She’s Sick Of Enabling Her Boyfriend By Constantly Cleaning His Apartment
Have you ever dated someone who was extremely messy and got a little too used to you cleaning up their place?
One woman has found herself cleaning her boyfriend’s apartment for him more than he does, and she’s realized that she’s been enabling him.
She’s 26, and her boyfriend of four years is 29. She lives in a studio apartment, while her boyfriend lives with a roommate his age.
She’s very passionate about baking and loves baking on the weekends but can’t do it in her apartment, as it doesn’t have an oven.
So, when she visits her boyfriend on Saturdays, she likes to bake in his kitchen and use his oven. However, one major issue has been getting in her way.
“I believe that the first and last steps of cooking [and] baking are cleaning,” she said.
“[Neither] my boyfriend nor his roommate takes care of their kitchen. Every time I go in there, it’s like walking into a frat house where there are days-old dirty pots and pans on the stove. The sink is full of dishes, and the counters are covered in trash and food scraps.”
At first, her boyfriend and his roommate told her they had a chore chart and waited to clean the kitchen on Sundays, so that’s why the place was a mess when she came over on Saturdays.
However, over time, it became obvious to her that the “chore chart” was a fantasy, and the guys were bad at cleaning all days of the week.
Pixel-Shot – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
If she were simply baking for herself, she would grin and bear the mess, as she was choosing to bake in that kitchen and was taking advantage of their oven. However, her boyfriend started requesting baked goods from her, like cookies for him to bring to work, but he doesn’t think to clean up his kitchen before she goes over to bake them for him.
Before she can even start baking, she has to clean the kitchen for at least 45 minutes and then clean up her own mess when she’s finished.
“My boyfriend has a very demanding job where he works 50+ hours six days a week, and it’s not uncommon for him to get home, pass out, and then do it again the next day,” she explained.
“For this reason, his other spaces are also a complete disaster, and I’ve been very patient. However, I feel like my help moved into enabling territory a long time ago.”
Her boyfriend has tried telling her she doesn’t “have” to clean his apartment, but it’s gotten to the point where if she doesn’t do it, the space becomes unbearable to be in, and she can’t even go to the bathroom without stepping on something.
After all this time of her boyfriend watching her clean his apartment, he still hasn’t gotten the message that he must start doing it himself. He never returns the favor, either. For instance, if she accidentally leaves a dirty dish on a table at his place, he won’t touch it until she returns to clean it because it wasn’t his dirty dish.
“I love my boyfriend more than I’ve ever loved anyone else, and the absolute last thing I want to do is break up with him, but it would be disrespectful to myself to continue ignoring these red flags,” she added.
“We’ve had this conversation a million different times, but there’s been zero meaningful change to his behavior.”
“I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place because my lease is up in a few months, and after four years, we’re either going to move in together or break up.”
How can she stop enabling her boyfriend and get him to start cleaning up after himself?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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