Living with a partner can feel like the best thing in the world at times.

But then there are the other moments – the ones where you’ve just finished cleaning the floors and they walk in with muddy shoes, or they’ve done all the washing and now you’re complaining that the kitchen hasn’t been cleaned.

Sometimes we get wrapped up in our own lives and fail to see all the hard work that our partner is putting in – and vice versa.

So when the woman in this story is working 40 hour weeks, while doing most of the housework too, she is shocked when her boyfriend suggests that he do less.

And she was even more frustrated to learn that the agreement he suggested didn’t go both ways.

Read on to find out what he suggested, and how it caused her to bite back.

AITA – Boyfriend cleaning dispute

I (a 36-year-old woman) and my boyfriend (a 39-year-old man) have been disagreeing on the cleaning for a while now.

I have three kids (he is not their father).

The older two, boys aged 16 and 14, take turns to unloading the dishwasher, and hoover twice a week.

They also keep their rooms tidy.

Let’s see how this responsibility extends to the rest of the family

My youngest child (a nine-year-old daughter) is neurodivergent (autistic). Her jobs are to keep her room tidy, put crafts away.

Now we’re working on adding in folding clothes and her putting them away herself, since she doesn’t like how I organise her wardrobe.

I see that it’s fair she wants it a certain way, and if that’s the case we can do that together.

Overall, the kids’ chores schedule is fairly simple.

However, her boyfriend is another matter altogether.

My bf works twelve hour shifts. One week he can work 60+ hours, and other weeks it will be 24 hours. The pattern is awful but we make it work.

I work 40 to 44 hours a week, Monday to Friday. Every other week, I work four hours on a Saturday morning.

Recently, he made a comment about how “when I’m working 60+ hours, I shouldn’t need to do house work.”

To this, I responded “if that’s the case then on the week you’re only working 24 hours, I shouldn’t do any house work then.”

Read on to find out how they currently split the chores.

I do the bathroom, toilets and rubbish. I do everyone’s washing, change and make the beds, and sort out the kids’ lunches, as well as making dinner every night.

This all happens around the kids’ activities.

Though he likes to make his own lunches, I ensure it is all there and that he has everything he needs for work.

In the evenings, we take turns loading the dishwasher.

The boyfriend’s chores, however, are quite different.

On one day, when he’s on a short week, he will hoover, tidy the living room, and empty everyone’s bedroom bins.

After his suggestion, I want to implement his “no housework if you’re doing more hours in the week” rule.

This would make me feel a lot better, since chores can get overwhelming with a neurodivergent child.

However, he’s making me feel selfish because I’m the kids’ mum, and whether he’s here or not the jobs would still need to be done.

AITA?

Whether he’s the kids’ father or not, when you choose to live with a partner who has kids you take on responsibilities too.

Helping his girlfriend with some of the demands of being a mom is all part of being a team.

Sure he is working more hours than her (on some weeks) but he clearly isn’t aware of the sheer quantity of extra work she’s doing outside of her hours of employment.

Either that, or he simply doesn’t care.

Let’s see what Reddit thought about this one.

This Redditor agreed that the distribution of labor needs to be more equal.

And this person suggested a practical, positive solution.

But others believed that her response was also unfair.

This shouldn’t all fall on her.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.