An East Coast woman’s move within her marriage has sparked a new trend: the bathroom divorce.
Debbie Wiener is a 66-year-old retired interior designer who became emotionally drained from sharing her bathroom with her husband, Jim Weinberger, 67.
“You’re disgusting!” she would often yell to him after he used the facilities.
“As you get older, your gastrointestinal needs change,” Wiener, who also created the Slobproof touch up pen and Slobproof furniture, told The New York Post. “My husband’s habits didn’t age well. One toilet was not cutting it.”
The ongoing issue led to a conflict they just couldn’t flush.
“Sometimes I climbed the stairs to use the kids’ bathroom,” she revealed. “Sometimes I had to wait to use the bathroom. It is no fun to yell at your husband, ‘You are disgusting,’ and have him yell at you, ‘You are too fussy.’”
Their shared bathroom has been a source of toilet turmoil since they moved into their Maryland home in 2011 with their then-teenaged sons. The layout itself was odd: You’d have to pass the bathroom to access their bedroom.
“If you are sitting on the toilet and someone wanted to go into the bedroom, they were going to pass you,” she told the outlet. “It was kind of a joke.
She decided to kill two birds with one stone: Fix the layout and give the couple their own toilet room. Their his and hers toilets are also customized for their height.
“My husband’s toilet is 21 inches tall because he is 6’6”,” Wiener said. “My feet wouldn’t touch the floor.”
This means separate toilet rooms that have their own ventilation system and solid-wood doors that close tightly to give each person their privacy.
“Now, there is peace and harmony in the bathroom,” she exclaimed. “We each have a private room and nobody knows what’s going on. With two toilets, I am a much happier person. At home, I have toilet nirvana.”
Wiener’s toilet has become a sanctuary for her. With piles of puzzle books, she often finds herself spending “extra time in there to finish a word find.” She said she’s helping her “digestive system” and her mind.
The move has caused her to be the source of envy to women in her circle.
“All my neighbors lined up to see my bathroom. Every time I tell a woman about my bathroom, she is, like, ‘OMG I want that.’ This is the next step after a sleep divorce. You can share a vanity without sharing cooties. You can share a wet room but not a toilet.”
While it’s been a gamechanger for Wiener, her husband seems a bit unbothered.
“I don’t think about the bathroom that much,” he explained. “The bathroom is not a huge part of my life. Debbie comes from a different place on this because of her profession.”
It appears this couple’s commode crisis is now down the drain.