My bf doesn’t do anything until I tell him to do it. The way he treats me right now is completely based off of everything I’ve taught him and told him to do because he used to treat me like garbage. But anyways he lives with roommates and he has his own room, and he like doesn’t tidy the bathroom until I’m like “hey the bathrooms getting really bad..” and he’ll be like oh yeah I actually was gonna clean that tomorrow yeah I was thinking of cleaning that and then he makes this big thing about cleaning it and making note that he cleaned it just to literally never clean it again. Same thing with his sheets, he will let his sheets go for MONTHS until I’m like dude your sheets are kind of dirty and he’ll be like oh yeah I was gonna wash them this weekend and he’ll make a big thing of it again and never do it again until I tell him his sheets are dirty. He will do this with everything and I’m just wondering is this NORMAL FOR MEN ????
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He was never going to clean it. It’s not “normal”, that is, for a independent human. But it’s “normal”, as in “men replace their mother with their girlfriend”.
You shouldn’t have to teach or nag an adult to do the bare minimum.
It is normal for men who haven’t been raised right and who like to displace their emotional and environmental wellness onto women. This is actually dangerous for your health. Is he that worth it otherwise?
Yep. I mean it can be normal for women too. But societal standards and gender norms and all that. I think it happens when people dont have to do their own chores growing up, if mom always does the cleaning and laundry they’ve never had to think about it and just truly can’t recognize the need.
Read up on the “mental load”. Sounds like he sees you as the “manager” of your household / manager of chores / manager of things to do.
While a lot of men do this, it is not fair on the woman and you should not have to put up with this bullshit.
If it is bad now, think how much worse it will be if you both move in together.
It’s not normal. Most people learn this stuff in middle school or high school. I’m nearly 50 and every man I’ve ever dated has had a clean living space. Every single one. (I haven’t specifically sought out “clean” men.)
I’m curious though. How old is your boyfriend?
You are dating a kid, that’s kinda illegal…
He’s just a slob. They aren’t all slobs. My husband of many years has always been much tidier than me and keeps the house cleaner and stays on top of the dishes and laundry. I taught him none of it. How clean we live is a choice we all make, isn’t it?
Kids can learn
Adults who need to be told when a bathroom or bedsheets are dirty don’t
For your sake let go of this bum
Please read this. It’s still free in this format
https://share.google/3KPx2C1hQLeocPUmb
It’s common because that’s how most boys are raised. However, there’s nothing about men that makes it inevitable.
The trans men I know are quite capable of doing things without being asked, because they were raised as girls and they were expected to take responsibility.
Sadly, yes. It is also common for them to act afterward like they have just rescued an orphan from a burning building, or to do it badly and then, when that is pointed out, throw up their hands and say they shouldn’t bother doing it then.
Source: Am dude, know dudes.
Is it common? Sadly, yes. Is it acceptable? No.
Normal, yes. Reasonable and fair, no.
Nothing is universal to all men, but this is a common issue men often have. Sometimes there’s legitimacy to it; someone with ADHD may have a hard time remembering to do things that other people would take as routine, unless reminded externally.
But there can definitely also be an element of willful incompetence. These things aren’t important to him, and while they may be important to you, that doesn’t make it important enough to him to stay on top of. If you remain in the relationship and take further steps like moving in together, you can likely expect this kind of behavior to escalate. First he’ll make a show of doing it. Then only when asked. Then he’ll complain and do it when asked, and/or start doing it more half-assed. And eventually it’ll become “Well if it’s so important, why don’t you just do it?” The more you push back, the more you’ll get branded as a nag and a killjoy who just wants to boss him around and sap his happiness.
You can try talking to him and setting expectations, but if he doesn’t want to do it he’ll find a way not to. He might understand better if you hit him where it hurts – i.e. if you are coming to stay over and his bedding hasn’t been changed in a month and his bathroom is a sty, don’t sleep with him. Tell him that you’re not comfortable doing that in a bed that’s so filthy, you’re not comfortable doing it if there’s not a clean place to clean up after.
But why are you even with this guy if his default is to treat you like garbage and he doesn’t do anything nice for you of his own volition? Is that who you want to spend your life with?
Extremely common behavior, unfortunately.
It’s normal for women as well.
I’ve lived with several men and women roommates over the years and the worst were women. On average, the men were worse, but for individuals? Women were the worst. Funny enough, it was a man who was an insane neat freak, but he was nice about it. But on average women have tended to be slighter neater and cleaner to live with.
Normal for your gross boyfriend. Not most adults.
Unfortunately, many are like this. My ex was like this and it drove me bonkers. The positive is that you don’t have to accept this behaviour/attitude by any means. My husband, for example, does things around the house without prompting. He mowed the lawn this morning and is currently cleaning the kitchen.
Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. Read it together and make it your religion. It’s an ownership based system for managing household tasks that is designed to solve this exact problem.
So you’re complaining that he actually listens to you and cleans the bathroom when you voice that it’s getting gross? So you’re complaining that you don’t have to do it for him? So you’re complaining that he takes it in stride and says “you know, you’re right, I’ll take care of that.” Contrary to reddit consensus, not all men suck. Women just like to complain about them far too much.
It’s normal for men who do not share the emotional labor in a relationship.
No.
My husband is three years younger than me. We have been together for 18 years.
He’s a grown man who does household tasks and ‘adulting’ because he’s a grown adult who lives in the household.
We do touch base on shifting chores occasionally and there are periods where chores slip. My son is going through a phase where he wants the hall light on because he’s scared of raptors (dammit) so we’re both prioritizing cleaning the kitchen and bathroom and then sleep.
I feel that you need to ask your boyfriend what he sees his responsibility as. For example, I clean the bathroom because I like certain things scrubbed well. My husband handles cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming the entire house and laundry just as often as I do.
This is a common complaint about men from women, and also from people who manage men.
But ask yourself this question — does he do things for himself without being asked? Not just fun stuff. There’s some chore he has to do for his hobbies. Does he do *that* chore without being asked?
He is fine with a filthy bathroom. That is not likely to change. At any given moment, he would rather have a dirty bathroom than do the labor to clean it. He is fine with filthy sheets. He would rather sleep on months-old dirty sheets than take them to the washer.
If you’re having sex with this guy, or allowing any part of his body near your vagina, please make sure that he washes his hands and other body parts. With SOAP.
And then ask yourself if you want to be his mommy. Because that’s what mommies do. They ask boys if they washed their hands. But, if you don’t make sure he washes, you’re bound to get a lot of UTIs.
no.
It’s not normal, but it sure has been normalized. His dick can’t be that good, find you a man who cooks and cleans.
My take is that it’s sooo normal and shouldn’t be. Every man I’ve dated except like 1 was like this. This is one big reason I hopped on the 4B bandwagon before finally realizing I’m just totally gay.
I put up with this same exact stuff for almost 10 years. I broke up with him and let him continue living in my house for a while and even when he was actively and desperately trying to win me back he still didn’t come close to carrying his weight around the house.
Trash on the counters instead of the garbage, clothes on the floor, taking things out of their place and forgetting to put them back so that neither of us could find the thing when we needed it. All these little things that you think are bearable or that you can “train” the correct behavior… it adds up after years and becomes so exhausting that you give up on “training” them and do it yourself. Which then ends up exhausting you even more.
And my story is far from uncommon. That’s how I know just how normalized this type of behavior is and I really urge you not to put up with it and not to bother expecting someone to change. Some do, but most of the time it becomes more like a never ending struggle.
No, its not. He seems lazy and waits for someone else to do things for him.
Literally every single man I have had a relationship with has done this.
Normalized yes. Normal? No. I’ve dated guys like this until I dated a man that actually was appropriately afraid of losing me, and he grew up REAL fast. (I did too, because, same). After that, I vowed never to settle for a man I have to teach to be a man.
I think it’s common. Unfortunately. Mine is starting to get better, but up until the past year or so he’d say things like, “I didn’t know what you wanted me to do.” Uhh??? Open your eyeballs. Maybe wash a dish once it gets to the point you’re eating cereal out of the random Tupperware you have to pull out of storage. If you’re crunching the Cheerios our toddler dropped all week while you walk, maybe take out a broom??
I didn’t understand how anyone could be so dense until it came up in conversation with his Mum and she told me, “oh yes, he does really well with a list of tasks and instructions!” I told him he can come up with the list and she looked at me like I’d suggested he perform brain surgery. 🥲
Girl don’t raise nobody’s grown son
Common? Yes. Normal? No. Some men are just big overgrown babies.