JOIN USSome months ago, I read a piece that said that 70% of marital discord stems from sharing a bathroom. My first reaction was that all this was bunkum and must be a paid column by the real estate lobby. I only realised the truth of it when my life partner decided to have a separate bathroom. Here is how.
Whenever I entered the common bathroom, I would her hear scream - "Who is that?" - and find her hiding behind a cupboard. My plea - that we are the only two residents in our home - didn’t make any sense to her. I had even jokingly asked her a few times if she thought that rats could open doors. Despite that, her "who is that?" wailing continued?
“Look at the way, your shirts are mixed up in rolls,” she would say. No amount of defence, that when I need to pick up a running shirt from the middle of the stack, some degree of rolling was bound to happen, worked. What made sense to me went overboard on the opposite side.
Then this one would come. “Do you want to put your hanging T shirt in the basket for washing or not?” I continued to defend myself that if washing was my intention, why I would hang the clothes on the hook. I would place them in the basket in the first place. Despite my repeated explanations, the same very question would get thrown at me.
Then there was this issue of my leaving the toilet in a mess after use, would become a source of irritation. Here I would plead guilty because all said and done, I am a messy person not only in the toilets but on the dining table too. I have been given a title of Messy Eater. Over time of about six months, I worked on this aspect and gradually upgraded my toilet keeping skills but here too, her quality management standards gave me an average grade because sometimes I would leave a tooth pick or two near the wash basin.
One day, I was preparing to rest in the afternoon; I received this unsolicited advice which conveyed that I needed to change my tooth brush because it looked all flattened out. Here I took a stiff stance, my teeth and my tooth brush was a matter within my personal domain and I would brook no criticism on that.
How to squeeze the toothpaste tube right from the bottom right from the bottom and not from the middle was hinted quite often as also closing the shower door perfectly remained an issue to ensure that not a drop splashed out. Folding the towel after bathing, I am still in the process of still learning. I would leave out the breach of toilet seat etiquette because some things must strictly remain in the private zone. Reading newspapers, I think should be allowed, and a ban, in my view is an over reach.
Finally, one day a decision was taken that the toilet in her piano room would be upgraded for separate use and now it is operational. The only thing I am required to do, is to put the water pump on, on condition that a word “please” must precede before such requests.
I now totally agree with the survey which concluded that seventy percent of marital issues arise out of sharing a bathroom. Period.