Life as a single parent is tough. If you’ve experienced a relationship breakdown as a young parent, it can be easy to believe that everything is on you now – particularly if you have full custody of your kids. Many single parents can desperately want a new relationship, a new teammate in life, whilst simultaneously feeling like it will be a real struggle to find someone who accepts them and their kids – and who they feel is right for their family, too.

But there are many good people out there, who are more than willing to take on the responsibility for a family that isn’t their own, if that means finding the life partner who is right for them too. Sure it won’t always be a smooth journey, but becoming a step-parent can be a really rewarding experience where you become a key part of a ready-made family. But it is not without sacrifice, and is not for the faint-hearted.

So when the guy in this story met a woman he loved, he was undeterred by the fact that she had children. Because no good guy would be put off by the kids, if the woman is the right one for them. He took on family responsibilities, taking care of the family as if they were his own. Now, living in the same home as his girlfriend and her kids after a year together, he is part of the family – but unfortunately, this means that he has been steadily taken more and more for granted. And now he’s realised this, things have become much worse.

Read on to find out what happened here.

AITA for not wanting to work on my day off?

I have been with my girlfriend for a little over a year.

Recently, myself, my girlfriend, and her two kids have all been very sick with various seasonal bugs (sinus infection, covid, flu, etc.) for what feels like a month. Everyone’s been tired and run down.

While getting sick with the flu myself, her daughter got sent home from school with a fever and stomach pains. And when I say sick with the flu, I mean body aches, intense headache, need to be in bed flu.

My girlfriend called me to pick daughter up, so I did. I was upset that I had to drive her to the hospital when they were just going to tell us what we already know, but whatever.

But the tension was only just beginning in this household.

Then my girlfriend got a day off because of the weather, so she spent the whole day cleaning. After that, she said that she was upset because she feels as though she doesn’t have any help around the house, that she does literally everything.

She works less than thirty hours a week, and hasn’t made dinner for the past month, realistically. Meanwhile, I work forty plus hours a week, take care of most of the bills, and I’m the only one in the house who will touch a sponge. I do a lot for her and her children, and I don’t feel like it’s fair to expect me to do as much, if not more than her, while I work more.

My girlfriend then got the flu. I still didn’t feel well, but better than her. I was still making dinner every night. Cleaning up dinner every night.

I had a very long day last Thursday, I was exhausted from work and came home and sat down for a little while. My girlfriend and the kids had the whole day off. The house was destroyed: there were yogurt wrappers all over the house, tissues everywhere, mac and cheese left in bowls, dirty dishes on the stove, etc. I was too tired to deal with it.

Soon after though, reality struck.

7pm rolled around and we both realised that the kids had to be in bed in an hour. I jumped up to start making food, and thought my girlfriend was going to as well – but instead, she ran downstairs and started doing laundry for her work.

She brought it upstairs and started folding the laundry while watching TV – even though she had all day to do it, and when we needed to get the kids fed, THAT was the important thing.

We have had discussions in the past where her job has felt like more of a priority than me or the kids, where she’s unwilling to sacrifice any time away from it, while at the same times she gets upset when I can’t get out of work early to take the kids to gymnastics, etc.

Now I was annoyed. We talked about it, she made some excuse as to how she was going to do dinner after she did the laundry, but it took her thirty minutes to do it. So whatever, brush it off.

But what happened next annoyed him even more.

On Saturday morning we were talking about how Sunday was supposed to be nasty weather, and she had to work. She asked me to come to work with her that day, cleaning houses. I laughed as I thought it was a joke. She wasn’t joking.

I told her, to be honest, that’s the last thing I want to do on my day off. I haven’t had a proper day off in weeks.

She got upset and said that I never want to spend any time with her and that I was just going to let her drive in the nasty weather all alone. I told her I would prefer to stay home, I haven’t had a day to just enjoy doing nothing, both kids were at their dads. To this, my girlfriend said, “you get so much alone time what are you talking about?”

I haven’t had more than two hours of time to myself in the past two months, while she’s been going to the spa, going down to Boston with her cousin, just taking a night off from taking the kids to gymnastics so she can relax. Upset, I told her that’s not true at all, I get no time to myself.

And it turned out she was quite the hypocrite.

We had planned on spending that whole day together since we didn’t get a romantic day on Valentine’s because of the kids, so a day late wouldn’t hurt. But then she changed the plans and made plan with my brother’s wife to go over their house at night.

So we had talked about how she feels like I don’t want to spend time with her, and then she makes plans on the one day we get to be alone. While we were there, she distanced herself and played games on her phone the whole time.

Somehow she guilt tripped me into going with to work with her, claiming she didn’t feel safe driving alone in the weather. She also said that she just wanted my company, that I didn’t have to do anything. And I knew that if I didn’t go with her, she would give me the silent treatment and ignore me for days and be super passive aggressive about everything if I didn’t.

The first house was fine, but at the second house she asked me for help. Whatever. If it gets me home faster I guess I’ll wash windows. We left at 9:30am and got back at 6:30pm.

Let’s see how he was feeling by the time they returned home.

We got home and I was visibly upset. She asked me what was wrong and I told her, “I really don’t think it’s fair that you guilt tripped me into doing something after I told you I didn’t want to. I was really looking forward to being able to just have a day where I could relax. I feel like when I bring up something that bothers me, you don’t actually care, and that sucks.”

She got up and said “I’m sorry I ruined your day, I guess I’ll give you some space.” and went into the living room.

About two hours goes by, and I was getting ready for bed. I told her that I didn’t need space and I wished she would come to bed with me. She said that she was sad and didn’t want to.

I asked why she was sad, and she put a whole bunch of words in my mouth: “you said that I ruined your day and that spending time with me today sucked and that hurt my feelings.”

Yikes. His reaction to this was instant.

At this point, I was livid. I got loud. She twisted what I said to make me feel bad. I never said that spending time with her sucked, or that my day was ruined. I told her that cleaning houses and working for free on my first day off in months was not “spending time together”.

I brought up the fact that when we did have time together, she made plans with my brother’s wife and ignored me the whole time.

At this point, I’m assuming she got tired of being called out as she packed a bag, and in the weather she so desperately didn’t want to drive in alone, she went to her mother’s house. If I didn’t ask her where she was going she would have left without saying a word.

She came back twenty minutes later, since her mother didn’t pick up her phone. She went to bed on the couch, without saying a word.

Never Miss a Story

Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.

Is this behaviour normal? I’m starting to feel like she’s emotionally abusive or manipulative. Whenever I bring up something I’m upset about, she ends up crying and I’m the one who ends up apologising.

AITA?

Sadly, he’s got this absolutely right. The way that his girlfriend is treating him is emotionally abusive, and she is quite clearly taking advantage of him.

He seemingly does a lot of the childcare and house chores, contributes financially, and regularly runs errands for the kids – all while working a lot more hours… and for a family he’s only been a part of for a year too.

She is not respectful of his time or autonomy – if she was, she would have totally empathised with his need to have a little time to himself. Instead, she used it to guilt trip him down the line.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this post about an entitled daughter who wants the same rewards as her hardworking brother.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person agreed that she was taking advantage of his kindness.

While others thought that he needed to advocate for his own boundaries.

Meanwhile, others recommended ways to try to save the relationship – if, indeed, he wanted to.

Let’s be real, parenting is difficult. And if being a mom is hard, being a step-parent can sometimes be even harder, because you’re providing all this support and care to a child who isn’t your own. Sure, step-parents absolutely love their step-kids, and can even forge bonds with them that are identical to those of their own biological children. But let’s be real. He’s known this woman and her kids of a year. One year. One.

All the same, she’s expecting him to act toward her family like he is a full-time parent. It’s very good of him to step up, to pick the kids up from school or their extra-curriculars to allow his girlfriend a little time to himself. But when that doesn’t go both ways – when she doesn’t respect his request for a little time for himself too – that’s a serious red flag.

If things are going to work here, they need a clear agreement on who does what: for the house, for the family, and for one another. And a clear part of that agreement needs to be that emotional manipulation has no place in their relationship. Period.