Nine Bathroom Etiquette Tips to Impress Your Wife or Girlfriend

When it comes to dating and impressing our sweethearts, men on average do pretty well. Of course, I am not talking about the lousy first dates, blind dates, or mismatches that make one wonder how a woman was set up with such a jerk in the first place. I am talking about the couples that are already beyond the first several dates. The guy will try to look good, be polite, do something awesome, and so on.

Unfortunately, when men become husbands they tend to carry over their appalling bathroom habits to their married life. Men overlook this aspect of married life. It often doesn’t hit a married couple until they start their new life together. Assuming of course that they haven’t been living together for months or years before they got married. It is often the role of the wife to slowly teach the new husband what are and are not acceptable bathroom habits. In many cases a wife will just accept the fact that she cant change her husband and give up hope of expecting him to have better bathroom etiquette.

Here is a list of nine bathroom tips that I have learned and used over the years that should be incorporated by every husband or husband to be.

  1. Lower the seat!! When you are done using the bathroom make it a habit to lower the toilet seat. Not only is this important for women when they have to use the bathroom but a raised seat looks terrible when people come over and glance inside or use your guest bathroom. Another important sub tip is to wipe off the top of the toilet rim after you are done peeing before lowering the seat. The droplets turn a nasty color and give off a bad odor after a couple of days.
  2. I find this tip to be so important that it should even be taught to boys as soon as they learn to use the potty. In fact we created a bathroom chart to get our three yr. old son to do just that and more after using the restroom.

  3. Replace the empty roll of toilet paper. Don’t just grab a new roll, use it and place on top of the used roll or on the back of the toilet. Take off the used roll and replace it with a new one. This may seem like its not a big deal but believe me I have heard this as the number one complaint about men when it comes to bathroom etiquette. A simple thing like replacing and old roll of toilet paper goes a long way.
  4. Clean out the shower or bath when you are done using it. This is probably the most grueling of all the tips but it must be done especially if you have a white tiled shower or bath.
    1. Rinse down the walls and door or curtain of your shower or bath from all your gross body hairs and soap grime after you’ve dried yourself and stepped out of the shower.
    2. Wash off your bar of soap to make sure there are no disgusting hairs clinging to it regardless if your wife uses that bar of soap. She shouldn’t have to look at it when she steps into the shower or bath.
    3. After your done rinsing down the walls and curtain/door, grab a tissue and pick up that clump of wet disgusting hair, that has now collected at the top of the drain, and pitch it in the garbage or toilet.

    It is often overlooked especially by single guys who are in the process of dating. When women ask to use your bathroom in your one bedroom apartment they might very well look at your shower to see what you are really like. A gross shower is a major turn off and could lead to marital frustrations down the road, whereas, a clean shower could do a lot in showing that you care.

  5. Stock rolls of toilet paper under the sink. Sometimes your wife may even use up the roll herself and she’ll need another. Having spare rolls under the sink is a lifesaver. As I said before, the simple things make an impression.
  6. Place a stack of clean bath towels under the sink. It happens often enough that as we are about to get into the shower we realize that we don’t have a towel. We forgot that we dumped the towel from our previous shower in the laundry bin and now we are stuck without one. This isn’t as bad as being left without a roll of toilet paper but it is certainly a nuisance to have to throw on a bathrobe or dirty clothes just to get a bath towel. When leaving a stack under the sink make sure there are enough for at least two shower cycles. As many women use a separate towel for their hair and body you’ll want to make sure there are at least four towels there. Also, you might want to let her know that the towels are there. Leave a note or just let her know.
  7. Rinse off the sink and countertop after shaving. This should be a no brainer. After you shave, don’t just rinse off or shake out your shaver. Make sure you wipe down the sink. No one wants to see hair from your shaver lining the sink. Use hot water to wash off the sink properly. Also, make sure the countertop is clean as well. This is especially important if you have a beard and you trim it from time to time. If you look around you’ll see hair clippings all over the countertop. Grab a tissue and wipe it down or better yet, buy a paintbrush for that purpose and brush the hair off the counter and into the sink.
  8. Refill the soap dispenser if you have one. Don’t be lazy! As the soap in the dispenser slowly depletes refill it. It’s the same thing as swapping a used roll of toilet paper for a new one. Another sub-tip, once you’ve refilled the soap dispenser wash off all the soap grime that’s been building up over the last several weeks or months. It will make the soap dispenser look shiny and new.
  9. Swap the dirty hand towels with some clean ones every week. If this is something your wife usually does then it’s a perfect thing to do to impress her. If she comes to replace the hand towels every Friday in the evening then get to it before she does. As she is about to make the swap she’ll notice that its already been done.
  10. Wash the bath rug. Over time, the bath rug will start to get very dirty. People often overlook cleaning the bath rug because, well, it’s just a bath rug. But if you have a dirty bath rug and you decide to wash it either by hand (because you haven’t used a washing machine since college and forgot how to use it) or by using a washer on the simplest setting, she’ll be impressed. You could score three points with this tip alone:
    1. When she asks you where the bath rug is after noticing its not in the bathroom, she’ll be quite impressed when you tell her that you’re washing it.
    2. If you’ve never used the washer before then she’ll be impressed that you are using it. (A word of caution: don’t give her the impression that you are now a pro at using the washer. From my experiences, this will only lead to her asking or expecting you to get involved in doing the laundry in the near future.)
    3. She’ll be impressed when she walks into the bathroom and sees the rug on the floor all clean and dry.

Extra tips: Depending on what else you have in your bathroom, other tips might be included. For example, we have an electric toothbrush we both use. It is a Braun model that comes with multiple colored coded heads allowing more than one person to use it. After I finish brushing my teeth in the morning, I rinse off my head, and put back in the container. I then take the electric toothbrush handle, rinse it as well, and dry it well before placing it back on the charger. Now when my wife comes to use the toothbrush, it will be clean, dry, and ready for her to attach her brush head.

One final and important note: It takes one boastful comment to ruin everything. Whatever you do be humble about it. Don’t say, “Hey Honey, did you notice I changed the toilet paper roll? Huh? What do you think? Aren’t I a great guy?” If she didn’t comment then she didn’t comment. Sooner or later she’ll notice your efforts and be impressed.

This post was submitted to the June 25th Issue of the Carnival of Family Life hosted over at Everyday Disasters

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25 thoughts on “Nine Bathroom Etiquette Tips to Impress Your Wife or Girlfriend

  • June 20, 2007 at 2:40 pm
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    Nice post. Some of these tips are really good. I really agree with the first two. These are basic bathroom etiquette points that husbands should really be doing in the first place.

    question, do you do all of the things you list? Just wondering.

    Reply
  • June 20, 2007 at 5:17 pm
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    Good question. I do everything except washing the bath rug (I think it would fall apart if I wash it. Maybe I’ll just buy a nice new one. This one is from our old house.) and swapping the hand towels. I’m improving on swapping out the used empty toilet paper rolls.

    Reply
  • June 21, 2007 at 12:33 am
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    Yeah, that would impress me.

    My husband has got points 1 to 6 down pat so I figure the last three aren’t worth quibbling about.

    Reply
  • June 21, 2007 at 2:07 pm
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    True. True. Unless of course he wanted to impress you again. The last three are more for impressing than etiquette.

    Reply
  • Pingback: Everyday Disasters » Carnival of Family Life - June 25 2007

  • June 25, 2007 at 11:09 am
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    Great post!! Now how many men will really stick to all of these?? Here’s hoping more of them would be adorable enough to follow these simple rules! =)

    Visiting from COFL!

    Reply
  • June 26, 2007 at 3:33 am
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    A better question, how many women do 2-5? Yes a man should do these things but this doesnt mean the wife is off the hook especially numbers 2 and 3.

    Reply
  • June 26, 2007 at 7:00 am
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    I just wish parents would start teaching this to boys at a young age. Just today, my daughter fell into the toilet because the boy before her didn’t put the seat down. I’m not kidding! LOL!

    Thank you for joining us at the Carnival of Family Life!

    Reply
  • June 27, 2007 at 3:02 am
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    Bill, yeah but from experiences i.e. myself men need more work.

    Kailani, that is pretty funny. I think that happened to my daughter a couple of times.

    Reply
  • July 3, 2007 at 12:14 am
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    1.You need the seat down, I ‘need’ the seat up(it’s just better for everyone that way). Learn to look before you sit. I don’t just cruise in at night and take a leak in the dark without checking to see if the lid is down (anymore), and seriously, do you think men don’t sit down when they take a dump? I haven’t been duped by the old porcelain pool since I was three. Pay attention. If ‘looks’ is the thing you’re worried about, the lid should be put down everytime, but I don’t know many women who do this either – they just want the seat to be ready and greeting them.
    2. Women use WAY more toilet paper than men, so it stands to reason that women use up the last of the TP a GRAND MAJORITY of the time. Yet this is a big complaint. Apparently a load of women don’t take care of this problem either. Further, the roll often only has enough paper left on it for a reasonable person to wipe a bad scene, so often men put out the new roll for their partners before the other is done as not to waste TP. You are already sitting there, what’s the big deal about swapping out that roll right next to you.
    3-5 These rules are for everybody, and I’d say there’s a 55-45 split between men and women for people who don’t do this. Seriously, many single AND married women just don’t do these things enough or at all.
    6 See previous, but with a bigger split – you women with mustaches know who you are.
    7-9 See 3-5

    Find me a woman who does 1(seat down)- 9 consistently, regardless of the rest of her life woes, and I’ll really be impressed. Or refer her to a specialist. Whatever.

    Reply
  • July 3, 2007 at 4:19 am
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    The thing is, men arent really impressed by these things. So if a women follows all these steps chances are the husband wont even notice.

    Great feedback! Thanks for the thorough comment.

    Reply
  • May 12, 2008 at 7:30 pm
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    Hey there, Just wanted to know if you would consider submitting this into a student magazine in Albany, Auckland, New Zealand called Satellite Magazine. I think it is a great message, that our students need to know. I’m not the editor but the website is for the mag is http://www.satellite.ac.nz and I’m sure they would put your weblink in the mag 🙂

    Reply
  • May 15, 2008 at 4:50 pm
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    Hey Tom thanks for the suggestion. I’ll give it a try.

    Reply
  • August 24, 2008 at 12:25 pm
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    what the hell it is man! this is not our job to do all these things this is our wife’s job and she should do this all before we ask her to do it. Husbend is not a sweeper to maintain the bathroom! well it is a little useful if your wife is lazy or if she dose’nt love you.

    Reply
  • March 4, 2009 at 7:48 pm
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    I realize that this post is two years old, but thank you for it anyway. And, men, this doesn’t end. There is little worse than going into a dark bathroom at 3am and sitting down on a freezing cold pee covered rim.

    Reply
  • April 26, 2009 at 3:57 pm
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    Nobody stands up in my house to pee, wiping off toliet rim doesn’t get it. How about the walls and the floor from splash. We are only in the 2nd generation of modern indoor bathrooms. I don’t think anybody has been taught to use them properly. If you have to stand and pee all over then go outside.

    Reply
  • November 9, 2009 at 8:58 pm
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    How about the husband who-doesn’t flush after each”outing.” Or the one who leaves spittle in the sink,or doesn’t really freshen the air after a smelly dump?

    Reply
  • February 19, 2010 at 8:44 am
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    Woman want the seat down ‘cos of the splashes they leave under the seat that you see when the seat is up, just as bad as the mess on the rim, anyway its best to sit at night when its dark and its too easy to miss, when we get older and it takes longer who wants to stand and wait better to sit and wait I say.
    In our house its me who likes the hair removed from the plug hole, the floor clean, the shower clean, the sink shinny, the toilet roll replaced and the old core biffed, women aren’t as tidy as they want us to believe, they can’t see cob webs and if they do they believe they compliment the broom stick stood in the corner.
    Any one want a sink splash back with a difference have a look at, perceptionpanels.blogspot

    Reply
  • February 19, 2010 at 8:52 am
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    Ok I got the blog address wrong it needs a dot com on the end

    Reply
  • January 8, 2014 at 8:50 pm
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    These are good tips for anyone, not just men. Also, what is with the ‘since you haven’t used the washer since college?’ Are men really supposed to be that incompetent? How do you think they lived alone. My husband would ask me if I thought he was retarded if I showed him this.

    Reply
  • January 20, 2014 at 3:04 am
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    I think that everything said was actually very reasonable.
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    Reply
  • June 12, 2014 at 7:15 am
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    Reply
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