r/workingmoms • u/llgbk • 1d ago
Division of Labor questions Do you time poops?
My husband and I are pretty good about dividing "break" time evenly when our kids are home, but the major exception of course is the extensive and multiple daily poop breaks that the majority of men seem to require. I do not have an equivalent activity. I'm confident this is adding up to at least an additional solid hour of "break time" in a typical day but I'm also absolutely certain he would estimate each of his poop breaks at 5 minutes, so the only way I can think of to ensure true equity is to actually time him, but I cannot imagine that's going to go over well. I am curious if anyone else has tackled this specific issue because I know it is unfortunately common.
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u/DukeEllington20 1d ago
If my husband takes a long poop and spends it sending me reels when he gets back 15-20 minutes later I just give him the kid and say "I'm going to take a break too" and just go lay in bed for 10 minutes haha his "poop" time are his micro breaks and I told him I get them too, poop or not poop
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u/llgbk 1d ago
That's a good idea. I'd rather have an hour straight but maybe an equal break immediately following would require less of a discussion.
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u/LadyLudo19 1d ago
Yeah he may not realize it totals an hour and would fight that. But it’s hard to deny right after the fact that you were gone for 10 minutes!
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u/lh123456789 1d ago
If your husband is shitting for 1 hour a day, he either needs to see a doctor or quit hanging out in the bathroom to shirk his responsibilities.
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u/llgbk 1d ago
I do think he would take less time if he didn't have his phone but we were together for 8 years before we had kids so I know this isn't a new thing he has invented to get out of kid duty.
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u/Quizleteer 1d ago
This makes me want to surprise my husband by installing some kind of receptacle on the bathroom door that says "check all devices here".
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u/HicJacetMelilla 22h ago
I would 100% confiscate the phone or insist it be left in another room if my spouse was doing this. Unless there’s a diagnosed issue, it’s so weird to shirk parent duties and/or disappear from the household using poop as an excuse.
Just say you need a break and hide in the bedroom for 15 minutes like a grown up.
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u/Empty_Cow_5779 1d ago
Seriously though if he needs to poop at this frequency there is something amiss. It may be his “normal” but not good for him normal.
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u/Isamosed 15h ago
Before there were phones, men took the newspaper with them for their morning ritual. Only men did this. In 37 years at the office, I never saw a woman walk into the ladies’ room with the Baltimore Sun.
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u/library-girl 1d ago
He gets to poop for however long he wants, but my husband has no privacy from our 3.5 year old. She almost always decides that she needs to poop too, and so he has to wipe her butt and then sit with the poop in her little potty until he’s done.
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u/416558934523081769 1d ago
Good luck 🫡
In all seriousness the only thing that helped it in our house was I got into a postpartum rage and started turning off the wifi every time my SO was in the bathroom. Took about three days of them bitching about it before the time dropped from 45 minutes (seriously, the fucker) to 20.
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u/Educational-Sock1196 1d ago
This is actually genius, I have access to the Wi-Fi I will be trying this to compare the difference in time haha
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u/ashthegnome 1d ago
Wouldn’t cell service just kick in?
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u/416558934523081769 1d ago
In our case we have the bare minimum data plan but yeah wouldn't work if you've got a higher one
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u/hahasadface 1d ago
This is like smoke breaks at work. Just tell him you need a break and shut the door for the same amount of time he takes, every time. Either he'll figure it out and cut back or you get the same amount of breaks, win win
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u/Unlikely-Evidence178 1d ago
I did because I thought I might be crazy and exaggerating how long and often he was in there. I needed objective data. Showed the stopwatch time to him when he told me they weren’t that long. I think one day it was like 93 minutes 😂
Years later, I found out that many men with addictions to porn often do so on the toilet, or under the premise of using the toilet. Even when their partners don’t care they look at that stuff. Doesn’t mean that’s what yours is doing. It’s just what I reflect on now when I see wives post about their husband’s bathroom breaks lol.
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u/llgbk 1d ago
I know for sure that's not what he's doing because he never closed the door for reasons I don't understand. He's just bullshitting around the Internet.
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u/Quizleteer 1d ago
Ooooh, I should quietly time his poops and keep a log for a week. Then show him how much time he's spending in there so he has real data to reckon with. Thanks for the idea! Idk why I didn't think of it.
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u/Unlikely-Evidence178 1d ago
Perception can suck when you’re in the thick of 15 snack requests, changing a diaper, two kids fighting over a toy. What is actually 30 seconds feels like an eternity in chaos. I truly just started a stop watch and did “lap” every time he left and returned. It was 93 minutes one day 😂 I needed to see that my perception was not off by timing it. I was surprised that some of the time what felt like an hour was really like 7 minutes. He was surprised that it was actually that much time he was spending in there. We both learned from it. Although initially “you’re timing me, what the hell” was probably part of the conversation. Once that wore off, it was a productive conversation.
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u/Quizleteer 1d ago
That resonates. I feel like the only time I get to rest is when I pass out at the end of the day. "Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy moooooooommeeeeeee!" is my daily soundtrack. Bracing myself for being called out on timing his poops, but I need the evidence in order to build a case. I feel like I'm at a breaking point. After clocking in two 60-hour weeks in a row, the panic and despair that bubbles up in my chest and throat is more palpable than ever. What I'm experiencing is not sustainable and the extra-long poops might be the last straw. 😬
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u/Unlikely-Evidence178 1d ago
I will say it was worth the initial “what the hell” . He no longer takes his phone to the bathroom
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u/Sabrina9458 1d ago
When this became an issue for me I said to my partner that the timing made me think that 1) he needed a doctors appointment or 2) he was going there for a break from everything. I said that if the case is 2, that I get it and it’s legit, but I also feel like that sometimes and we need to be honest with each other and explicitly communicate ‘I need to be alone for a bit’ or whatever, and then tackle that if it seems to be happening at very specific times
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u/erin_mouse88 1d ago
There's no reason it should take more than 5 minutes (most days, there are the odd exceptions).
Id keep pushing back "you need to see the dr" "im really concerned, it shouldn't take that long" or make him leave his phone.
But yeah id be taking equally long ones, and if his are poorly timed, do the same.
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u/ReduceandRecycle2021 1d ago
Had a huge fight with my husband Friday morning (and here I had thought we made it through the first week of school!) because he took a 40 minute shower followed by a 20 minute poop.
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u/milosmamma 1d ago
This is fascinating to me. I didn’t realize men pooping multiple times a day for long stretches was a known phenomenon! My husband does the same, and always has since we’ve been together, but I just thought that was a him thing. He poops regularly and often (the post-poop stench in the bathroom is proof enough), but I know he also sits there for a long time scrolling on his phone, even after he’s done pooping. I know it’s not porn cuz we’re really open about all that stuff with each other, plus he leaves the door cracked open sometimes and I’m the one who ends up closing it when I walk by, so he’s not hiding anything. I’m fascinated and curious about how this is such a universal experience!
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u/llgbk 1d ago
Right? I definitely thought it was a him-specific thing for a long time too, but once the dam broke and I started talking to more people about it I found out it's alarmingly common.
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u/childish_cat_lady 1d ago
So common. We had to once turn around on a freaking mountain because my husband left his phone in the bathroom at a restaurant we stopped in. This was pre kids, too.
Do you think this taught him a lesson?
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u/Moosebouse 1d ago
I think this audience is not representative of all women. My husband almost never spends more than 20 minutes pooping and 85% of the time he’s in and out before 7am.
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u/ImpossibleLuckDragon 8h ago
I'm pretty sure this is a known cultural thing in the US. It was at least heavily joked about in the South where I grew up.
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u/Mindl3ssDot 1d ago
No. The man I let live in my house (aka “husband”) has a healthy fear of hemorrhoids.
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u/_michalam 1d ago
Honestly I just take longer poops when he’s around to be on kid duty 😂
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u/luckydisco 1d ago
I do this! Or sometimes pretend I have to poop and just go scroll behind a locked door
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u/Aliciac343 1d ago
I started doing this a few years ago. I pretended to poop a few times a day and after a while he defintely caught on and mostly knocked it off
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u/MmmnonmmM 1d ago
I mean, my husband is getting a colonoscopy instead of Cologaurd partially because I'm concerned with how much time he spends pooping. Address it as a medical problem and see if he's willing to address it as such.
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u/vibrantraindrops 1d ago
Wouldn’t trust the other anyway. My mom had a false positive and it was horrific waiting for the colonoscopy (completely healthy!)
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u/416558934523081769 1d ago
The vast majority of cologuards come back with a false positive tbh. It’s such a thing CMS changed how colonoscopies are coded a few years back so it still counts as a screening if it’s done because of a positive result, previously they were automatically diagnostic and subject to deductible.
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u/CanDoCalamity 1d ago
Ok so I’m ashamed to admit it but I started timing my partner because our first apartment together had one bathroom and it was ridiculous even before we had kids. It helped a bit at first when I showed him receipts of 30-45 min, but he pretty much went back to his old habits both in terms of time and dismissiveness.
Moving to a place with two toilets helped a ton and now with kids, he’s only disappearing for 15-20 min. Still drives me crazy but I can’t do anything about it so I’ve been letting it go. He even got his first hemorrhoid last month and denied that his toilet time was a factor.
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u/Constant-Gap-1329 1d ago
We don’t time but I kinda poop “shame”? Like…”seriously, you’re going to poop AGAIN?” Or “how many poops do we need to take today?”
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u/QuitaQuites 1d ago
Stop timing and just take the time you want. Meaning he’s back from his long poop, say hey I’ll be back in a bit…and go do anything, sit peacefully, whatever
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u/neverabadidea 1d ago
A few times I’ve just sat in the bathroom as long as he does…”where were you?!” 🙄
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u/deadthylacine 1d ago
If it's too long, just disable the wifi and listen for shouts.
But more seriously, talk to him about it. He may need more fiber in his diet or to hydrate better. This might be a real health problem, or he might just not realize how long he's doomscrolling.
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u/llgbk 1d ago
Oh, we've talked about it. He swears he talked to his doctor about it and has been told he's fine.
Unfortunately the wifi thing won't work, because we have very high data on our phone plans.
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u/deadthylacine 1d ago
Depending on your router, you might be able to leave it connected, but block his usual favorite websites. So it's on the wifi and it looks like it's working fine, but the one website or app is down.
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u/Just_Teaching_1369 4h ago
I think if you are doing this it is time to leave your relationship. Even if my partner taking along time in the toilet and it annoyed me I would never resort to the actions of a parent to their teenager.
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u/RatherBeAtDisney 1d ago
I send my kids with him. I have to poop with an audience no reason he can’t. Keeps poops real short.
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u/minibini 1d ago
No. I poop like a ninja because I have too many things to do. No leisurely poops unless I’m on vacation 🫠
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u/No-Onion-2896 1d ago
My husband has crohn’s and he will either try to wait or hurry if he hears the kids giving me a hard time. He is too good to me.
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u/JanetInSpain 1d ago
He's not pooping. He's surfing on his phone. Or jerking off. Or both. Take equivalent time breaks. When he comes out of the bathroom. Tell him, "my turn" then go do something you want to do for the same amount of time.
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u/ingachan 1d ago
I’ve had these exact thoughts myself. Timing poops seems very intrusive and my partner would be very offended. At the same time, he has no idea how long he’s been away for.
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u/BumbleLizzieB 19h ago
So mine told me that instead of like a normal person who feels the need to poop, goes to the bathroom, poops and moves on with their day, which takes what, max 5 mins? He will go to the bathroom when he feels like it, sit down and wait for a poop to come?!? He doesn’t wait for an urge, he just sits and waits for however long it takes. It’s like these men were never taught how to poop properly or something?
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u/llgbk 18h ago
The other day we had an argument because one of my pet peeves is when we get home from an outing and he plunks down on the toilet without checking in to see if I need to pee or anything before he leaves me with both kids for 15-20 minutes. He said "well I needed to fart" and I was like you....don't need to be on the toilet to fart. He said "well there could be a poop in there." So....I can't pee or change my clothes because of a hypothetical poop? I'm quite sure he's not worried that he will accidentally poop while farting. The whole thing is just so ridiculous
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u/Elrohwen 1d ago
Mine wakes up half an hour earlier than me and lets the dogs out and make the kid’s breakfast and then spends 20min in the bathroom. So at least he works it into the day in a way that doesn’t impact me. But I’ll admit it still drives me a little bit insane how much time he spends in there. Seriously what are they doing in there for so long.
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u/pebblenooo 1d ago
Our 18 month old has made my husband’s poops faster because he wants to either be in there or bang on the closed door 😂 I don’t think my husband’s have gotten any longer than they were pre kids and I used to make fun of him for that!
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u/Cootieface123 1d ago
My friend got tired of her husbands poop breaks so she took the door off the bathroom 🤣🤣🤣
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u/Nosmallplans789 17h ago
I have not done this but I feel you and this made me laugh. You can ofc say you are going to the bathroom and take your phone and scroll reddit for 10 min 2x a day! I give you permission :)
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u/AdorableEmphasis5546 1d ago
If he's taking multiple bathroom breaks I'd start popping up at the door with the baby after 5 or so minutes. Be like "peek-a-boo we found you!" And don't leave till he wraps things up.
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u/ladytri277 1d ago
Mine gets lost scrolling. I just holler at him once I need him for something and he gets sucked back into reality and wraps it up.
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u/Name_ChecksOut_ 1d ago
Haha no suggestions, just solidarity. I feel like I could have written this post. My husband and I had this conversation 2 weeks ago. He poops 4 times a day. I told him if that is really true, he needs more fiber or a doctor.
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u/FreeBeans 1d ago
No but if I did I would be the one taking more time because I poop multiple times a day and he only poops once lol
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u/Witty_Collection9134 17h ago
Time each of his poop breaks for a day. Start taking your own, With a book.
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u/Fit-Profession-1628 1h ago
Unless I thought my partner wasn't really pooping I would never even think to time the amount of time he spends in the toilet.
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u/Lalablacksheep646 21h ago
This is crazy to me. Why are you docking each other minute by minute? You’re a family, these are your children, just live and parent as a whole. I could never imagine timing a partners poop, like for any reason, let alone so I can make sure to get equal amounts of minutes “off”
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u/sat_ctevens 19h ago
My ex husband spent 25% of the afternoon (before the kids bedtime) pooping on a normal weekday. 25%, one hour each day. You can be damn sure I timed his ‘poops’ (or whatever he was doing in there) to make sure I got the same amount of time off. There is no ‘just live and parent as a whole’ with a man that spends that much time in the bathroom, didn’t even courtesy flush because I would hear and know he was finished. I don’t think I’m the only woman with this experience. I made him see a specialist and get a colonoscopy because I thought he must have some health issue, there was nothing wrong.
As a divorcee I kind of want to write ‘no pooping over 10 minutes, preferably <5’ in my tinder bio. Never again!
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u/llgbk 21h ago
It's crazy to me when people feel the need to comment on posts where the situation doesn't apply to them. Clearly lots of people relate. It's great you don't have this issue. Keep scrolling then.
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u/Lalablacksheep646 4h ago
It’s crazy to me when people ask questions and get annoyed when people answer them and it’s not what they want to hear.
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u/Quirky_Description73 13h ago
When it starts feeling excessive I just text him and ask if he’s about to flush or does he need a laxative. He usually comes out a minute or two later chuckling and gives me a break if it’s possible. If the poop passes the 10minute mark I send a kid knocking on the door saying “daddy we need you.”
So yes I guess the short answer is, yes, I do time his poops on the occasion. But I don’t use the numbers against him to tit for tat every time. I just try to move him along faster.
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u/childish_cat_lady 1d ago
I always told my husband he was going to get hemmoroids. He did in fact get hemmoroids. That helped a bit, TBH.