Before I first started living with my boyfriend, I made sure to set my expectations clear and confirm we were on the same page. I told him directly that if he thinks I am going to do absolutely everything around the house, this isn’t going to work.
He assured me that I shouldn’t worry and that all the work would be divided equally no matter what. Although this should be common sense in the 21st century, it still seems like some men just can’t wrap their heads around it.
It’s funny and sad at the same time that we are currently closer to having flying cars (believe it or not, they are being tested) than men doing as many house chores as women.
Women are still expected to do it all
A man on Reddit wanted to find out if he was being unreasonable for wanting his girlfriend to do all house chores, even picking his clothes and going through his mail.
His girlfriend has just finished her medical residency and has two months free until she begins working full-time as a doctor.
According to him, she has been living her best life and therefore should do more work. He says she’s spending her morning studying (is this the best life he is talking about?) for her new job, going to the gym, and running with her dog.
She continued to work as usual and apparently, that surprised him as he came to Reddit to see if he was overreacting. He wrote:
“However she hasn’t started contributing more to the household. I mean she still cooks and cleans every day but she still expects me to wash the dishes and she won’t pick up my clothes after I have returned from work. The other day I left a bunch of my mail on the table and when I returned it was left unopened, I asked her why she didn’t look through it and she told me she’s not my secretary.”
This part outraged Reddit users who left more than a thousand angry comments and gave their honest opinions. So honest, that Reddit locked the post to prevent further comments due to excess rule violations.
Finances are split yet chores are not
Many stated that he is acting incredibly childish and as one user commented:
“Deliberately misrepresenting the situation in order to make it seem as though she’s being dreadfully self-indulgent when in reality, she isn’t doing any less than she ever did, and is in fact doing more.”
At the beginning, he mentioned that they split rent and share all costs 50-50. All I’m hearing is that she still contributes financially even if she’s not making any money at the time. So if finances are split equally, why wouldn’t the chores be as well? He also added:
“I have been hinting that she should be picking up more chores now that she’s unemployed but she says that she’s not my housekeeper, she does more than half of the chores and since my workload has not increased I should be able to do mine.”
A lot of users applauded the girlfriend for handling the situation saying she already went through hell during medical residency. They also agreed she should have her well-deserved rest before taking on huge responsibilities as a doctor.
What seems to have hurt his ego is her comment that she didn’t go to medical school just to be someone’s live-in maid, like this isn’t simply stating facts.
Women spend 49 minutes on cleaning every day
American Time Use Survey, provided information on how Americans use their time. It revealed that during the year 2022 women spent almost one hour on average of their time on cleaning the house.
The data on average hourly earnings make it evident that women do around $6K more unpaid work than men on a yearly basis.
This statistic just confirms what we as women already know since we are experiencing it firsthand. So ladies, don’t let a man tell you that you should do all the work. If he doesn’t want to contribute, let him hire a housekeeper. I know I wouldn’t mind!