Feeling like a maid

[Evermoreobsessed]

I am at the end of my tether with DP. We have lived together for 6 years. He has always been messy so probably is my own fault. I could see past it initially and then got into the unhealthy dynamic where i ended up doing most of the housework just to have a nicer house (even when we lived in his place). Over the years I have been trying to get him to pull some weight and he will do the odd cleaning job when I tell him specifically what needs done. I'm not bothered about doing the bigger house clean as I like things done my way anyway.
But the things that are starting to bother me are more recent developments. For example he has stopped putting his laundry in the basket just leaves on the floor, will trim his beard and leave hair all over the bathroom after I've just cleaned, leaves food packaging and dishes around the kitchen rather than putting away, and most disgustingly won't even check if he has flushed the toilet properly. It's all making it a huge turn off. I have spoken to him about it with little change and it's embarrassing having to tell a grown man to make sure he's flushed the toilet properly?! I feel he is being disrespectful and acts like there's a maid running after him to the point I'm wondering if I should just tell him it's over if he won't change. What would you do in this situation where you knew he was messy but it's gotten to this point - would you leave?

I do agree that I have partly enabled it which I've said as I've taken on more but I don't think it's really my fault in terms of literally not lifting a finger and being able to flush the toilet behind him? I don't want to live in a pig sty which is why I've taken on more cleaning because I have higher standards than him and I'm fine with that, but I'm not fine with being disrespected at the level it's gotten to. Surely he needs to take responsibility and it can't just be blamed on the girlfriend for wanting to live in a clean house.

Yes of course he needs to take responsibility but I assumed from your post that you’re not at the point of leaving him. If you are, then great, that’s a simple solution. If you want to change patterns then you need to look at the part you are playing. That is why I suggested some possible changes you could make. Such as allocating responsibility of tasks to him. Not doing his laundry. Not stepping in to do his tasks or clear up after him. If he doesn’t make changes and you end up living in a pig sty and you can’t handle that then you will need to move out. Do you do all the cooking and shopping for him well? It does seem like you are indeed acting like his maid.

I think just chuck everything he leaves around in a bin bag - clothes, hair clippings, wrappers, etc - everything in the same bag.

I’d be stopping doing any cooking for him whatsoever as of today too.

You are entitled to live in a clean home.

This feels deeper, like you are making up for your professional success or is there fertility issues on either side?

One of my closest friends is incredibly senior and she was the same, she somehow ended up playing little wifey role to placate her husband, whom felt shamed by her success. He enjoyed the extra income, showed her off to his friends but in the home was foul and undermining her at every turn. She paid him to leave in the end, he was crushing her spirit and so disrespectful. She never looked back! Once shot of him she spent a few happy years enjoying a clean home, her work without him moaning at her for answering an urgent email and travelled, she met a senior partner that was on the same wavelength and they have been inseparable ever since, her only regret is that she didn’t end her marriage sooner.

He is now shackled up with a woman 19 years older who mothers him! Gaming and waiting for his dinner to be delivered to his sofa! Contributing absolutely nothing. He is worse than ever according to his adult kids. They rarely change op.

You're more senior with a more demanding workload.

Any chance he resents your success 'over his' and this is his subtle way of 'putting you in your place' at home?

I wouldn't be putting up with any of that , btw. I would make it clear you're done with his deliberate choice to literally leave you to deal with his shit and body hair and dirty clothes (ELSE live with it everywhere, so not a choice for you, really), and that you want him to pack his things.

He's edging you out.

I think his plan is that eventually you will have had enough of his purile behaviour and you will move out, thereby saving him the bother of getting you to leave.

I'd start by moving small things out of your shared place to a relatives or friends place, IE documents, jewellery, things that matter if you didn't have them any more. Then do a 'declutter' of shoes, clothes, kitchen stuff. Close joint accounts. Take your name off utilities etc

Then just don't come home one day. Leave him to wallow in his own slime.

I don't feel I am trying to make up for my success as when we first got together I was a rather low earner. I have just done well to get several promotions in the past 7 years. I have always had really really low self esteem (have had loads of therapy for specific events) so I do know why I have got here as I've almost put him on a pedestal for a long time. So yes it is probably all based on a deeper power imbalance in the relationship and thinking I've had to work hard to keep him or something like that.

I am not sure you can just boil it down to a transactional point of not doing this or that if he won't do this or that. The disrespect is there now on full show. Any full grown man would not be behaving like this. I find the answers to his behaviour to do this and that concerning.

If that was me I'd be off. I'm nobody's maid. I simply will not tolerate it.

Over thinking. He,'s just a lazy shit who doesn't have any respect for you.

You seem really aware of the dynamics, and reasons. It seems like he has decided you aren’t going to ever find the confidence to leave him and he can do as he pleases.

You can shift that with a shock or with divorce papers.

You might have low self esteem op, but what kind of man takes advantage like that? It says everything about his character not yours.

He does not respect you, I'd actually say that he actively resents you.

You just need to end this relationship. Don't fiddle around the edges with not doing his washing etc - it will make no difference, his behaviour will not change (except for the worse). Get out now, free yourself from his disrespect/resentment before it hollows you out and leaves you a shell of the woman you are.

So you've gained several promotions and you still feel guilty? This is madness!! You have done very well. Don't let this fool grind you down.

There is no way, none at all, of coming back from the total disrespect he is showing you.

He is not being careless - every single act is deliberate and screams 'fuck you'.

You know this, so what are you going to do about it?

I think it’s a fuck you as well.
Very, very demeaning.

It keeps you in your place.
No chance of you getting above your station whilst you are flushing his excrement away and collecting and cleaning his skiddy pants from the floor.

This is about control and power.

So you have got promotions and he's not done so well and is now showing you your place.

Agreed, if I were the OP I would leave. But that's always easier to say as a bystander. For some reason she has put up with everything so far. Figuring out her own motivations might give her the needed push to make changes.

How have you not completely lost your shit with this behaviour op?

I would have gone nuclear with just one of those disgusting habits. There is not a chance I would continue to put up with it, and I am not an especially confrontational person at all.

His stuff would be in bin bags in the garden and he would be sleeping elsewhere.

OP for some reason he’s decided to put you in your place as a woman. He thinks you’ll never leave. He’s probably been watching some red pill shite on YouTube.

Do you rent or own? Is it joint? This will decide your tactics of either leaving or getting him out.

In the meantime, move into a spare bedroom. Get a laundry basket just for you. Don’t wash a single thing of his ever again.

Don’t cook for him.

Obviously don’t sleep with him. Sounds like you wouldn’t go there anymore anyway. If he asks why, say you are repulsed now by his filthy habits, it’s gone too far, you can’t get the attraction back.

Good luck getting rid
💐

Hah, @Catoo absolutely this, thank you.

To be fair I have lost it on occasions it just doesn't seem to have made a difference so now all this resentment has built up.

I never really thought he was doing it to demean or control me tbh, I have just thought he was a lazy bast*rd however it's got to the stage where it feels like a lack of respect. Whatever the reason I can't tolerate it much longer in reality and I'm questioning why I have let it get this far.

Gross.
🤢
Single life is the best (I'm not, but then my marriage improved my life).

In the scenario you describe a
I can't imagine wanting to stay in the relationship, or wanting to spend time with, or be physically intimate.

Why would you stay? What's in it for you?

Well, as you say, it's got to the stage where it feels like a lack of respect for you. You are feeling it now whereas you made excuses for it before but when you look at it objectively it was always there..you were just too clouded in your view for whatever reason to see it. That's what I reckon anyway.