Husband Refusing to Cook Eggs How Wife Likes Disappoints Internet: 'Sad'

Members of a popular internet forum were disappointed after one husband revealed how a request for runny egg yolk left him and his wife bickering in front of their children.

In a viral Reddit post published on r/AmITheA**hole, Redditor u/NoRunnyYokes (otherwise referred to as the original poster, or OP) said he was cooking a "big" breakfast for his family when his wife asked for her meal to be prepared differently than everyone else's—much to his dismay.

Titled, "[Am I the a**hole] for not taking a 'special request' from my wife while cooking the family breakfast?" the post has received nearly 11,000 upvotes and 5,000 comments in the last nine hours.

"Last weekend I (36m) decided that I was going to make my family (wife 35 and kids 12f, 11f, 9m) a big breakfast," OP began. "As part of the 'lame' (according to our oldest daughter) family time that we decided to have that day."

Continuing to explain that he got up early, making waffles, bacon, sausage and hash browns, the original poster said all was going to plan—until it came to the eggs.

After scrambling eggs for himself and the couple's three children, the original poster said his wife requested a pair of eggs cooked over easy, inadvertently setting off a chain of unfortunate events.

"She's the only one in our family who can stand runny yolks; neither I nor the kids will touch them," OP wrote. "[So] I just told her 'Nah, I'm finishing up already. If you really want a couple of eggs your way...make them yourself.'

"She responded, 'You're already cooking'...[but] I refused," OP continued. "And it turned into way more [of] a quiet, bickering argument than it should have.

"I feel bad my wife just asked me for a small favor that wouldn't have been a big deal at all...but on the other hand I had made plenty of food," OP added. "Why did she need to go insisting on her special request?"

While grand gestures and major fights serve as polar ends for the relationship spectrum, everything in between is arguably more important.

The little things, from splitting housework evenly to picking up a partner's favorite snack as a sweet or salty surprise, are a foundational element for thriving relationships.

And where lavish vacations and expensive gifts are welcomed by many, there are opportunities every day for partners to show how deep, and how genuine their love and trust really is.

"Trust is built on a foundation made up of every day gestures that we file in our brains that make up who we see as our partner," licensed marriage and family therapist Lia Huynh told Newsweek. "Those seemingly small gestures either build or break trust little by little."

"We don't realize how much we remember the little things. We may not process them in the moment but they do add up and over time," Huynh added. "We create a narrative about a person that will lean towards the negative or the positive."

Couples who have been together for years are often more susceptible to this type of emotional erosion. Taking each other, and small acts of service, for granted.

Sometimes, little things are ignored unintentionally, slipping by the wayside over time.

Other times, partners cannot be bothered by the little things and according to clinical psychologist and Joy From Fear author Dr. Carla Manly, this is when relationships themselves begin to break down.

"Those who deny a partner simple acts of kindness ultimately destroy the quality of the relationship over time," Manly told Newsweek.

"In fact," Manly continued. "Research tells us that connective behaviors such as acts of kindness are positively associated with marital satisfaction and negatively associated with relationship conflict and the perceived likelihood of divorce."

Throughout the comment section of the viral Reddit post, Redditors echoed that sentiment and questioned why the original poster took such a hard stance on seemingly small issue, and how it affected his family.

"Is your bickering why your kids don't like 'family time'?" Redditor u/StuffonBookshelfs asked in the post's top comment, which has amassed more than 40,000 upvotes.

"If you yourself admit it would not have been a [big] deal, why did you pick this hill to die on?" Redditor u/litt3lli0n added. "It probably would have taken you the same amount of time to make them as it did to tell her you wouldn't do it."

Redditor u/Iamanamalgam, whose comment has received nearly 24,000 upvotes, offered a more pointed response.

"[You're the a**hole] but more in a sad way," they wrote. "It's a small thing that would have meant a lot, not the end of the world but just one of those missed opportunities to give a tiny bit extra when asked."

"She does 75 [percent] of the household cooking and you can't do this for her when it's family breakfast?" Redditor u/FunkyOrangePenguin chimed in, receiving nearly 6,500 upvotes. "Marriages are built on doing small s**t like this.

"It would have taken you less time to make the eggs than to write this post," they continued. "[You're the a**hole]."

Newsweek reached out to u/NoRunnyYokes for comment.

Update 10/5/22 10:15 p.m.: this article has been updated to include comment from Lia Huynh, LMFT and Dr. Carla Manly.