Starting to resent my partner for his messy house. AIBU?

[crabtheway]

My partner inherited his grandfather's house in November. The house was built quite some time ago, has insufficient insulation, and has grown quite damp with extensive mould growth as a result of being kept idle. The pillows we sleep on are even covered in mould.

I've tried to be pleasant and respectful to my partner because he lets me stay in his home on weekends, but since I started sleeping over every weekend, I've discovered that I'm becoming prone to any and all illnesses.

I asked if I could stay over on Friday and clean his entire house while he was at work, and he was more than eager to oblige. The truth is that I'm starting to resent him as I feel disgusted and physically sick by his living conditions. AIBU?

Before anyone asks, yes, I have discussed it with my partner several times, but he always had an excuse and didn’t want to spend his days off cleaning. I cleaned his kitchen and bathroom over three weeks ago and he still hasn’t unloaded the dishwasher, and the mess returned within a few days. He has no underlying issues but is rather a lazy individual who smokes weed 24/7.

When I told my mam about my weekend plans, she objected strongly that I clean his house and reminded me that I am his girlfriend, not his cleaner. My father is completely useless around the house, and my mam comes home from work to do housework, and I guess she's worried I'll wind up living that life as well.

He said if I ‘did all that’ (deep clean) would ‘probably marry me’ and my heart sank a little reading his message. After speaking with my mum, I don't want to clean his house, but I feel I have little choice because I can't live in a messy environment any more, and I'm coming to resent him for his clutter. AIBU?

Why do you want to sleep with someone who is living in a dirty house smoking weed?

Why don't you think more of yourself?

TRUST ME-I would only love to have my apartment back and our old set up. Everything would be SUNSHINE and RAINBOWS then.

What, where he brings himself to the flat that is paid for and cleaned by you and gets sex and food laid on? I hope he has a good-plated knob.

Our old set up referring to when I had never stopped foot inside his house & knew his living conditions, but met blissfully in my clean & warm apartment. I rarely fed the man when we first dated & almost deprived him of food (I was never hungry when he was and lived more modestly when I paid rent, eating out was treat & not a weekly occurrence as it is now)

Don't want to be alarmist OP but it could well be the mould that's making you sick. Black mould on pillows is horrendous. Please read up on it and don't sleep in that house again! You're clearly bright and ambitious for a better life - you can do so much better than this.

He managed to leave the vape at home for one night when we went away for my birthday weekend but he said he couldn’t drink without it as he gets bad heartburn. It was actually nice having a completely sober boyfriend. The first time he met my best friend, we had to put him to bed & continue with our night out without him because he was too plastered from the vape and alcohol!

We went to Amsterdam together & he, a big stoner, hated the city because he said there was too many rules about smoking (he also hasn’t smoked a joint in a long time) & felt the alcohol was too expensive to get drunk. The man was NOT short of money on this trip! I love Amsterdam & think it’s a great city for culture, I just wish he could’ve seen the other side of it rather the 420 blaze up spec

I have a GP appointment today (thank god) & I’m going to mention the mould situation and see what he says.

So if you do want to stay with him, give him an ultimatum. You won't come over to stay until he cleans his act up as the house is making you ill

You will then see how much he cares for you, if he doesn't bother then ditch him as he will never change and you'll end up like your mum.

I lived in a cottage on a farm that had mould issues - that the landlord was trying his best to resolve in fairness - but I developed awful hayfever at the time that I still have to this day 6 years later.

This guy is 31 and sleeps on mouldy pillows, vapes weed constantly and has mouldy dishes in his kitchen.

He's a lazy, entitled man-child who's house you should avoid like the plague.

What is he bringing to the table, other than a bed you can shag on?

His standards are making you ill, thats the bottom line. And you're considering taking him with you to Australia? Come on man, up your standards.

Op I genuinely believe Australia won’t happen if you stay with him. He will keep sucking up your resources.

Best case scenario is that you do go and he goes with you. Then you have the same lazy, dirty, weed smoking boyfriend there and really feel unable to dump him.

I think in 10 years, if you don’t get rid, you will look back to now and think ‘what the fuck was I thinking?’ And you will have wasted years of your life.

I appreciate you taking the time to comment & share your story, I definitely think it is in my best interest to break up with him and save, save, save.

I know I don’t want him to come along & I’d genuinely be mortified if any of my family seen how he lived/if he lived like that under their roof, and by staying with him I’m doing myself or himself no favours.

Hopefully one day we’ll have similar situations again but the better version in Oz!

Sorry.....but have you had a bang to the head? Because that's the only reason I could possibly think that you'd be with a man like this?

I recently came to that conclusion myself. I had no intentions of ever finding a boyfriend as I wanted to save and emigrate sooner, but ended up meeting himself & somehow ended up here. I always say to my friends (in relationships) that relationships are very expensive, and they tell me that they didn’t have to and offered solutions i.e. cooking together instead of eating out. I’ve cooked in his house but cleaned everything before I used it because I didn’t really trust he had washed the dishes properly. There’s nothing to do in our town besides eat out, pub, or the cinema and we’ve fairly done them 100x over at this rate. He likes to eat out and as do I but eating out has become apart of my routine every weekend now & costs €€! When I lived away from home my friends & I might of eat out once or had a takeaway but you’d never see us in the pub or restaurant every weekend!

stop joking OP.
You now have the €55. Good. Now work out how you are going to bin him when you see him later.

Do yourself a favour and end this relationship, then do the Freedom Programme as many times as it takes to sink in. And only then think about starting a new relationship.

you have this, you can do it.

Op you sound so young.

the while ‘there’s nothing to do in this town’ is the justification a teen gives when they have been caught doing something they shouldn’t be. ‘I know I shouldn’t have smashed the windows at the community centre. I was bored because there’s nothing to do’

You are using ‘nothing to do’ as en excuse. An excuse to shag a man who is dirty to the point he is poisoning you, costs money, is pushing your dream of moving further and further away. And if you do ever get there he wants to come and ruin that for you.

You are using ‘Theres nothing to do’ to as an excuse for spending your money instead of saving it. Saving it for your dream of moving. Every time you spend needlessly on him or going out with him you are taking an active step away from emigrating.

You are choosing to stand in the way of something you really want for a dirty, drug addicted, lazy man who will never make a good partner.

Why?

OP I was engaged to a guy who was a milder version of yours when I was in my mid-20s. He was a pothead, heavy drinker, immature, drove dangerously… the lot. His parents were hoarders and lived in a mouldy house and he inherited some of their traits (he lived in his own house). It took me a while to see the light because I thought I loved him and we had a lot of fun together. I was living with my parents as well. When I moved in with him I realised how bad it was.

I emigrated shortly after that and I’m now married to an Italian man who cleans the house unprompted! Such men do exist. The idea I could’ve ended up saddled with the other guy and his dirty dishes and hangovers makes me shudder.

The comment he made about how if you did all that cleaning he’d marry you says it all really, joke or not! He obviously thinks he’s a prize and cleaning is womens’ work.

Your 20s are for having fun, not cleaning some waster’s filthy hovel. Get out there and enjoy yourself.

I’d genuinely be mortified if any of my family seen how he lived/if he lived like that under their roof

Why would he live under your family’s roof?!

If you move to Austria, are you going to live with family?

Yes, I will stay with my sibling & their family for 4-6 weeks until I find my feet and have some much needed catch-up time with my sibling and cuddles with my baby nephews.

I’ll decide then if I want to stay in that area (WA) or travel toward friends in Sydney & give life a go there for a few months, or have a taste of Melbourne!

Leave a pig in his sty. I couldn't live in a shitty dirty place either. However it only takes a determined DIY project of paint , bleach and more bleach to transform it back to habitable again. If in your heart he is for keeps and you do The Sparkle Job ( together), then you'll have a nice home to share together

The Sparkle Job? What madness is this?

Look, this man has had at least 2 opportunities to share the cleaning, which he has declined. Having had the place cleaned for him without any input from himself he continued to throw old cereal boxes around, not do the washing up again and all those other lovely habits until once again the girlfriend did the work. The "nice home to share together" will be on its way back to a pigsty the morning after the cleaning blitz. The only way it will stay nice is if OP devotes her life to tidying up after the slob - and never fulfils her dream of going to Australia.

Well, at least he does shower. But then, so did my boyfriend until we got married. Then he decided it cost too much...

Sorry I missed the point of the thread, but I would say he needs the conditions that are causing the mold to be remediated as soon as possible, otherwise he'll be fighting a losing battle forever. So if you haven't quite given up on him yet, I would (a) stop staying overnight there as it's making you ill and (b) focus your efforts on finding contractors who can begin working on remediating the mold situation. If he can at least get quotes for how much this will cost him, he can decide whether it's worth it to keep living there and fix the mold problem, or whether he should sell it and buy a place that is smaller, newer, and easier to keep clean.

I mean this in the nicest possible way op but please get some self respect and get rid of this imbecilic lazy man child. He’s gross and you deserve better.

Save all the money you're currently spending on him on your emigration fund and Leave him
Do not say another word about it
At 24 the world truly is your oyster
Enjoy life, time passes so quickly

He sounds awful. Why on earth are you continuing to be in a relationship with him?

So, the general consensus was LTB & DO NOT clean his house. I really appreciate everyone taking their time to comment & encourage me to see sense.

My GP signed me off sick for the next week & I am going to take this time to rest, recover, & look into the Freedom Programme. I’ll arrange to meet with my boyfriend & let him know the relationship isn’t working for me anymore. It was going to end in a few months regardless when I emigrated but there’s no point being unhappy and resentful towards him until then as he won’t change.

There was two comments regarding my upbringing and how my standards are low because of my childhood. I can very sadly say I have never met a man who cleans inside the house and that duty is typically left to the women in my life. Some men do compensate for it by doing the cooking while the vast majority don’t i.e. my father. I have gone to counselling in the past but I think it might be no harm to look into again & address my own self esteem and family history a bit more in depth to avoid history repeating itself.

Going forward I will be back in my save, save, save mindset & try get to Oz a little quicker. Hopefully I’ll be whisked away into sunset by a nice tanned surfer dude.

❤️

Well done coming to your senses and looking after yourself better and good for your future in Oz