When you fall in love with someone and plan a future together, you might automatically assume that for the rest of your life you will be an equal partner, contributing 50/50 to the relationship, and skipping off hand-in-hand into the sunset.

Unfortunately, life often has a lot of surprises, and that won’t be the case at least some of the time.

But in a strong and happy relationship, it’s normal for one partner to pick up the slack while the other is struggling, safe in the knowledge that when the situation inevitably reverses at some point down the line, their partner will be there for them too.

So the woman in this story didn’t hesitate to take on extra burden for the household income when her partner was laid off – but she was shocked when it became quite clear that her fiancé had no plans to reciprocate any time soon.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA For handing off all house responsibilities to fiancé?

My fiancé recently got fired from his job. The reason is unimportant, but it was very unexpected for both of us.

I’m a teacher at one of the highest paid districts in the country so I do pretty well for myself. My fiancé works in a trade so 50+ hour weeks are common for him during peak seasons.

I’m not the teacher that will work past my contract hours, so I don’t bring work home. I fully take my unpaid lunch and leave when the bell rings.

This is the only way you will survive the teaching field. I work about 32 hours a week, not counting commute and my unpaid lunch.

Read on to find out how their work schedules affect their relationship.

Therefore, the way we split at home duties was that I took care of cooking (I cooked every weekday, and we exclusively got takeout on the weekend only).

I was also responsible for deep cleaning the home, folding and putting away laundry and picking up slack on other household needs during my fiancé’s busy months.

My fiancé takes care of dishes, yard work, trash, quick tidying up of the home, and laundry for both of us (by which I mean putting clothes in to wash in between games, and dropping them off for me to fold and put away).

When I’m on summer vacation, winter vacation, spring vacation or Thanksgiving break, it’s an unspoken rule that I’ll take on all home duties, minus trash and yard work. This has worked for us.

But now he’s unemployed, things have to change.

However, it’s been a continuous struggle for him to understand that when I’m working more and he is working less, he must take some more responsibility.

He has off seasons in his industry when he’ll work fewer hours than I do. But instead of helping me with my workload (specifically cooking, as he will pick up more chores) he takes that time to play video games.

Now that he’s not working, I told him I am fine picking up the slack financially (as I currently make more than he does, and have done since we’ve began living together).

However, I told him that he needs to take over home duties completely until he finds another job.

Let’s see how her fiancé responded to that.

This seemed to upset him, and he tried weaponize incompetence by saying that he never agreed to this, and that I can’t complain about his food even if it’s bad.

This bothered me. Him learning how to cook has been a particular contention between us, as he’s virtually refused to learn as I do all of the cooking.

His mom basically raised close to useless children (because of some trauma I won’t go into) and I’ve whipped him into shape the best that I could over the eight years of our relationship (we’ve been together since we were teens).

I’m actually very proud of the growth he’s made. Cooking, however, continues to be a problem area for him.

Read on to find out why she’s so determined that he should stop simply relying on her cooking.

Well now I feel he has to learn, and take this as a lesson to never get too comfortable.

At the end of the day anything can happen, just as it did now, and things can change rapidly.

I honestly plan to let him figure it out, and come home Monday from work ready to sit and eat.

AITA?

It’s clear that before he got fired, this couple both work very hard, and they have come to an arrangement that suits them both whilst also keeping the chores done and them both well fed.

But it’s understandable that, while she’s taking care of them both financially and he has nothing else to do, she is going to want a little help with her side of the household responsibilities.

And refusing to learn to cook is only condemning her to the kitchen for the rest of their lives, which isn’t a desirable trait at all.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person thought that her fiancé needed to learn how to be part of an adult relationship.

While others thought that his refusal to learn to cook had more serious origins.

Meanwhile, this Redditor pointed out just how easy it is to learn things nowadays.

It’s clear that he either doesn’t value her time and the effort that she puts into their relationship, or he simply cannot be bothered to learn how to do the things that she regularly does for them.

Neither is a good look.

It’s important that he learns to cook too – even if it’s just something basic – to support his fiancée, especially at a point where she is the sole breadwinner in their relationship.

His refusal to learn really looks like him taking her for granted.

He needs to do better.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.