Help! MiL driving me crazy over washing things for her.

[KAYMACK]

I need advice! I am not very good around the house and my MiL senses this and loves to gaslight me. She does not have a washing machine and gives me difficult things to wash... but does not tell me how I should wash them, then loves to chastise me for using the wrong cycles, saying something shrunk, the colour faded, I have ruined a favourite garment... She even gave me some things that should only have been dry washed just because she knew I would ruin them and she could have more "ammunition" against me.

Can anyone tell me how I should wash the following, which she has given me? Black woollen gloves (mittens). Cashmere scarves. She also gave me an "ethnic" handkerchief that she brought back from Nepal when visiting some hill tribe, I do not know what to do with this material!

Give them to your DH to wash

I'd give them to your husband to wash -

Refuse to wash anything else for her!

Let her come and use your machine herself, buy her a washing machine or washing service if you're feeling charitable.

Make her use the washer or get your dh to do it.

Whats a dry wash?

Not your problem. Offer your MIL your washing machine to do her own washing. If she does not like that, get your DH to do it instead. His mother and all that...

I assume dry clean @Pixiedust1234

Why on earth are you doing this.

Let your husband sort it out.

Don’t wash any of them. Tell her she’s welcome to pop round on Saturday mornings/afternoons/whatever to use the washing machine - DH will tell her where all the washing powder etc is and make her a cup of tea whilst she’s waiting. (You’ll be out, at your regular activity which just so happens to be at that time…)

One of the daftest threads in a good while

Say you’re busy, she’s welcome to come round on X day and use the washing machine, or she can take them to the dry cleaners.

It’s refreshingly silly. 😂

The awkward thing is that we used her machine when we were just starting out and could not afford one. Now she has downsized and, for some reason, has not bought one. So I feel obliged to do this for her. Please advise me on which cycles I should run these things and the maximum temperatures!!

oh duh! Thanks, that makes sense 😆

Your MIL is nuts! Who, unless there was NO SPACE whatsoever, would go without a washing machine? Just buy her one.

Why can’t your husband do it?

Tell her you’re not going to wash her things as clearly you make such a bad job of it. Job done. Don’t give her ammunition to use against you.

Just tell her no rather than trying to solve her puzzles.

Why can't her son do it? Surely it wasn't just you who used hers? He will have washed his own clothes in them too so he should be just as obliged?

I get the wanting to return the gesture if you've used her machine in the past and wanting to help her but there's no way my husband would be leaving it to me if his mother criticises when I do it. My Dad criticised how dh washes his car so he simply stopped helping him out and my father then sorted a car wash. He lent us his car a few a years before but it's still no excuse for rudeness.

And tell her to buy a washing machine.

Those items sound like hand wash only so hand them back to her and tell her that as they are handwash only she can use the sink!

Ask her to come over to and show you. This is how I dealt with a difficult employer when I was an au pair. She told me to hand wash an expensive pleated skirt that said dry clean only on the label. So I said please show me how you’d wash this. Behold, she washed it and all the pleats came out.

Call your MIL’s bluff.

Also I would tell her to get anything cashmere dry cleaned.

30 degrees delicate cycle.

Or, radical i know, just ruin them. Tell her they'll go on a normal wash and shrug about how bad you are at washing.

Do not NOT apologise if things shrink or whatever.

Be strategically incompetent, and don't give a hoot about it.

Oh well, at least it's clean!
Tinkly laugh.

But don't put the exotic hanky/scarf in with other stuff. At a guess it's a colour bomb trap, designed to dye your washing orange!

That's brilliant. I will hand wash the gloves and the handkerchief, tell her to dry clean the cashmere scarves, then simply refuse to do any more. I just wanted to get this washing right as a moral victory, because if I got anything wrong it would be brought up at all family gatherings. It will be worth it just doing the hand washing to then get her out of my hair. If I had refused or done it wrong, say using a "delicates" programme, then it would have been worse, as it would have been ammo against me.