Irrationally upset over a washing up liquid bottle…

[lifestooshorttodickaboutwithaubergines]

Ok, so I’ll preface this by saying I know how utterly ridiculous this is, but I need an outlet for my grief.

Years ago I purchased a Limited Edition Fairy liquid bottle, one of those tall, white ones with the baby on it, which I’ve happily and diligently decanted washing up liquid into ever since. It’s been sitting there on the windowsill of the last three houses I’ve lived in, and although it’s just a plastic bottle, it’s just brought me a little bit of joy. It’s silly, but it’s mine.

Until yesterday morning, when my well-meaning MIL saw it beside the new bottle (waiting to be decanted) and threw it into the recycling bin! I didn’t realise this until my “D”P casually mentioned this morning that he’s made a quirky little LAMPSHADE for a lamp we have in the garage, using that “old washing up liquid bottle”. A fucking LAMPSHADE. Out of my prized possession. It doesn’t even look good, because why on earth would it? It looks shit.

I’m irrationally heartbroken about the death of this bottle that’s just been sitting there for years, minding its own business, harming nobody. I know, I know, it’s just a fucking plastic bottle, but it was MY plastic bottle and he’s watched me decant the washing up liquid into it for years. He KNEW it was important to me. But because it’s just a plastic bottle, I’m going to have to bloody get over it, aren’t I. He’s already ordered a replacement, apparently, but it’s not the same, it’s not the same bottle. I’ve shed an embarrassing number of tears over it and as it’s still so raw, I feel like I’ll never forgive the twat for it.

Cheer me up a little, let me know I’m not alone and come share your stories of silly things that to everyone else seems trivial and ridiculous, but for you has been a source of heartache and woe…😢

OMG. I thought I was the only one. I do this exact thing with the same bottle OP.

I’d also be fuming. Sympathies!!

Won't a lampshade made of plastic melt or even burn ?

Aww thats rubbish, i get why you're upset

Thank you so much, it’s a tough time made slightly easier knowing someone understands

When I was a student I used a Pringles tube to keep loose change. It followed me through various moves, until a few years ago when my mother transferred the coppers to my daughter’s piggy bank and slung the tube. It was almost 20 years old! I feel your pain.

That is really sad 😔and IMO you are well within your rights to feel really upset about it.

It's a mixture of things isn't it? Not least that your husband was the cause of your hurt.

But what was your husband's answer to his actions? Like you say, he knew that it meant a lot to you and that it had been on the windowsill of your kitchens for aeons. What did he say??? That he was so desperate for a lampshade that he just had to use your washing-up liquid bottle that very moment??

I would be really upset too OP. It sounds like it meant a lot to you.

Absolutely, it’s shit on all levels. We will never find out though as in my upset and rage I cut it off the thing, I could never bear to see it like that as a reminder of what I had and what I’ve lost

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126312863577?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338268676&toolid=10044&customid=CjwKCAjwgpCzBhBhEiwAOSQWQS6VBUNTUeX4kzY_APnxXJPEW6kQgiuwN68sudmgD75gL9dB85AkBoCGjEQAvD_BwE Could you send this to them to ask for a replacement?

ETA it doesn’t show on the preview but it is on sale for £150! Cheaper ones also listed.

I understand OP. I'd feel the same.

I'd go no contact with the philistine. I'd offer you my bottle but I'd be lost without it.

Thank you, he is incredibly contrite and feels awful, but someone being sorry just doesn’t quite cut it sometimes, does it. Like many men, his reaction was to try and fix it and just replace but he has said he understands a replacement won’t be the same.

Time will heal, but a chat about just thinking a bit before cutting someone’s favourite washing up liquid bottle in half and drilling a ring of holes into the bottom of it, will definitely need to be had.

@lifestooshorttodickaboutwithaubergines

I understand. Totally.

I've shed tears over things like that, many times.

Had a few rows too!!

what has DH (dick head) said? HE knew you were attached to it?

MIL, well, didn't she know too? Surely if she's confident enough to do that in YOUR kitchen, she's noticed the bottle before??

Are you sure your mil didn't do it deliberately?

Yanbu

That'd piss me off too. I hate it when non- resident adults come into MY home and make changes to MY things, regardless of how unimportant they appear to be. My things! Leave them the F alone you interfering so and sos!!

It's not the cost of a thing that gives it its value. Totally understand.

This is the kind of thing I’d have probably felt emotional about until real-time terrible stuff started happening in my life - accidents and bereavements and now objects mean absolutely nothing to me. So I would say try and focus on the fact it’s an inanimate object. No one has died. Your husband has ordered another and hopefully in 20 years time you’ll have the same affection for the new bottle and this story will have been told time and again with you laughing not crying.

Why didn't he just put it back after taking it out of the recycling

This is exactly the point…she very helpfully cleans our kitchen for us on a Friday, which I massively massively appreciate, but I can’t help but think that she has seen and used that bottle every week for years. Had it just been in the recycling, I could’ve handled it as an honest mistake, regrettable but well-intentioned, it’s the fact he then butchered the thing that’s upset me the most! He could’ve just checked but apparently it didn’t cross his mind that his mum might’ve thrown it.

But DH presumably found it in the recycling bin? If he didn’t know his Mum had put it there, is it possible he thought YOU had thrown it out because it had sprung a leak or something.

He’s sorry, it seems.

I know how upsetting it is when you break or lose something precious, but all the anger and grief in the world won’t replace it
( I would however ‘ask’ MIL not to throw things in your house out without asking you first, that’s just common courtesy).

Thank you for the balance and perspective, I know it’s just a bottle, and I know in time I will learn to laugh about it. There are absolutely bigger things going on in the world and I have and will go through much harder things than this ❤️

I think his reaction shows the real contrition so you can let him out of the garage tomorrow.
I wonder if he thought that it’s you who put it in recycling.

I completely understand where you're coming from. Similar happened to me with a dried milk tin. But I really need to see a photo of the shit lamp😆

Yes that’s exactly what happened, he assumed I had binned it but it would’ve been helpful for him to recall that his mum comes into our house four days a week (to help with the school runs, which again, I massively appreciate) and that it may not have been me. He said he thought it might’ve been damaged or that I’d just had enough of it; nobody involved acted in any malice, just really really unfortunate

This is exactly why I couldn't have anyone in my home doing cleaning/tidying etc., whether a professional cleaner nor a "helpful" friend or relative. I just have to do things myself because I'm very particular about where things live and the possessions I have, however small and cheap! I've managed to "train" my OH to leave things alone and put things back in their place so he doesn't over-reach when he does things like cook a meal, the washing up, etc. He'd never "helpfully" throw anything away without checking (except for obvious trash like empty food tins/packets and usually leaves empty containers on the corner of the worktop if he's unsure whether I want to keep them or throw them. (I often decant larger containers into more convenient smaller containers).