Woman asks husband to stop peeing in yard, he says 'don't worry, neighbors can't see.'

When you're married, you're bound to find small things about your partner annoying, no matter how wonderful they are.

The trick of cohabitation is to find a balance between speaking your truth about pet peeves, and letting petty little annoyances roll off your back. Luckily, the internet is always armed with a keyboard and opinions.

So if you need a second, third, fourth, or tenth opinion, Redditors are consistently here for you.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for asking her husband to stop peeing in the yard.

She wrote:

AITA for asking my husband to stop peeing in the backyard?

This is so low-stakes but I’m curious what Reddit thinks. My husband spends the bulk of his awake time either in his office (he works from home), in the den watching TV, or in the kitchen cooking. Our house has a weird layout and there’s no bathroom right next to any of those rooms.

If anyone is in one of those rooms and needs to use the bathroom, they either have to walk through our main bedroom on the ground floor and use our en-suite, walk upstairs and use the kids’ bathroom, or go down into the finished basement and use the powder room. It’s not ideal and we plan on adding a powder room to the ground floor at some point. But for now, we all deal with it.

However, ever since the weather warmed up, my husband has started just going outside into the backyard and peeing behind the shed. Our back door is right near all the rooms where he spends time during the day so he says it’s just quicker and easier.

I hate that he does this and have asked him to stop but he says that it’s not a big deal because none of the neighbors can see (true), nobody can see it from our house (true), our kids don’t know he does this (true) and he’s not ruining the grass because he’s just peeing in the dirt behind the shed (true).

He’s honestly an incredible partner and father and this is literally my only complaint about him. And he’s right in that his peeing out back isn’t hurting anything. It just bugs me that he won’t take 60 extra seconds to walk to an actual toilet. AITA for asking him to stop? Should I just let it go since it’s really not causing any harm?

People had a lot of comments and clarifying questions.

Personal-Listen-4941 wrote:

NTA. Urine is acidic, it will cause damage eventually plus the smell will permeate.

dogglesboggles wrote:

NTA because he’s “just peeing in the dirt behind the shed.” Noooo not just in one place! If he does this semi-frequently of course that place will eventually reek of man-piss like a rancid urinal! It’s no sin to take an occasional outdoors pee but you gotta spread it around and not re-use the same pee spot.

StereoOnCookingBacon wrote:

NTA. It’s going to smell and eventually, the kids will notice. Why is daddy peeing in the yard? Because daddy is too lazy to walk 30 feet to use indoor plumbing like a civilized human.

Nip this now before your husband turns your kids feral. I used to babysit for a family where the dad and boys all peed outside (not went outside to pee, but if they were already outside, they peed on a shrub like dogs.) It was not cute.

wanderingstorm wrote:

NTA.

That’s disgusting behavior. It doesn’t matter that “no one can see him.”

VeryFluffy wrote:

I'll say NTA, but...I have actually asked my husband to START peeing in the backyard. First on the compost pile -- as it is supposed to be good, adding to the fertilizing effect. Second, there are reports of badgers moving into some gardens in my area.

Supposedly male urine around the perimeter walls and fences could deter them from coming in. (Badgers are protected here, and once they move in it is mostly illegal to try to get them out!)

After receiving a lot of affirmation that she is in fact NTA, OP jumped back on with an update.

EDIT:

It doesn’t smell bad out there, at least not yet, and he’s done it at least 2x a day for a few months now.

We keep a bottle of hand sanitizer on the table by the back door and he uses it when he comes in.

We’re confident that the neighbors and the kids can’t see him. And the kids never go back in that area.

And despite the fact that most of the votes here are NTA, I’ve decided not to die on this hill and just let it go. I told him that as long as he never does it while the kids are out there, then I won’t bug him about it.

Hopefully, OP is right, and the smell doesn't start appearing any time soon.