When you live with your partner, if there aren’t clear expectations about who does what household chores, there can be quite a few arguments. If one person feels like they’re doing most of the work or is upset that something isn’t clean, it can be very stressful and harmful to the relationship.

Imagine being so busy with work and school that you ask your partner to take on some of your household chores for a short period of time. If they agreed, would you be upset if they didn’t do these chores as quickly as you expected, or would you let it go since they did agree to take on more work for you?

In this story, an engaged couple is arguing about this exact situation. The girlfriend agreed to take on some of her boyfriend’s household chores so he can have more time to study for an exam, but he got mad at her because she was working overtime at her job instead of doing these extra chores right away.

Did she mess up or is he overreacting? Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITA for working overtime (again)

I (30,f) have a stressful job as my department is understaffed for nearly 2 years, which leads to overtime.

Overtime fluctuates, so I sometimes work 42 hours per week, sometimes over 55. I work from home most days.

My Fiancée „Paul“ (27,m) works part time as a developer and studies in parallel. He is quite easy-going with that.

He works up to 5 hours per week and studies mostly 10 (20 in weeks when he does not work).

Here’s how they split up the housework…

As I earn a lot more we decided to split daily housework 80:20. He mainly takes over cleaning the kitchen, floors as well as cooking on weekdays. He also shops for minor groceries.

I will take over pet feeding on most days, doing grocery lists and buy food, minor cleaning tasks as well. Laundry and major cleaning tasks are done on weekend by both of us together.

I will in return pay for nearly all of the rent, vacations, most groceries, pet stuff as well as high priced goods we both use.

He pays for a small part of the rent, the car, gas as well as the few groceries he bring with him.

Now we get to the problem.

So here is where I might be a jerk.

Paul has some exams this week and last week. He is very anxious about it as he does not that well due to nervousness. He asked if I could take over more tasks during his exam-time, so that he could learn more and is more relaxed (he does not work during exam time).

I replied that I will help of course and that we can cook together on weekdays and I will try to clean more.

So yesterday he had his second exam. I called him after and asked how it went and we talked if he would buy some items on his way home.

But Paul was upset when he got home.

I then said „I am looking forward to you getting home. I will work a little more“. I proceeded to work until he came home and shortly after my last call (10 minutes) joined him in the kitchen. I had done under a hour of overtime.

He first did not talk much, and after I asked , he explained that he was very disappointed with me.

I asked why, so Paul elaborated that he expected I would have cleaned the kitchen by now and began cooking. Due to his exam he had nothing to eat yet and was very hungry.

I explained, that as he was not home yet, I decided to work a little longer as I said. I also thought we cook together like agreed. There was also some pizza from lunch left so that he could eat a quick snack.

The argument continued.

He said that one hour overtime is not a „little“ and that I do not support him at all like I promised.

I disagreed & told him, that I did more minor cleaning last week, to which he disagreed. He explained that he felt not seen by me and that I always prioritise my work over him.

I don’t think that this is true, as I do not work on weekends and always make plans for us to do something together, we have dinner every day and go to the gym.

Here’s how the evening ended.

The argument escalated and in the end we screamed at each other and burst into tears.

I then proceeded to cook the meal with him and cleaned the apartment for 3 hours.

He tried to study and then took a walk.

I get that Paul is stressed about his exam and wants to study, but I think he overreacted. Maybe he was just hangry.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a teen girl who went above and beyond for a friend, only to be berated about not spending enough money on a gift.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person points out how little the boyfriend has on his plate compared to OP.

They may not be compatible.

I’m curious about this too.

This person has a lot of questions.

The boyfriend comes across as lazy. That said, I’m not sure what he’s studying or how many hours he spends in class and commuting to/from school and work. It’s possible that he is actually busy about the same number of hours as OP.

I think the boyfriend really overreacted though. I’d probably chalk it up to being hangry and stressed about the exam. He probably just took out his frustration on his girlfriend, and he shouldn’t have done that.

I don’t think she did anything wrong. She’s paying almost all the bills, so working an hour of overtime helps them both.

Her boyfriend really overreacted, and once they both calm down, they need to talk this out. It would be a bad idea to get married if they’re arguing this much about dinner not being ready.