'Is my boyfriend's attitude about cleaning and household duties a dealbreaker?' MAJOR UPDATE

"Is my (23F) boyfriend's (29M) attitude about cleaning and household duties a dealbreaker?"

I (23F) have been with my boyfriend (29M) for 1.5 years now, and we recently moved in together! I'm hoping to get some advice on the division of household labor and what's considered "normal" as this is my first time living with a partner. First of all, I am so excited to be living with my boyfriend.

Waking up in the same space every day is what I have dreamed of, and it's so nice to be able to come home and know that he will be there. That being said, we've lived together for about ~3 months now and I'm realizing that we have a huge difference of opinion on how household chores should be handled.

(Should we have discussed this before moving in together? Absolutely, and I now feel silly for not doing so. I had this mistaken impression that things would kind of fall into place and we would help each other out and adhere to "common sense" cleaning practices. Boy was I wrong).

Basically, my boyfriend does not clean. Like, at all. I learned after the first two weeks that if I didn't clean something it would just sit there indefinitely. Mail piling up on the counter. Dishes crowding the sink.

Trash can overflowing. I'm a pretty easygoing person, so I can handle clutter and not be phased, but this is really frustrating. He seemed enthusiastic and nice enough when I asked him to clean certain things, but then he just...wouldn't do it. We recently got into an argument about this, and I'm wondering if my boyfriend's overall attitude/perspective is one that's just totally unreasonable.

I asked him how we could more effectively divide up household responsibilities so things stay clean and organized (again, I don't care about having a perfect home, just a decent one; life happens and I like a place that looks lived in).

He told me that if he was being blunt and honest, he thought cleaning was a waste of his time and mental energy, and if he has to focus on/think about cleaning, he's draining valuable mental energy that could be put towards his side hustle projects.

(He is trying to start his own company, but rarely if ever actually works on it). He then outright said he expects me to pick up after him and that in doing so I'm showing my love and respect.

This all sent me reeling, and I've been kind of keeping my distance and figuring out what I should do. I don't want to spend any portion of my life cleaning up after a grown man, but this attitude from my boyfriend is truly shocking, and that's why I'm struggling with it and wondering if it's a dealbreaker or if we can work through it and come to a compromise.

I've always known and seen him as a very progressive person who actively fights against old school, misogynistic mindsets and believes in a more utopian world where "gender differences" don't define us. His attitude is a total 180 from his usual take on life and the world.

(If you're wondering how I never picked up on any of this before we moved in together, he lived with his parents, and their house was always spotless. I'm now suspicious that his mom was doing all the cleaning).

So, yeah. My question is: have you ever dealt with something like this, and is it possible to reason with someone and come to an agreement/compromise? What might that compromise look like? Is this a lost cause? I love my boyfriend so much, but this has tarnished my respect for him and I just feel awful.

TLDR: My (23F) boyfriend (29M) refuses to clean up after himself and I fear it may be the thing that ends our relationship.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

kylynara wrote:

"He expects me to pick up after him and that in doing so I'm showing my love and respect." If by cleaning up after him you are showing your love and respect for him.

The flip side of that is that by leaving messes for you, he is showing his contempt and disrespect for you. He just told you what the balance of power in the relationship will be. Is that the one you want? Or does it make you two incompatible?

sweadle wrote:

He values his time and energy over yours. It's not "worth his time" but he expects you to do it for both of you. He isn't looking for a partner. He's looking for a sidekick that supports him and his life. Not reciprocity. It's easy to talk like a progressive, feminist. It's much harder to actually act on it. This is the first test. Is he acting like you are equal to him?

classicicedtea wrote:

"He then outright said he expects me to pick up after him and that in doing so I'm showing my love and respect"

Excuse me?

fiery_valkyrie wrote:

So cleaning is a waste of your boyfriend’s time, but not a waste of your time? This man doesn’t respect you. He thinks you should be his maid and be happy about it. Bail now, before you get in too deep.

A little over a week later, OP shared an update.

I saw at least one mention of "please update us!" so here I am. This is how the conversation between my boyfriend and I went. I told him, as nicely as I could, that I didn't think he was acting like an adult, and that we needed to come up with a solution where we were both contributing to household responsibilities.

I suggested we both decide on chores we prefer doing to divide things up evenly (i.e. I handle laundry, he handles vacuuming, or whatever) or we could agree on a general "standard of cleanliness" to help each other follow and uphold. His response was that this would make him feel like we were roommates and not partners.

I tried to get him to explain this to me in more detail, but this devolved into him telling me that I'm starting to feel like a burden to him and that moving in together was a huge mistake. It felt like I was talking to someone I didn't even know or recognize. He told me "what good are you to me if you can't clean and take care of me" and that was the final straw for me.

I truly feel like moving in together brought out a side in my ex boyfriend that I never knew existed. How did I not see this before? How did my gut pick up on it? I feel really sad and I worry that I actually projected all of my loving feelings onto the relationship and failed to realize how he felt towards me.

I feel disrespected and totally haunted by the entire situation. I haven't stopped crying for three days. Thank you, again, to everyone who helped me see the situation for what it was. And thank you for reading! Maybe all the details of this don't matter or are only really important to me, but being able to share this here is really helpful to my current state of pain.

TL;DR: I broke up with my boyfriend because he doesn't respect me, or, as far as I can tell, even like me at all.

The commenters were glad to hear an update.

simonerochabowearing wrote:

How did you not see it before? Have you considered that he purposefully hid it from you? It's very possible that he was manipulating you on purpose, saying all those things about living without gender roles even though he believes the complete opposite, and was hoping that once you were "stuck" living with him you would just give in and do all this housework for him after he revealed his true feelings.

It's an expensive lesson to learn but you figured it out pretty early in this relationship and early in your 20's - talk is cheap.

In your next relationship you won't move in without discussing lots of specifics about household management, you won't trust that a man is a feminist based on talk alone you'll observe his actions too, and I bet you won't date another almost 30-year-old who still has his parents cleaning up after him.

MOGicantbewitty wrote:

Yup. Manipulative people are GOOD at what they do. They have a lifetimes experience in how to successfully get people to do what they want. Being the perfect loving partner until you think you have them on lock down, and then starting the emotional abuse and sh#$ty demands, is pretty classic. OP didn't see it, because her ex didn't allow her to see it. On purpose.

The fact is that OP saw it once, and said no. Most people try for too long, don't see the larger dangerous pattern. OP did! And got out immediately. She did better than most. Especially since people like her ex are very very good at this s#$t.

IfIwerenyourshoes wrote:

So he had an enabling mother, and expected you to become his mother. You should have responded to his roommate comment with and I don’t want to feel like your mother.

Glad you left him, so he can live by himself and never pickup.