No matter how tough we might think we are, some comments hurt us far more deeply than we’d care to admit. There’s a time for subtlety. There’s a time directness. But when someone mixes up the timing of the two, it can lead to a lot of hurt feelings—on all sides. Even when everyone has good intentions!

Reddit user u/cbcfan turned to the AITA online community for a verdict after she demanded that her daughter’s boyfriend go home due to the rude comments he made at her home. Read on for the full story and what the internet had to say about it. Bored Panda has reached out to the author via Reddit, and we’ll update the article once we hear back from her.

Things like undone chores can be a great source of frustration in many families

Image credits: Jason Leung (not the actual image)

A woman turned to the internet for some advice after revealing how an argument over her messy kitchen quickly escalated

Image credits: Soroush Karimi (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/cbcfan

Keeping a tidy home can be exhausting if you’re overwhelmed with other responsibilities

In our experience, something that really helps you keep on top of a clean kitchen and home is to do small tasks every single day, without putting them off.

That means cleaning up after yourself as you cook, immediately taking out the trash once the garbage bag is full, wiping up a spill the moment you notice it, etc.

When we’re proactive about doing small chores, we’re preventing them from piling up and overwhelming us later on. However, you also shouldn’t feel like all that you’re doing during your free time is moving from one chore to another. That’s no way to live.

Instead, remember that every small bit of effort matters. Whether that’s spending a few seconds to wipe down the counter or washing your coffee mug instead of placing it in the sink. But nobody should be forced to do all or most of the housework if they have many other responsibilities. Keeping your home clean is a team effort.

Image credits: Liliana Drew (not the actual image)

Even people with the very best intentions sometimes overstep others’ boundaries

Miscommunication happens even when everyone has the best intentions and wants to be helpful and kind. Most AITA community members thought that the author of the story was in the wrong for the way she reacted.

However, the story is more complicated than that. And some readers recognized that it wasn’t just the OP who was to blame. Most real-life situations aren’t black-and-white like we’d see in movie or TV show scripts: they’re nuanced and there are always several sides to each story.

Some apologies and honest conversations on how to move forward are often the best solutions to hurt feelings.

Redditor u/cbcfan probably could have reacted better than cutting off her daughter’s boyfriend mid-speech and then demanding that he leave. She also probably shouldn’t have left the two teens to tidy up the kitchen while she went off to do something else.

At the same time, ‘Ron’ is clearly eager to be of service and to solve some chronic issues with the messy kitchen. However, the way that he tackled the situation may have needed a dash more flexibility and self-awareness on his part. But that’s something that people learn over time, with experience.

The fact of the matter is that very few people react calmly when being (indirectly) chastised and accused of being messy. It hurts our egos. It hurts our sense of pride when someone goes poking around the bottoms of our garbage cans.

So if you know for a fact that you’re dealing with someone who is more sensitive to criticism or has a tendency to quickly get angry over small things, you need to rephrase what you say and change your tone.

Image credits: Alex Green (not the actual image)

Knowing how to get the message across to different people is a vital skill to master

Now, that doesn’t mean that you should avoid the truth. Far from it. But if your aim is to solve an issue (e.g. the kitchen often being messy), you need to consider how to get the message across in such a way as to get closer to that goal.

This might mean bringing up the issue at a later time when everyone’s less on edge. Or it might mean helping the other person without directly mentioning the issue if they feel incredibly uncomfortable and still need time to process what’s happening.

Of course, there’s another side to the story. It’s also not healthy to be excessively polite and sidestep a very simple issue, just because someone may take a few comments the wrong way. The person who reacts so strongly should put in the effort to control their emotions better. They should also consider that they might have missed more subtle hints about the state of their home, which is why others are being more direct. Possibly. Maybe.

The problem itself is quite straightforward: ‘Ron’ and his girlfriend both signaled that they’d prefer that the kitchen be tidier. However, keeping your home tidy can be a nightmare if you work odd hours and have a ton of other responsibilities.

In those cases, the family needs to sit down and have a conversation about dividing up the chores in a fair way. Someone who works all day long probably doesn’t have the physical or mental capacity to scrub down the entire house.

It’s okay to ask for help. And it’s okay to expect other members of the family to pitch in. A messy kitchen isn’t one single person’s fault. Nor is it one single person’s responsibility to get everything gleaming for the guests. Again, it’s a team effort!

Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual image)

The internet’s responses were mixed. Some readers thought that the woman was completely in the wrong

Others, however, weren’t so quick to blame the author. Here’s their perspective

Some people, however, thought that everyone was to blame for what happened at home

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