He complained to his parents that his girlfriend 'wasn't domestic.' So she decided to teach him a lesson

Relationships are all about balance, and this equilibrium is even more important when you are living together. It's crucial to figure out how to share responsibilities — things like who cooks, who cleans, who handles the grocery runs, or pays the bills. Most couples eventually settle into a routine, even if it’s not completely 50/50, while others tend to fall into the stereotypical roles created for men and women. For one lady, that routine had seemed lopsided for a while, and it finally reached a tipping point where she didn’t feel like pretending it was working anymore. She shared the complete story on Reddit under the username u/avabeast.

In her post, the 26-year-old shared that she and her 28-year-old boyfriend have been together for three years and have been living with each other for one. "We both work full-time, but I also cook, clean, do laundry, grocery shopping, handle bills, and take care of our cat. He’ll sometimes take out the trash or wash a dish, but that’s about it," she wrote. They had discussed this mismatched load before, to which he had said he would "try to do more," but that never really came to be. One weekend, while visiting her boyfriend's parents for dinner, his mother asked her, "So, what do you actually do around the house? [Boyfriend’s name] says you’re not really the domestic type."

The girlfriend couldn't process what she had just heard, but responded anyway, saying, "Well, if by 'not domestic,' you mean I do everything, then sure." Upon hearing her response, her boyfriend "looked embarrassed and didn't say anything to defend" her. Later, when she asked him about it, he said, "I just meant you don’t really enjoy housework," to which she responded, "Dude. WHO DOES???" The boyfriend went on to "lightly" apologize to her, claiming it was a joke, but she refused to let this one slide so easily. "So I decided to take a little break... from his laundry. I stopped doing his clothes completely. Didn’t say a word, just folded mine and left his in the basket," she said in her post.

The clothes kept piling up for two weeks until the boyfriend asked, "Are you mad again or something? You haven’t done my laundry," to which she responded, "I thought you said I don’t do anything around the house, so I figured I’d live up to the label." Her boyfriend reacted by calling her "petty and immature," and even his mother texted her, telling her to "let it go." She wrote, "I told her I’d be happy to let it go… right into the washing machine with the rest of his responsibilities."

Viewers on Reddit backed the woman, bashing the boyfriend and his mother for not acknowledging her efforts. u/Daisytru said, "OP needs to move on from this baby-man. She can do better!" u/lchornet added, "He is too immature for a relationship. Leave and let his mother do his laundry." Some called out the woman for taking on more responsibility than she should. u/Wing-4003 wrote, "YTA to yourself. Re-read this part you wrote: 'We both work full-time, but I also cook, clean, do laundry, grocery shop, handle bills, take care of our cat.' You do ALL the work. He does... what exactly? Oh right, trash talks you to his mom." u/rpsls said, "Seriously, OP, why were you ever doing his laundry? It's not your responsibility unless you make it yours, and I don't know why you'd willingly do that." As more women buckle under the weight of housework, it is important to remind yourselves and each other that she was born to do much more than a village's worth of domestic chores.