A woman is venting her frustration over her fiancé’s expectation for her to do the majority of the housework because she works from home.
In a recent post on Reddit’s “Am I Overreacting?,” the woman detailed the situation that has left her feeling “overwhelmed” and has caused her to reevaluate the responsibilities of her household.
In her post, the woman described the daily schedules of herself and her fiancé, including how she gets their son ready for school.
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“My fiancé and I both work full-time, but I work from home while he commutes 30-45 minutes each way,” she began before detailing that “he usually wakes up around 5:45 a.m.” to shower and make his breakfast, before leaving around 7:00 a.m. each day.
She continued, “I wake up a bit later, around 6:00 a.m., and use that time to have coffee and read the news before getting our son up at 6:30. After that, I make his breakfast, pack his lunch, and help him get ready for school.
The woman noted that after she gets their son on the bus, she doesn’t start work until 8:30, so she uses the hour to “walk our dog, shower, and prepare for my day.”
She went on to explain that she also uses her “lunch break to pick up our son from the bus stop, help him settle in, and make sure he starts on any homework.”
In addition, she revealed that she handles “all the daily household chores,” including doing the dishes by hand, washing the laundry and “all the major cleaning, including deep-cleaning the kitchen and bathroom.”
Things came to a head when the woman was sick with pneumonia for a week, and was unable to keep up with her usual schedule, at which point she discovered her fiancé had dropped the ball and left her a major mess to clean up once she was feeling better.
“When I recovered, I felt overwhelmed by all the dishes and laundry that had piled up. My fiancé took care of me and our son during that time, but he didn’t manage the usual chores I handle,” she explained. “This led to a conversation where I asked if he could start helping out around the house in general. I explained that I’m the only one who does the daily cleaning and laundry, and that we’d have more time on weekends to relax if he helped a bit during the week.”
The woman said her fiancé’s response was not what she was hoping for, as she shared he told her, “No, if you got up when I do and managed your time better, you could get these things done. You work from home, and there’s no reason you can’t get them done because you’re home all day.”
He also claimed she doesn’t “help with bigger projects,” and told her that “he doesn’t feel he should help with smaller ones.”
“I told him that mowing the lawn every other week is very different from daily chores, but he wouldn’t budge,” the woman added.
“Am I wrong to think that just because I work from home, it doesn’t mean I should be responsible for almost all of the household chores?” she asked in her post.
Many Redditors were on the woman’s side that the household chores should be split between the couple.
“You’re waking up 15 minutes later than him. Perhaps suggest he wake up 15 minutes earlier to contribute as well if that minuscule period of time is so valuable in his opinion,” one person wrote, before adding, “stop doing things for him if he doesn’t appreciate them. And start waking up at 5:45 to make your child’s breakfast and pack lunch. That way he can see you do it.”
“I personally would not marry this man,” another user chimed in. “I also would stop doing anything for him. He can do his own laundry, pack his own lunch and fix his own dinner. You work full time too!”
A third commenter offered the idea of swapping responsibilities in order for the woman’s fiancé to appreciate what she does during the day.
“Offer to swap. ‘Ok, darling, for the next two weeks I’ll do the lawn and you can do the housework. They’re both the same, you said so yourself, so that’s fair, right?’ ” a third person suggested.
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