Hey all!

I’m not married; however, I live with my partner and thought married folks would provide the best advice. Essentially, we both feel unappreciated and a bit burnt out.

Background: together 2 1/2 years; living together almost 1 year. Both late thirties. Both work full time remotely. Both work in IT (him app dev; me healthcare). Both have had to work hard for what we have as we don’t have help from family. House never feels clean or seems to stay clean.

Him: Owns his own home (ex gf is on the mortgage); makes 3 x what I do; pays mortgage, utilities, his bills. Does bulk of grocery shopping and large expenses. Works from coffee shop daily.

Me: in new role that is complex and more demanding, prepping to go to grad school, do bulk of cleaning, cook most meals, do most of the mental load type work (planning, organizing, research, holidays), does most of the emotional labor in relationship. Buy furniture that he needs, pays for most food delivery. Pay all my own personal bills (paid my car off). Had a bad medical situation midway through our relationship so have had medical debt to pay.

Issue: I feel as if he does not clean enough nor does he appreciate the amount of invisible cleaning I do. He feels as if he does clean and I don’t notice. He feels unappreciated for the amount he pays.

First off, I want to say I do appreciate how much he does for me and pays. He is a great man in many ways and has worked his ass off in life for the job and lifestyle that he has. I have also worked my ass off…I just don’t make as much to show for it. I want to make more money to ease the burden in that way (I make about 80k per year) and am taking steps to do so.

I truly want to find a solution that makes us both feel seen and appreciated: For the bills stuff, he does pay more and we have tried to work out rent/bill splitting by proportion to our income. I didn’t feel comfortable paying rent upfront as his ex gf was still on the mortgage (I’m also saving for my own house.) That being saiid, I’ve tried coming to a compromise on me paying all utilities and groceries. But, whenever he goes shopping he never sends me the request or tells me the amount and when I insist he tells me it’s ok. He also said initially he didn’t want me to pay any rent or anything because I was saving money and my medical expenses at the time. I don’t feel comfortable with this because I’ve always been independent and never want to feel like I’m mooching off someone else. Also, it always comes up in fights later that I don’t pay rent and then when I try to send it he tells me no just forget it. I already pay a lot in proportion to my income for our entertainment, dining out, gifts for him, stuff for the house.

For chores, I honestly feel like I’m constantly working or cleaning. He has so much leisure time for his hobbies and then chastises me for not doing mine. I don’t feel like I have the time nor energy to enjoy them. I have back to back meetings most days and mutlitask cleaning while working. When he’s home, I would prepare him three meals a day. When he’s working at a coffee shop, I’ll make him dinner. I was doing his laundry for the first half of our relationship but stopped. Now, his two hampers are usually full and he’ll start putting his stuff into other hampers (mine, towel hamper) or all around the house. I’m constantly picking up after him but he thinks he’s doing the same with me which boggles my mind. One day, I decided to take all the things of his left out around the house and put it in his office. I did this so he could have a visible representation of the invisible labor I was doing. Instead of it being a light bulb moment, he was upset that his office (which he barely uses) was a mess and thought I was being passive aggressive. I don’t feel like there’s any getting through to him and whenever I bring up how overwhelmed I feel, he tells me how he’s so confused why things can’t stay clean – because when he lived alone the house was always clean. Not only does it make me feel unheard, but completely unappreciated and even feeling like things were so much better for him when he lived on his own. I even tried telling him I was purposefully taking a step back from cleaning for a couple weeks to see if it made a difference. It did. The place was a mess, he was really stressed about it and telling me he felt like he was the only one cleaning. I told him that was the point so he could see how much labor it took to keep up. When I’ve asked him to step up during times I have busy weeks, he forgets and then gets upset again about how messy the house is. I’m burnt out.

  1. Since we both feel like the other doesn’t appreciate the amount of effort visible cleaning that we do, what is a good way to track that so both parties have an understanding of what the other does?

  2. What would be a fair way to divvy up expenses in this situation?


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