I live with my girlfriend and a lot of the things in our kitchen (cutlery, pans, plates etc) I brought with me. One of the things I brought was an expensive knife set that was my fathers who has passed away. I have had them for years and they are still in great condition.
A problem I have been having with my gf is that she doesn’t seem to treat a lot of things with respect. For example when washing up she will clean the knife and then pretty much clam in down in the cutlery part of our drying rack with the blade facing down. This has caused the end of two of the blades to become bent and damaged.
I sat down to talk with her about this and asked her to take more care with them. She said she is only washing up and hasn’t damaged anything. I pointed out the damage but she said it could have came from anywhere. I just asked if she could put it blade side up or dry it when she washes it and put it away straight away.
She refused both and said there was nothing wrong with how she was doing it. I just said if she’s not going to do that then she shouldn’t wash them and should just leave them for me to do. She refused that and said I’m treating her like a child. I just said she was starting to act like one by not taking responsibility for the fact she’s damaged something that has sentimental value for me and won’t take any action to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
She just repeated that she isn’t going to change how she washes the dishes and I just said I’d rather she didn’t use the knives at all then. She said I was being unreasonable and ridiculous but I don’t see how I am. How would you handle this?
tl;dr my girlfriend said I was being ridiculous when I asked her to treat something with respect or stop using it since she had damaged it a few times already. She said I was treating her like a child and being unreasonable. How would you handle this?