Living with another human being, whether platonically or romantically, can always present challenges. We’re all different, we all like things our own way, and things can get sticky without good communication.
OP and his wife have an old house, and one of its quirks is that there are two bathrooms right next to each other. They agreed to each take one, with his wife getting the larger, and everyone was happy.
My wife [25F] and I [31M] bought a house together about six months ago. This is our first time living together.
Our house is an old American house that has been reformed many times. As a consequence of this, it has a silly layout where there are two bathrooms right next to each other that share the same wall.
When we pulled the trigger on buying it, we made an agreement that I’d take the bathroom on the left with the shower and she’d take the bathroom on the right with a bathtub. Hers is much more spacious than mine.
Or they were, until OP’s wife started pooping in his bathroom. Exclusively.
Aside from the smell she also doesn’t clean up after herself, leaving OP to discover little unwanted presents on a regular basis.
I soon learned though that my wife preferred to use my bathroom, but only to defecate. She’ll go pee or take a bath or do her makeup in her bathroom, but when the time comes to have a bowel movement, she only wants to use my toilet.
I usually wouldn’t mind this, but the issue is that she sits very far forward on the seat which leaves streaks in the bowl virtually every time she goes.
He’s spoken to his wife, who acted as if it was no big deal and he didn’t have the right to be upset about it.
I first tried approaching this civilly by asking why she used my bathroom. She gave me a vague answer about preferring it. Then I asked if she could at least sit back a bit more. She said it was none of my concern how she sat on the toilet.
I offered to change bathrooms with her, to which she said no thanks. Then I asked her to stop using it and she said it was her house too so she should be allowed to go wherever she wants.
I’m honestly tired of opening the toilet lid to see her stool stuck to the bowl.
So, he put a lock on the door.
Now she’s mad and he’s wondering if he’s out of line.
The day before yesterday I installed a lock on the door that I could open with a key. At first she didn’t seem to take the hint. She asked me for a key for the bathroom, to which I said no.
Then (as she really had to go) she started to panic and asked me again and again to open it. I told her that she has a perfectly good toilet in her bathroom.
She finally relented but came out of the bathroom extremely upset with me.
She’s been ticked off and demanding that I remove the lock since.
Was I out of line here?
You know Reddit is going to serve up the truth!
The top comment says that OP’s wife is being unreasonable, but also it would be in the best interest of their marriage to figure it out.
This person says the wife is really making all of this harder than it has to be.
This commenter suggests an alternative to the lock could be her agreeing to clean the toilet afterward.
There were great puns all the way around.
They suggest OP maybe try to get to the bottom of it.
This one is just weird, if you ask me.
They’d better find a way to talk it out.