My boyfriend expects me to do majority of the housework even though I work double his hours. How do I resolve this without an argument?
Background: I’m 30f, he’s 38M. We’ve been together for 7 years and have lived together for 2.
Throughout the 7 years we’ve been together, I have consistently worked full time. He on the other hand is on and off with work and hasn’t lasted for longer than 4 months in a job. I would say in total, he’s worked perhaps one and a half years in our relationship.
The place we live in is his. We split the bills, but I would say in total I have contributed more financially if we are including socialising, holidays, groceries.
One thing he has always done while being unemployed is cook for us (almost daily) once a day and throw away the rubbish. He also did laundry once a week. I did dishes, bathroom and other stuff. To be fair, it’s a relatively small home and just the two of us so there’s not a massive amount to do.
I was really happy with this arrangement because having healthy food cooked every day took a massive mental load from my mind. I had no complaints.
The issue is 6 weeks ago, he got a part time job (20 hours a week) and now I do the cooking 5/7 days a week, plus all of the rest of the housework. The only thing he does is take throw rubbish and do laundry once a week.
I feel like on top of working full time, it is a lot for me to do alone. The worst part is, he will always pick at small, minor things I’ve forgotten to do or haven’t done to his liking. As an example, I cleaned the whole bathroom until it was sparkling and the only thing he said after he saw it was “you left the soap dish on the wrong side of the bath”.
This really hurts my feelings as I feel like I’m doing a lot, for nothing. No praise, no recognition that I do all of this on top of working double his hours.
Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable confronting him because part of me feels ashamed about complaining about housework as a woman. Almost as if it makes me less of a woman to not be ok with this
I really feel like I’m going crazy because he doesn’t even acknowledge the big difference in what we do. What’s scary is we actually have the same dynamic as my parents. My mum did ALL of the housework and paid ALL of the bills while my dad was in and out of work his whole life. I don’t want that life.
Can someone advise on how I can navigate this without starting an argument? It always becomes an argument.