fragile delicates and deal with them yourself..

It’s not men, I do the same. I refuse to spend time reading labels of dirty laundry. All delicates go in one basket, whites separate and dark colors in its own basket. 3 separate baskets and that’s all we do. Even my kids know this. Why complicate your life and who has the time to sort through a dirty basket??
surely the most common sense thing to do is separate them at the dirty basket point- and that is up to who used them?

Nope, just no desire to hand wash fine or wool items.

He doesn't ask me to do DIY or fix the car either.

Is he doing it on purpose? It's hard to believe he's that stupid otherwise. Are you being punished for 'making' him do laundry?

I voted YABU because why on earth are you putting them in the laundry basket? Have a separate laundry bag for them and neither of you will have to worry about sorting them ever again.

I don’t think all men take the chuck it all in approach and it’s not unique to men either. Many women do similar. DH certainly has a chuck it all in approach but does know not to put whites in dark colours but will wash whites with light colours. I’m the opposite and handwash a lot of my own clothes and sort laundry out very specifically. The result is it could take me a day to do a few baskets of laundry while DH would have it all done in two loads!

Agreed. Why didn't @PILinOz husband take more care after the first jumper was ruined?

Is there a difference in your attitudes to money @PILinOz? It seems you're very careful around spending on higher-end things, while your DH's solution is spending more for convenience.