A man on Reddit has asked others if they sympathize with him for a troubling occurrence in his household — and apparently he did not expect the amount of "sympathy" he'd receive.
Writing on Reddit in the subreddit called "Mildly Infuriating," the man attached a picture of an array of dirty mugs and drinking glasses — 15 in all — crammed together on his home's bathroom counter next to the sink.
The unclean mugs and glasses are shown sitting next to tissues and what appear to be skin lotions, hair spray bottles, makeup kits and more.
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Below the image, the man wrote, "This represents a single week of mugs and glasses that my wife leaves in our bathroom."
He added, "I clean all of these every week, and they are back the next. Anyone else feel my pain?"
Writing his note less than 24 hours ago as of publication time, the man already has received more than 70,000 reactions and over 10,000 comments.
Among the comments posted about the man's dilemma is this one: "Wife is like this. Just dumps stuff on every single surface in the house. Drives me nuts. Not surprisingly, her parents are hoarders."
Another person wrote, "My wife and I make this joke regarding her stupendous amount of cups used and left partially filled around the house."
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Still another chimed in with this piece of advice: "Start hiding them. It's what I did for my girlfriend."
The person added, "Now, she does the same irritating thing, but she can only do it with half the number of cups."
Plenty of other individuals raised some clear and obvious questions.
"Why isn't your partner cleaning them?" said one person.
"Why do you clean them?" wrote someone else.
"Why is she doing so much drinking in the bathroom?" asked another person.
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Other people also expressed a disdain for the presence of dirty dishes or cups in the bathroom in the first place.
"Food or drink in the bathroom air just doesn’t work for me," wrote one person.
This comment from yet another person was especially liked by others on the platform: "Too many mugs in the house, then. She can't leave mugs around if she only has one."
Added yet another individual: "Make those mugs disappear. If you want a drink, wash the one mug you have."
A husband and father in the New York City area who does the bulk of the cooking for his household had some blunt advice for the man who shared his story: "Just throw those mugs in the bathtub. She'll get the hint really fast when she goes to take a shower or a bath."
Studies have shown that when people are surrounded by stuff, "the visual chaos goes straight to your brain. It distracts you and gets in the way of your ability to process info," according to a recent article in WedMD about curbing clutter.
Other research has shown that a cluttered home "amps up" the stress hormone cortisol, especially in women, the same article noted.
So — given that it's prime spring-cleaning time these days — "make a plan right now to banish or sort your clutter," the same article suggested. "Then call a charity to set a date for pickup."
One individual on Reddit posted a long and complex response to the man's cluttered countertop dilemma — which stood out among the many other comments posted.
"I think there are absolutely some adults who choose not to clean up after themselves because they know their partner/roommate/parent will do it and they’re just kind of selfish people," the commenter wrote.
He or she went on, "But I also think there are a lot of adults who struggle with household chores due to their upbringing and/or ADHD."
The person said as well, "It’s not an excuse, because adults need to take responsibility for themselves regardless of their reasons — but it’s often tied up to shame and self-esteem and executive functioning issues that deserve compassion."
The person continued, "And it’s the kind of thing that can manifest inconsistently; just because they can be organized at work doesn’t mean their disorganization at home is simply laziness. It’s a complicated thing."
The individual said as well, "If someone has a partner like this, I’d suggest trying to make them feel safe and explore with curiosity what’s happening when they avoid chores or have trouble executing them properly — while also being firm about the fact that this is something you need them to improve."
The post concluded with, "Therapy isn’t a bad idea if there [are] things they need to unpack with a neutral third party."
Wrote someone else in reply to that, "Wonderfully said! We actually have gone to therapy to work out our ‘chore situation.’ It worked wonders when he realized how much I was doing even though I would try to explain it to him."
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The commenter added, "Having that other person's view and explanation made a huge difference with everything."
