Am I expecting too much from my partner? I asked him to get a part time job and he slept on the couch.

This is a supplement to something I posted in AmItheAsshole.

I (32NB they/them) have been with my partner Caleb (39M) for 13 years. We’re not married but share finances and co-own a mortgage. For most of our relationship, Caleb has carried the brunt of the financial burden. He had a high-paying job; I worked a combination of retail and customer service. I made the decision to go back to school and get my bachelor’s, and Caleb supported me financially. I did the budgeting, cooking, grocery shopping, drove him to and from work because we shared a car. So though he paid most of the bills, I did most of the mental labor and other day-to-day tasks. I eventually got my bachelor’s, got a job at a start-up (about a third of what he was making), and because my boss was a realtor we bought our house in December 2019. Caleb contributed most of the financial upfront costs, while I did all the paperwork, did the back-and-forth with insurance, payments, and packing/moving.

2020 began and my job ran out of funding, so I became unemployed just as quarantine was beginning. Caleb was an essential worker and worked 10 hour days 5-6 days a week, so I did what I could to support him (drove him to work, bought him breakfast, made him lunch and dinner, etc). He was always burnt out and talked about how much he hated his job. I talked to my therapist about what to do and she told me to listen compassionately, but at some point people just want to vent so all you can do is let them vent. I suggested quitting/finding a new job/going to therapy, but every time I was either shut down or brushed off. So I just let him vent.

December 2020 I got an amazing job. I don’t make as much as Caleb made, but enough (or so I thought) to get by. It took months for him to come to a decision, but he left his place of work about a year ago, with the intent of cleaning up the house and starting a 3D printing service. Additionally, around the same time a former coworker of Caleb’s/semi mutual friend (30ish F, Jessica) broke up with her boyfriend and moved in with us to help with cleaning the house and saving so she could get her own place.

When Jessica moved in it was great at first – I had someone else to socialize with, someone to help with dishes and other chores etc, and we got along better than I had hoped.

At first.

Jessica started venting to me, as well. It was fine when it was about work but when she vented about Caleb’s lack of effort around the house I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I couldn’t confront him without him getting upset, so I tried doing more around the house – doing more dishes, more cleaning, more laundry, but it was never enough. Jessica would come home from work and see the sink full of dishes. The board under our sink rotted out because it was leaking and we didn’t notice for months. I asked Caleb for months to just cut a piece of plywood and put it under the cabinet so we didn’t have cleaning supplies just sitting on the floor. I asked Caleb for almost 6 months to clean the garage so I could park my car in it again because it was filled with wood and tools and boxes and his half-assembled workbench. I can park my car in the garage, but that’s about it.

Caleb will sleep in till 11, take showers upwards of 45m to an hour, spend most of the day on his computer playing games or on FB, and do one or two chores “as it occurs to him”. But they NEVER occur to him? I can count on one hand the times he’s scrubbed the toilet. Dishes that would take me 20 min to do take him an hour. I own pets that he admittedly has never wanted because of the maintenance involved, so I do all their feeding and cleaning, but he’s never happy with their messes.

Another point of contention is my friend and roommate (28NB they/them) Iris. Caleb does not like Iris and did not want them to move in. I tried many times to productively communicate, to explain to him why I wanted Iris to move in: for my mental health & to help with the bills/around the house, as well as that Iris was about to be homeless and I care for them deeply. My bills skyrocketed. Jessica offered Caleb a job where she worked, 9-5 Monday through Friday. Caleb laughed when I brought the subject up. Jessica wanted Iris to move in, and even pleaded the case for them. We were in the process of coming to an agreement about Iris moving in when the electric bill shot up to $500+, so I made a decision to move Iris in because I needed help with the bills and he didn’t want to get another job.

I assumed (I hoped) that Caleb would act like an adult and help me make it work, but now my house is a warzone. Caleb and Iris won’t speak to each other, and Caleb just keeps buying things for the garage. If I ask him to clean something, he’ll walk around and be like “why didn’t you pick up your flip flops from 3 days ago?” It’s never enough for me to just ask. If I ask, it doesn’t get done, so I’ve stopped asking. I found the outdoor garbage can swarming with flies and maggots this week and bleached and washed it out and asked Caleb to bleach it again to make sure they were all dead. He said okay, went upstairs, and hours later just rinsed the can out. When I asked him to bleach it, he sighed and just walked away.

Iris and I do all the chores. Iris pays rent and helps me with bills, Iris does the dishes, helps me cook dinner. Iris is more of a partner to me than Caleb is at this point, and I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don’t want to throw away the last 13 years of my life, but what else am I supposed to do?

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TL;DR! Am I expecting too much from my partner? He doesn’t want to get a job, help me clean, or go to therapy. I asked him to get a part time job and he slept on the couch.