'My BF got upset at me for laying on the couch while he cleaned. AITA?'
"I told my boyfriend to leave me alone when he got upset at me for laying on the couch while he cleaned."
For a little perspective, I 22F work in child care full time while taking college courses and an accelerated certificate course for my field, my boyfriend 21M is a college student in his last year of his bachelor’s. My boyfriend does most of his school work from home on his computer and leaves the apartment at most 3 times a week.
I work four 10hr shifts a week with an hour commute to work and another hour commute home. I spend 12 hours of my day either working or driving, and it’s exhausting. We’re living off my paycheck and his student loans. I am barely functioning by the time I get home from work.
Chasing, changing, and cleaning up after two year olds is no joke (they call it the terrible twos for a reason). I love my job, but it can be physically, mentally, and emotionally draining.
Here’s where part of the problem comes in: Our apartment has been pretty messy lately, I’ve been too exhausted to clean it and I feel like my boyfriend does nothing but sit on his phone, play on his computer, or sleep all day. I cook dinner most days after coming home from work.
We agreed before we moved in together that he would do dishes, dishes is the only chore I cannot stand for many reasons, most of them traumatic. Lately I’ve been coming home to the sink piled high with dishes that haven’t been touched. He says that he’s doing dishes and I swear he puts two plates in the dishwasher and calls it a day.
It’s gotten so bad over the past couple of months that I’ve started doing all the dishes when it gets to a certain point. I feel like every free minute I get to rest he’s wanting me to clean something.
This is where the incident comes in; I came home after a long day at work and my boyfriend told me that maintenance is coming to do work in the apartments and check the overall condition of the units. I wish I would’ve had a little notice but that’s neither here nor there. He said we need to clean up the apartment after dinner, mind you, I didn’t get home until 8pm.
We ordered a pizza that got to us around 9:45pm, and it took us until almost 11pm to get done eating. After I finished up, I dove into cleaning, I sorted 6 baskets of dirty clothes, picked up trash and random items and found them a home, and cleaned up the living room and dining room areas.
My boyfriend had told me that he would join me in cleaning up after he played a match or two of his video game, and I thought that sounded reasonable.
Around 1am I decided I needed to stop, it was late, I had done a lot and I had to get up at 5:30am to leave by 6:15am to be at work by 7:30am. When I sat down, my boyfriend got up and started cleaning a bit. I was laying on the couch resting and after a few minutes he started acting annoyed.
He started being pretty passive aggressive. Every single item he picked up, he asked me what to do with it and kept saying “I don’t know where you want stuff” when he lives here and knows damn well where the cereal goes.
After like 15 minutes of this, I snapped and told him to leave me alone. He’s been really moody with me since then and told me I was rude. I thought I reacted naturally to the situation, but now I’m starting to second guess myself, AITAH?
This is what people had to say to OP:
Acceptable_Mix_3434 said:
That’s not a boyfriend, that’s a spoiled toddler. You won’t believe how much better your life is without him.
Vox_Mortem said:
So you worked a 10 hour day, commuted 2 hours, had to take care of toddlers, sorted and cleaned while he played video games, and then he got mad that you wanted to sleep for a few hours before going back to work. Why was it reasonable for him to go play video games while you cleaned? Why does he feel entitled to have you do all of the labor while he contributes nothing?
Why aren't you allowed to get even 4 hours of sleep?
I mean, I don't want to tell you to leave him but you should probably consider what he brings to the table besides 'love.'