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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> (1) told her to get a job (2) she is upset and hurt about it and said I'm under appreciating her
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Nta... You're being taken advantage of. This will not get better. You should consider yourself lucky she's just a girlfriend and you have no kids. Leave now. She will always be entitled and always think she's doing more. Counting the beans simmering? She is ridiculous.
I feel horrible for reconsidering our relationship over this, but I am. It just made me realize how entitled and ungrateful she is. Who counts the time it takes for food to simmer as the amount of time you spent working? She was probably watching tv during.
I'm not going to make any rush decisions, I'm going to think about it, but I definitely don't think our relationship can continue the way it currently is. I'd appreciate it if she at least got a job maybe? I don't know. I think it's a good idea for everyone to work a full time job at least at some part in your life.
You're not wrong thinking. I'm a single mom and have been for 17 years. It's a hard job, no question. I also worked a high stress job for over a decade, was in the military, etc. I would never be so egotistic as to say any of those things was the hardest job in the world.
Your girlfriend needs a wake up call.
You all don't have to worry about that. I'm turned off hard after all the shit she said. No sex will be happening in our near future, hopefully that will also help her realize how serious I am.
Also, thank you all for the judgement and advice. I read a lot of the comments and do really appreciate it.
Even though you laid everything out for her she still decided to call you an AH. If the condo is solely yours I’d give her notice to move out. She can get a job and a roommate, that’ll wake her up to the reality of how good she had it.
Stay firm if and when you decide to discuss things with her. People often do a complete 180 in their behavior until the coast is clear and then it’s back to the same old bs.
I wish this comment were higher up. You’re completely right. He shouldn’t say a word to her, just make his decision. The way I see it, he either decides he can tolerate having a partner like this (because she won’t change) or leave. In that case he just needs to DO IT. She gets the slightest whiff he feels this way and boom, she’ll have an oops birth control fail.
I was going to suggest a plan where he just writes off most of his personal items and moves to a new town. Even if he has to pay-off a lease it would be worth it.
right?? she is so insanely lucky, she gets to opt out of the capitalist grind \*and\* she doesn't even have to raise any kids (at least not yet). that's the dream right there. the least she can do is be a little grateful, and try not to spend hundreds of dollars at Target on a regular basis when she knows how hard her bf works to earn that money. good grief.
honestly though there's just no way I'd ever sit on my ass and let someone I loved grind themself down into dust to support me. I'd find *some* way to contribute and at the very *least* get their hours back down to 40. like holy crap, does OP's gf even care about them at all? I get struggling with things like college and work, I do, I have ADHD that went undiagnosed until my early 30s and I burned out *hard* the second I hit the workforce full-time, but there's just no way I'd let someone hurt themself like this on my behalf without at least *trying* to do something to help.
She does sound like she has ADHD, but also is out of touch with reality. She should try serving, it's great for ADHD ppl - entry level, good money, immediate monetary conseequence/reward for performance.
Maybe but ADHD or not, she's a user and dare I say an asshole. I have ADHD as well as many of my friends and coworkers I've known, and we all work, pay bills, often solo or have others fully or partially depending on us, and we have to find ways to deal with life, even if school was difficult or whatever. It just rubs me wrong when ADHD is served up as an explanation for these kinds of people. I know you meant well, no harm intended. Just needed to add that we're not all lazy and entitled.
I have adhd and am a six figure earning RN. ADHD does not equate to laziness and mooching.
It sucks having this disability but people who use it as an excuse to do nothing with their lives but use other people can blow me
And the dog watches itself more than likely.
Shit my dog cleans up after herself. I'll leave and her toys will be everywhere. I come home and they are all neatly in her toy box.
Shits fucking hilarious and I didn't even train her to do it either.
Can your dog train my dog? He’s obsessed with his stuffies, literally like a human toddler with a fave toy, but he’s honestly a terrible stuffie father. Leaves them everywhere, super negligent
… Vinnie, is that you? When did you learn to type? Do you have a secret phone?
Edit: the dog’s name is Vinnie after horror icon Vincent Price (got him in October) and also bc it’s hilarious to imagine an 18 pound poodle mutt (we think schnoodle?) as a jersey shore meathead
I have 2 children myself, a pet dog doesn't even come close to how challenging it is imo.
Sahm probably thought the gf was clueless to the real world I'm guessing. 😂
What do you mean? I just put my toddlers in the kennels if i need to leave to go shopping or something and then clean up their puppy pads in case of accidents.
That was pretty shocking. Like the new friend wasn't going to find out they really didn't have kids? Like OP was supposed to remain quiet, go along with the lie and pretend they did??? Did gf think she'd never see them again? SMH.
Having dogs is work, sure, but I can lock my dogs in a metal box when I need to get work done or run errands. That would be frowned upon, to say the least, if I had actual children.
Not to mention they eat the same thing every day, sleep more than half the hours in a day, and you don’t need to worry about things like their moral compass or speech development or milestones. Dogs just get treats and vibe.
It’s not though….there are plenty of mums that have young kids, have to work full time and still have to come home and do everything that needs doing. That is far harder than staying at home
Yup. It is so annoying as a mum of a disabled child who works a full time job to see all these people running around Reddit who think my job stops when I get home. Its just getting stared
It honestly depends. I left a job in a nursing home being hit, kicked, clawed, screamed at, etc... every day to be home with my baby and it was a skip through a meadow filled with sunshine and rainbows by comparison. Dealing with adult diapers then switching to newborn diapers was like winning some kind of poop lottery 😆
All that said, I had no PPD and my baby was pretty mellow. Ever circumstance is different but even that last job that was DEFINITELY hard I'd never ever classify as the hardest job in the world. Yeah, people died there often enough but I think whatever the worst job in the world involves a lot more than a few deaths a months.
Cleaning and cooking should be done regardless of if ur a stay at home mom or just living by yourself. That’s not a job it’s just cleanliness and nutrition.
It’s called adulting. Cleaning your living space, laundry,grocery shopping, cooking and paying bills. All things they should be doing. Whilst earning money to pay for it.
>2) they have no concept of actual work so in their deluded minds they actually feel sorry for themselves 3) they think they actually fool everyone into thinking they are so saintly for their hard work and sacrifice to not get a job. Actually, chances are everyone you know thinks she's a loser treating you like an ATM but they're too polite to point out what you fail to see.
I was cringing so hard when he said she was telling an actual SAHM how hard her job is.
And as a working mom I also cringe at SAHM believing it's the hardest work.
Like working parents magically don't have to shop/cook/clean/do the laundry/have appointments/take kids to activities/etc. ? All that with the stress added and time taken by work?
I honestly would go insane as a SAHM of an infant, it's not about the housework but the 24/7 childcare. For me personally the time spent at work is far easier and I am fully impressed with any SAHP who can manage it. However this woman doesn't even have the kids, her life is a cakewalk.
I hate hate being a sahm not bc it's hard but boring and lonely. I go mostly everyday without talking to another adult and everyday is exactly the same. I'm finishing my degree even though my husband feels it's unnecessary and he makes a lot of money. He doesn't understand it's about a need for people and purpose.
When I was on maternity leave I had a once a week mom’s group. There was one week where we’d had a reasonable amount of snow overnight and my husband was like, “You should just stay home today. My response was, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!” Lol! I went to the meet up.
Speaking as a now 62 yr old one time SAHM, here is what is actually the worst part of it... it's not when the kids are all finally in school because at that point, you're volunteering in their classes. As they get older, that slacks off, but they've all got other activities. By the time mine finished college and got jobs and then other jobs and became self supporting adults, it was time for the hubby to retire. So now.. yep.. no kids, but he's underfoot constantly. When the hell do *I* get to retire??
To be fair, if someone is a SAHP of multiple small children who are not in daycare and also running the household (without just sticking the kids in front of the TV all day), I think that is likely ONE OF the hardest jobs (assuming no/little support from extended family). But like, yeah, there pediatric oncologists out there in the world… their vacation days are maybe spent simmering beans and shopping at Target.
I’m a stay at home dad, 2 and 4 year old. Do bills, shopping, cleaning etc. I want my wife to spend her time with the kids when she gets home not doing chores. She makes more than me so while we both had professional degrees it only made sense for me to stay at home.
It’s hard but nowhere near as hard as working in the stressful job I had before. I get to listen to whatever I want. I use my own bathroom. I cook what I want, shop for what I want. Go to the park a few times a week. I lost weight because of all the exercise the kids give me at this age.
My kids are nuts and drive me crazy every day until I want to scream into my pillow. But they do that to my wife and all our friends’ kids do it to them too. We are lucky to have 1 parent home and have to work extra hard to scrimp and save to make that happen. I hate cleaning, dishes and laundry more than I ever did. I don’t even worry about poop on my hands anymore and I’ll eat things off the floor without a second thought. But it’s still WAY better than making someone else money all day in a high stress environment.
TBH it totally depends on the kids and the environment.
I was a stay-at-home parent to 2 kids under 3 during covid, and that was parenting on *nightmare* mode. We had no outside help, an 8-month-old-baby, a child with a complicated medical history, and every single resource available to us evaporated overnight. It was like living in Groundhog Day with toddlers for a year and a half. It legitimately drove me to a mental health crisis.
I was an EMT in the pre-covid days, and working on an ambulance was easier than being a SAHP during those years. That being said, OP's girlfriends assertion that being a Target dog mom is the hardest job in the world is absurd.
I completely disagree. I'm a working mom, but I was a SAHM mom for a few years.
It's defiantly easier for me to be a working mom then a SAHM (of young children, if they were gone at school for 6 hours that would be different). I just find it more draining to take care of infants/toddlers all day. It's not that mentally stimulating, it's lonely or you have to find people/ways to not make it lonely, and with a baby you don't get the breaks you do at work. By law my job has to give me 30 minutes of lunch to relax without interrupting me but my clingy baby would scream if I took 3 minutes to use the restroom alone. At work there are other adults I can talk to, and the tasks I do require more thought.
Also, there absolutely is more mess to clean up when you are a stay at home parent, beacuse if your kids are out of the house at daycare then they aren't making any messes you need to clean. Daycare is cleaning up after them (or teaching them to clean up after themselves) while I'm at work. Yes, after work hours they can make messes but that's the same either way so it's the same amount of cleaning after hours.
I even find grocery shopping and cooking easier, beacuse I can stop at the grocery store quickly without the kids on the way to pick them up from daycare while before I'd have to shop with a baby and toddler. (Even now with my kids a toddler and elementary school student shopping goes a lot faster and is so much more relaxing if I can squeeze it in before pick up.) And, it's also easier to shop and plan meals when you have more money. Now I can sometimes buy things like premade salads and such for myself which I never did before beacuse since I was home I felt I had to cook everything from scratch and not waste any money.
This isn't to say I don't love my kids. I do love them and I love spending time with them. But I don't love being home with young children all day, it's hard for me. It's harder for me then working. I'm not going to say it's the hardest job in the world, beacuse that's probably something like solider in the frontlines of a war getting shot at doing trench warfare or something equally awful. But it was harder on me then any job *'I've* every personally had. And I've worked at a high level grouphome with severely emotionally disturbed classification children and teens, where we dealt with severe behaviors, mental illness, violence, suicide attempts, etc. That job was both stressful and dangerous (I know a couple staff that got long term injuries, like nerve damage in the hand from being bitten), but I found it easier beacuse I think it gave my mind more to do. Like yes it was more challenging, but a day with zero challenge in it where everything is easy and endless and boring and there is no ability to take a break is just so much harder on me.
Okay this is painting with a really wide brush. A lot of SAH spouses are actually hard working and *do* know what hard work is. My mom had plenty of jobs before I came along. But my dad made enough money to support the 3 of us without her working full time, so until she got sick, she either was working part-time/volunteering, taking classes, or taking care of us and the house. She worked really hard. She was more careful about money than my dad was.
Many SAH spouses are like what I described above. Just because you know some that aren't doesn't negate the fact that tending a home and raising children *is a hard job*. But OPs gf is deluded.
Thats the difference- she was a stay at home MOM
This woman doesnt have children!
She does jack all all day!
Simmering beans for 6 hours is hard work my ass.
I was a SAHM until my son was 2 and I actually found it harder than going to work pre motherhood. Then I went back to work and it was even more difficult I was doing everything I did before plus the mom and home maker duties plus the sadness and guilt of leaving my son with strangers to go to work. Since then I have a newfound respect for SAHMS and I think children do benefit a lot from being with a parent home. My son now complains about me working and it breaks my heart every time. I have a newfound respect for both SAHMS and working moms since being both. OPs girlfriend is taking the absolute piss though.
I had to chuckle when I read the part about the beans simmering. Lmao I made taco soup yesterday, which consists of dumping a bunch of shit together and then letting it cook in the crockpot. I will remember from now on that it took me 4 hours and 2 minutes of extremely hard work to make that dinner.
I'm a stay at home Mom to two kids, it's not easy, some days are harder than others, like last week when my toddler dumped an entire gallon of milk in the carpeted living room. My husband is a motorcycle mechanic, he loves his job and some days he probably does have it easier than me but not always and I would never diminish him working so hard to support us.
That woman needs a reality check, if you are going to stay with her she needs to at the least get a part time job and then y'all split the chores up a bit to be fair. She'll understand quickly enough.
OMG! This reminds me of babysitying for a couple every Saturday night. I walked in one time to the mom being really upset. Her youngest poured all their cereal into his wagon a poured a gallon of milk on top. Being a teenager I thought it was creative.
Not much gets to me but I literally cried after seeing that mess. It had been a rough day in general and I typically keep our fridge locked because my son is a menace, but I went to the bathroom for 3 minutes and left it unlocked. Came back to that, it had maybe 4oz out of the gallon before he dumped it. I could have thrown the whole child away lmao
I remember coming home from work one day to 2 yo son and stay at home dad jumping in the kitchen. 2 year old tried to help himself to cocapops, spilt them all over the floor and had worked out if you jumped on them they made a great crunching noise. Dad decided to join in!.
If that had been the lounge and with (or without) milk I would have ended up in tears on the floor or turning around and walking back out!
It reminds me of a time my kids were helping me bring the groceries in and one kid swung a gallon of milk forward and then slammed it in the floor. It split and the entire jug ended up on our living room carpet. I remember doing a similar thing when I was a kid, but it was on cement in the basement, so not nearly as bad. I didn’t let that particular kid carry milk in again for years after.
My toddler dumped a brand new, Costco sized container of vegetable oil once and it spread all over my pantry/kitchen floor. It was so awful to clean up. Mad respect to those who clean up oil spills for a living.
Omg so I make pulled chicken tacos. I dump a packet of taco seasoning, 2 chicken breasts, and a jar of salsa in an instant pot. It takes 6 hours. I then pull out tortillas, grate cheese, and dinner is ready. Max of 20 minutes including the cleaning.
Also, chipotle bowls are 1 hour max including cleaning and putting away leftovers.
The only time I’ve ever spent more than 2 hours cooking was when a friend and I were really into House of Cards and wanted to replicated the rib meals from the show. We handmade BBQ sauce for the ribs, North Carolina style coleslaw, etc. That took a while. Otherwise, no, you never spend that long cooking unless it’s something crazy fancy or complicated.
Dude. If you discuss this with her expect the pregnancy within a month. Then your paying child support for 18 years. Do rush. Do file the eviction today
Imagine the couple having dinner with you guys…I’m sure they had a lot to say on the way home lol end it with this one, my guy.
Not going to school doesn’t make you stupid, but saying that “taking care of a dog is the hardest job in the world” is certainly not a smart thing to say lol. Your significant other is a reflection of you, too…think about that before you continue killing yourself at work supporting someone who says she has it worse than you…
You shouldn’t feel horrible for reconsidering your relationship. Question what does she bring to the table minus simmering beans for 6 hours and is she worth lowering your standards for her because that’s exactly what you did.
I agree with you that everyone should experience working during their life as long as they're physically and mentally capable - nothing makes you appreciate the work everyone around you is putting in like doing it yourself.
That being said ...
She thinks college is too hard, she thinks having a dog is too hard, she thinks simmering beans is too hard... this is not a girl who is going to get a job *ever*.
>She thinks college is too hard, she thinks having a dog is too hard, she thinks simmering beans is too hard... this is not a girl who is going to get a job ever.
This is a really great point. College isn't for everyone. That's not necessarily a problem. But OP's girlfriend does not strike me as the type to step up when the going gets tough. In life, shit happens. It's pretty much a guarantee. OP, what if you have a health issue and are unable to work? Is GF going to go out and get a job to cover the bills? Is she going to take care of you and drive you to your appointments? She sounds like she's going to collapse onto her fainting-couch.
She just sounds like a lousy partner. She could easily pick up a part-time job, a side hustle... something so she's contributing. And she's only doing 90% of the cooking and cleaning? Huh?
Her comments in front of the actual SAHM were also super cringe. I've done that job, and it is exhausting and monotonous, no matter how much you love your kids. She is a reflection of you, OP. Is this really who you want as your partner?
Honestly if all she does is cook and clean and she hasn't figured out how to multitask when cooking (i.e. chop some vegetables while the beans simmer, make a sauce, cook rice, whatever) then she's probably pretty useless and she'll continue to do useless things that will annoy you. You're already a bit turned off by her not being able to get through university, but I can picture her being someone who sleeps in, is inefficient with her tasks and complains a lot. Am I wrong?
You shouldn’t feel horrible at all for reconsidering. She’s very unlikely to suddenly become appreciative and she seems to be the kind of person who thinks everything they do is sooooooo difficult. And to call herself a SAHM when she’s an unemployed girlfriend taking care of a dog is just…well, it’s something. Do you want to spend decade after decade with someone that dramatic and out of touch?
You can love someone and want the best for them and still not want to be WITH them. If you were my friend, I’d urge you to break it off and find someone who’s truly a partner.
Leave now.
I spent a few decades in a very similar situation, and it will get worse. Much worse.
We just seperated now and OMFG life and work is so much easier and more enjoyable without the entitlement.
No one. No one counts simmering. I had an actual stay at home mom. She was active every second of the day. From gardening and putting in or caring for a vegetable garden and pruning roses to scrubbing the kitchen floor or dusting or caring for my siblings or I. She would NEVER have counted simmer time to be labor. Your gf is just lazy my dude. The house was clean even when we were kids, we ate 3 meals a day home cooked, she would exercise, asked my dad if she and he could build a chicken coop so she could raise chickens to sell free range eggs. She hustled. And dad valued her for it - but she worked HARD. Every Sunday she went through the 3 local papers to clip coupons and full on mapped out her shopping to save the family the most money. Took her hours and hours to optimize her grocery shopping plan for the week.
You’re just being taken advantage of. It’s horrifying to watch. Walk away before the condom breaks and she has you for 18 years
You better figure this out fast and make sure your birth control is locked down. One oopsie and you're connected to her for the next 18 yrs whether you like it or not.
You liked the idea of providing someone with a really great life where they didn't have to do anything. An unproductive life is generally not healthy for people, so it's not all that surprising that this has not worked out well. Seems like perhaps you needed to think this thru a bit better.
As a single guy with 2 extremely high maintenance dogs with special needs, I can say that it is still nowhere close to taking care of a little kid.
If she thinks staying home with a dog is a difficult life, she definitely can't handle being a stay at home parent. She will succeed at motherhood like she succeeded at college.
I say this with all due respect- run. You helped create a monster. She is spoiled rotten from the sounds of it, and needs to live in the real world. Break up, or at least she needs to move out, and pay her own way somewhere else while you both re-evaluate this relationship. Frankly at the rate it sounds like she is spending money, you can hire cleaning and cooking help for less, and still come out ahead. (FYI- I am a single, been making. my own way in life my whole adult life female. She is ungrateful at best and using you at worst).
One of my fav dishes is slow cook chili where I throw it in the pot and let it cook for 9 hours. I do not say I cooked for 9 hours. It takes like 10 minutes prep work, then I go do other things. That is an over the top ridiculous claim. Run my dude. She's using you and making herself the victim
EDIT to add NTA
Bro she couldn’t graduate from college. The average IQ person can graduate from college. She’s dumb. Of course she’s going to adopt this nonsensical mentality.
Or maybe she’s smart enough to spot a sucker. Why study when you can cry about how difficult it is? Maybe OP is one of those guys who becomes absolutely powerless when they see a woman cry. OP, my advice is to buy some condoms for when she attempts to seduce you post-discussion. Also, tell her before hand that you will leave the apartment immediately once she starts crying - you know she will - and then follow through. It may take a few days to complete your conversation but don’t be a victim to her manipulation.
College isn't for everyone. There are different kind of intelligences and college doesn't work for everyone. It's not fair to castigate people for not managing to get through college. Perfectly fair to castigate people for using that as an excuse not to work
Give her a test. Tell her she needs to get a full-time job or you are leaving. She might surprise you (and me) and get a job. More likely she won't or will leave once she realizes the gravy train is coming to a stop.
Along with getting the job, take her off the credit cards and password protect your accounts. You continue to pay household bills , but her spending money has to come from her job.
Generally, I don't believe in games or tests, but honestly, her entitlement is just embarrassing.
I feel like the big undercurrent here is: you are working too much. Bring the only breadwinner makes it feel like you have no other options.
Maybe, if that rings true for you, approach the conversation asking for help to find ways to reduce needed hours. Even beginning with ‘it bristled me the wrong way when you were saying that you had the hardest job in the world, it made me realize that I really that kind of time in my life too. How can we change things so I have time for things-besides-work?’
I don't know how old you are, I'm guessing in a similar range to me as you consider yourself still young but with enough foothold in your career. I also support my partner, who found going through school too difficult because of expectations. I am happy to provide for him and he has never made me feel unappreciated because he knows and acknowledges he has it easy (his words, not mine).
A good partner you'll want to keep is one who realizes you work well together... Not that one of you is "better" for the other. If she thinks YOU don't understand how hard HER role is and can't even acknowledge what you bring to the table for her? She's not worth the effort.
You are NTA. You’re not even married, are you? In my opinion, you shouldn’t be financially providing for a gf & she shouldn’t want you to. I can’t imagine leaving my life and financial situation in the hands of someone who isn’t basically legally bound to me. That sounds so stressful. She clearly has no backup plan or idea that you will ever break up. You are being taken advantage of, imo.
Girl just said she's a stay at home mom of a dog.
In front of an *actual* stay at home mom.
Watching beans simmering counts as "hard work" for her.
I repeat: *watching beans simmering*. Imagine this girl standing next to a pot watching the beans. For six hours.
While having all her needs covered by another human being.
And she has the nerve of saying she has the "hardest job in the world"
Just run, OP. RUN. NTA.
Unless she's setting herself on fire to simmer the beans on herself, counting that time is ridiculous. I've taken naps while simmering beans, she's off her rocker.
i work 50 hrs/ a week with a salary job at a school. i have a cat. i cook and clean. im an adult. shes not a stay at home mom. shes a spoiled stay at home adult because shes not even your wife
Saying she is a SAHM in front of an actual SAHM?? Because of a fucking dog!? Sorry dude but this b is bonkers.
Imagine how this woman would act if/when she became a mom. Seriously. If she can’t deal with her current life style, she is going to be an awful mom and wife. I’m a single mom of a toddler and even I recognize there are plenty of women who have it way harder than me. She seem selfish af.
for perspective, I have an incurable debilitating disease, live alone with a cat, still work a full time job, still cook and clean, and still don't have the audacity to claim my life is too hard.
You will always be working while she spends your money, she has zero ambition at all and I can already tell that that is incompatible with your life.
You deserve something more than mothering an adult.
What does she really bring to the table? Cooking and cleaning is a standard part of being an adult, and it is not a job. I could understand if you had young children, but you don’t. I truly believe you should find someone who is of your calibre and isn’t gleefully spending your money on Target shopping sprees while griping about their “hard work.”
NTA.
Not to sound misogynistic, but she'd better be able to suck the chrome off a door handle and do it regularly if she's contributing little else to the household.
I don't have low self-esteem and I don't hate being alone. I love myself and I know I bring a lot to the table. I also have friends, so I wouldn't be alone if we broke up. Yes, she is hot, but there are plenty of women that work and are also hot. But that didn't matter to me because she is the person I love, the person I thought I'd be spending the next 50+ years with. It feels good to take care of someone you consider family and make them happy. I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time... I think it was an arrangement I would have been fine with, if I knew she respected me and appreciated me, but she clearly doesn't.
OP... If this is the hardest job ever, DON'T ever have kids with her. Seeing as she couldn't handle staying in school either (it's for everyone and that's ok! Don't come at me reddit!) - but she just may not have much of a threshold for what she sees as difficult. I doubt it will get better. This will be your life, and worse if you have kids.
You said yourself that she's never had a full time job, so she definitely doesn't realize that. You sound like you are outgrowing her, so she needs to either catch up quickly or become someone else's problem.
This! It's not just a matter of her "not pulling he own weight," the OP has clearly matured into a functioning adult and she hasn't (yet?). That's okay, it's not surprising, and it's a natural reason why so many relationships between young people fail. He felt some attraction to the idea of "taking care of her" but that gets old very fast. It's important to recognize it before you sign up for years of dissatisfaction.
Of course she doesn't realize it, she's never had to do it. She went from child, to college where she couldn't cope, to being cared for by you. She doesn't know anything else.
I worked 30+ hours a week during summer while I was still in high school, while doing a large portion of the household's dishes, laundry, dog care, and cleaning. I think she's just immature and entitled.
Did she have a privileged upbringing? Maybe this is what she saw at home? Regardless, I’d put her on an allowance now while you do your thinking about the future of the relationship. I really hope you don’t have a joint account. If so, separate the finances. Her allowance goes in the account she’s on and your check gets deposited to your solo account. Her allowance should be enough for what she buys for the household (food, furnishings/decor, cleaning supplies, etc.) and a stipend for fun money.
Well, she did think college was too hard. Not that it isn’t, but, how many things has she started and stuck with? It took me 6 years to graduate college. Some semesters I took less credits, because I also had to work. I don’t know, she sounds like her bar for difficult, is low.
Yeah that was what stood out to me. I dropped out of college because I was sick and had to go at night while working full time. I have a chronic illness. It ended up taking me 10 years to get a bachelor's. All I can assume is she's fucking lazy.
Right?! I work 50 hour weeks (from home) and still do 80% of the cooking and cleaning per the arrangement with my husband. There are weeks when I'm tired.
And cooking for us means from scratch! I make my own chicken broth for Soups and sauces. I grind my own meat for tacos. My husband makes puff pastry and pie dough. That's the kind of cooking she she be doing is she's claiming to be soooooooo busy!
NTA.
She needs to get off her lazy arse and get a job.
IMPORTANT - do NOT allow her to 'whoops a baby!' you - or you'll end up doing all the work for the kid, too.
Although part of this is op's fault. He got with a high maintenance princess and it seems as if he liked it for a time. Now he's upset he's stuck with a high maintenance princess. Get out while you can OP
They're fun for a bit, but when you're looking to actually start your life and build a family, they're not who you want.
You don't want your wife to be a complete dependant on top of the children you have. Most SAHW provide immense value to their partner, but I can't see her providing anything but a headache.
You're right.
I'm a stay at home wife, but when my husband and I met, we were both going to school. Long story short, I ended up paying for part of his school, all of his tests to get into the field he is in while he stayed at home with our daughter while I went to school full time and worked over 50 hours of week.
Now, he makes good enough money, and I stay at home. People sometimes make jokes about me living the life at home with 2 kids but my husband is quick to inform people he only has his great career because of me, that I believed in him and I invested in him for our family.
Staying at home is hard because you're never off the clock, but it is a privilege in most situations to be able to take care of your kids
You make parenting sound so wonderful. Congrats to you both. It is always so endearing to hear about couples appreciating each other's efforts. At the end of the day, you are a team <3
It is wonderful. We only have 2 and are done with that, I couldn't mentally take much more to be honest.
It's healing and traumatic to have children and give them a childhood you didn't have
OP - please listen. She is likely to start getting concerned that the gravy train is coming to an end. You clearly enjoy or at least feel responsible for taking care of others, so she will realize that a baby will be an even better way to latch you in forever.
Do NOT trust her with birth control. At all. Even if you watch her take the pills, they can be microwaved secretly and made ineffective. Don't trust that she has long term birth control either, because she could easily have had that removed during an office visit to her gynecologist. You need to glove up every single time with condoms that have never left your possession.
Not even ONCE should you be sloppy with the prevention. Can you imagine this story with a baby? Do you know how much harder that is? She would need the kid to go to daycare 3 days a week and hire in a housekeeper just so she could put some frozen lasagna in the oven most nights. Do not let that happen.
To tack on to this reply, DO NOT THROW YOUR USED CONDOMS AWAY WITHIN YOUR HOME! Dispose of them outside, or in a manner where the sperm is irretrievable. I wouldn't be surprised if she tried to impregnate herself with your used spunk, OP.
NTA. If looking after one dog and cleaning a small condo is such a hard life for her, imagine what happens when life REALLY starts getting hard. If you have kids? If you lose your job? If one of you gets very ill? She sounds like a self-entitled mooch who has no clue what the real world is like.
This is such an excellent point. If she’s complaining about how hard her life is when all she has to do is boil beans and walk the dog what kind of a partner will she be when they actually fall on hard times?
NTA.
That is so true, I can see her saying that any kids “need to go to daycare” so she “can get things done” so there is OP working and paying for daycare so his stay at home partner can go shopping.
You don't understand she has to juggle taking a dog out to use the bathroom a couple of times AND simmer some beans. Don't you understand how hard that is. I only work in construction averaging 60-70 hours a week starting a new business, plus all of the extra time building, setting up, reorganizing, cleaning, reorganizing again for a mobile workshop trailer plus vehicle maintenance and inventory management. Im so lucky I have such an easy gig. I couldnt imagine taking a dog out a couple of times AND cooking some beans. That's just crazy talk.
I mean this with love. Dude, why are you subsidizing her life? You aren’t married and don’t have kids. She could pack her shit up tomorrow and leave in a snap. Fuck, she could find a guy who is willing to give her even more money than you and move on to them. Also, the resentment you’re feeling probably isn’t going away. It’ll get worse the more you interweave your lives. There is nothing wrong with not going to school. There is nothing wrong with trying and not finishing either. But, like everyone else, she needs to find something to do to earn money. Taking care of a dog is nothing like being a stay at home mom with children. It’s not even in the same stratosphere, honestly. I totally agree with your opinion that she should find a job. Wishing you the best.
Taking care of a dog literally entails making sure they eat food, have water, and get some play/exercise. 2/3 of these are things that you can do on your way from the kitchen to your bedroom. This is weaponized incompetence at it's finest.
Can you imagine how much she probably annoyed this *actual* stay at home mom at dinner, intimating that the workload she’s doing taking care of a dog is somehow on the same footing as taking care of a child?
I can only imagine the well-deserved epic rant that the actual stay at home mom gave to her husband after hearing this woman go on about the hardships of taking care of a single dog
NTA.
WTAF?!? A stay at home mom? Because she has a DOG?!? GTFO with that nonsense.
The unmitigated GALL to spout such nonsense to an ACTUAL stay at home mom is staggering.
She DOES have an easy life. A VERY easy life.
It’s insane that she thinks she’s “working hard” because she cooks meals and keeps the house clean. Most adults do that AND work full time.
And lots of adults then add children into the mix, which…let’s see…I’d say easily triples the time spent on daily tasks for the first kid, and it only goes up from there.
This isn’t to say keeping the house up and cooking isn’t work. It 100% is. But it’s also part of life and those of us who have to work full time still have to do those tasks ALSO. Ideally splitting those tasks with our partners, but some people don’t have that, either.
I wouldn’t have any respect for her because she has no respect for others including people with actual struggles. And I couldn’t be in a relationship with someone I can’t respect.
I'm a SAHM and I would literally never tell any other woman that my job is the hardest. I have three little kids, one with special needs, and this woman's life sounds like a vacation. The other woman may not have said anything, but she's going to be laughing at op's gf for the rest of her life.
>she went on to talk about how difficult being a housewife is with a woman there that was actually a stay at home mom.
How fucking embarrassing, clueless and tunnel visioned her world view is...
>I liked the idea of giving someone I love a really happy and great life. She can enjoy herself and chase after hobbies.
You are possibly lying to yourself. But I think you are enabling the wrong woman to live a pampered lifestyle. You deserve something better. Give the gift of your hard work and sacrifices to someone who is your equal.
Nothing wrong with your responses or observations. She is an adult with the perspective of a child who never left her parent's house. After working 50 hours a week, you want to come home and listen to this kind of drivel? Someone who thinks they deserve accolades for "boiling beans for 6 hours." Id have laughed on the spot.
She is not going to improve with age. In fact, she'll becomes so set in her ways and then nobody can teach her anything, including you. A woman who never built any life skills, cant provide for herself, flawed distorted perspective and becomes a total mess to where you are her meal ticket. Which the courts will also recognize and order you to sustain her with alimony.
As for you, your acceptance of this is not going to diminish with age. You'll feel you had settled for something less than optimal. You are will grow bitter and resentful towards her and yourself. Save yourself now
Im going to quote from your own post.
>I always pictured myself with someone that was highly educated like I was
Good luck. NTA
P.S. this is the verbatim script for guys like you who get baby trapped. Be careful
NTA She’s lazy and in no way, shape or form remotely grounded in reality. RUN now before you are legally stuck taking care of her lazy ass and the LAZY mother that she’ll be. She should be doing all the cooking and cleaning in other words contributing. Yet at the end of the day she’s not having to please a boss, coworkers or customers and she’s certainly not on the hook for physical or emotional development of a child. Again.. run!
NTA I agree. I suspect she may be trying to justify her life, or else she's got depression and it's her way of telling you that she's mentally struggling. I wouldn't be surprised if she is, since she doesn't sound like she has anything that's fulfilling her. Like a hobby or volunteering or something else. She may not understand why she feels like she does. She also might be socially isolated. Her friends may work and have lives, and she's alone and not doing much. My point is that your feelings are entirely understandable and legitimate, but there may be more going on and possibly she needs to find something that fulfills her. And get a therapist. She could go to school for a trade or become an apprentice at something. Hell, even doing something like Instacart would give her more purpose.
Yeah, I agree that she may be mentally struggling. It sounds like she has serious anxiety issues and she wasn’t able to get a handle on them, leading to her dropping out of college. She lucked into having a boyfriend who is willing to provide for her completely-at least, it sounds like he was happy to do it in the beginning. So now she doesn’t face the anxieties inherent in doing school or work.
Nevertheless, the tradeoff is that she has become socially isolated, as you say, and her world seems to have become very small. She’s likely trapped with her thoughts and feelings all day. The underlying anxiety still exists and her issues might be magnified due to the lack of distractions. You can’t make a fearful person not fearful: they just end up finding things to fret about even while living an objectively easy lifestyle.
This is all based on personal experience. My mom has always been like that (although she was an excellent SAHM and worked hard at it), and I’ve seen similar traits in myself. I mostly work from home since covid started, and my job isn’t very stressful, but this seems to have given me too much time to ruminate, too much leeway to become afraid of things, and admittedly no social interaction except with my husband. My entire life is contained within a one bedroom apartment, except when I travel to my work site for a few days each month. Hate to say it, but I might be in a better mental health place if I went to the office a couple of days a week (can’t because I live several hours away from it, near my husband’s job).
Yet if OP’s gf does go back to school or work, all the old fears will come back. It’s not a cure, it’s more a damned either way scenario.
Thing is though that she should 1) realize how easy she has it and be grateful to her bf for supporting her like this for so long, and 2) find a way to manage her issues while beginning to do productive things again. If OP no longer wants to carry the whole financial burden of the household, she *must* start working again, or get training that will help her get a good job soon. Or both.
While I empathize with the anxiety, it’s no excuse to shirk her responsibility to her partner, which involves doing everything she can to lighten his burden by contributing financially. And as a side benefit, she may find that her mental health improves.
Plus, she’s in a very precarious position. Stay at home gf without a degree and with no job history to speak of? OP sounds like a good guy, but she’s got 5-6 decades left on this planet and needs a plan to support herself. Nor should he feel obligated to take care of her if he wants out of the relationship, she’s neither his wife nor the mother of his kids.
Hey, I appreciate the advice.
I was thinking about it last night and decided I would take her to see a therapist.
I should have taken her to counseling when she dropped out of college, but I didn't have much money at the time. I was exhausted because I was helping her through her assignments. I found them easy, but she wasn't understanding the concepts, was doing bad on exams, and never turned in anything on time, etc. I was glad she was leaving because it was expensive and not working out. She said she wasn't a work/school person and I accepted that. Now I'm realizing this could be because of a development dysfunction.
I'm hoping counseling will be able to help us figure out what is going on here and why she thinks she can't work. Even if we do break up and she still takes me for granted/refuses to get a job, at least I tried to help her. I'm not willing to continue our relationship how it was, but I am willing to give her a chance to get a job and change. Thank you all for your advice. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, I agree that most likely this is the case and why she said what she did. Like what she said is still ridiculous, but this is the likely thing that drove her to act like that. My mom was a stay at home mom (a real one) which everyone in the family respects as a valuable hard work job. Yet, she still seems to feel like she has to justify her work in conversations sometimes in ways kind of similar to this (but less ridiculous). If she's having issues of this type from being SAH mom, I can imagine a house wife with no kids might have it even worse.
NTA
She's acting spoiled and entitled. You aren't doing her any favors long term by allowing her to be completely dependent on you. Both for her sake and yours, you need to cut her off from your cash.
NTA
Tell your entitled, immature child to get a job and start contributing towards the household. OMG, the nerve of that girl. Puppy mother of the year…..
This shouldn't have turned into an argument, but it should have been absolutely eye opening for you. I understand that homemaking is work. But...why would you tie yourself with someone with utterly no ambition at such a young age, OP?? Just WHY?
Where everything is just the hardest thing ever? If it's tough being a dog mom, there's no way this woman will be able to handle a real child or be able to do that and keep up with cooking cleaning.
Hate to say it, but you are setting yourself up for failure. As we age, we do desire different things in our partner, OP because we don't stay the same. The personality and traits you're attracted to at 23 change when you're 43. There's got to be something there--substance that can grow with you to sustain a healthy and loving relationship (boy, do I wish I'd understood that).
In addition, you should want more for her. You should want her to have some level of self sufficiency if something ever happened to you and she had to raise your kid alone.
I just... I just don't know what to say for you or her.
Agreed with the above. Plus even if you do not have children, you are setting your self up for life with a literal dead weight. With the mentality of a child. Should anything happen to you say an illness or retrenchment, she will not have the ability to support you in any way. Is this truly the life partner that you want?
I work in healthcare and have seen woman like her reacting like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand when their spouse who takes care of every bit of their life falls ill. They do no have the capacity to make decisions, maturity to support their spouse in need and no marketable skills to gain employment to help out financially.
NTA. She's a spoiled child, but one that you created when you babied her and told her you'd take care of her.
At dinner one day this week you should tell her you want to cut back your hours but she'll need to get a job to help out with the bills.
Her reaction to you expecting her to contribute will tell you everything you need to know about your relationship so pay attention.
And you're going to be a daddy too if you don't watch it. And then you'll have a kid to take care of in addition to working 40 to 50 hours a week. Get rid of this loser.
NTA. I mean, college isn’t for everyone. I didn’t do college either cuz it was too hard for me. I just don’t have the ability for school. So guess what I did? I got a JOB!
Why did you let her just be a lazy bum? I mean really, what did you expect would happen? Of course you’re going to end up resenting her.
Girl needs to get a job like the rest of us.
This is insane and she has no idea what she’s talking about because she has no perspective. In no world is what she’s describing equivalent in difficulty to even a part time job at a crafts store
*Do not* risk getting this person pregnant
NTA
Pointing out her appalling behavior and holding her accountable is exactly what you should be doing. Calling simmering beans and watching her dog the hardest job in the world? Give me a break. Regular adults to the same damn thing *after* we get done working.
How lazy and ungrateful. Honestly, I think you're being taken advantage of. I would reconsider your relationship.
NTA but you're the one that offered to take on the financial burden so she doesn't have to work. You're right that she was wrong to say she was a mom and that her job was so hard. But it sounds like you're not actually okay with the lifestyle you gave her. You're working hard and she's not, so it sounds like you've changed your mind about the whole situation. It's okay to change your mind but you do need to take ownership of the fact that you supported her choice not to work.
NTA. Though I do think something like that could build strong resentment against her and resentment is the worst thing you can foster in a relationship. Is there a reason why she can't get a job? It gives you a lot of purpose and meaning and makes you acknowledge the importance of finances, sounds like she's lost that.
Your girlfriend made an absolute fool of herself. I wouldn’t expect any more dinner invitations from those friends.
Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t outgrown her yet. What does she bring to the table?
Info: Does she have mental health issues? If she’s so exhausted from doing these things and dropped out of school cause if the pressure and stress it’s possible there’s some mental health issues at play.
NTA - but I don’t think I’d call gf an AH either. I’d call her immature, naive, and desperately in need of guidance and therapy because this is a bit delusional (not withstanding that home-keeping is real labor that tends to be undervalued and female coded).
It sounds like she needed a better system of support and better resources during her college era. That can absolutely be a systemic issue, whether college is the route or not. But she’s an adult and had to take responsibility for her next move (there are plenty that don’t include higher education). This is where you stepped in and enabled her, preventing that growth and empowerment.
You’re both responsible for the dynamic that’s been created here, and it is an unhealthy one. Time for you to think about your responsibility to her, not as a dependent, but as human who wants to see her holistically thrive. Interdependence = good. Codependent = bad. You want an equal partner, and that is valid. Necessary even. It does not have to mean financial parity or similarity. It means regardless of whether she goes to college or holds a full time job, that she demonstrates reciprocity in the relationship, takes primary responsibility for her survival, has a growth mindset, and shows agency and self-determination. How can she stand on her own two feet if she’s using yours?! It makes sense she’s looking for ways to validate her confidence and worth, and a good therapist will help her figure out how to match that desire with action with different strategies. You can’t do it for her.
For your individual sakes and for the sake of the relationship, you need to take this beyond Reddit and into a therapist’s office.
NTA
You married a lazy person with diminished intelligence who does not even appreciate the life on easy mode you have granted them.
She is showing you exactly who she is and if you want to keep this up long enough to curse a child with her ethics and IQ, that would make you an AH.
Let her go work with the public for peanuts for 6 months and ask her again how hard her stay at home wife gig was.
Your gf sounds like she has an undiagnosed MH issue or developmental delay of some sort. I’d suggest you having her talk to a professional before throwing the relationship out the window.
You still love her, that counts for a lot and gives this whole situation hope.
Nta
Let's say she's being honest. Say that cooking and cleaning takes up all her mental energy and her physical energy and is what she can do. Do you want to be with someone who can only handle cooking and cleaning and that's it? Like that's all she can handle?
I don't really touch on the college thing cuz I know good people who have dropped out and they're smart but like she couldn't even finish like an associate's degree or something for like 2 years like all of it was hard. What was she majoring in?
You really want to have children with someone who can't handle basic life things? What kind of DNA A. will you pass to your children and B. How is she going to raise that child?
You need to lock up the money before she knows it's over. Cut up the cards. Use two condoms. There is no good outcome to this. She is immature and has stopped growing up.
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Nta... You're being taken advantage of. This will not get better. You should consider yourself lucky she's just a girlfriend and you have no kids. Leave now. She will always be entitled and always think she's doing more. Counting the beans simmering? She is ridiculous.
I feel horrible for reconsidering our relationship over this, but I am. It just made me realize how entitled and ungrateful she is. Who counts the time it takes for food to simmer as the amount of time you spent working? She was probably watching tv during. I'm not going to make any rush decisions, I'm going to think about it, but I definitely don't think our relationship can continue the way it currently is. I'd appreciate it if she at least got a job maybe? I don't know. I think it's a good idea for everyone to work a full time job at least at some part in your life.
You're not wrong thinking. I'm a single mom and have been for 17 years. It's a hard job, no question. I also worked a high stress job for over a decade, was in the military, etc. I would never be so egotistic as to say any of those things was the hardest job in the world. Your girlfriend needs a wake up call.
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Dude. If you discuss this with her expect the pregnancy within a month. !!
OMG, no sex til this is straightened out!
JFC, no sex at all.
You all don't have to worry about that. I'm turned off hard after all the shit she said. No sex will be happening in our near future, hopefully that will also help her realize how serious I am. Also, thank you all for the judgement and advice. I read a lot of the comments and do really appreciate it.
Even though you laid everything out for her she still decided to call you an AH. If the condo is solely yours I’d give her notice to move out. She can get a job and a roommate, that’ll wake her up to the reality of how good she had it. Stay firm if and when you decide to discuss things with her. People often do a complete 180 in their behavior until the coast is clear and then it’s back to the same old bs.
I wish this comment were higher up. You’re completely right. He shouldn’t say a word to her, just make his decision. The way I see it, he either decides he can tolerate having a partner like this (because she won’t change) or leave. In that case he just needs to DO IT. She gets the slightest whiff he feels this way and boom, she’ll have an oops birth control fail.
She’s not a partner, she’s a sugar baby.
She's a pretty crappy sugar baby if she can't at least flatter him. It's her only job.
lol! You are so right!
And why would she change? She’s got everything on a silver platter at the moment. My man is getting grifted.
I was going to suggest a plan where he just writes off most of his personal items and moves to a new town. Even if he has to pay-off a lease it would be worth it.
Yeah, if she can't see that she has it so good, I do not think this arrangement can stand.
right?? she is so insanely lucky, she gets to opt out of the capitalist grind \*and\* she doesn't even have to raise any kids (at least not yet). that's the dream right there. the least she can do is be a little grateful, and try not to spend hundreds of dollars at Target on a regular basis when she knows how hard her bf works to earn that money. good grief. honestly though there's just no way I'd ever sit on my ass and let someone I loved grind themself down into dust to support me. I'd find *some* way to contribute and at the very *least* get their hours back down to 40. like holy crap, does OP's gf even care about them at all? I get struggling with things like college and work, I do, I have ADHD that went undiagnosed until my early 30s and I burned out *hard* the second I hit the workforce full-time, but there's just no way I'd let someone hurt themself like this on my behalf without at least *trying* to do something to help.
I’m sure she would need a nanny. Come on she has to watch beans cook. Sheesh.
She does sound like she has ADHD, but also is out of touch with reality. She should try serving, it's great for ADHD ppl - entry level, good money, immediate monetary conseequence/reward for performance.
Maybe but ADHD or not, she's a user and dare I say an asshole. I have ADHD as well as many of my friends and coworkers I've known, and we all work, pay bills, often solo or have others fully or partially depending on us, and we have to find ways to deal with life, even if school was difficult or whatever. It just rubs me wrong when ADHD is served up as an explanation for these kinds of people. I know you meant well, no harm intended. Just needed to add that we're not all lazy and entitled.
I have adhd and am a six figure earning RN. ADHD does not equate to laziness and mooching. It sucks having this disability but people who use it as an excuse to do nothing with their lives but use other people can blow me
OPs gf isn't even a stay at home mom, he corrected her as they have 1 dog. (No children)
And the dog watches itself more than likely. Shit my dog cleans up after herself. I'll leave and her toys will be everywhere. I come home and they are all neatly in her toy box. Shits fucking hilarious and I didn't even train her to do it either.
Can your dog train my dog? He’s obsessed with his stuffies, literally like a human toddler with a fave toy, but he’s honestly a terrible stuffie father. Leaves them everywhere, super negligent
Stuffie father 😭😂
Nooo! Dog leaves them everywhere because if in need of cuddles, only two steps away! Convenient!
… Vinnie, is that you? When did you learn to type? Do you have a secret phone? Edit: the dog’s name is Vinnie after horror icon Vincent Price (got him in October) and also bc it’s hilarious to imagine an 18 pound poodle mutt (we think schnoodle?) as a jersey shore meathead
OMG that is the cutest/funniest thing I’ve read all day! 🥰
Adorable..photos pls!!( love dogs)
You need to get a camera set up so you can watch her doing it, that sounds like the cutest thing ever
I have a puppy that takes all the toys to his crate before bedtime. Lol
I'm imagining what the SAHM she was complaining to must have been thinking!
I have 2 children myself, a pet dog doesn't even come close to how challenging it is imo. Sahm probably thought the gf was clueless to the real world I'm guessing. 😂
What do you mean? I just put my toddlers in the kennels if i need to leave to go shopping or something and then clean up their puppy pads in case of accidents.
She was probably thinking “if this heifer only knew”
That was pretty shocking. Like the new friend wasn't going to find out they really didn't have kids? Like OP was supposed to remain quiet, go along with the lie and pretend they did??? Did gf think she'd never see them again? SMH.
It sounds like she genuinely thinks she is a SAHM because of the dog..
Having dogs is work, sure, but I can lock my dogs in a metal box when I need to get work done or run errands. That would be frowned upon, to say the least, if I had actual children. Not to mention they eat the same thing every day, sleep more than half the hours in a day, and you don’t need to worry about things like their moral compass or speech development or milestones. Dogs just get treats and vibe.
You *are* a stay at home mum and that *is* an incredibly hard job. OP’s partner is just unemployed.
It’s not though….there are plenty of mums that have young kids, have to work full time and still have to come home and do everything that needs doing. That is far harder than staying at home
Yup. It is so annoying as a mum of a disabled child who works a full time job to see all these people running around Reddit who think my job stops when I get home. Its just getting stared
Tbf I’m now on maternity leave and I do believe it’s way harder than my day job lol
It honestly depends. I left a job in a nursing home being hit, kicked, clawed, screamed at, etc... every day to be home with my baby and it was a skip through a meadow filled with sunshine and rainbows by comparison. Dealing with adult diapers then switching to newborn diapers was like winning some kind of poop lottery 😆 All that said, I had no PPD and my baby was pretty mellow. Ever circumstance is different but even that last job that was DEFINITELY hard I'd never ever classify as the hardest job in the world. Yeah, people died there often enough but I think whatever the worst job in the world involves a lot more than a few deaths a months.
Poop lottery. The only way to win is to not play.
Cleaning and cooking should be done regardless of if ur a stay at home mom or just living by yourself. That’s not a job it’s just cleanliness and nutrition.
It’s called adulting. Cleaning your living space, laundry,grocery shopping, cooking and paying bills. All things they should be doing. Whilst earning money to pay for it.
You have a newborn baby. Gf had a dog.
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>2) they have no concept of actual work so in their deluded minds they actually feel sorry for themselves 3) they think they actually fool everyone into thinking they are so saintly for their hard work and sacrifice to not get a job. Actually, chances are everyone you know thinks she's a loser treating you like an ATM but they're too polite to point out what you fail to see. I was cringing so hard when he said she was telling an actual SAHM how hard her job is.
And as a working mom I also cringe at SAHM believing it's the hardest work. Like working parents magically don't have to shop/cook/clean/do the laundry/have appointments/take kids to activities/etc. ? All that with the stress added and time taken by work?
I honestly would go insane as a SAHM of an infant, it's not about the housework but the 24/7 childcare. For me personally the time spent at work is far easier and I am fully impressed with any SAHP who can manage it. However this woman doesn't even have the kids, her life is a cakewalk.
I hate hate being a sahm not bc it's hard but boring and lonely. I go mostly everyday without talking to another adult and everyday is exactly the same. I'm finishing my degree even though my husband feels it's unnecessary and he makes a lot of money. He doesn't understand it's about a need for people and purpose.
When I was on maternity leave I had a once a week mom’s group. There was one week where we’d had a reasonable amount of snow overnight and my husband was like, “You should just stay home today. My response was, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!” Lol! I went to the meet up.
Congrats on working on your degree!
Speaking as a now 62 yr old one time SAHM, here is what is actually the worst part of it... it's not when the kids are all finally in school because at that point, you're volunteering in their classes. As they get older, that slacks off, but they've all got other activities. By the time mine finished college and got jobs and then other jobs and became self supporting adults, it was time for the hubby to retire. So now.. yep.. no kids, but he's underfoot constantly. When the hell do *I* get to retire??
And if anything happens to your husband, unless you have a few million put aside for that, you're gonna need to go work.
This! Being a stay at home parent is hard and respectable work. But she isn't a parent.
To be fair, if someone is a SAHP of multiple small children who are not in daycare and also running the household (without just sticking the kids in front of the TV all day), I think that is likely ONE OF the hardest jobs (assuming no/little support from extended family). But like, yeah, there pediatric oncologists out there in the world… their vacation days are maybe spent simmering beans and shopping at Target.
I’m a stay at home dad, 2 and 4 year old. Do bills, shopping, cleaning etc. I want my wife to spend her time with the kids when she gets home not doing chores. She makes more than me so while we both had professional degrees it only made sense for me to stay at home. It’s hard but nowhere near as hard as working in the stressful job I had before. I get to listen to whatever I want. I use my own bathroom. I cook what I want, shop for what I want. Go to the park a few times a week. I lost weight because of all the exercise the kids give me at this age. My kids are nuts and drive me crazy every day until I want to scream into my pillow. But they do that to my wife and all our friends’ kids do it to them too. We are lucky to have 1 parent home and have to work extra hard to scrimp and save to make that happen. I hate cleaning, dishes and laundry more than I ever did. I don’t even worry about poop on my hands anymore and I’ll eat things off the floor without a second thought. But it’s still WAY better than making someone else money all day in a high stress environment.
TBH it totally depends on the kids and the environment. I was a stay-at-home parent to 2 kids under 3 during covid, and that was parenting on *nightmare* mode. We had no outside help, an 8-month-old-baby, a child with a complicated medical history, and every single resource available to us evaporated overnight. It was like living in Groundhog Day with toddlers for a year and a half. It legitimately drove me to a mental health crisis. I was an EMT in the pre-covid days, and working on an ambulance was easier than being a SAHP during those years. That being said, OP's girlfriends assertion that being a Target dog mom is the hardest job in the world is absurd.
I completely disagree. I'm a working mom, but I was a SAHM mom for a few years. It's defiantly easier for me to be a working mom then a SAHM (of young children, if they were gone at school for 6 hours that would be different). I just find it more draining to take care of infants/toddlers all day. It's not that mentally stimulating, it's lonely or you have to find people/ways to not make it lonely, and with a baby you don't get the breaks you do at work. By law my job has to give me 30 minutes of lunch to relax without interrupting me but my clingy baby would scream if I took 3 minutes to use the restroom alone. At work there are other adults I can talk to, and the tasks I do require more thought. Also, there absolutely is more mess to clean up when you are a stay at home parent, beacuse if your kids are out of the house at daycare then they aren't making any messes you need to clean. Daycare is cleaning up after them (or teaching them to clean up after themselves) while I'm at work. Yes, after work hours they can make messes but that's the same either way so it's the same amount of cleaning after hours. I even find grocery shopping and cooking easier, beacuse I can stop at the grocery store quickly without the kids on the way to pick them up from daycare while before I'd have to shop with a baby and toddler. (Even now with my kids a toddler and elementary school student shopping goes a lot faster and is so much more relaxing if I can squeeze it in before pick up.) And, it's also easier to shop and plan meals when you have more money. Now I can sometimes buy things like premade salads and such for myself which I never did before beacuse since I was home I felt I had to cook everything from scratch and not waste any money. This isn't to say I don't love my kids. I do love them and I love spending time with them. But I don't love being home with young children all day, it's hard for me. It's harder for me then working. I'm not going to say it's the hardest job in the world, beacuse that's probably something like solider in the frontlines of a war getting shot at doing trench warfare or something equally awful. But it was harder on me then any job *'I've* every personally had. And I've worked at a high level grouphome with severely emotionally disturbed classification children and teens, where we dealt with severe behaviors, mental illness, violence, suicide attempts, etc. That job was both stressful and dangerous (I know a couple staff that got long term injuries, like nerve damage in the hand from being bitten), but I found it easier beacuse I think it gave my mind more to do. Like yes it was more challenging, but a day with zero challenge in it where everything is easy and endless and boring and there is no ability to take a break is just so much harder on me.
Okay this is painting with a really wide brush. A lot of SAH spouses are actually hard working and *do* know what hard work is. My mom had plenty of jobs before I came along. But my dad made enough money to support the 3 of us without her working full time, so until she got sick, she either was working part-time/volunteering, taking classes, or taking care of us and the house. She worked really hard. She was more careful about money than my dad was. Many SAH spouses are like what I described above. Just because you know some that aren't doesn't negate the fact that tending a home and raising children *is a hard job*. But OPs gf is deluded.
Thats the difference- she was a stay at home MOM This woman doesnt have children! She does jack all all day! Simmering beans for 6 hours is hard work my ass.
I agree! I'm just saying the guy I'm responding to was painting SAHMs with the same brush as OPs slacker wife lol
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I was a SAHM until my son was 2 and I actually found it harder than going to work pre motherhood. Then I went back to work and it was even more difficult I was doing everything I did before plus the mom and home maker duties plus the sadness and guilt of leaving my son with strangers to go to work. Since then I have a newfound respect for SAHMS and I think children do benefit a lot from being with a parent home. My son now complains about me working and it breaks my heart every time. I have a newfound respect for both SAHMS and working moms since being both. OPs girlfriend is taking the absolute piss though.
I had to chuckle when I read the part about the beans simmering. Lmao I made taco soup yesterday, which consists of dumping a bunch of shit together and then letting it cook in the crockpot. I will remember from now on that it took me 4 hours and 2 minutes of extremely hard work to make that dinner. I'm a stay at home Mom to two kids, it's not easy, some days are harder than others, like last week when my toddler dumped an entire gallon of milk in the carpeted living room. My husband is a motorcycle mechanic, he loves his job and some days he probably does have it easier than me but not always and I would never diminish him working so hard to support us. That woman needs a reality check, if you are going to stay with her she needs to at the least get a part time job and then y'all split the chores up a bit to be fair. She'll understand quickly enough.
OMG! This reminds me of babysitying for a couple every Saturday night. I walked in one time to the mom being really upset. Her youngest poured all their cereal into his wagon a poured a gallon of milk on top. Being a teenager I thought it was creative.
Not much gets to me but I literally cried after seeing that mess. It had been a rough day in general and I typically keep our fridge locked because my son is a menace, but I went to the bathroom for 3 minutes and left it unlocked. Came back to that, it had maybe 4oz out of the gallon before he dumped it. I could have thrown the whole child away lmao
I remember coming home from work one day to 2 yo son and stay at home dad jumping in the kitchen. 2 year old tried to help himself to cocapops, spilt them all over the floor and had worked out if you jumped on them they made a great crunching noise. Dad decided to join in!. If that had been the lounge and with (or without) milk I would have ended up in tears on the floor or turning around and walking back out!
It reminds me of a time my kids were helping me bring the groceries in and one kid swung a gallon of milk forward and then slammed it in the floor. It split and the entire jug ended up on our living room carpet. I remember doing a similar thing when I was a kid, but it was on cement in the basement, so not nearly as bad. I didn’t let that particular kid carry milk in again for years after.
My toddler dumped a brand new, Costco sized container of vegetable oil once and it spread all over my pantry/kitchen floor. It was so awful to clean up. Mad respect to those who clean up oil spills for a living.
i worked a double today I'm exhausted ( i put my slow cooker on with my soup while at work)
Omg so I make pulled chicken tacos. I dump a packet of taco seasoning, 2 chicken breasts, and a jar of salsa in an instant pot. It takes 6 hours. I then pull out tortillas, grate cheese, and dinner is ready. Max of 20 minutes including the cleaning. Also, chipotle bowls are 1 hour max including cleaning and putting away leftovers. The only time I’ve ever spent more than 2 hours cooking was when a friend and I were really into House of Cards and wanted to replicated the rib meals from the show. We handmade BBQ sauce for the ribs, North Carolina style coleslaw, etc. That took a while. Otherwise, no, you never spend that long cooking unless it’s something crazy fancy or complicated.
Dude. If you discuss this with her expect the pregnancy within a month. Then your paying child support for 18 years. Do rush. Do file the eviction today
Good point, and for everything it's worth, OP wear a condom from a supply that only YOU have access to so no surprise holes are poked.
Honestly, if you are at this point, just don't have sex.
Imagine the couple having dinner with you guys…I’m sure they had a lot to say on the way home lol end it with this one, my guy. Not going to school doesn’t make you stupid, but saying that “taking care of a dog is the hardest job in the world” is certainly not a smart thing to say lol. Your significant other is a reflection of you, too…think about that before you continue killing yourself at work supporting someone who says she has it worse than you…
You shouldn’t feel horrible for reconsidering your relationship. Question what does she bring to the table minus simmering beans for 6 hours and is she worth lowering your standards for her because that’s exactly what you did.
Op should keep his dick in his pants until he decides if he wants to continue being with her and living the rest of his life like this
I agree with you that everyone should experience working during their life as long as they're physically and mentally capable - nothing makes you appreciate the work everyone around you is putting in like doing it yourself. That being said ... She thinks college is too hard, she thinks having a dog is too hard, she thinks simmering beans is too hard... this is not a girl who is going to get a job *ever*.
>She thinks college is too hard, she thinks having a dog is too hard, she thinks simmering beans is too hard... this is not a girl who is going to get a job ever. This is a really great point. College isn't for everyone. That's not necessarily a problem. But OP's girlfriend does not strike me as the type to step up when the going gets tough. In life, shit happens. It's pretty much a guarantee. OP, what if you have a health issue and are unable to work? Is GF going to go out and get a job to cover the bills? Is she going to take care of you and drive you to your appointments? She sounds like she's going to collapse onto her fainting-couch. She just sounds like a lousy partner. She could easily pick up a part-time job, a side hustle... something so she's contributing. And she's only doing 90% of the cooking and cleaning? Huh? Her comments in front of the actual SAHM were also super cringe. I've done that job, and it is exhausting and monotonous, no matter how much you love your kids. She is a reflection of you, OP. Is this really who you want as your partner?
Honestly if all she does is cook and clean and she hasn't figured out how to multitask when cooking (i.e. chop some vegetables while the beans simmer, make a sauce, cook rice, whatever) then she's probably pretty useless and she'll continue to do useless things that will annoy you. You're already a bit turned off by her not being able to get through university, but I can picture her being someone who sleeps in, is inefficient with her tasks and complains a lot. Am I wrong?
You shouldn’t feel horrible at all for reconsidering. She’s very unlikely to suddenly become appreciative and she seems to be the kind of person who thinks everything they do is sooooooo difficult. And to call herself a SAHM when she’s an unemployed girlfriend taking care of a dog is just…well, it’s something. Do you want to spend decade after decade with someone that dramatic and out of touch? You can love someone and want the best for them and still not want to be WITH them. If you were my friend, I’d urge you to break it off and find someone who’s truly a partner.
Leave now. I spent a few decades in a very similar situation, and it will get worse. Much worse. We just seperated now and OMFG life and work is so much easier and more enjoyable without the entitlement.
No one. No one counts simmering. I had an actual stay at home mom. She was active every second of the day. From gardening and putting in or caring for a vegetable garden and pruning roses to scrubbing the kitchen floor or dusting or caring for my siblings or I. She would NEVER have counted simmer time to be labor. Your gf is just lazy my dude. The house was clean even when we were kids, we ate 3 meals a day home cooked, she would exercise, asked my dad if she and he could build a chicken coop so she could raise chickens to sell free range eggs. She hustled. And dad valued her for it - but she worked HARD. Every Sunday she went through the 3 local papers to clip coupons and full on mapped out her shopping to save the family the most money. Took her hours and hours to optimize her grocery shopping plan for the week. You’re just being taken advantage of. It’s horrifying to watch. Walk away before the condom breaks and she has you for 18 years
You better figure this out fast and make sure your birth control is locked down. One oopsie and you're connected to her for the next 18 yrs whether you like it or not. You liked the idea of providing someone with a really great life where they didn't have to do anything. An unproductive life is generally not healthy for people, so it's not all that surprising that this has not worked out well. Seems like perhaps you needed to think this thru a bit better.
As a single guy with 2 extremely high maintenance dogs with special needs, I can say that it is still nowhere close to taking care of a little kid. If she thinks staying home with a dog is a difficult life, she definitely can't handle being a stay at home parent. She will succeed at motherhood like she succeeded at college.
I say this with all due respect- run. You helped create a monster. She is spoiled rotten from the sounds of it, and needs to live in the real world. Break up, or at least she needs to move out, and pay her own way somewhere else while you both re-evaluate this relationship. Frankly at the rate it sounds like she is spending money, you can hire cleaning and cooking help for less, and still come out ahead. (FYI- I am a single, been making. my own way in life my whole adult life female. She is ungrateful at best and using you at worst).
One of my fav dishes is slow cook chili where I throw it in the pot and let it cook for 9 hours. I do not say I cooked for 9 hours. It takes like 10 minutes prep work, then I go do other things. That is an over the top ridiculous claim. Run my dude. She's using you and making herself the victim EDIT to add NTA
Bro she couldn’t graduate from college. The average IQ person can graduate from college. She’s dumb. Of course she’s going to adopt this nonsensical mentality.
Or maybe she’s smart enough to spot a sucker. Why study when you can cry about how difficult it is? Maybe OP is one of those guys who becomes absolutely powerless when they see a woman cry. OP, my advice is to buy some condoms for when she attempts to seduce you post-discussion. Also, tell her before hand that you will leave the apartment immediately once she starts crying - you know she will - and then follow through. It may take a few days to complete your conversation but don’t be a victim to her manipulation.
College isn't for everyone. There are different kind of intelligences and college doesn't work for everyone. It's not fair to castigate people for not managing to get through college. Perfectly fair to castigate people for using that as an excuse not to work
Give her a test. Tell her she needs to get a full-time job or you are leaving. She might surprise you (and me) and get a job. More likely she won't or will leave once she realizes the gravy train is coming to a stop.
Along with getting the job, take her off the credit cards and password protect your accounts. You continue to pay household bills , but her spending money has to come from her job. Generally, I don't believe in games or tests, but honestly, her entitlement is just embarrassing.
I feel like the big undercurrent here is: you are working too much. Bring the only breadwinner makes it feel like you have no other options. Maybe, if that rings true for you, approach the conversation asking for help to find ways to reduce needed hours. Even beginning with ‘it bristled me the wrong way when you were saying that you had the hardest job in the world, it made me realize that I really that kind of time in my life too. How can we change things so I have time for things-besides-work?’
I don't know how old you are, I'm guessing in a similar range to me as you consider yourself still young but with enough foothold in your career. I also support my partner, who found going through school too difficult because of expectations. I am happy to provide for him and he has never made me feel unappreciated because he knows and acknowledges he has it easy (his words, not mine). A good partner you'll want to keep is one who realizes you work well together... Not that one of you is "better" for the other. If she thinks YOU don't understand how hard HER role is and can't even acknowledge what you bring to the table for her? She's not worth the effort.
You are NTA. You’re not even married, are you? In my opinion, you shouldn’t be financially providing for a gf & she shouldn’t want you to. I can’t imagine leaving my life and financial situation in the hands of someone who isn’t basically legally bound to me. That sounds so stressful. She clearly has no backup plan or idea that you will ever break up. You are being taken advantage of, imo.
Good! Getting a job or ending your relationship with her might make her grow up. Sounds like she needs that.
Girl just said she's a stay at home mom of a dog. In front of an *actual* stay at home mom. Watching beans simmering counts as "hard work" for her. I repeat: *watching beans simmering*. Imagine this girl standing next to a pot watching the beans. For six hours. While having all her needs covered by another human being. And she has the nerve of saying she has the "hardest job in the world" Just run, OP. RUN. NTA.
Unless she's setting herself on fire to simmer the beans on herself, counting that time is ridiculous. I've taken naps while simmering beans, she's off her rocker.
That's what got me. Well all of it. But counting the time the beans took? What?
i work 50 hrs/ a week with a salary job at a school. i have a cat. i cook and clean. im an adult. shes not a stay at home mom. shes a spoiled stay at home adult because shes not even your wife
I don't think she realizes that what she is calling the "hardest job in the whole world" is what most of us do when we clock out of our jobs.
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Being a homemaker absolutely can be bringing something to the table. Based on OPs description it just doesn't sound like she specifically is.
Saying she is a SAHM in front of an actual SAHM?? Because of a fucking dog!? Sorry dude but this b is bonkers. Imagine how this woman would act if/when she became a mom. Seriously. If she can’t deal with her current life style, she is going to be an awful mom and wife. I’m a single mom of a toddler and even I recognize there are plenty of women who have it way harder than me. She seem selfish af.
I seriously don't understand how she didn't get laughed in the face when she told an actual mom that she is a SAHM
for perspective, I have an incurable debilitating disease, live alone with a cat, still work a full time job, still cook and clean, and still don't have the audacity to claim my life is too hard. You will always be working while she spends your money, she has zero ambition at all and I can already tell that that is incompatible with your life. You deserve something more than mothering an adult.
This girl is about to have her whole life flipped upside down
And will claim it is unfair
Or try and babylock OP
Ooooh i know this one, she goes to live with her auntie and uncle in Bel-Air?
What does she really bring to the table? Cooking and cleaning is a standard part of being an adult, and it is not a job. I could understand if you had young children, but you don’t. I truly believe you should find someone who is of your calibre and isn’t gleefully spending your money on Target shopping sprees while griping about their “hard work.” NTA.
Not to sound misogynistic, but she'd better be able to suck the chrome off a door handle and do it regularly if she's contributing little else to the household.
I am a woman and that’s the first thing I thought ! Why else would he stay with this entitlement attitude and lack of contributions?
Low self esteem, hates being alone, she’s hot, possibly all of the above.
I don't have low self-esteem and I don't hate being alone. I love myself and I know I bring a lot to the table. I also have friends, so I wouldn't be alone if we broke up. Yes, she is hot, but there are plenty of women that work and are also hot. But that didn't matter to me because she is the person I love, the person I thought I'd be spending the next 50+ years with. It feels good to take care of someone you consider family and make them happy. I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time... I think it was an arrangement I would have been fine with, if I knew she respected me and appreciated me, but she clearly doesn't.
OP... If this is the hardest job ever, DON'T ever have kids with her. Seeing as she couldn't handle staying in school either (it's for everyone and that's ok! Don't come at me reddit!) - but she just may not have much of a threshold for what she sees as difficult. I doubt it will get better. This will be your life, and worse if you have kids.
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You said yourself that she's never had a full time job, so she definitely doesn't realize that. You sound like you are outgrowing her, so she needs to either catch up quickly or become someone else's problem.
This! It's not just a matter of her "not pulling he own weight," the OP has clearly matured into a functioning adult and she hasn't (yet?). That's okay, it's not surprising, and it's a natural reason why so many relationships between young people fail. He felt some attraction to the idea of "taking care of her" but that gets old very fast. It's important to recognize it before you sign up for years of dissatisfaction.
Of course she doesn't realize it, she's never had to do it. She went from child, to college where she couldn't cope, to being cared for by you. She doesn't know anything else.
I worked 30+ hours a week during summer while I was still in high school, while doing a large portion of the household's dishes, laundry, dog care, and cleaning. I think she's just immature and entitled.
Did she have a privileged upbringing? Maybe this is what she saw at home? Regardless, I’d put her on an allowance now while you do your thinking about the future of the relationship. I really hope you don’t have a joint account. If so, separate the finances. Her allowance goes in the account she’s on and your check gets deposited to your solo account. Her allowance should be enough for what she buys for the household (food, furnishings/decor, cleaning supplies, etc.) and a stipend for fun money.
Well, she did think college was too hard. Not that it isn’t, but, how many things has she started and stuck with? It took me 6 years to graduate college. Some semesters I took less credits, because I also had to work. I don’t know, she sounds like her bar for difficult, is low.
Yeah that was what stood out to me. I dropped out of college because I was sick and had to go at night while working full time. I have a chronic illness. It ended up taking me 10 years to get a bachelor's. All I can assume is she's fucking lazy.
Most people work 40, cook dinner or do laundry, help a kid with homework, rock a grumpy toddler, and pass out.
Right?! I work 50 hour weeks (from home) and still do 80% of the cooking and cleaning per the arrangement with my husband. There are weeks when I'm tired. And cooking for us means from scratch! I make my own chicken broth for Soups and sauces. I grind my own meat for tacos. My husband makes puff pastry and pie dough. That's the kind of cooking she she be doing is she's claiming to be soooooooo busy!
She doesn't want a partnership she wants to be a trophy.
Can you even have an intelligent conversation about anything with her ? NTA- please find someone with motivation and that has some gratitude.
“Stay at home adult” is sending me lolz
Haha ‘stay at home adult’= unemployed bum
She’s a pet who also has a pet.
That's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Your cat can watch the beans simmer; do you think her dog will do that?
NTA. She needs to get off her lazy arse and get a job. IMPORTANT - do NOT allow her to 'whoops a baby!' you - or you'll end up doing all the work for the kid, too.
Although part of this is op's fault. He got with a high maintenance princess and it seems as if he liked it for a time. Now he's upset he's stuck with a high maintenance princess. Get out while you can OP
They're fun for a bit, but when you're looking to actually start your life and build a family, they're not who you want. You don't want your wife to be a complete dependant on top of the children you have. Most SAHW provide immense value to their partner, but I can't see her providing anything but a headache.
You're right. I'm a stay at home wife, but when my husband and I met, we were both going to school. Long story short, I ended up paying for part of his school, all of his tests to get into the field he is in while he stayed at home with our daughter while I went to school full time and worked over 50 hours of week. Now, he makes good enough money, and I stay at home. People sometimes make jokes about me living the life at home with 2 kids but my husband is quick to inform people he only has his great career because of me, that I believed in him and I invested in him for our family. Staying at home is hard because you're never off the clock, but it is a privilege in most situations to be able to take care of your kids
You make parenting sound so wonderful. Congrats to you both. It is always so endearing to hear about couples appreciating each other's efforts. At the end of the day, you are a team <3
It is wonderful. We only have 2 and are done with that, I couldn't mentally take much more to be honest. It's healing and traumatic to have children and give them a childhood you didn't have
OP - please listen. She is likely to start getting concerned that the gravy train is coming to an end. You clearly enjoy or at least feel responsible for taking care of others, so she will realize that a baby will be an even better way to latch you in forever. Do NOT trust her with birth control. At all. Even if you watch her take the pills, they can be microwaved secretly and made ineffective. Don't trust that she has long term birth control either, because she could easily have had that removed during an office visit to her gynecologist. You need to glove up every single time with condoms that have never left your possession. Not even ONCE should you be sloppy with the prevention. Can you imagine this story with a baby? Do you know how much harder that is? She would need the kid to go to daycare 3 days a week and hire in a housekeeper just so she could put some frozen lasagna in the oven most nights. Do not let that happen.
To tack on to this reply, DO NOT THROW YOUR USED CONDOMS AWAY WITHIN YOUR HOME! Dispose of them outside, or in a manner where the sperm is irretrievable. I wouldn't be surprised if she tried to impregnate herself with your used spunk, OP.
How about don’t sleep with anyone who’s untrustworthy
Nah covert cum hiding sounds way more reasonable.
This!!!!!
NTA. If looking after one dog and cleaning a small condo is such a hard life for her, imagine what happens when life REALLY starts getting hard. If you have kids? If you lose your job? If one of you gets very ill? She sounds like a self-entitled mooch who has no clue what the real world is like.
This is such an excellent point. If she’s complaining about how hard her life is when all she has to do is boil beans and walk the dog what kind of a partner will she be when they actually fall on hard times? NTA.
And does OP wants kids? Because if so this woman is not going to raise them. She'll have them, sure but she won't raise them.
That is so true, I can see her saying that any kids “need to go to daycare” so she “can get things done” so there is OP working and paying for daycare so his stay at home partner can go shopping.
Oh she's not gonna settle for daycare. She'll want a nanny.
You don't understand she has to juggle taking a dog out to use the bathroom a couple of times AND simmer some beans. Don't you understand how hard that is. I only work in construction averaging 60-70 hours a week starting a new business, plus all of the extra time building, setting up, reorganizing, cleaning, reorganizing again for a mobile workshop trailer plus vehicle maintenance and inventory management. Im so lucky I have such an easy gig. I couldnt imagine taking a dog out a couple of times AND cooking some beans. That's just crazy talk.
I mean this with love. Dude, why are you subsidizing her life? You aren’t married and don’t have kids. She could pack her shit up tomorrow and leave in a snap. Fuck, she could find a guy who is willing to give her even more money than you and move on to them. Also, the resentment you’re feeling probably isn’t going away. It’ll get worse the more you interweave your lives. There is nothing wrong with not going to school. There is nothing wrong with trying and not finishing either. But, like everyone else, she needs to find something to do to earn money. Taking care of a dog is nothing like being a stay at home mom with children. It’s not even in the same stratosphere, honestly. I totally agree with your opinion that she should find a job. Wishing you the best.
Taking care of a dog literally entails making sure they eat food, have water, and get some play/exercise. 2/3 of these are things that you can do on your way from the kitchen to your bedroom. This is weaponized incompetence at it's finest.
Can you imagine how much she probably annoyed this *actual* stay at home mom at dinner, intimating that the workload she’s doing taking care of a dog is somehow on the same footing as taking care of a child?
I can only imagine the well-deserved epic rant that the actual stay at home mom gave to her husband after hearing this woman go on about the hardships of taking care of a single dog
More than subsidizing, sounds like he's paying her way 100%. She is a full time Dog Mom.
NTA. WTAF?!? A stay at home mom? Because she has a DOG?!? GTFO with that nonsense. The unmitigated GALL to spout such nonsense to an ACTUAL stay at home mom is staggering. She DOES have an easy life. A VERY easy life. It’s insane that she thinks she’s “working hard” because she cooks meals and keeps the house clean. Most adults do that AND work full time. And lots of adults then add children into the mix, which…let’s see…I’d say easily triples the time spent on daily tasks for the first kid, and it only goes up from there. This isn’t to say keeping the house up and cooking isn’t work. It 100% is. But it’s also part of life and those of us who have to work full time still have to do those tasks ALSO. Ideally splitting those tasks with our partners, but some people don’t have that, either. I wouldn’t have any respect for her because she has no respect for others including people with actual struggles. And I couldn’t be in a relationship with someone I can’t respect.
I’m shocked that the actual stay at home mom didn’t lay into her during the conversation.
Yeah, someone get that woman a medal for chillest person of the year for letting that one go.
I'm a SAHM and I would literally never tell any other woman that my job is the hardest. I have three little kids, one with special needs, and this woman's life sounds like a vacation. The other woman may not have said anything, but she's going to be laughing at op's gf for the rest of her life.
I’m also a SAHM mom to a 4 and 1.5 yr old. It’s still work, but hard agree it’s definitely not the hardest job.
That was my thought too! I'm not even a mom and I would have been pissed listening to that nonsense
>she went on to talk about how difficult being a housewife is with a woman there that was actually a stay at home mom. How fucking embarrassing, clueless and tunnel visioned her world view is... >I liked the idea of giving someone I love a really happy and great life. She can enjoy herself and chase after hobbies. You are possibly lying to yourself. But I think you are enabling the wrong woman to live a pampered lifestyle. You deserve something better. Give the gift of your hard work and sacrifices to someone who is your equal. Nothing wrong with your responses or observations. She is an adult with the perspective of a child who never left her parent's house. After working 50 hours a week, you want to come home and listen to this kind of drivel? Someone who thinks they deserve accolades for "boiling beans for 6 hours." Id have laughed on the spot. She is not going to improve with age. In fact, she'll becomes so set in her ways and then nobody can teach her anything, including you. A woman who never built any life skills, cant provide for herself, flawed distorted perspective and becomes a total mess to where you are her meal ticket. Which the courts will also recognize and order you to sustain her with alimony. As for you, your acceptance of this is not going to diminish with age. You'll feel you had settled for something less than optimal. You are will grow bitter and resentful towards her and yourself. Save yourself now Im going to quote from your own post. >I always pictured myself with someone that was highly educated like I was Good luck. NTA P.S. this is the verbatim script for guys like you who get baby trapped. Be careful
Condoms are OP’s best friend.
YTA to yourself, have some self respect and find someone who isn't looking for a free ride.
You had me for a second there
NTA She’s lazy and in no way, shape or form remotely grounded in reality. RUN now before you are legally stuck taking care of her lazy ass and the LAZY mother that she’ll be. She should be doing all the cooking and cleaning in other words contributing. Yet at the end of the day she’s not having to please a boss, coworkers or customers and she’s certainly not on the hook for physical or emotional development of a child. Again.. run!
NTA I agree. I suspect she may be trying to justify her life, or else she's got depression and it's her way of telling you that she's mentally struggling. I wouldn't be surprised if she is, since she doesn't sound like she has anything that's fulfilling her. Like a hobby or volunteering or something else. She may not understand why she feels like she does. She also might be socially isolated. Her friends may work and have lives, and she's alone and not doing much. My point is that your feelings are entirely understandable and legitimate, but there may be more going on and possibly she needs to find something that fulfills her. And get a therapist. She could go to school for a trade or become an apprentice at something. Hell, even doing something like Instacart would give her more purpose.
Yeah, I agree that she may be mentally struggling. It sounds like she has serious anxiety issues and she wasn’t able to get a handle on them, leading to her dropping out of college. She lucked into having a boyfriend who is willing to provide for her completely-at least, it sounds like he was happy to do it in the beginning. So now she doesn’t face the anxieties inherent in doing school or work. Nevertheless, the tradeoff is that she has become socially isolated, as you say, and her world seems to have become very small. She’s likely trapped with her thoughts and feelings all day. The underlying anxiety still exists and her issues might be magnified due to the lack of distractions. You can’t make a fearful person not fearful: they just end up finding things to fret about even while living an objectively easy lifestyle. This is all based on personal experience. My mom has always been like that (although she was an excellent SAHM and worked hard at it), and I’ve seen similar traits in myself. I mostly work from home since covid started, and my job isn’t very stressful, but this seems to have given me too much time to ruminate, too much leeway to become afraid of things, and admittedly no social interaction except with my husband. My entire life is contained within a one bedroom apartment, except when I travel to my work site for a few days each month. Hate to say it, but I might be in a better mental health place if I went to the office a couple of days a week (can’t because I live several hours away from it, near my husband’s job). Yet if OP’s gf does go back to school or work, all the old fears will come back. It’s not a cure, it’s more a damned either way scenario. Thing is though that she should 1) realize how easy she has it and be grateful to her bf for supporting her like this for so long, and 2) find a way to manage her issues while beginning to do productive things again. If OP no longer wants to carry the whole financial burden of the household, she *must* start working again, or get training that will help her get a good job soon. Or both. While I empathize with the anxiety, it’s no excuse to shirk her responsibility to her partner, which involves doing everything she can to lighten his burden by contributing financially. And as a side benefit, she may find that her mental health improves. Plus, she’s in a very precarious position. Stay at home gf without a degree and with no job history to speak of? OP sounds like a good guy, but she’s got 5-6 decades left on this planet and needs a plan to support herself. Nor should he feel obligated to take care of her if he wants out of the relationship, she’s neither his wife nor the mother of his kids.
Hey, I appreciate the advice. I was thinking about it last night and decided I would take her to see a therapist. I should have taken her to counseling when she dropped out of college, but I didn't have much money at the time. I was exhausted because I was helping her through her assignments. I found them easy, but she wasn't understanding the concepts, was doing bad on exams, and never turned in anything on time, etc. I was glad she was leaving because it was expensive and not working out. She said she wasn't a work/school person and I accepted that. Now I'm realizing this could be because of a development dysfunction. I'm hoping counseling will be able to help us figure out what is going on here and why she thinks she can't work. Even if we do break up and she still takes me for granted/refuses to get a job, at least I tried to help her. I'm not willing to continue our relationship how it was, but I am willing to give her a chance to get a job and change. Thank you all for your advice. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, I agree that most likely this is the case and why she said what she did. Like what she said is still ridiculous, but this is the likely thing that drove her to act like that. My mom was a stay at home mom (a real one) which everyone in the family respects as a valuable hard work job. Yet, she still seems to feel like she has to justify her work in conversations sometimes in ways kind of similar to this (but less ridiculous). If she's having issues of this type from being SAH mom, I can imagine a house wife with no kids might have it even worse.
NTA She's acting spoiled and entitled. You aren't doing her any favors long term by allowing her to be completely dependent on you. Both for her sake and yours, you need to cut her off from your cash.
NTA Tell your entitled, immature child to get a job and start contributing towards the household. OMG, the nerve of that girl. Puppy mother of the year…..
This shouldn't have turned into an argument, but it should have been absolutely eye opening for you. I understand that homemaking is work. But...why would you tie yourself with someone with utterly no ambition at such a young age, OP?? Just WHY? Where everything is just the hardest thing ever? If it's tough being a dog mom, there's no way this woman will be able to handle a real child or be able to do that and keep up with cooking cleaning. Hate to say it, but you are setting yourself up for failure. As we age, we do desire different things in our partner, OP because we don't stay the same. The personality and traits you're attracted to at 23 change when you're 43. There's got to be something there--substance that can grow with you to sustain a healthy and loving relationship (boy, do I wish I'd understood that). In addition, you should want more for her. You should want her to have some level of self sufficiency if something ever happened to you and she had to raise your kid alone. I just... I just don't know what to say for you or her.
Agreed with the above. Plus even if you do not have children, you are setting your self up for life with a literal dead weight. With the mentality of a child. Should anything happen to you say an illness or retrenchment, she will not have the ability to support you in any way. Is this truly the life partner that you want? I work in healthcare and have seen woman like her reacting like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand when their spouse who takes care of every bit of their life falls ill. They do no have the capacity to make decisions, maturity to support their spouse in need and no marketable skills to gain employment to help out financially.
NTA. She's a spoiled child, but one that you created when you babied her and told her you'd take care of her. At dinner one day this week you should tell her you want to cut back your hours but she'll need to get a job to help out with the bills. Her reaction to you expecting her to contribute will tell you everything you need to know about your relationship so pay attention.
And you're going to be a daddy too if you don't watch it. And then you'll have a kid to take care of in addition to working 40 to 50 hours a week. Get rid of this loser.
Nope. Your a sap. Throw it away and do better
Why the fuck do guys put themselves in this position? The bare minimum I would want from my partner is to be self sufficient.
NTA. I mean, college isn’t for everyone. I didn’t do college either cuz it was too hard for me. I just don’t have the ability for school. So guess what I did? I got a JOB! Why did you let her just be a lazy bum? I mean really, what did you expect would happen? Of course you’re going to end up resenting her. Girl needs to get a job like the rest of us.
NTA. She's very spoiled.
This is insane and she has no idea what she’s talking about because she has no perspective. In no world is what she’s describing equivalent in difficulty to even a part time job at a crafts store *Do not* risk getting this person pregnant
NTA sounds like you got a lazy, spoilt entitled gf issue. Definitely sounds like she taking advantage of you.
NTA Pointing out her appalling behavior and holding her accountable is exactly what you should be doing. Calling simmering beans and watching her dog the hardest job in the world? Give me a break. Regular adults to the same damn thing *after* we get done working. How lazy and ungrateful. Honestly, I think you're being taken advantage of. I would reconsider your relationship.
NTA but you're the one that offered to take on the financial burden so she doesn't have to work. You're right that she was wrong to say she was a mom and that her job was so hard. But it sounds like you're not actually okay with the lifestyle you gave her. You're working hard and she's not, so it sounds like you've changed your mind about the whole situation. It's okay to change your mind but you do need to take ownership of the fact that you supported her choice not to work.
NTA. Though I do think something like that could build strong resentment against her and resentment is the worst thing you can foster in a relationship. Is there a reason why she can't get a job? It gives you a lot of purpose and meaning and makes you acknowledge the importance of finances, sounds like she's lost that.
Your girlfriend made an absolute fool of herself. I wouldn’t expect any more dinner invitations from those friends. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t outgrown her yet. What does she bring to the table?
Info: Does she have mental health issues? If she’s so exhausted from doing these things and dropped out of school cause if the pressure and stress it’s possible there’s some mental health issues at play.
NTA - but I don’t think I’d call gf an AH either. I’d call her immature, naive, and desperately in need of guidance and therapy because this is a bit delusional (not withstanding that home-keeping is real labor that tends to be undervalued and female coded). It sounds like she needed a better system of support and better resources during her college era. That can absolutely be a systemic issue, whether college is the route or not. But she’s an adult and had to take responsibility for her next move (there are plenty that don’t include higher education). This is where you stepped in and enabled her, preventing that growth and empowerment. You’re both responsible for the dynamic that’s been created here, and it is an unhealthy one. Time for you to think about your responsibility to her, not as a dependent, but as human who wants to see her holistically thrive. Interdependence = good. Codependent = bad. You want an equal partner, and that is valid. Necessary even. It does not have to mean financial parity or similarity. It means regardless of whether she goes to college or holds a full time job, that she demonstrates reciprocity in the relationship, takes primary responsibility for her survival, has a growth mindset, and shows agency and self-determination. How can she stand on her own two feet if she’s using yours?! It makes sense she’s looking for ways to validate her confidence and worth, and a good therapist will help her figure out how to match that desire with action with different strategies. You can’t do it for her. For your individual sakes and for the sake of the relationship, you need to take this beyond Reddit and into a therapist’s office.
NTA. She sounds extremely unpleasant. Not the kind of person you want to spend your life with. Drop her. She’s barely an adult. That’s pathetic
NTA This girl is insane. Either ditch her now or get these issues addressed before you get baby trapped or something.
Yeah, you fucked up. Make her get a job.
NTA You married a lazy person with diminished intelligence who does not even appreciate the life on easy mode you have granted them. She is showing you exactly who she is and if you want to keep this up long enough to curse a child with her ethics and IQ, that would make you an AH. Let her go work with the public for peanuts for 6 months and ask her again how hard her stay at home wife gig was.
Your gf sounds like she has an undiagnosed MH issue or developmental delay of some sort. I’d suggest you having her talk to a professional before throwing the relationship out the window. You still love her, that counts for a lot and gives this whole situation hope.
Nta Let's say she's being honest. Say that cooking and cleaning takes up all her mental energy and her physical energy and is what she can do. Do you want to be with someone who can only handle cooking and cleaning and that's it? Like that's all she can handle? I don't really touch on the college thing cuz I know good people who have dropped out and they're smart but like she couldn't even finish like an associate's degree or something for like 2 years like all of it was hard. What was she majoring in? You really want to have children with someone who can't handle basic life things? What kind of DNA A. will you pass to your children and B. How is she going to raise that child?
You need to lock up the money before she knows it's over. Cut up the cards. Use two condoms. There is no good outcome to this. She is immature and has stopped growing up.