Me (23F) and my boyfriend (24M) of 3.5 years moved into our first apartment a couple months ago. The same month we moved in, my boyfriend lost his job, so I have been the only one working these past 2 months. He is fairly good about keeping the house tidy when I am at work, but doesn’t do any deep cleaning. Generally I don’t mind doing a deep clean on weekends. I am admittedly a control freak and like things done a certain way, plus it’s good way to clear my mind. I don’t always expect his help. However this morning, after a week of being sick, I was deep cleaning the apartment. He was still in bed, just starting to play video games. He got up, acknowledged me, brushed his teeth, and then got back in bed. I was upset, I don’t expect anything, but it would have been nice if he at least offered to help. He noticed my attitude had changed, and bugged me about what was wrong. Knowing my boyfriend, and that he wouldn’t like the reason I was upset, I kept telling him I was fine. He continued to pry, and I eventually gave in and told him it would have been nice if he offered to help when he saw me cleaning. He blew up, saying it’s not fair that I expect him to notice when I’m cleaning (mind you he danced in my face while I was washing the dishes so I assumed he noticed since he very clearly saw me). He claims he didn’t notice I was cleaning. It turned into a bigger argument than I should have. I just kept my mouth shut, since he clearly wasn’t understanding where I’m coming from. The argument ended with him saying “whatever I’ll just notice every time you clean and offer to help, are you happy?” Now I am upset, and he’s back in bed on his phone laughing at different videos. Should I be asking him for help every time I clean? Is it fair to want him to notice and offer without having to ask? AITA?? Please help.
INFO why do you two have to clean at the same time and have you discussed that this would be your preference? I understand if you’d like him to clean more in general but I’m less clear on why it has to be done at the same time as youre cleaning
Welcome to motherhood, and congrats on your bouncing baby 24 year old boy!
You shouldn’t have to ask, and since he’s not paying for anything, you SHOULD ask him to leave until he can come back and support himself and do his share of the household chores, like a big boy.
INFO: Instead of hoping he’ll notice can you not just ask him to do certain jobs? Communication goes a long way.
Actually nobody is in the wrong here.
You both of different expectations of what “clean” means. You detail this by saying he does “a good job keeping the house tidy while I’m at work” and how you like to deep clean and “admittedly a control freak and like things done a certain way”.
If he jumped in would have of accepted the way that he did it even if it wasn’t done your certain way?
We aren’t mind readers to our partners. Everyone in a relationship does their best to read the room but sometimes we miss.
Open communication in the future would solve this. Saying “hey can we both spend an hour on Saturday doing a deep clean?” And the. Make it fun with some good music and snacks is the way to go about this.
But I see neither of you as being the issue here. You’re both entitled to have free time spent in whatever ways you enjoy and you’re both doing chores to maintain the household.
A lot of this post and OPs reminds me of the early days of my relationship with my partner. It took us a long time to figure out each other’s tempos and quirks and reconcile them into something healthy. You’re both “adults” but you’re also both young too; you’ll do a lot more growing personally and in your relationship over the next 5-10 years.
You’re NTA for WANTING him to notice, but you’re not helping anything by not communicating when he doesn’t notice. It’ll just build resentment until it turns into an explosive argument.
When he does notice and asks, lying and saying everything is fine and forcing him to dig is also not good. He finally “noticed” and checked in with you, and you’re rewarding that by lying and forcing him to dig it out of you! That’s called a negative incentive. My partner did this a lot early in our relationship (still does some, but we’ve both recognized it and figured out ways to short circuit it) and it’s frankly exhausting.
You’re both assholes
If something bothers you, don’t say I’m fine and communicate it without getting upset
He sounds like a bad roommate and should just take initiative to clean on his own; sounds like some of my friends whose mom always did their laundry and dishes.
My girlfriend had maids growing up so it took years for her to learn to take initiative. We have been together about 10 years now and are both proactive
ESH. If you can’t have respectful conversations about cleaning the house without someone feeling upset, this relationship is going to be hell for both of you. Tidying up after himself is not equal contribution. That’s bare minimum existing as an adult. And if you fuss at him for doing it differently (if he is actually legitimately cleaning and not ruining stuff), you are in the wrong. So there are problems on both sides here.
NTA – but the bigger red flag that nobody is talking about is how he insisted you tell him what was wrong, then he blew up at you. If he can’t handle you saying why you’re mad you’ll just feel more and more resentful because you can’t communicate without him yelling
YTA for being passive aggressive about cleaning instead of having an ADULT CONVERSATION about shared household expectations.
>Knowing my boyfriend, and that he wouldn’t like the reason I was upset, I kept telling him I was fine.
You’re also TA for telling him everything was “fine” when it wasn’t. Again, you need to work on your communication.
ESH. You need to both communicate better and come up with a cleaning rota or an agreed distribution of the chores.
It’s hard to tell from this post whether he is doing his share of the chores (potentially should be more than 50% since he’s not working), especially since you admit that your standards of cleaning go above-and-beyond. Houses shouldn’t require a deep clean *every* weekend if they’re being cleaned during the week as well – so either he’s not cleaning anything, or you’re cleaning stuff that’s already clean.
* He should be contributing to the cleaning/chores.
* You should be communicating with him (and he should be an active participant as well) about how much cleaning is expected from each of you, and when you should do it.
* Therefore both of you are under-performing in this relationship, in that sense, and hence both (slight) AHs.
ESH. Make a chore schedule. You’re both grownups, behave like it.
ESH honestly; you can’t say you don’t expect him to help and then get upset when he doesn’t help—but also, he DOES see you cleaning, he just assumed you were fine with him not helping, so when you got upset he got defensive when he should have been understanding.
I feel like 99% of relationship related issues on AITA can be boiled down to:
—If you have expectations, make them known
—If something isn’t okay, don’t say that it is okay
—If you have an opinion, don’t pretend you don’t care
—If you have done all of these things and your partner isn’t receptive, crosses boundaries, or ignores expectations repeatedly, it’s time to reconsider the relationship.
You’re a grown woman, use your big girl voice and stop expecting people to read your mind
You need to use your words. If you want him to get out of bed and help you, ask him to. Don’t just expect it and then get angry and give him the silent treatment.
You are both immature.
ESH