We started living together about a year ago, and the first place we lived was a mess. I’m a fairly messy person being honest, and I do leave food trash or dirty clothes out in the bedroom or living room sometimes, but I usually clean everything up by the end of the week. My girlfriend does not. She often forgets to clean up food waste, and always has piles of clothes lying around in the bedroom and especially the bathroom.
To be fair, she has several medical conditions that make cleaning harder for her, and I totally understand that cleaning immediately after I complain about a mess is unrealistic. However, these conditions flare up, and are not a constant occurrence effect on her, so there are plenty of times that she IS able to clean, and chooses not too.
Due to this, I end up doing small to medium favors for her everyday, like grabbing her things from another room, or driving to grab food for the both of us, plus massages for muscle soreness/pain
After we moved to our 2nd place, I asked her if we could make an effort to be more clean, and she said yes. We loosely broke up chores, and before we finished moving all of our belongings, everything was more or less tidy.
It’s been 3 months since we “finished” moving, and I don’t even have enough space to set up my computer, let alone own a desk. There is a very large tower of solely her belongings in the living room/dining room, and we cannot use our dining table because of it. I can’t use the kitchen because there’s too many dirty dishes, and so we end up eating out a lot, which just causes more trash to build up.
One issue in particular has been dishes. One of her chores is running the dishwasher and cleaning pots/pans. She has left a mess in the sink for over 2 months, and has not “found time” to clean it. There is mold, flies, and a horrible smell from the dishes there, and I refuse to clean it since I already take over her other chores often.
Our apartment complex sent out a note saying they would come by soon to replace the fire alarms, and she’s suddenly become very concerned with cleanliness.
I told her that I would help clean up the house and do the physical labor of cleaning, but I will not clean the sink or do any non-emergency favors for her that I don’t want to do until the sink is clean.
She tried to clean it, and complained that the dishes are too gross and she needs my help, and I refused to help. She’s currently upset with me for not helping around the house.
Is there another way I could have gone about this?
TLDR: I have a girlfriend who has trouble cleaning due to medical reasons, I gave her one job she put off, and told her I won’t do her favors until it’s done. She gave up and asked me to do it, and I refused, and now she is mad at me.
3 comments
Tell her to grow up. You are not dating an incompetent child. Tell her that if you can’t even put effort into doing this small thing for you than what’s the point of the relationship. Be frank with her. If she still doesn’t do it maybe stop doing the chores that affect her. See how she likes it!
Don’t cook if you’re too lazy to do the dishes
i never had a partner but if its my sister that has her stuff running around the house I’d put them all on her bed however in this situation i think it’s your bed too
From what I’ve understood she has problems starting to do the chores rather than actually doing the chores so maybe helping her finding the time would help. You mentioned you also have some days you don’t want to clean. Maybe you can tell her once in every two or three day let’s put on some music and clean together. Maybe have a couple dance breaks, just to make the chores something else than a hussle because I think this is what she thinks of chores.