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Original poster

To ask my boyfriend to clean his apartment before I come round?

287 replies

Heatabove · 20/04/2025 10:49

I live with my friend, we have been living together for 3 years since we graduated from university together. I am 28 years old and have been with my boyfriend for a year. He lives on his own, so when we get together I mostly go to his so that we have privacy.

I go round most weekends, and at first it was absolutely fine. The flat was always very clean and tidy Friday evening, but I did notice he is quite lazy. For example he would spill his fizzy drink and just leave it! Take his clothes off and leave them on the floor, his toilet seat came off months ago and he still hasn’t put it back on or got another one. So I think he would tidy everything before I came round but didn’t keep on top of it.

Lately, he hasn’t been tidying it before I come. I walk through the door and my heart drops. Clothes everywhere, dirty pots piled up, the bed sheets all crumpled, empty coke bottles ALL OVER the place! Then every single Sunday he says “let’s do a big clean” and I help him clean up. It takes us a while.

I’m now sick of it and I spoke to him and asked if he wouldn’t mind cleaning the place before I came round because it’s not a nice environment to be in, it makes me uncomfortable and I also don’t want to spend half my Sunday cleaning his mess! He waits all weeks for it to build up and then does it on a Sunday when I am there to join in. And I don’t think it’s fair. I have my own house to clean. He has kicked off with me. He is furious. He said “how dare you tell me what to do with my own flat” and we haven’t spoken since Thursday night.

Please could I have some outside perspective - am I in the wrong?

OP posts:
Dillydollydingdong · 20/04/2025 12:25

My bf is a bit like this, piles of clothes on the floor, dirty kitchen, but he knows I'm never going to move in. I do the washing up, maybe empty the waste paper baskets. But that's all. And I just laugh at his mess.

pikkumyy77 · 20/04/2025 12:25

Heatabove · 20/04/2025 11:34

You mentioning the fridge reminded me a few months ago I went into his fridge and there were mouldy burgers in there. I said ew you need to throw them away. His bins were full and I refused to take his bins out for him. Anyway the next week I came round and the mouldy burgers were still in his fridge!!!! I ended up throwing them out but how can you just leave them in there?! I did contemplate breaking up with him at that point but thought maybe I was overreacting. However it’s all just too much now. I can’t be with someone who lives like that

Show quote history

How could you be overreacting? You have massively underreacted!

TheAmusedQuail · 20/04/2025 12:21

He's using you. He lured you in with clean-and-tidy, so he knows this is the acceptable standard, but now he wants a woman to do his dirty work.

If you stay with him, you'll end up being one of the women on Mumsnet complaining that your partner doesn't do his share around the house.

There is that very old saying, 'When someone shows you who they are, believe them'.

Just tell him you're not coming over if the flat isn't clean. And that needs to include the bed. Dirty = no girlfriend and definitely no sex.

Maybe if he learns this now, he can be better for his next girlfriend.

CookingFatCat · 20/04/2025 12:20

@Weefox how kind of him then to let the OP clean up his filth.

28Fluctuations · 20/04/2025 12:20

I know this seems like a melodramatic leap, but... he's grooming you.

He's a slob. A slob who has already manipilated you into cleaning up his mess. You very reasonably objected, and he kicked off.

Worse still, and this is the RED FLAG bit: you questioned yourself. His tantrum and sulk made you wonder if perhaps your reasonable boundaries are somehow unfair to the poor man.

Run, OP. Block him and never look back.

CookingFatCat · 20/04/2025 12:17

He has zero respect for you and your boundaries. Getting you to clean up his stuff shows what he thinks of you.
let him sulk in his squalor.

Scully01 · 20/04/2025 12:16

I can't believe that he gets you to help him clean every Sunday. Absolute brass neck. Please ditch this guy. You can do so much better. I'm incensed by this. Some men are just pigs.

Cherrysoup · 20/04/2025 12:15

Blimey, that would be my cue to leave! Wants you to do his cleaning every week? No way! Chuck this one back.

beetr00 · 20/04/2025 12:14

Heatabove · 20/04/2025 12:04

I’d say I’m the one sick of always going to his as I’m the only one doing al the travelling and the costs that come with it

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@Heatabove

he's a skanky barsteward.

It will not get better.

This one needs to be thrown back into the gutter from whence he came.

Girl power!! 😂

FigTreeInEurope · 20/04/2025 12:13

In my twenties i lived on a canal boat, which got much dirtier than a flat because i had a coal fire, a shaggy dog, and a muddy towpath outside. I'd always super clean before my gf came round, if im honest it was part of the dating ritual. I'm 50 odd now, and i'm still the one that cleans and tidies to make our home nice. It's still a bit of a dating ritual too, i want my wife to feel good that we live in a nice place, and i make it nice to some extent, for her. I built our house myself, and i always feel proud when she's showing it off to visitors. It's a much more important, and romantic part of being a loving partner than people give credit.

PowderRoom · 20/04/2025 12:12

bigboykitty · 20/04/2025 12:10

Looks like you got yourself a voluntary cleaning job, @Heatabove !

This. And, OP, if I wanted to spend part of my weekends cleaning someone else’s space for free, I’d be doing it somewhere like a DV refuge, not in my piggish boyfriend’s flat.

bigboykitty · 20/04/2025 12:10

Looks like you got yourself a voluntary cleaning job, @Heatabove !

JLou08 · 20/04/2025 12:08

I'd end the relationship, especially if I wanted marriage or children in the future. If he can't be arsed now he certainly won't be if you live together. You would be in for a lifetime of stress and resentment if you settled down with him.

Gettingbysomehow · 20/04/2025 12:05

Yuck. Ex boyfriend I hope.

Original poster
Heatabove · 20/04/2025 12:04

fallinlovenothate · 20/04/2025 11:59

Is he sick of the fact you only ever go to his flat? Do you share expenses when you're there?

I’d say I’m the one sick of always going to his as I’m the only one doing al the travelling and the costs that come with it

OP posts:
Nanny0gg · 20/04/2025 12:03

Heatabove · 20/04/2025 11:12

This is what I said to him, I said he did it at the beginning so why not now? But he says it’s nothing to do with me what he does and when he cleans etc

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But if he doesn't think you're worth having a lovely clean flat with a clean bathroom and fresh bedding then that's you told!

ARichtGoodDram · 20/04/2025 12:02

So he already expects you to clean his mess up when you don't live with him - imagine what he'd be like living together.

He's massively entitled.

I bet if you say and thought about it these "let's do a big clean" days end with you doing more cleaning than him. I'd put money on that

Olika · 20/04/2025 11:59

Let’s say you two move together a few years from now. He is going to carry on living in the middle of mess and expecting you to clean. No thanks. Just dumb him. Life is too short for his mess.

fallinlovenothate · 20/04/2025 11:59

Is he sick of the fact you only ever go to his flat? Do you share expenses when you're there?

Imbusytodaysorry · 20/04/2025 11:58

@Heatabove you have decided you don’t what to be with someone like that . So…
You say he has ignored you since Thursday ( punishment) does that mean you have been trying to get him to talk to you?
And now you have decided it’s over you are going to message and tell him so ?

godmum56 · 20/04/2025 11:56

he gets sex and a cleaner. What do you get?

ViolasandViolets · 20/04/2025 11:56

YABU to tell him to clean his flat rather than recognise it for what it is and walk away.

Weefox · 20/04/2025 11:55

Have you thought that he may be depressed? Could there be a reason for this? Do not write him off immediately as others have suggested - being kind is more important that being tidy.

ItsAWonderfulDayForPie · 20/04/2025 11:55

Get rid.

Life’s too short to be a maid to a lazy mummy’s boy.

FleaBeeBob · 20/04/2025 11:53

Stop going on a Sunday or stop going full stop until he grows up