DH spends all evening in the bathroom

[Anonymous]

Change the kids' bedtime to when he's normally out of the bathroom and see what happens. That could be your answer.

[Anonymous]

Something's not right. Best case, he needs a dr. Not good but not awful, he's avoiding. Affair seems possible.

No electronics in the bathroom. No reading material. Focus dammit!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband spends at least an hr or more total in the bath room in the evening. Usually 30mins after dinner. Another 20 while the kids are going to bed and another 20 before bed. It's becoming so difficult because if I need him to take care of something while I'm getting one kid to sleep, he can't because he needs another 15-20mins in the bathroom. It's almost always at the exact times every evening too. I think it's becoming an OCD thing because if I mention the time he spends in the bathroom he becomes so angry and says I just don't know how to poop. I also hate that the 1 maybe 2 hours at most we get in the evenings together is always him in the bathroom. The last bathroom addition is new he just started adding in this one about a month ago. I'm about to schedule him a doctor appt if he can't help it but spend that much time in the bathroom in a short period. Anytime he goes to the bathroom even on the weekends it's never less than 20min sometimes upwards of 45mins.

I love that in his defensiveness he says YOU don't know how to poop! As if because you can poop in under a minute means you don't know how to do it. I'd say you are an expert pooper.

[Anonymous]

My husband did the same thing for a while, OP. He was sitting in the bathroom looking at soccer stats on his phone and avoiding helping me deal with DS. He wasn't having an affair, but it was extremely annoying. After much confrontation, he agreed not to take his phone into the bathroom any more and the situation improved.

[Anonymous]

So, after a long day at work, you nag the sh*t out of him to help with the kids and you wonder why he might act avoidantly?

[Anonymous]

OP, watch "This is 40". There's a scene where the Dad (Paul Rudd) is hiding in the bathroom pretending to poop while watching videos on his iPad. Your DH is avoiding the family/trying to be alone. There's no way it takes that much time to poop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, after a long day at work, you nag the sh*t out of him to help with the kids and you wonder why he might act avoidantly?

You're funny. Many parents of both genders, myself included, would prefer that the nighttime ritual just passed us by some evenings. Reality, though, is that I am a parent, as is my spouse. So we're both in it until the little guys grow up a bit. Your comment makes as much sense as excusing someone not flushing the toilet, we're not brushing her teeth, or not getting out of pajamas to go to work, on the fact that the other adult in the house request that they do so. Repeatedly. Because it something everyone needs to do every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, after a long day at work, you nag the sh*t out of him to help with the kids and you wonder why he might act avoidantly?

I would definitely be doing some self-reflection if I saw that my husband preferred to sit hunched over on a toilet for a couple hours every night rather than with the rest of the family. That is not a comfortable or particularly pleasant place and he's choosing to spend most of his evening there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, after a long day at work, you nag the sh*t out of him to help with the kids and you wonder why he might act avoidantly?

You're funny. Many parents of both genders, myself included, would prefer that the nighttime ritual just passed us by some evenings. Reality, though, is that I am a parent, as is my spouse. So we're both in it until the little guys grow up a bit. Your comment makes as much sense as excusing someone not flushing the toilet, we're not brushing her teeth, or not getting out of pajamas to go to work, on the fact that the other adult in the house request that they do so. Repeatedly. Because it something everyone needs to do every day.

The point is, is OP making the nighttime ritual more hellish than it needs to be? If she's on his ass the second he walks in the door, it could explain why he prefers to spend his time in the shitter. Think about it, the guy goes to work, comes home, and in the intervening hours before he has to go to bed and go back to work, retreats to the TOILET. It paints a very bleak picture of what family life must be like if he's willing to go to those lengths to avoid participating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, after a long day at work, you nag the sh*t out of him to help with the kids and you wonder why he might act avoidantly?

Why does he get to spend all that time alone while she does the hard work of parenting? Did she get those kids by tying him up and stealing his sperm???

[Anonymous]

He may be a lieutenant in a drug cartel and not really watching videos but having g-chat's with hitmen and falcons instructing them on how to run their own territories and what hits to carry out.

[Anonymous]

lo advice just commiseration. when DS was a newborn, DH would come home from work and lock himself in the bathroom for like an hour to take a bath. and then another time (for maybe 20-30 minutes) to poop. he said he needed the time to de-stress!! after lots of huge fights, it took him seeking advice from an older married friend to snap some sense into him.

Maybe he needs a squatty potty? If he's taking that much time to poop every day, he's clearly not doing it right.

[Anonymous]

He may have an intestinal parasite. If he takes opoids, these also cause constipation. Does he have any other symptoms? If he is truly constipated, op give him more veggies at dinner, big salads, more cooked greens. Use it as an excuse to get him on a diet. Get him a stool softener, an appt with a GI, and just get in his business on this...you are his wife. Its not normal to spend that much time on the toilet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:lo advice just commiseration. when DS was a newborn, DH would come home from work and lock himself in the bathroom for like an hour to take a bath. and then another time (for maybe 20-30 minutes) to poop. he said he needed the time to de-stress!! after lots of huge fights, it took him seeking advice from an older married friend to snap some sense into him.

Maybe he needs a squatty potty? If he's taking that much time to poop every day, he's clearly not doing it right.

PP I should've read all of the comments. i like how you all are trying to blame OP for making him retreat to the bathroom. From my post, you can see that sometimes your spouse can be a selfish jerk and decide that they do not want to "adult". One day, two days, sure. When it's a pattern, the default parent is allowed to raise a bit of a fuss. It's a two-man job.

[Anonymous]

Is it possible that he's a crapaholic?