So, I'm (28m) engaged to be married to my high-school sweetheart. Due to some financial insecurities we used to face we moved back with my parents for a little while until we were able to afford to rent an apartment.
I've lived with my parents in the past of course, then moved out with my fiancée for 2 years. Now we've moved with my parents for a while until the house we want to rent is available which will be in 2 months.
For context I have a married older sister who's in the brink of divorce with her husband because he's doing nothing around the house. He simply comes back from work and sits and plays until he goes to bed while my sister does all of the housework on top of her full time nursing job.
My mom believes my sister is unreasonable for her demands towards her husband and believes it's a woman's job to do housework and cater to her husband even if she works a job.
Also when I lived with my fiancée alone she'd always bad mouth my fiancée for "forcing me" to help around the house and always said how as a woman she's not taking proper care of me, her soon to be husband because I also cooked, cleaned, did chores etc.
Even now that we live in my parents house, when we need to do laundry etc I don't expect my fiancée to be the one to do it. I do it myself many times as well. My mom doesn't like that and claims how my fiancée has me as a maid.
Now despite all that, my mom demands that I help her around the house when it's housework she wants to do. And I do, I always do my part since I live here but for her it's never enough and I'm a lazy son who doesn't care about helping his mother.
After all the ridiculous stuff she's said about my fiancée and my sister's "traditional roles" I told her than you know what? I'm not helping around. That's a woman's job remember? So don't demand from me to help you with your chores since it's a woman's job and I'm a man.
Ofc I keep defending my sister and I keep contributing equally to my fiancée and I's chores. I just refuse to contribute any helping hands to my mother since she believes she's entitled to help but my fiancée and sister are supposed to be maids.
My mom has bad mouthed me to the entire family right now and whenever someone visits they scold me and call me an AH basically for being lazy and not helping out my mom. AITA for giving my mom a taste of her own medicine?
New-Pea-3721 said:
NTA. So she’s allowed help around the house but your fiancée and sister aren’t? F that. Your mum needs to move into the 21st century. I still think you should help your mum out, but I think using her words against her in this situation was justified.
toffifeeandcoffee said:
NTA and this reminds me so much of an encounter with my grandma. She came to visit, went to inspect the kitchen windows and told me, with my now ex standing right there, that I need to clean the windows.
I handed her the cleaning stuff and told her to have fun. She never mentioned something like this again. I am afraid of heights. I don't clean windows.
rebootsaresuchapain said:
She doesn’t see you as a man. You are a child she raised and children are expected to do whatever chores assigned to them. That’s another aspect of her 1950’s mentality. The rules only apply to people who she thinks are men. NTA.
firstbornalien said:
NTA you’re obviously doing it as a laugh at her and if she can’t see the obvious hypocrisy then that’s on her. I’d still help out, but with a little attitude.
Complex_Machine6189 said:
I think you should still help her out, but it was right to throw her own words back into her face. NTA under the condition that you made your point and should get back to work.
Pleasant-Koala147 said:
NTA. Malicious compliance at its best. But I’d start pushing back when visitors call you lazy. Explain that your not lazy, but just following what your mum has said many,many times.
thesewordsispeak said:
NTA for what you said. Sometimes you have to draw the parallels between someone’s behavior and their expectations of other people’s behavior for them to develop empathy.
Now that you’ve done that, she either will change or she won’t. That part’s up to her. I would return to helping her out because she is doing you all a favor in letting you live with her and if you don’t help there’s a good chance your fiancee will be pressured to pick up the slack by your mom furthering the divide between them