Not allowing my girlfriend to go clubbing with her friends until she finished the dishes?
My (F25) girlfriend has stopped doing the dishes on days that are her turn over the past two weeks. When I asked her to do them and why she wasn’t doing them, she would just tell me to stop nagging her and that she’ll get to it later.
For context, we’ve lived together for five months and this has never been an issue before.
This has left me to do the dishes every damn day and it’s starting to piss me off. Tonight, there was a large stack of dishes yet my girlfriend refused to do them again.
I refused to let her use my car until she finished doing the dishes. She screamed at me for being a “controlling a-hole” and didn’t even end up going out with her friends.
Netizens’ comments
- You didn’t ‘not allow her to go clubbing” – you denied her the use of your car after you’ve been picking up her share of the chores for the last 2 weeks. NTA
- She’s not a roommate, she’s your PARTNER and relationships are supposed to be about give and take. But she’s not pulling her weight and then still wants to use your car? You didn’t stop her from going clubbing (she could have gotten a friend to pick her up (they could have left the club to pick her up) or taxied or something), you just put forward a boundary and she didn’t take it well.
- There will be moments in your life (sickness, emergencies, pregnancy, kids, etc.) when sticking to the schedule will be impossible, and this means you’ll have to work together instead of against each other. If the only problem is the dishes, try finding another compromise. Maybe she can do other chores you hate instead. Maybe you can invest in a dishwasher. If the problem is her not being responsible enough in general, that’s another story.
- It’s not unrealistic to expect your partner to follow through on agreements you’ve made regarding how you will live together. If it were a one-time situation where she just was done for the day and needed to get out and blow off some steam, fine, but this has been ongoing and it is a change in behavior from previous months when she would do the task. I know some people feel that your response was paternal, but one aspect of a partnership is mutual respect and communication which she has clearly discarded.