Kate Hackett
Oooo, even just that title had me seeing red. I cannot—I CANNOT—stand men who just suddenly develop some kind of mental block about chores. Why the hell am I teaching you how to clean a dryer lint trap, Matt? You are thirty-plus years old!
…Not that that’s happened.
No, it definitely did. And it’s totally going to color my rage as we go through u/lappisl‘s post on r/AmITheAsshole together. Let’s dive in.
My boyfriend has started pretending to be bad at basic life shit like dishes and laundry like he can’t do it so I do it…
*SCREAMS FOREVER*
I felt pretty frustrated with that and told him straight up that I knew he didn’t forget how to clean since he moved in with me; he was always very competent living alone and I didn’t appreciate him “forgetting” how to do chores.
Okay, that’s out of my system. So this dude just suddenly “forgets” how to properly do a chore.
I said that when I asked him to do dishes and he refused and refused until he finally did them wrong, that I was not that stupid.
And then does them wrong. I hate this guy.
He said that he was trying his best and I was wrong for saying he was trying to manipulate me. And that from his perspective I asked him to do something and he did it the best he could and I kept at him because it wasn’t up to my impossibly high standards and he couldn’t win… And he wanted me to believe him when he says he is trying.
*side eye squint* Yeah, right. I don’t know how you can do dishes wrong, but if you DID, and you’re an adult, you’re definitely faking it.
Anyway, this might be petty but I decided to give “believing him” a try.
So…
Oh boy, here we go. She’s letting him try…
He had bleach stained my favorite little black dress. Instead of getting mad, next time he had a family event, I put it on.
He asked me if I was really going to wear that, it looked messy. I said that I loved that dress and understand accidents happen so I wasn’t mad or upset it had bleach spots, actually. I thought it looked kinda cool.
Amazing. Kill him with kindness, girl. He ruined her favorite black dress, so she’s WEARING IT THAT WAY.
He said he really thought it looked bad and I said if he wants he could sharpie on the white spots real quick in the Uber. It ended up looking even worse.
Did this guy seriously think he could fix bleach stains with sharpie??
Another time, we were having dinner and he had done the dishes, but put some of the cups and bowls in the dishwasher upside down so they filled with dirty dishwater. I took those cups and bowls, dumped them out in the sink but didn’t wash them further, and served his food in them. He said that it was dirty and I was like “They just came out of the dishwasher! It’s just water, it’s fine.
I love this. He loaded the dishes like a moron and then got to eat out of the dirty dish.
He said that no it was disgusting, and I said it was really no biggie, I was getting over my impossibly high cleanliness standards and I really didn’t think it was that gross.
The last time, I had cooked for a work party of his. After cooking, the dish needed to cool for about 30 minutes then be refrigerated. I had plans with my friends that night and I asked him to put the dish away after it cooled. He forgot.
Forgot to refrigerate something SHE COOKED, guess how he reacted when she said it was fine.
The next morning he noticed the dish was never refrigerated. I said it was fine, it was just a mistake, and it would probably be fine to eat, there wasn’t a lot of meat in it.
He got frustrated and said that you can’t serve meat left out overnight even if it is “only a little” and I said “oh I think it should be okay, stuff happens”
Oh, yes, he got FRUSTRATED.
He’s stopped being so lazy about chores after he realized I seem totally okay with leaving stuff done badly and that he’ll be living with it.
But I feel a little petty for having been dishonest about it. I actually hate how my bleached dress looked and my stomach turns at dirty dish soup and unrefrigerated meat.
AITA for being petty?
ABSOLUTELY NOT. You are not petty at all, sweet, sweet, malicious genius. I love you. I worship you. And does Reddit agree?
I am living for this follow-up reply:
Okay, this is a fair point…
So what’s your verdict? Total asshole or are you stealing this chick’s moves? I know I will.
