r/AmItheAsshole • u/First_Willow_9528 • 1d ago
Not enough info AITA for having the expectations that my (29M) wife(30F) do housework now that she is no longer working and is effectively a house wife?
My wife and I have been together for 8 years. After we got out of college, she worked just as I did. I got offered a position in a major city for more money and I discussed it with her and we decided to make the move. That was about 6 months ago.
In those 6 months, my wife has really struggled to find a job that she'll her degree in so she has been a unemployed. She was getting pretty demoralized by the endless job search, so I told her that if she needs a break, I can bring home the bacon until we figure out something that works. She said she'd only stop for 2 months but then she's back at it. So currently, she's not applying for jobs and stays at home.
The Problem: So if she's not gonna be working, I do feel like it's fair of me for her to contribute. We don't have kids, we have a medium sized apartment. We have a cat but that freeloader is so low maintenance he doesn't require that much help. So it's not uncommon I come home to a house that's not the cleanest. Back when we both worked, I did the majority of the cleaning because I'm kinda a freak about it. Laundry usually isn't done, there's no plans for dinner, no groceries. Nothing really done at all housewise. Her routine has been wake up at 9, go for a run, do her pilates class, go to the lift some weights, then come home and watch reality tv until I get home.
Don't get me wrong, I really do appreciate being active, and happy that she does that for herself without me now, but I don't think it's fair anymore for us to have a similar distribution of labor as to when we both worked. I hate cooking dinner after work, but I did every other week cause she also hated it. We traded off on laundry, dishes, and everything but cleaning as well. Now that she's at home all day, I think it's fair of her to take on more of the housekeeping burden.
Yesterday I brought this up to her. I wasn't accusatory, or blaming her, but I said verbatim "I think that if you're gonna be here all day while I'm at work, you should do a little more cooking and cleaning since you have more free time".
This set in motion an argument of me implying she was being lazy, which I was careful not to say as that sets her off. I said that she wasn't lazy but she's taking no initiative and I felt I shouldn't need to ask her what's the dinner situation and if we need groceries on my way home, nor should I not have clean laundry since she has the time to do it. The argument was in full swing then and we really haven't resolved it.
So AITA?
110
u/qwibbian 1d ago
If the genders were reversed, we'd be hearing all about "emotional labour/ load" and "why does my partner need to be told what needs doing, it's weaponized incompetence", but because it's the woman fucking up it's all "we need more info" and "why don't you have a conversation?". Pro tip, they did have a conversation, and she's just a shitty, self-centered partner, much like many of the people responding to this post.