‘The Bathroom Is Their Secret Weapon’: Divorce Expert Claims Men Use Long Toilet Breaks to Escape Family Life

A divorce expert has stirred up the never-ending “battle of the sexes” by claiming that men have supposedly turned trips to the bathroom into a kind of escape route from family responsibilities.

Olivia Howell, author of Divorce Happens, made the controversial claim in an article arguing that men can spend long stretches in the bathroom to avoid interacting with their families and temporarily escape the endless demands of everyday household life.

“A husband walks into the house as a full member of the family, closes the door behind him — and instantly becomes a private citizen,” she wrote in a Substack post.

According to Howell, men have plenty of ways to distance themselves from family life: they can retreat to the basement, disappear into the garage, go to the gym, put on headphones or immerse themselves in a hobby. But the bathroom, she argues, provides an almost perfect refuge.

“A husband in the basement can theoretically be asked to come upstairs. A man in the garage can be interrupted. A workout can be postponed. Headphones can be taken off. A hobby can be negotiated around family obligations. The bathroom is different, because you can’t reasonably deny another person access to the toilet,” she wrote.

In Howell’s view, smartphones have only made the situation worse.

“Now a man can disappear in there with his iPhone — and who knows what he’s doing. He can read Reddit, check stock prices, watch a 45-minute YouTube video about electric guitars, argue about the Mets, play games, watch porn, answer emails or, perhaps, simply experience a genuine gastrointestinal crisis,” she wrote sarcastically.

Howell described the bathroom as a “brilliant escape hatch” from family life, arguing that it offers almost limitless opportunities to provide a plausible explanation for one’s absence.

Her article quickly spread across social media, but the reaction was far from unanimous. Many users objected to the idea that an ordinary biological necessity had been portrayed as a deliberate strategy for avoiding family life.

“Today I learned that patriarchy has a new tool for subjugating women. ‘Weaponized defecation,’” one user on X joked.

Another wrote: “Women don’t even want you to go to the bathroom.”

“Good Lord, this article is absolutely insane. I especially love the part where a woman is literally MAD that you can’t interrupt a man in the bathroom,” another commenter wrote.

The jokes became even more biting.

“Defecation is my weapon, and Taco Bell is my ammunition. I am God’s strongest soldier!” one user quipped.

Another offered some advice to anyone suspicious of a husband’s excessively long bathroom breaks: “If your husband is turning bathroom trips into a weapon and sitting there for hours, don’t overplay your hand. He’ll get hemorrhoids.”

Olivia Howell is a certified life and divorce coach, the founder of Fresh Starts Registry and the author of Divorce Happens. She went through a divorce from her husband in 2019 and has two children.