A woman's complaint about husband's spoon use has exposed a rule that definitely exists.

A woman has complained about her husband’s spoon habits and unearthed an unspoken rule that apparently needs to be spoken.

Because some people – including her husband – seem to think it’s okay to use the same spoon to stir a cup of coffee then a cup of tea – without rinsing it in between.

And that’s just not okay.

The woman shared her grievance with her husband’s cutlery use on UK parenting forum Mumsnet, asking for support for her position on the most serious issue.

“In my house, we drink a lot of hot drinks,” she began.

“I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have one teaspoon to stir tea and a different teaspoon to stir coffee. This is because I don’t want coffee essence in my tea or tea essence in my coffee. I can taste it!”

But her husband “thinks this is weird and you can’t taste the tea/coffee in the other drink. He regularly uses the coffee spoon to stir the tea and I can tell!”

“Who is being unreasonable, me or him?”

The question was met with more than 100 comments from people who overwhelming took her side.

“You are not being unreasonable. I won’t drink tea that’s been polluted by a coffee spoon,” one offered.

“I feel faint at the thought of a coffee spoon in my tea. But then I would always use a clean spoon,” another said.

Coffee-drinkers who believed the tea-coffee transference only went one way suggested that maybe it didn’t bother him because he only ever drinks coffee.

Could you live without your daily brew?

But others insisted that even before stirring coffee they’d clean the teaspoon if had been contaminated with tea.

Some even went as far as to suggest his teaspoon use was grounds for divorce.

“He is a weirdo and you need to get your ducks in order,” one person bluntly put it.

“You are right. He is wrong. Divorce is the only sensible thing to do,” another agreed.

Others suggested the less drastic option of making the tea herself if he can’t grasp the concept using a clean spoon. But honestly, if someone can’t be trusted to make you a cup of tea, can you really trust them with anything else important?

For instance, would they make your vegemite toast with a knife that had been in the peanut butter jar?

Would they use a cup that had juice in it to get you a glass of water?

Would they throw a pair of red shorts in with your whites because they also need a clean?

Maybe not.

But it might not be worth taking that chance.

What’s your position? Do you use a different spoon if you’re stirring a cup of coffee then tea?