Some people have cabinets filled exclusively with porcelain and glass, as they only want their food and drink served in the finest dishes imaginable.
Others are afraid to buy nice things, worried that their indelicate hands might break them before they were properly used.
Then, of course, there are those who have fine china and glassware but avoid letting certain guests use them when they’re paying a visit.
Which usually does not go unnoticed by these unlucky guests.
The girlfriend of Redditor throwra_brokenglass was causing a bit of trouble with their glassware.
Eventually, this led the original poster (OP) to stop letting them use certain dishes when she was at their home.
When the OP’s girlfriend asked why, the OP was more than honest.
However, honesty was not appreciated by the OP’s girlfriend.
Wondering if they were being unfair to their girlfriend, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I the A**hole” (AITA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for banning my GF from using glass cups when she is over my house?”
The OP explained why they finally felt it was necessary to ban their girlfriend from using glassware at their home:
“My GF has problems with glass.”
“She is clumsy, always has been, and has broken many others before now.”
“And I would not mind but she is also sh*t at cleaning the shards.”
“This past week alone, she has dropped three glasses, one jar, two bowls, a coffee cup, and busted a plate by leaving it on the stovetop while the oven was preheating (despite being warned many times before that items should not be on the burners when the oven is heating because the conduction carries through).”
“She’s been stressed out at work so I kind of attribute a lot of it to that.”
“I can’t even really say which glass objects have injured me, specifically each time, just that I have been limping for a week because I stepped on a big shard that went into my foot, and some smaller ones went into my foot as well, plus some in my palms because I missed them when I kneeled to pull the ones that were in my foot.”
“I have stepped on or pressed my hand into glass four times this week.”
“Tonight, when she asked for a soda, I poured it into a plastic cup instead of a glass one like she prefers. She said she couldn’t use my glasses, and she pitched a fit.”
“I can’t phrase it differently.”
“She progressively got angrier at me for bringing up the other broken glasses because they were just accidents, and I shouldn’t punish her, especially because I started mentioning others before this week, but even so, I am sick of going through gauze and tape.”
“She insists I’m making a mountain of a molehill and I should clean it up myself to my specifications because she does her best.”
“AITA?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community unanimously agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for refusing to allow their girlfriend to use glass when she was at their apartment.
Everyone agreed that the incessant glass breaking was a literal safety hazard for the OP, with many wondering if the OP’s girlfriend should see a doctor to see if she had an undiagnosed medical condition and a few feeling that the OP is owed some reimbursement.
“NTA.”
“Even unintended actions have consequences.”
“What gets me most here is the part about telling you to clean to your ‘specifications.’
“If there is shattered glass on the floor, you clean up until it is gone, so no one gets hurt.”
“That’s just common sense.”
“Just like doing it yourself if you caused it.”- Gargantuan_Plant
“Does your girlfriend need glasses?”
“My fiancé used to drop fragile stuff, and finally, when it affected our wallet, he agreed to go to the optometrist.”
“No longer ‘clumsy’.”
“NTA!”
“She unfortunately lost her glass privileges when you continued to get hurt.”- rsmayday
“NTA for going with plastic.”
“However, that’s way too many dropped items in 1 week to be clumsiness.”
“She needs to get her eyesight checked out.”- Inconceivable44
“NTA.”
“I do support you both using plastics or camping cups if she’s bothered by the smell of many plastics like me( enameled metal).”
“BTW, has she offered to replace any of this?”
“That’s a lot of stuff to break and just shrug off.”
“Even my 5yo has a better track record.”- Least-Character-6257
“NTA.”
“How broken is her phone screen?.”
“Someone else suggested she’s doing this deliberately. If she was naturally clumsy HER stuff would be broken.”
“I’ll bet her phone, tablet, laptop, kindle aren’t broken.”- desertboots
“NTA.”
“How broken is her phone screen?”
“Someone else suggested she’s doing this deliberately.”
“If she were naturally clumsy HER stuff would be broken.”
“I’ll bet her phone, tablet, laptop, kindle aren’t broken.”- desertboots
“That is obnoxious.”
“She’d be getting the kiddy cups for sure.”
“Doubly so, for her tantrum and inability to take responsibility.”
“NTA.”- Ok_Risk_3271
“NTA.”
“You did it respectfully.”
“After she damaged your property and injured you, it is extremely reasonable for you to need to take action from it happening in the future.”
“Even as your girlfriend, she is not, by default, entitled to your things.”
“Accountability for this type of thing is a sign of respect for the person you love and their belongings.”- possumprints
“NTA.”
“She’s on par to break an entire set of dishes per month.”
“If she’s truly just clumsy because she’s stressed, then maybe find an activity for her to destress daily.”
“But if she’s just that accident-prone all the time, she needs to accept that replacing entire dish sets 10+ times per year is ridiculous.”
“Not to mention having to worry about injuring yourself on a regular basis just walking around your home.”- Taru-Shinkicker
“NTA.”
“Clumsy AND can’t clean up properly?”
“Nope.”
“I wouldn’t let her near anything that can break.”
“And given how little of a sh*t she seems to give about you actually being injured by her actions, I’d get her a sippy cup and tell her to learn some basic compassion.”- BearyRexy
“NTA.”
“If someone has a habit of dropping things, it’s reasonable not to offer them something that could break!”- scallionlover1
“OP, I would be concerned that she didn’t feel bad for breaking your sh*t and suggesting plasticware herself.”
“I would ask her if she expected just to be able to keep doing so.”
“You are NTA.”
“Side note: GoodWill usually has tons of glassware and plasticware available.”
“Tons.”
“And Amazon has really nice, unbreakable glass!”
“Type ‘unbreakable drinking glasses’ into the search data entry field.”- derpne13
The OP later returned with an update, sharing how they and their girlfriend plan to deal with this issue moving forward and whether or not they plan on seeing a doctor for a possible diagnosis.
“I apologized for how I did things that night because the conversation surrounding the glass thing had been ongoing and me just giving her the cup was rude and shutting things down.”
“So we’re talking again more about things and how to handle it.”
“She promised to tell me now every time she breaks something, even if she thinks she’s got it all, so I don’t get any surprises.”
“She doesn’t think she needs to go to the extreme of getting an exam or anything because it’s not as bad normally. This is just a bad spell and not indicative of how she usually is, so getting tested based on this is needless.”
“I ended up needing to go to the urgent care, and there was still glass apparently in a few of the cuts on my feet.”
“Guess she isn’t the only one bad at cleaning glass.”
“Feet are doing better, got some antibiotics for the infection, and now I’m writing slowly because of the palm ones.”
“GF has been super apologetic ever since I got back and told her what they said. She said she didn’t realize how much it hurt me, so I should have been clearer about that instead of making her feel like I was just upset about her breaking stuff.”
“Which is fair, IG.”
“She’s being super careful with glass right now and said maybe we can go to Target because she found a set she wants to buy and go to the movies together and dinner.”
“Make it a fun thing instead of making her feel bad and all.”
It’s lucky that the OP’s girlfriend will be more careful cleaning up broken glass, putting an end to the OP’s floor being the hazard zone it has become.
However, one can only hope that the OP’s girlfriend reconsiders possibly seeing a doctor.
As “stressful week” or not, if this is, indeed, an ongoing issue that was only made worse by stress, that still sounds like something worth further examination.
For some accidents can definitely be prevented.