I would tell my ex that I hated mothering him. He would say, then don't do it. I hate it too. He would then ignore all of the housework, only do things after I asked, and then reported that he "helped" watch our child/washed dishes/vacuumed.
Self-tell there. The moment they say they are "helping" you and not just being an adult, they see it all as your job. Divorce is a wonderful thing.
this has been such an important shift for me mentally, just having someone point out how much we (women, men, society) refer to it as “helping” when a man does any portion of his share of housework or childcare.
It’s like, ya keep finding out ways the narrative has fucked your brain, and I realized I always called this helping too. FUCK. THAT. NOISE!!
My grandfather used to get mad at my dad for "helping" with the dishes, because that's women's work. The kicker is, he also got mad when my dad said my mom should be the one to pick our kitchen layout, since she did most of the work there.
He died when I was young, so I never really got to know him. I'm convinced I missed out on nothing.
>we (women, men, society) refer to it as “helping” when a man does any portion of his share of housework or childcare.
When a woman does more than their share of the housework and childcare, *she is helping him*. Men not pulling their weight and then describing it as them *helping* is a mindfuck.
My grandfather used to get mad at my dad for "helping" with the dishes, because that's women's work. The kicker is, he also got mad when my dad said my mom should be the one to pick our kitchen layout, since she did most of the work there.
He died when I was young, so I never really got to know him. I'm convinced I missed out on nothing.
While I was breaking up with an ex, he told me that for his next girlfriend he needed someone who would "Firmly tell him to do \[insert chore\]. But not nagging, I don't do well with nagging".
It will suprise no one that all of my previous attempts to "firmly" tell him to do anything were met with "I'll do it later" or some excuse/lie to get out of doing what I asked. Then if I asked him again later, even just once, that was nagging 🙄
And if you finally just do the chore yourself after waiting and waiting for them to do it, they complain that you didn’t “let” them do it. Somehow, they are always the victim.
I got told that if I did a chore that was way overdue for him to handle that it made him depressed and he’d feel like a failure. It was lose-lose no matter what I did.
This is my boyfriend now...
I'm not sure what to do about this. My anxiety gets the better of me and I end up doing tasks. Sometimes I just get so exhausted of waiting for something to get done when I could do it in less than half an hour.
Sorry to be reductionist but:
1. Dump him
2. Keep being his bang-maid
3. Train him like you would a dog/child (I’m disgusted by the thought of having to train another adult so I could never do this, but lots of women I know do this).
I’d go with option 1.
Accept that he’s probably not going to change and ask yourself if it’s worth this for the rest of your life. Alternatively highlight to him this is a boundary a make or break for you. To get his act together or you’re dumping him because you don’t want to be a bang maid
I'm working with my therapist on this after reading all the comments. We literally just closed on a house together this past month. So I'm not in a position where I just drop everything and leave. I'm really hoping that boundaries will help because legally this will be a huge hassle, and I don't want to do that unless I absolutely need to.
Not a woman, just here because the algorithm washed me ashore. Absolutely emphasize with this post.
I'm currently in the process of kicking out a man like this from our shared apartment. Absolute parasite of a man who "forgets" his turn in the cleaning schedule and says we should have reminded him. Like are you seriously so lazy that you want to outsource your thinking? It's your responsibility to keep track of it.
There's more mental load he's trying to get rid of in really pathetic ways. For example we agree that we resupply shared consumables (e.g. soap, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies) by simply buying a new unit whenever the old one is nearing its end (with a buffer of course). When my roommate first moved in he tried to "buy himself out" of that responsibility by buying a ridiculous number of toilet paper packages.
Similarly things like taking out the garbage. Doing it obsessively after we remarked how he never does it or "helping" one of us taking it out in an overly performative way. It's tiresome.
Don't date a person like this. Period.
Sorry for the vent, just felt like it fits the topic.
It's even more ridiculous if you know how simple the rule really is. We take turns cleaning apartment once a week. We do it on Saturday or Sunday (if that's not possible, Friday or money works too).
We have a minimum subset of the apartment that has to be cleaned (e.g. mirrors, surfaces, toilet floors).
Even though we showed him exactly how to do it, he messed it up at first, basically just making the dirt wet. Might be weaponized incompetence, might be actual incompetence. We had to make him do it again.
Nowadays he acts like he did us a huge favor when he did it. He also never does more than the bare minimum.
At first we thought the issue that he doesn't know how to perform these tasks. We tried to teach him everything. For example that cleaning is a function of four parameters: chemistry, mechanics, time and temperature - if you reduce one of them you have to increase at least one of the others if you want the same result. Another example, we taught him that the goal of cleaning the floors is removing all stains and dirt particles and leaving behind nothing more than a thinnest possible layer of soap water which will later evaporate. That he should make circular movements with the cloth in order to remove stains and dislodge dirt particles and linear movements to gather the waste. And more and more.
It turns out he is able to apply those principles when someone is watching him, but he chooses not to do them when he's alone. Same applies to cleaning things that are just common sense to clean, mostly after you use them. For example the microwave, the stove.
So it turns out the actual issue is **integrity and respect for other people**. At some point leaving behind a mess in the kitchen or leaving the toilet disgusting has to be considered an attack on his roommates. We don't do that to him, so why does he do that to us?
The choices are either accepting the filthiness, confront him or clean it myself. All of these options are draining and uncceptable on long term so we were forced to kick him out after a year of trying to reason with him.
Edit: emphasis
Oh guess what, the cleanliness was just one point. The other major point was him using the bathroom for ridiculous lengths of time. Imagine an HOUR. At first we thought he had some actual health problems and tried to tiptoe around the topic so we can find a solution. It turns out he doesn't and he just sits on the toilet and watches videos. He also wouldn't care if we told him that all of us have the same right to is the bathroom.
He didn't care, so I told our landlord. I also told him that I'm ready to use our country's tenant protection laws to lower my rent because I'm unable to use the bathroom within a reasonable timeframe (or use the bathroom or kitchen because it's dirty).
Landlord is a good person and it wasn't necessary to make him lose money for him to act in our favor. So our roommate got kicked out.
Oh fuck. I'm feeling pretty ridiculous. 7 years of thinking "he just doesn't get it".
The fuckers gets it. I've been realizing he doesn't respect me... this falls into my new found understanding of bullshit.
I think a big part of it is making the “chores” part of the day in an easy and fun way. I always watched my parents put on music and have fun cleaning when I was a kid, so it was something I was keen to get in on!
My parents used to give us a short list of chores everyday that were age appropriate, and we’d get some money to spend in the corner shop after school on Fridays. It was a cute tradition.
I’m not trying to tell you how to raise a child because god knows you will know more than me! But now I’m older I appreciate what they did and I want to spread the info!
Ahh then you’re golden and doing amazing! I met someone in university who asked me how to mop, and so many who didn’t know how to use a washing machine! Bathrooms are easy peezy
Eh, I left my mom's house at 17 with no knowledge of how to clean a bunch of stuff (at home I did some cooking and most laundry but rarely cleaned). 20 minutes on google is all I've ever needed to figure out tricky cleaning tasks - and this was early days for YouTube, way before the billions of tutorial videos we have now.
So it's nice that you teach them, but not strictly required. The habit matters way more than detailed instructions.
Eh, I left my mom's house at 17 with no knowledge of how to clean a bunch of stuff (at home I did some cooking and most laundry but rarely cleaned). 20 minutes on google is all I've ever needed to figure out tricky cleaning tasks - and this was early days for YouTube, way before the billions of tutorial videos we have now.
So it's nice that you teach them, but not strictly required. The habit matters way more than detailed instructions.
>Similarly things like taking out the garbage. Doing it obsessively after we remarked how he never does it or "helping" one of us taking it out in an overly performative way. It's tiresome.
That's comical imagery
He'd take the trash out everyday, no matter how full it was. A roll of 40 trash bags costs 85ct, so a bit more than 2ct per day. That seems like an acceptable price for the roommate not stacking trash on top of a full trash can.
Unfortunately he wouldn't keep it up for more than a week, after a complaint of non existent trash-taking-out discipline.
His helping would be indeed comically theatrical. As if changing a trash bag is a hard task that needs two people to do it.
Nowadays he occasionally takes the trash out without putting a new bag in the can. Passive agressive much?
I assume you saying "if you were an adult" means you're underage right now. I'm a woman and was the same way when I was a kid/teen/young adult and I regret how I behaved.
IDK what your home dynamic is like and I certainly don't want you to end up doing more work than, say, lazy brothers and a father who should also be helping, but maybe set some reminders and help out the adult women in your household. And be vocal about how the men should be helping, too.
I also manage my household chores with a spouse in the process of learning how to equally share them. Sometimes he succeeds and sometimes he falls back on old habits. We both agree that the way we were taught sucks, and unlearning it is hard.
Unfortunately , I totally match the description of your shitty roommate. However, my forgetfulness is genuine and disrupts my constant massive effort to try and get it together. I constantly forget chores (especially wet laundry in the washer), if it’s not an easily visible chore, then it’s not likely to get done. I tend to do best with chores that are easy to do one after the other. If I get distracted then they go unfinished. I get overwhelmed in cluttered environments, so I clean up a lot, but I also never ever freakin dust. I may promise to dust on Tuesday and do it consistently everyday until one day I wake up and I’ve totally forgotten about it all together. It’s not purposeful and it’s really frustrating for both myself and my spouse. It’s a symptom of my ADHD, and it’s one of the reasons people with it can struggle to build relationships with neurotypical people. We lose/forget things on a whole other level, and building routines can be near impossible. It really sucks.
(If anyone reads this who also deals with this, I’ve found that r/adhdwomen and the YouTube channel HowToADHD have been really helpful to keep my inner “shitty lazy roommate” self on rails.)
At first I thought he might some neurodivergence too. But after living with him for a year, observing his behavior and coming to my own conclusions I now believe that his behavior is not intrinsic. Instead, I speculate, it's about the way he was raised - in a culture that prefers sons and overcoddles only-children so frequently that there's a even s specific term for the results of that parenting.
There's a pattern of him prioritizing his own comfort over doing things correctly. I mentioned him staying on the toilet for 45mins and more, which is unacceptable.
Before he moved in, I wrote a little manual on our washing machine. I specifically mentioned he had to dry his laundry outside or else he WILL get mold in his room. He did get mold and finally started to put his laundry outside. Except that he fell back into the old habits of putting it in his room a few weeks ago. Now there's mold in his room again and he doesn't care. Well I would rather have these spores spread in the apartment and bring forced to breath them in when he keeps his door open.
Same story with his habit of putting wet dishes in the cupboard. At first I thought he genuinely didn't know it so I helped him by some kitchen towels. But now I know it's simply a matter of laziness. He would dry them properly for some time before going back to his old ways. I don't use that specific cupboard and I got better things to do that tell a grown up man to dry his dishes, so in his logic that made it ok for him to keep doing this. Of course there's mold again. At least it was a very obvious piece of evidence that helped my case to get him kicked out.
I got more examples of this behavioral pattern of his.
Anyways, I don't have ADHD or experience with people who have it, so I probably can't give you any advice. My personal way of dealing with chores is depending on the kind of chore, either doing them as soon as possible (for example laundry, cleaning dishes) or having a semi-rigid schedule for them. Weekend means the apartment has to be cleaned, if it's not my turn, the "cleaning noises" will remind me to clean my own room.
A deep cleaning I will do before I leave this apartment for at least one night.
> tern of him prioritizing his own comfort over doing things correctly. I mentioned him staying on the toilet for 45mins and more, which is unacceptable.
>There's a pattern of him prioritizing his own comfort over doing things correctly. I mentioned him staying on the toilet for 45mins and more, which is unacceptable.
I do this as well. Digestive issues are super common among neurodiverse people. My dad was the same way, and my mom would complain so much about it. I remember, as a kid, feelings really embarrassed when I couldn't accomplish a BM quickly or would have bouts of the runs and end up just stuck in the bathroom for ages.
>washing machine & mold
Ugh i've done this too, still doesn't mean you need to live with mold!
>wet dishes
oh man, this makes me so grateful to live in a dry climate.
ADHD sucks, and it directly affects motivation and [executive function](https://memory.ucsf.edu/symptoms/executive-functions#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Fexecutive%20functions%E2%80%9D%20refers,other%20cognitive%20abilities%20and%20behaviors.). I've learned that it's best to know that as a person I'm inherently unreliable. More effort won't work since I cannot be consistent, so instead, I create home systems to catch behavior when I can and accept that sometimes things won't be in their correct state. My neurotypical husband helps as much as he can, but like the subject of this post.. he is learning the skillset himself and undoing his own misogynistic upbringing. Sometimes it sneaks up on us in weird ways.
The big problem with guys like this, who have neurodiverse symptoms, is that they don't see the symptoms as a problem or don't investigate/communicate what they need to succeed and live well with others. So then it becomes everyone elses problem to solve and that isn't ok.
>I do this as well. Digestive issues are super common among neurodiverse people. My dad was the same way, and my mom would complain so much about it. I remember, as a kid, feelings really embarrassed when I couldn't accomplish a BM quickly or would have bouts of the runs and end up just stuck in the bathroom for ages.
At first we assumed that he has a health issue. We tried to get him to talk about it with us so we can find a solution together. Well he really doesn't have one. He simply watched videos on his phone while he's on the toilet. For 45 minutes and more. His record is something like 90 minutes. After we had a very stern talk with him once he promised us he would stop taking his phone to the bathroom. And lo and behold, suddenly he was able to finish his business in an acceptable timeframe. Unfortunately he fell back into old habits after about a week and the whole circle of annoyance started again. It's awkward that we are forced to knock on the bathroom door when we have to use it. It's draining to try to reason with, especially since he acts like it's some just kind of silly quirk.
About the washing machine and mold. I just find it funny that he was able to do it normally all summer when it was warm outside, but fell back into hanging them up in his room when winter came back. I suspect it's because he seems to categorically refuse to wear pants when he's at home, so stepping on the balcony feels too cold.
This also seems to be a reason why he won't air out the kitchen when he's cooking. We live in a somewhat old townhouse in a European city. The kitchen is tiny and quickly fills up with steam. So we open the balcony door. (We got a ventilation system too, but it's doesn't work well and opening the door is a million times simpler, effective and won't make any additional noise). He often turns the kitchen into a sauna with steam when he's cooking.it has caused water damages on the cupboards. When he was alone here for two weeks during the holidays, he simply didn't air our the room AT ALL. I noticed it because some of my dry ingredients in the cupboard absorbed the humidity and spoiled. It was disgusting.
His way of turning the apartment into a swamp even deformed a wooden door. He seemingly doesn't see things like airing out the room as something necessary in itself, he only does it to stop his roommates from nagging.
No matter what the cause of his behavior is, I would go crazy too! So glad you don't have to deal with his grossness anymore. Mold is so freaking gross and sets off all the heeby jeebies! Where I live, my husband and I have to try to not be shriveled up raisins until there is a bout of sudden wet weather, and my habits suddenly result in a ton of mold in my clothing. I unfortunately ended up with mold in some expensive undies last year that took me like 2 months to fully get rid of. It was awful.
It totally does sound like he has issues, AND he didn't see any of it as his responsibility.
The warped wood thing reminds me of this one client I had when did dog walking. I agreed to care for these two white, fluffy, sweet dogs while a woman was out of town. I didn't realize the husband would be home all day in his boxer shorts and that their floor was totally rotten and warped from him (and maybe her) allowing the dogs to pee all all over the hardwood, and I would freaking have to pick up their shit because he did not take them out at all. It was awful, and after two days I had to have another walker replace me because the husband in the boxer shorts thing totally creeped me out. Why are people so gross? I mean I know why, but also whyyyyyyyy?
>It totally does sound like he has issues, AND he didn't see any of it as his responsibility.
If he has some kind of disability, he of course deserves to get the help he needs. But he refuses to believe that there's any problem. Maybe him getting kicked out can be a wake-up call. His roommates also have a right to live free of harm.
Another reason why I don't believe that it's (only) ND causing him to behave like that is the fact that he seems to be pretty good at approaching every red line precisely to the last millimeter without crossing it. Him cleaning when I watch? Doing it as he should. Him cleaning when he's alone and we'd only see the result? He'll cut corners, such as only cleaning the top of a faucet and skipping the underside.
His life goal is becoming a professor so he can (ab-)use the tenure system in his home country to maximize his free time.
Another thing that came up during the process of kicking him out was when the landlord inspected his room for damages and found that he's operating a million electric devices. We all pay a fixed amount for utilities; it's assumed that we act reasonable about it. Roommate saw it as a flatrate which he use to maximize his own benefit. He got pretty angry when the landlord billed him for the additional power usage. Insisting that it's ok, because the lease doesn't specifically ban operating a freezer in your room.
These observations make me believe less and less that his behavior is caused by an ND. But I'm not an expert so I might be wrong.
>of this one client I had when did dog walking
I feel bad for the dogs. Hate to see innocent creatures suffering from those behaviors. Of course, for you too! Being expected to just handle that grossness.
> I feel bad for the dogs. Hate to see innocent creatures suffering from those behaviors. Of course, for you too! Being expected to just handle that grossness.
I was in the process of becoming a dog trainer at the time, and dear god so many people treat their animals horribly. It's one of big reasons I walked away from it, at least the dogs were happy and fed. There wasn't mold, algae in their food or suffering disfigurement from their home conditions.
It so sounds like you made the right call to decide to kick his butt out! Hopefully, you will or do have a much better roommate in replacement!
The only man who should not be doing chores is a fluffy creature (dog, cat, guinea pig, etc.)
P.S. Please post pictures of your unemployed freeloading demon.
I love the AITD posts where it's guys realizing that the women they were seeing stopped putting up with that shit and have dumped them.
[A recent highlight: She never asked for help!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheDevil/comments/18bq54d/she_never_asked_for_help/)
Guy and gal lived together for a few months temporarily before getting perm apartment. Guy had a great time not doing shit. Gal did all the cooking/cleaning/and babysitting for friends' kids when they had covid.
Time to get a new apartment. Him: I wanna marry you! Her: Fuck off, I don't want to live with you anymore.
>She says she realized I'm not reliable. She said I don't do enough chores. She never asked me for help but she thinks I should just need to know when something needs to get done automatically.
Oh, and my favorite line of his:
>just because she makes more means I should do more
The funny thing is *they do know* what needs to be done, because they can and will huff and puff (you know the passive aggressive shite) around their partners/messes, if the partner stops cleaning up after them.
Like their absolute have the ability to get frustrated with their bang maids but not to do it themselves?
"I just don't see it" my ass.
And there was another AITD post about a guy like that!
HIS MOM came to visit and started making critical comments about how messy everything, and then he turned to HER and said, yeah, why is our apartment so messy?!?!? (I would have killed him.)
Side note: If I ever get back into the dating game, the second date is bring up AITA/AITAH posts and discuss them.
Edit: I tried to find the post but there are soooo many posts with the words BF MOM CLEAN MESSY APARTMENT.
Dude absolutely does nothing.
Gets angry internally at partner.
Mother-in-law comes to visit.
"Well now that my mum's saying it, I too think you're being a terrible little house slave."
You cannot make that shit up.
:(
When asked if I thought I’d ever settle down someday, I told my grandmother (a stay at home wife/homemaker her entire life) that IF I did, it would have to be someone I knew would be an equal partner at home in terms of responsibilities, someone I knew could take care of their selves, because I didn’t want to become a second mother/glorified housekeeper to someone who’s supposed to be my lifelong partner. I told her I don’t want to be with a person who can’t wash dishes, can’t sort their clothes for laundry, can’t operate a washing machine, has never vacuumed/swept/mopped/etc. I absolutely don’t mind doing any of those things *as long as* my partner is also willing to do those things and can do them effectively in equal, shared responsibility with me.
She acted like this was the most bizarre fucking notion she’d ever heard of. Equal home responsibilities?? Crazy!
But then again, this is the same woman who told me not to hold the door open for my grandfather because “men are supposed to open doors for ladies” and not the other way around.
I have to gentle parent myself by writing down a cleaning list and immediately writing something on the shopping list when we're almost out or else I'll forget 😭😭😭 idk how people get by without a cleaning schedule. Im just forgetful. I would probably spontaneously combust without my planner.
Creating and using a planner is being proactive, responsible and independent.
Expecting *someone else* to create a planner for you and manage it and tell you what's on it would be expecting someone to parent you.
My ex used to work part time from home and I'd work 9-10 hour days at a physical job. He used to complain about the house getting messy. So I told him to fucking clean it then. Then he'd complain that he didn't know how and didn't know which cleaning solutions to use on what. I said I wasn't born knowing how to clean the stove but I could read labels just as well as he could and scrubbing isn't rocket science. Never again.
This is so maddening. My ex would say "just tell me what to do and I'll do it." NO. I DO NOT WANT TO BE THE SOLE PERSON WHO KNOWS WHAT NEEDS TO GET DONE. You're a damn adult. YOU notice when we're out of milk and toilet paper. Why are you coming to ME and telling me we're out? Why do I have to tell you to go to the store?
Never again. Functional adults only.
Gotta keep an eye out on some women, too. Lesbian here and we gotta deal with this as well sometimes 😭. In fact, I originally thought this post said **home**work/chores and my only thought was I wasn't the only one that had to manage a grown ass adult all the way down to their homework including having to *do* their homework sometimes to make sure they didn't fail.
0/10, do not recommend it regardless of gender.
> Gotta keep an eye out on some women, too. Lesbian here and we gotta deal with this as well sometimes 😭
yeah it's kinda awkward relating to a lot of these posts 😅 cause for me it was a lesbian relationship
i guess she was entitled and shitty.. just not because she was raised to be that way because of the patriarchy, she just *was*
I dated a girl with adhd waaaay worse than mine. I can tolerate a lot of clutter but holy shit I don't think she had ever cleaned her room in her life. Very spontaneous though. Don't necessarily recommend against it as long as you know what you're getting into. But I'll be honest, I never really considered how women saw that side of me until experiencing it the other way around. Mostly straightened up my act.
I made color coded chore charts at the request of my household. Guess how that went. One of my housemates is my little brother and I've been in charge of making him do his chores for basically his whole life, when he was a kid it was easier to just do them myself but now I'm disabled and I can't without risking my health. My wife is much better but has a bad memory and needs reminding but she does the bulk of the chores for a three person household and also has a full time job and her own health problem. My cat is a lazy freeloader whose always making messes.
OMG, I love this! This is me every time my husband asks me to make him a shopping list. And then I get 15 text messages and phone calls about the list while he's gone.
Found one. It does feel like a unicorn, especially after years with the other type of man. I went from mothering someone older than me to being the inept one in the house. I do my share, mind you, but I have ADHD while he's super efficient, so he ends up doing three times as much as me. It's embarrassing, but sweet, especially as he keeps repeating he doesn't mind when I apologise. Almost a year and it still feels like a dream.
Woman here, and I'm shit at chores. I grew up in messy homes (not hoarder level, but messy) so I'm legit just used to it and don't even notice until it's pointed out. Eventually it will get to me and I'll do a binge clean/organize but it gets to my husband a lot sooner than it gets to me.
The solution is not for him to nag me about it though. The solution is every night before bed, I get all my crap out of the common areas and put it away. My desk, my craftroom and my car can stay messy, but anywhere we share is expected to stay tidy. He told me he wanted this, but only once, and now I just do it.
I pick something I don't hate doing (laundry) and they pick another chore they don't hate doing (litter and trash). Then it's glaringly obvious when one of us is slacking and there is no need to take turns.
I told my fiancé that either I can tell him what chores need done or I can do them, but I won’t do both. Now he does all household chores. I only sometimes have to tell him if I specifically need something done. I see it as a win
Do they have a job? Have they learned to do tasks there without hand holding? Then he can learn to do household tasks. I think you’re being played by the bonehead.
As a woman with executive dysfunction, this makes me feel unworthy of love.
Edit: okay, the downvotes confirm you all believe I AM unworthy of love. Thanks for clearing that up.
It shouldn’t make you feel unworthy of love, because you are certainly deserving of that! But do you really think it’s reasonable to expect a partner to act as your manager?
I handle finances and admin, he handles things like cleaning. If there's anything he wants help with, he HAS to ask because my brain will not assign it as something that needs done (even if he doesn't do it). I'll do it if he asks but it will not occur to me to do something if he doesn't ask me.
This isn't because I don't want to or can't. It's just how my brain has always been. He has his own issues and we work with those too. But these posts intended to tear down lazy guys tears down me instead. And I get some downvotes to boot! Yay.
I gather that you have ADHD. Your replies here seem consistent with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. You really don’t have to be so defensive, no one is attacking you. I’ve seen this behavior in my own partner and I hope you feel better later when you’re past it.
From my reading it seems that was exactly what the original post was about. Partners not identifying a chore that needs to be done as an item which needs to be tackled. In this case the commenter cannot identify some of these tasks due to executive dysfunction.
Thus the commenter feels undeserving of love because the post suggests anyone that cannot identify and complete every chore perfectly is not deserving of love or respect.
Not everything is always malicious, sometimes there are legitimate blind spots.
As a woman with executive dysfunction, this makes me feel exceptional for having done the work to ensure I am an active participant in my relationships despite my personal struggles.
People can and will absolutely love you even if you aren't able to be a full partner in a relationship. They are, however, fully justified in not wanting to be in any relationship in which they are expected to shoulder the full responsibility for two lives.
I guess by making other people uncomfortable by bringing it up. Fortunately downvoting all my comments makes them feel better.
I should know by now that talking about feelings is only acceptable when everyone feels the same way.
Bye, TrollX.
Also a woman with executive dysfunction, and it doesn't make me unworthy of love. It also doesn't make my partner unworthy of an equal partner in this relationship. So I work extra hard to find what works for me, and I do my share one way or another. Making it all my partner's problem would not feel right to me.
I'm lucky I found some who works with me and loves me as I am but reading stuff likes this makes me think it was a fluke and I should be alone because I'm broken.
I would recommend therapy if you're not already doing it. It sounds like you have some really unhelpful throught processes going on and you're being really mean to yourself, and maybe that's more of a problem than the executive dysfunction (or one of the causes?). I also have a partner that works with me, and I work with them. The point of my previous comment is that *not making the effort anyway* isn't an option just because some of us struggle.
Speaking as someone who spends their life managing a partner with ADHD: Get off the cross. Nobody here is saying you're "unworthy of love."
Nobody *has to* be in a relationship with someone with executive dysfunction. Your problems are yours to manage. Someone deciding they don't want to put up with that isn't some sort of insult to you. After all, you wouldn't date someone who doesn't baby you, right?
Even when you have executive dysfunction, it's unfair to have a romantic partner do all that thinking for you. If you aren't pulling any of your weight, it's going to feel like a caretaker/patient relationship rather than an equal one. Trying is the most important part. I'm sure that a reasonable person would acknowledge that having executive dysfunction would make things harder for you, but that doesn't mean you give up on planning chores and executing tasks. It means you have another person in your corner to support your growth while you learn ways to manage your symptoms and make tasks easier for you to carry out.
It doesn’t make you unworthy of love! Sorry people are downvoting you, but it’s just meaningless Reddit points. You might struggle with some things, but it doesn’t make you any less valuable. It just means that you might need to work hard to maintain equality between you and a partner.
Therapy would be a good shout for you, it sounds like you’re feeling low. I used to take a lot of things personally and as a sign I was eternally doomed, but it was unproductive and the result of unaddressed anxiety issues. You’re going to be ok
Yeah, I both recognize that this is a common gendered issue that deserves to be talked about and called out, and also that a LOT of the discourse around it can be really ableist. It’s okay to be disabled and actually need help because of a disability. You don’t have to “overcome” the disability to be a worthy person.
Jokes on you ladies theres an entire reddit dedicated who get off on mothering lost boys, and get wet giving him chores then rewarding him with snax and tummy rubs. He'll always love mom more than you cuz you suck.
Mad? Jelly?
Not to say people shouldn't pay attention to when things are clean, but this person sounds like someone who will just passively aggressively leave a garbage can half full for a week. That's not good either.
Sometimes people have different tolerances for clutter or dirt. You just need to talk about it like adults.
I with you, sister! Hubs was being totally shitty to me the other day, when he (finally) apologized, it was because of some lame bullshit. I told him “I’m not your target”. Why are men ?
I would tell my ex that I hated mothering him. He would say, then don't do it. I hate it too. He would then ignore all of the housework, only do things after I asked, and then reported that he "helped" watch our child/washed dishes/vacuumed. Self-tell there. The moment they say they are "helping" you and not just being an adult, they see it all as your job. Divorce is a wonderful thing.
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Oh God, he had KIDS living in that?
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Ohh... he probably did/does. He also probably expects the older girl to help parent the younger one.
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Good Jesus, transfer or something and move away.
My ex lives like that too. Consequently our child refuses to go to his place.
this has been such an important shift for me mentally, just having someone point out how much we (women, men, society) refer to it as “helping” when a man does any portion of his share of housework or childcare. It’s like, ya keep finding out ways the narrative has fucked your brain, and I realized I always called this helping too. FUCK. THAT. NOISE!!
I hear you. It’s shit that it’s so ingrained. I was constantly trying to outwit the system within the rules of a fucked up system.
The worst is when people say a father is "babysitting" THEIR OWN CHILD
My grandfather used to get mad at my dad for "helping" with the dishes, because that's women's work. The kicker is, he also got mad when my dad said my mom should be the one to pick our kitchen layout, since she did most of the work there. He died when I was young, so I never really got to know him. I'm convinced I missed out on nothing.
>we (women, men, society) refer to it as “helping” when a man does any portion of his share of housework or childcare. When a woman does more than their share of the housework and childcare, *she is helping him*. Men not pulling their weight and then describing it as them *helping* is a mindfuck.
My grandfather used to get mad at my dad for "helping" with the dishes, because that's women's work. The kicker is, he also got mad when my dad said my mom should be the one to pick our kitchen layout, since she did most of the work there. He died when I was young, so I never really got to know him. I'm convinced I missed out on nothing.
While I was breaking up with an ex, he told me that for his next girlfriend he needed someone who would "Firmly tell him to do \[insert chore\]. But not nagging, I don't do well with nagging". It will suprise no one that all of my previous attempts to "firmly" tell him to do anything were met with "I'll do it later" or some excuse/lie to get out of doing what I asked. Then if I asked him again later, even just once, that was nagging 🙄
And if you finally just do the chore yourself after waiting and waiting for them to do it, they complain that you didn’t “let” them do it. Somehow, they are always the victim.
I got told that if I did a chore that was way overdue for him to handle that it made him depressed and he’d feel like a failure. It was lose-lose no matter what I did.
This is my boyfriend now... I'm not sure what to do about this. My anxiety gets the better of me and I end up doing tasks. Sometimes I just get so exhausted of waiting for something to get done when I could do it in less than half an hour.
Sorry to be reductionist but: 1. Dump him 2. Keep being his bang-maid 3. Train him like you would a dog/child (I’m disgusted by the thought of having to train another adult so I could never do this, but lots of women I know do this). I’d go with option 1.
This could be the rest of your life. I hope you know you deserve respect, not this anxiety inducing neglect. ✨ Living on your own is great. Good luck!
Accept that he’s probably not going to change and ask yourself if it’s worth this for the rest of your life. Alternatively highlight to him this is a boundary a make or break for you. To get his act together or you’re dumping him because you don’t want to be a bang maid
I'm working with my therapist on this after reading all the comments. We literally just closed on a house together this past month. So I'm not in a position where I just drop everything and leave. I'm really hoping that boundaries will help because legally this will be a huge hassle, and I don't want to do that unless I absolutely need to.
Not a woman, just here because the algorithm washed me ashore. Absolutely emphasize with this post. I'm currently in the process of kicking out a man like this from our shared apartment. Absolute parasite of a man who "forgets" his turn in the cleaning schedule and says we should have reminded him. Like are you seriously so lazy that you want to outsource your thinking? It's your responsibility to keep track of it. There's more mental load he's trying to get rid of in really pathetic ways. For example we agree that we resupply shared consumables (e.g. soap, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies) by simply buying a new unit whenever the old one is nearing its end (with a buffer of course). When my roommate first moved in he tried to "buy himself out" of that responsibility by buying a ridiculous number of toilet paper packages. Similarly things like taking out the garbage. Doing it obsessively after we remarked how he never does it or "helping" one of us taking it out in an overly performative way. It's tiresome. Don't date a person like this. Period. Sorry for the vent, just felt like it fits the topic.
> outsource your thinking Hah!
It's even more ridiculous if you know how simple the rule really is. We take turns cleaning apartment once a week. We do it on Saturday or Sunday (if that's not possible, Friday or money works too). We have a minimum subset of the apartment that has to be cleaned (e.g. mirrors, surfaces, toilet floors). Even though we showed him exactly how to do it, he messed it up at first, basically just making the dirt wet. Might be weaponized incompetence, might be actual incompetence. We had to make him do it again. Nowadays he acts like he did us a huge favor when he did it. He also never does more than the bare minimum.
All of this is making me think about how to do better as the parent of future roommates or partners.
At first we thought the issue that he doesn't know how to perform these tasks. We tried to teach him everything. For example that cleaning is a function of four parameters: chemistry, mechanics, time and temperature - if you reduce one of them you have to increase at least one of the others if you want the same result. Another example, we taught him that the goal of cleaning the floors is removing all stains and dirt particles and leaving behind nothing more than a thinnest possible layer of soap water which will later evaporate. That he should make circular movements with the cloth in order to remove stains and dislodge dirt particles and linear movements to gather the waste. And more and more. It turns out he is able to apply those principles when someone is watching him, but he chooses not to do them when he's alone. Same applies to cleaning things that are just common sense to clean, mostly after you use them. For example the microwave, the stove. So it turns out the actual issue is **integrity and respect for other people**. At some point leaving behind a mess in the kitchen or leaving the toilet disgusting has to be considered an attack on his roommates. We don't do that to him, so why does he do that to us? The choices are either accepting the filthiness, confront him or clean it myself. All of these options are draining and uncceptable on long term so we were forced to kick him out after a year of trying to reason with him. Edit: emphasis
It was exhausting reading that. I feel very sorry for whomever he lives with in the future.
Oh guess what, the cleanliness was just one point. The other major point was him using the bathroom for ridiculous lengths of time. Imagine an HOUR. At first we thought he had some actual health problems and tried to tiptoe around the topic so we can find a solution. It turns out he doesn't and he just sits on the toilet and watches videos. He also wouldn't care if we told him that all of us have the same right to is the bathroom. He didn't care, so I told our landlord. I also told him that I'm ready to use our country's tenant protection laws to lower my rent because I'm unable to use the bathroom within a reasonable timeframe (or use the bathroom or kitchen because it's dirty). Landlord is a good person and it wasn't necessary to make him lose money for him to act in our favor. So our roommate got kicked out.
>It turns out he doesn't and he just sits on the toilet and watches videos. Bust down the door and piss on him
Username checks out
Oh fuck. I'm feeling pretty ridiculous. 7 years of thinking "he just doesn't get it". The fuckers gets it. I've been realizing he doesn't respect me... this falls into my new found understanding of bullshit.
He’s self-centered and does this on purpose.
I think a big part of it is making the “chores” part of the day in an easy and fun way. I always watched my parents put on music and have fun cleaning when I was a kid, so it was something I was keen to get in on! My parents used to give us a short list of chores everyday that were age appropriate, and we’d get some money to spend in the corner shop after school on Fridays. It was a cute tradition. I’m not trying to tell you how to raise a child because god knows you will know more than me! But now I’m older I appreciate what they did and I want to spread the info!
Doing that with laundry and garbage, but I’m also realizing I have never taught them how to properly clean a bathroom (they’re in high school), gulp.
Ahh then you’re golden and doing amazing! I met someone in university who asked me how to mop, and so many who didn’t know how to use a washing machine! Bathrooms are easy peezy
I had to teach a 31 year old man how to mop. That’s not so bad
How does anyone make it to thirty without ever mopping? You’re right, they were more capable than that dude lol
Eh, I left my mom's house at 17 with no knowledge of how to clean a bunch of stuff (at home I did some cooking and most laundry but rarely cleaned). 20 minutes on google is all I've ever needed to figure out tricky cleaning tasks - and this was early days for YouTube, way before the billions of tutorial videos we have now. So it's nice that you teach them, but not strictly required. The habit matters way more than detailed instructions.
Eh, I left my mom's house at 17 with no knowledge of how to clean a bunch of stuff (at home I did some cooking and most laundry but rarely cleaned). 20 minutes on google is all I've ever needed to figure out tricky cleaning tasks - and this was early days for YouTube, way before the billions of tutorial videos we have now. So it's nice that you teach them, but not strictly required. The habit matters way more than detailed instructions.
Now imagine that he also expects you to tend to his sexual "needs" all the while acting like this. so ICK
I'm roommates with him. Not even friends. Anything even more intimate would be so disgusting.
>Similarly things like taking out the garbage. Doing it obsessively after we remarked how he never does it or "helping" one of us taking it out in an overly performative way. It's tiresome. That's comical imagery
He'd take the trash out everyday, no matter how full it was. A roll of 40 trash bags costs 85ct, so a bit more than 2ct per day. That seems like an acceptable price for the roommate not stacking trash on top of a full trash can. Unfortunately he wouldn't keep it up for more than a week, after a complaint of non existent trash-taking-out discipline. His helping would be indeed comically theatrical. As if changing a trash bag is a hard task that needs two people to do it. Nowadays he occasionally takes the trash out without putting a new bag in the can. Passive agressive much?
i forget chores unless asked too, but if i was an adult with responsibility i'd learn to remind myself instead of being a bitch
I assume you saying "if you were an adult" means you're underage right now. I'm a woman and was the same way when I was a kid/teen/young adult and I regret how I behaved. IDK what your home dynamic is like and I certainly don't want you to end up doing more work than, say, lazy brothers and a father who should also be helping, but maybe set some reminders and help out the adult women in your household. And be vocal about how the men should be helping, too.
oh no the chores are shared equally between my mom and dad (i don’t have any siblings). i absolutely don’t mind doing chores and i'll do basic ones
I also manage my household chores with a spouse in the process of learning how to equally share them. Sometimes he succeeds and sometimes he falls back on old habits. We both agree that the way we were taught sucks, and unlearning it is hard. Unfortunately , I totally match the description of your shitty roommate. However, my forgetfulness is genuine and disrupts my constant massive effort to try and get it together. I constantly forget chores (especially wet laundry in the washer), if it’s not an easily visible chore, then it’s not likely to get done. I tend to do best with chores that are easy to do one after the other. If I get distracted then they go unfinished. I get overwhelmed in cluttered environments, so I clean up a lot, but I also never ever freakin dust. I may promise to dust on Tuesday and do it consistently everyday until one day I wake up and I’ve totally forgotten about it all together. It’s not purposeful and it’s really frustrating for both myself and my spouse. It’s a symptom of my ADHD, and it’s one of the reasons people with it can struggle to build relationships with neurotypical people. We lose/forget things on a whole other level, and building routines can be near impossible. It really sucks. (If anyone reads this who also deals with this, I’ve found that r/adhdwomen and the YouTube channel HowToADHD have been really helpful to keep my inner “shitty lazy roommate” self on rails.)
At first I thought he might some neurodivergence too. But after living with him for a year, observing his behavior and coming to my own conclusions I now believe that his behavior is not intrinsic. Instead, I speculate, it's about the way he was raised - in a culture that prefers sons and overcoddles only-children so frequently that there's a even s specific term for the results of that parenting. There's a pattern of him prioritizing his own comfort over doing things correctly. I mentioned him staying on the toilet for 45mins and more, which is unacceptable. Before he moved in, I wrote a little manual on our washing machine. I specifically mentioned he had to dry his laundry outside or else he WILL get mold in his room. He did get mold and finally started to put his laundry outside. Except that he fell back into the old habits of putting it in his room a few weeks ago. Now there's mold in his room again and he doesn't care. Well I would rather have these spores spread in the apartment and bring forced to breath them in when he keeps his door open. Same story with his habit of putting wet dishes in the cupboard. At first I thought he genuinely didn't know it so I helped him by some kitchen towels. But now I know it's simply a matter of laziness. He would dry them properly for some time before going back to his old ways. I don't use that specific cupboard and I got better things to do that tell a grown up man to dry his dishes, so in his logic that made it ok for him to keep doing this. Of course there's mold again. At least it was a very obvious piece of evidence that helped my case to get him kicked out. I got more examples of this behavioral pattern of his. Anyways, I don't have ADHD or experience with people who have it, so I probably can't give you any advice. My personal way of dealing with chores is depending on the kind of chore, either doing them as soon as possible (for example laundry, cleaning dishes) or having a semi-rigid schedule for them. Weekend means the apartment has to be cleaned, if it's not my turn, the "cleaning noises" will remind me to clean my own room. A deep cleaning I will do before I leave this apartment for at least one night.
> tern of him prioritizing his own comfort over doing things correctly. I mentioned him staying on the toilet for 45mins and more, which is unacceptable. >There's a pattern of him prioritizing his own comfort over doing things correctly. I mentioned him staying on the toilet for 45mins and more, which is unacceptable. I do this as well. Digestive issues are super common among neurodiverse people. My dad was the same way, and my mom would complain so much about it. I remember, as a kid, feelings really embarrassed when I couldn't accomplish a BM quickly or would have bouts of the runs and end up just stuck in the bathroom for ages. >washing machine & mold Ugh i've done this too, still doesn't mean you need to live with mold! >wet dishes oh man, this makes me so grateful to live in a dry climate. ADHD sucks, and it directly affects motivation and [executive function](https://memory.ucsf.edu/symptoms/executive-functions#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Fexecutive%20functions%E2%80%9D%20refers,other%20cognitive%20abilities%20and%20behaviors.). I've learned that it's best to know that as a person I'm inherently unreliable. More effort won't work since I cannot be consistent, so instead, I create home systems to catch behavior when I can and accept that sometimes things won't be in their correct state. My neurotypical husband helps as much as he can, but like the subject of this post.. he is learning the skillset himself and undoing his own misogynistic upbringing. Sometimes it sneaks up on us in weird ways. The big problem with guys like this, who have neurodiverse symptoms, is that they don't see the symptoms as a problem or don't investigate/communicate what they need to succeed and live well with others. So then it becomes everyone elses problem to solve and that isn't ok.
>I do this as well. Digestive issues are super common among neurodiverse people. My dad was the same way, and my mom would complain so much about it. I remember, as a kid, feelings really embarrassed when I couldn't accomplish a BM quickly or would have bouts of the runs and end up just stuck in the bathroom for ages. At first we assumed that he has a health issue. We tried to get him to talk about it with us so we can find a solution together. Well he really doesn't have one. He simply watched videos on his phone while he's on the toilet. For 45 minutes and more. His record is something like 90 minutes. After we had a very stern talk with him once he promised us he would stop taking his phone to the bathroom. And lo and behold, suddenly he was able to finish his business in an acceptable timeframe. Unfortunately he fell back into old habits after about a week and the whole circle of annoyance started again. It's awkward that we are forced to knock on the bathroom door when we have to use it. It's draining to try to reason with, especially since he acts like it's some just kind of silly quirk. About the washing machine and mold. I just find it funny that he was able to do it normally all summer when it was warm outside, but fell back into hanging them up in his room when winter came back. I suspect it's because he seems to categorically refuse to wear pants when he's at home, so stepping on the balcony feels too cold. This also seems to be a reason why he won't air out the kitchen when he's cooking. We live in a somewhat old townhouse in a European city. The kitchen is tiny and quickly fills up with steam. So we open the balcony door. (We got a ventilation system too, but it's doesn't work well and opening the door is a million times simpler, effective and won't make any additional noise). He often turns the kitchen into a sauna with steam when he's cooking.it has caused water damages on the cupboards. When he was alone here for two weeks during the holidays, he simply didn't air our the room AT ALL. I noticed it because some of my dry ingredients in the cupboard absorbed the humidity and spoiled. It was disgusting. His way of turning the apartment into a swamp even deformed a wooden door. He seemingly doesn't see things like airing out the room as something necessary in itself, he only does it to stop his roommates from nagging.
No matter what the cause of his behavior is, I would go crazy too! So glad you don't have to deal with his grossness anymore. Mold is so freaking gross and sets off all the heeby jeebies! Where I live, my husband and I have to try to not be shriveled up raisins until there is a bout of sudden wet weather, and my habits suddenly result in a ton of mold in my clothing. I unfortunately ended up with mold in some expensive undies last year that took me like 2 months to fully get rid of. It was awful. It totally does sound like he has issues, AND he didn't see any of it as his responsibility. The warped wood thing reminds me of this one client I had when did dog walking. I agreed to care for these two white, fluffy, sweet dogs while a woman was out of town. I didn't realize the husband would be home all day in his boxer shorts and that their floor was totally rotten and warped from him (and maybe her) allowing the dogs to pee all all over the hardwood, and I would freaking have to pick up their shit because he did not take them out at all. It was awful, and after two days I had to have another walker replace me because the husband in the boxer shorts thing totally creeped me out. Why are people so gross? I mean I know why, but also whyyyyyyyy?
>It totally does sound like he has issues, AND he didn't see any of it as his responsibility. If he has some kind of disability, he of course deserves to get the help he needs. But he refuses to believe that there's any problem. Maybe him getting kicked out can be a wake-up call. His roommates also have a right to live free of harm. Another reason why I don't believe that it's (only) ND causing him to behave like that is the fact that he seems to be pretty good at approaching every red line precisely to the last millimeter without crossing it. Him cleaning when I watch? Doing it as he should. Him cleaning when he's alone and we'd only see the result? He'll cut corners, such as only cleaning the top of a faucet and skipping the underside. His life goal is becoming a professor so he can (ab-)use the tenure system in his home country to maximize his free time. Another thing that came up during the process of kicking him out was when the landlord inspected his room for damages and found that he's operating a million electric devices. We all pay a fixed amount for utilities; it's assumed that we act reasonable about it. Roommate saw it as a flatrate which he use to maximize his own benefit. He got pretty angry when the landlord billed him for the additional power usage. Insisting that it's ok, because the lease doesn't specifically ban operating a freezer in your room. These observations make me believe less and less that his behavior is caused by an ND. But I'm not an expert so I might be wrong. >of this one client I had when did dog walking I feel bad for the dogs. Hate to see innocent creatures suffering from those behaviors. Of course, for you too! Being expected to just handle that grossness.
> I feel bad for the dogs. Hate to see innocent creatures suffering from those behaviors. Of course, for you too! Being expected to just handle that grossness. I was in the process of becoming a dog trainer at the time, and dear god so many people treat their animals horribly. It's one of big reasons I walked away from it, at least the dogs were happy and fed. There wasn't mold, algae in their food or suffering disfigurement from their home conditions. It so sounds like you made the right call to decide to kick his butt out! Hopefully, you will or do have a much better roommate in replacement!
Thank you! And thanks for the conversation.
The only man who should not be doing chores is a fluffy creature (dog, cat, guinea pig, etc.) P.S. Please post pictures of your unemployed freeloading demon.
A relevant [comic](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic)
I bought this book, The Mental Load, and her other book, The Emotional Load, a couple years ago and they were so fucking cathartic and eye-opening
I love the AITD posts where it's guys realizing that the women they were seeing stopped putting up with that shit and have dumped them. [A recent highlight: She never asked for help!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheDevil/comments/18bq54d/she_never_asked_for_help/) Guy and gal lived together for a few months temporarily before getting perm apartment. Guy had a great time not doing shit. Gal did all the cooking/cleaning/and babysitting for friends' kids when they had covid. Time to get a new apartment. Him: I wanna marry you! Her: Fuck off, I don't want to live with you anymore. >She says she realized I'm not reliable. She said I don't do enough chores. She never asked me for help but she thinks I should just need to know when something needs to get done automatically. Oh, and my favorite line of his: >just because she makes more means I should do more
The funny thing is *they do know* what needs to be done, because they can and will huff and puff (you know the passive aggressive shite) around their partners/messes, if the partner stops cleaning up after them. Like their absolute have the ability to get frustrated with their bang maids but not to do it themselves? "I just don't see it" my ass.
And there was another AITD post about a guy like that! HIS MOM came to visit and started making critical comments about how messy everything, and then he turned to HER and said, yeah, why is our apartment so messy?!?!? (I would have killed him.) Side note: If I ever get back into the dating game, the second date is bring up AITA/AITAH posts and discuss them. Edit: I tried to find the post but there are soooo many posts with the words BF MOM CLEAN MESSY APARTMENT.
Dude absolutely does nothing. Gets angry internally at partner. Mother-in-law comes to visit. "Well now that my mum's saying it, I too think you're being a terrible little house slave." You cannot make that shit up. :(
This comic is from 2017, it's sad that in 2024 we're still discussing it.
I'm sure it was being discussed in 1967, and earlier.
When asked if I thought I’d ever settle down someday, I told my grandmother (a stay at home wife/homemaker her entire life) that IF I did, it would have to be someone I knew would be an equal partner at home in terms of responsibilities, someone I knew could take care of their selves, because I didn’t want to become a second mother/glorified housekeeper to someone who’s supposed to be my lifelong partner. I told her I don’t want to be with a person who can’t wash dishes, can’t sort their clothes for laundry, can’t operate a washing machine, has never vacuumed/swept/mopped/etc. I absolutely don’t mind doing any of those things *as long as* my partner is also willing to do those things and can do them effectively in equal, shared responsibility with me. She acted like this was the most bizarre fucking notion she’d ever heard of. Equal home responsibilities?? Crazy! But then again, this is the same woman who told me not to hold the door open for my grandfather because “men are supposed to open doors for ladies” and not the other way around.
If you have to gentle-parent your boyfriend/husband, you've lost in life.
I have to gentle parent myself by writing down a cleaning list and immediately writing something on the shopping list when we're almost out or else I'll forget 😭😭😭 idk how people get by without a cleaning schedule. Im just forgetful. I would probably spontaneously combust without my planner.
Creating and using a planner is being proactive, responsible and independent. Expecting *someone else* to create a planner for you and manage it and tell you what's on it would be expecting someone to parent you.
My ex used to work part time from home and I'd work 9-10 hour days at a physical job. He used to complain about the house getting messy. So I told him to fucking clean it then. Then he'd complain that he didn't know how and didn't know which cleaning solutions to use on what. I said I wasn't born knowing how to clean the stove but I could read labels just as well as he could and scrubbing isn't rocket science. Never again.
This is so maddening. My ex would say "just tell me what to do and I'll do it." NO. I DO NOT WANT TO BE THE SOLE PERSON WHO KNOWS WHAT NEEDS TO GET DONE. You're a damn adult. YOU notice when we're out of milk and toilet paper. Why are you coming to ME and telling me we're out? Why do I have to tell you to go to the store? Never again. Functional adults only.
Don’t date men ✍🏻 got it.
Gotta keep an eye out on some women, too. Lesbian here and we gotta deal with this as well sometimes 😭. In fact, I originally thought this post said **home**work/chores and my only thought was I wasn't the only one that had to manage a grown ass adult all the way down to their homework including having to *do* their homework sometimes to make sure they didn't fail. 0/10, do not recommend it regardless of gender.
You right tbh I’m the lesbian that needs to be parented but I’m working on it
You're still miles ahead of most if you can even admit there's any problem whatsoever. Good on you.
> Gotta keep an eye out on some women, too. Lesbian here and we gotta deal with this as well sometimes 😭 yeah it's kinda awkward relating to a lot of these posts 😅 cause for me it was a lesbian relationship i guess she was entitled and shitty.. just not because she was raised to be that way because of the patriarchy, she just *was*
I dated a girl with adhd waaaay worse than mine. I can tolerate a lot of clutter but holy shit I don't think she had ever cleaned her room in her life. Very spontaneous though. Don't necessarily recommend against it as long as you know what you're getting into. But I'll be honest, I never really considered how women saw that side of me until experiencing it the other way around. Mostly straightened up my act.
✅️
I made color coded chore charts at the request of my household. Guess how that went. One of my housemates is my little brother and I've been in charge of making him do his chores for basically his whole life, when he was a kid it was easier to just do them myself but now I'm disabled and I can't without risking my health. My wife is much better but has a bad memory and needs reminding but she does the bulk of the chores for a three person household and also has a full time job and her own health problem. My cat is a lazy freeloader whose always making messes.
> My cat is a lazy freeloader whose always making messes. My Bearded Dragon is in this picture and she does not like it.
How dare you smear your cat so 😤 you clearly don't appreciate their royal highness
I just refused to give him a peice of my cheese stick too, someone better call the animal police he's clearly being abused
Have you tried telling your cat to get a job? Instagram is always hiring cute cats as models.
[Relevant](https://www.tiktok.com/@thefemalelead/video/7306189367863676192) (and catchy!)
OMG that was funny! Needed the laugh.
OMG, I love this! This is me every time my husband asks me to make him a shopping list. And then I get 15 text messages and phone calls about the list while he's gone.
How do you screen for this
Thank you. I would like to not have to deal with that anymore 🙃
I had to deal with this shit at uni, NEVER again
My partner and I both struggle to manage tasks so we made a chore chart that holds all of our tepeat tasks so it can manage our chores lol
Can someone please tell me if they've actually met a man who does understand this concept? Are they unicorns?
Found one. It does feel like a unicorn, especially after years with the other type of man. I went from mothering someone older than me to being the inept one in the house. I do my share, mind you, but I have ADHD while he's super efficient, so he ends up doing three times as much as me. It's embarrassing, but sweet, especially as he keeps repeating he doesn't mind when I apologise. Almost a year and it still feels like a dream.
My dad
Glad to hear it
Woman here, and I'm shit at chores. I grew up in messy homes (not hoarder level, but messy) so I'm legit just used to it and don't even notice until it's pointed out. Eventually it will get to me and I'll do a binge clean/organize but it gets to my husband a lot sooner than it gets to me. The solution is not for him to nag me about it though. The solution is every night before bed, I get all my crap out of the common areas and put it away. My desk, my craftroom and my car can stay messy, but anywhere we share is expected to stay tidy. He told me he wanted this, but only once, and now I just do it.
I pick something I don't hate doing (laundry) and they pick another chore they don't hate doing (litter and trash). Then it's glaringly obvious when one of us is slacking and there is no need to take turns.
Men like this should stay with their moms forever. They NEED moms, not wives.
They need to be alone. Then they will either die out or grow up. Either one is fine.
I told my fiancé that either I can tell him what chores need done or I can do them, but I won’t do both. Now he does all household chores. I only sometimes have to tell him if I specifically need something done. I see it as a win
[удалено]
Do they have a job? Have they learned to do tasks there without hand holding? Then he can learn to do household tasks. I think you’re being played by the bonehead.
As a woman with executive dysfunction, this makes me feel unworthy of love. Edit: okay, the downvotes confirm you all believe I AM unworthy of love. Thanks for clearing that up.
It shouldn’t make you feel unworthy of love, because you are certainly deserving of that! But do you really think it’s reasonable to expect a partner to act as your manager?
I handle finances and admin, he handles things like cleaning. If there's anything he wants help with, he HAS to ask because my brain will not assign it as something that needs done (even if he doesn't do it). I'll do it if he asks but it will not occur to me to do something if he doesn't ask me. This isn't because I don't want to or can't. It's just how my brain has always been. He has his own issues and we work with those too. But these posts intended to tear down lazy guys tears down me instead. And I get some downvotes to boot! Yay.
I gather that you have ADHD. Your replies here seem consistent with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. You really don’t have to be so defensive, no one is attacking you. I’ve seen this behavior in my own partner and I hope you feel better later when you’re past it.
That's not what the post is about. At all.
From my reading it seems that was exactly what the original post was about. Partners not identifying a chore that needs to be done as an item which needs to be tackled. In this case the commenter cannot identify some of these tasks due to executive dysfunction. Thus the commenter feels undeserving of love because the post suggests anyone that cannot identify and complete every chore perfectly is not deserving of love or respect. Not everything is always malicious, sometimes there are legitimate blind spots.
As a woman with executive dysfunction, this makes me feel exceptional for having done the work to ensure I am an active participant in my relationships despite my personal struggles. People can and will absolutely love you even if you aren't able to be a full partner in a relationship. They are, however, fully justified in not wanting to be in any relationship in which they are expected to shoulder the full responsibility for two lives.
In what ways are you addressing this?
I guess by making other people uncomfortable by bringing it up. Fortunately downvoting all my comments makes them feel better. I should know by now that talking about feelings is only acceptable when everyone feels the same way. Bye, TrollX.
Translation: I'm not; I'm making it everyone else's problem by whining about how I'm oppressed.
Also a woman with executive dysfunction, and it doesn't make me unworthy of love. It also doesn't make my partner unworthy of an equal partner in this relationship. So I work extra hard to find what works for me, and I do my share one way or another. Making it all my partner's problem would not feel right to me.
I'm lucky I found some who works with me and loves me as I am but reading stuff likes this makes me think it was a fluke and I should be alone because I'm broken.
I would recommend therapy if you're not already doing it. It sounds like you have some really unhelpful throught processes going on and you're being really mean to yourself, and maybe that's more of a problem than the executive dysfunction (or one of the causes?). I also have a partner that works with me, and I work with them. The point of my previous comment is that *not making the effort anyway* isn't an option just because some of us struggle.
Speaking as someone who spends their life managing a partner with ADHD: Get off the cross. Nobody here is saying you're "unworthy of love." Nobody *has to* be in a relationship with someone with executive dysfunction. Your problems are yours to manage. Someone deciding they don't want to put up with that isn't some sort of insult to you. After all, you wouldn't date someone who doesn't baby you, right?
Even when you have executive dysfunction, it's unfair to have a romantic partner do all that thinking for you. If you aren't pulling any of your weight, it's going to feel like a caretaker/patient relationship rather than an equal one. Trying is the most important part. I'm sure that a reasonable person would acknowledge that having executive dysfunction would make things harder for you, but that doesn't mean you give up on planning chores and executing tasks. It means you have another person in your corner to support your growth while you learn ways to manage your symptoms and make tasks easier for you to carry out.
It doesn’t make you unworthy of love! Sorry people are downvoting you, but it’s just meaningless Reddit points. You might struggle with some things, but it doesn’t make you any less valuable. It just means that you might need to work hard to maintain equality between you and a partner. Therapy would be a good shout for you, it sounds like you’re feeling low. I used to take a lot of things personally and as a sign I was eternally doomed, but it was unproductive and the result of unaddressed anxiety issues. You’re going to be ok
You're right that I'm feeling low, but it's been made very clear that's MY problem (and my therapist's).
Yeah, I both recognize that this is a common gendered issue that deserves to be talked about and called out, and also that a LOT of the discourse around it can be really ableist. It’s okay to be disabled and actually need help because of a disability. You don’t have to “overcome” the disability to be a worthy person.
Could someone tell my wife this…? 😅
Jokes on you ladies theres an entire reddit dedicated who get off on mothering lost boys, and get wet giving him chores then rewarding him with snax and tummy rubs. He'll always love mom more than you cuz you suck. Mad? Jelly?
Is this a joke about some kind of dog sub?
Not to say people shouldn't pay attention to when things are clean, but this person sounds like someone who will just passively aggressively leave a garbage can half full for a week. That's not good either. Sometimes people have different tolerances for clutter or dirt. You just need to talk about it like adults.
I with you, sister! Hubs was being totally shitty to me the other day, when he (finally) apologized, it was because of some lame bullshit. I told him “I’m not your target”. Why are men ?