dinoceros
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It doesn’t really matter whether we have deemed that she does enough work or not, though. They resent each other. They can’t communicate well enough to find a solution. When you get to the point where your partner asks you for a favor and your response is to be a jerk to them (and I’m referring to them both at this point), I just don’t really know how much longer a relationship can survive.
I think one of the big issues is that he appears to have the expectation that he shouldn’t have to do ANY home chores because he works. I would assume that most couples who have a big discrepancy in how much each person works will divide the chores based on that because obviously one person has more time than the other and it creates some balance. But when it turns into one person saying they essentially don’t have to do anything at home, it’s not OK. It starts to sound like one person saying they have more value than the other person.
The other thing that I haven’t seen as much mentioned about is that household chores aren’t just about the time it takes to do them. Cleaning up after another person is a totally different feeling than going out and doing a job. I shared chores with housemates once where we rotated jobs. When I was shoveling snow/taking out trash/cutting grass, it was a very different feeling than when I was cleaning the kitchen. With the former, it was simply a chore that had to be done. With the latter, the amount of work directly related to whether the other housemates chose to pick up after themselves or not. It’s a lot easier to resent someone when you’re cleaning up after them and they forgot to clean up their coffee that dripped on the counter or when they didn’t toss out their old leftovers. I don’t think any romantic relationship is going to handle it very well when one person is doing all the household chores because you feel like either their maid or their parent.
I had a boss once who told me that he thought he and his wife might get a divorce, but he didn’t go into any more detail than that. He seemed very aware that if he said more about it, it would be unprofessional and unfair to his wife. I also had a co-worker who talked about how he’d been with his girlfriend for 6 years and sometimes wondered if it was the best fit, but he chose his words very carefully to sound diplomatic. That’s the closest I’ve come to people gossiping about their spouses in this way, and both seemed very clear that there was a boundary and they were not going to cross it.
If you really don’t want to get involved with him, then it shouldn’t have gotten this far. You should not be indulging him in conversations about your personal life or about his marriage.
I would also agree that your description of interactions with him paint a very bad picture of him. You’re making the classic mistake of someone who is into a married man where you are looking for any sign that you have a chance with him so hard that you ignore the red flags.
A person who has marriage problems? Sure, they might be ripe for cheating or being single soon, but they are a crappy person for trash talking their spouse. They are bad at relationships. A person who acts possessive? Sure, maybe they like you, but they are also a possessive person.
These aren’t just signs of whether he’s open to having an affair with you. These are indicators of who he is as a person, and I’d say this means that you probably need to rethink your standards.
I agree that his attitude is a problem. Scorekeeping to the extent that if your partner asks you to do a small task, you refuse because you have a job is a really bad sign this early on in your cohabitation. It tends to speak to who he is as a person. Even if two people had differing ideas on what each person’s workload should be, I’d assume that most happy couples wouldn’t be so resentful to do a favor asked by their partner (especially if it’s a household task). If I were employed and my partner wasn’t, I would feel uncomfortable expecting them to act like my maid. The fact that he’s not is concerning.
But I guess I’m wondering — has he always been like this? Stingy with favors? Dismissive? Either way, there are a lot of conversations that need to happen, but particularly if this is a big change from his personality. Because they question would be why? If not, then this is a case of moving in probably not being a good idea. Regardless, I guess I’m curious about whether you guys had a conversation before you moved in or after about how chores would be divided? If not, why not? Why hasn’t the conversation happened now that you see there’s a problem? A couple who can’t have a conversation about it that results in a compromise that both people are happy with has no business living together.
I’ve said this on a lot of forum threads and letters, but I can count many times, particularly when I was a teenager, when I was absolutely convinced that someone was staring at me and they weren’t. Or they were, but it was not out of interest. “Eye contact” can’t happen unless both people are looking at each other, though.
“Things haven’t crossed any serious lines, thank goodness, so there is hope.”
This kind of passive voice doesn’t help. Things don’t happen. People do things. Lines can’t be crossed unless you choose to cross them, so luckily, you can definitely be certain that no lines will be crossed ever, if that’s what you choose.
I’m going to be honest. I think that most of this is a fantasy in your head. The only things you’ve mentioned that are tangible actions on his part are making eye contact with you, talking to you, and sitting near you. None of those things really indicate anything other than a human interacting with another human. Especially since you have been friends for years, which doesn’t make it all that odd that he’d seek you out at events. Everything else, the feelings behind the looks, the nervousness, whatever — those are all things that you are making assumptions about. Not to mention that you have been choosing to stare at him a lot, too, so how do you know that his nervousness or looking at you isn’t a result of you acting weird? If I had a co-worker who obviously had a crush on me, I might act awkward around them too, whether or not I was interested.
Either way, if you’ve decided that he isn’t an option (which is good, since he’s married and you don’t want to destroy your career), then I think you’ve been making some unfortunate choices. Letting yourself obsess over him, trying to stare at him so he’ll notice, watching him all the time — those aren’t the kind of things people do if they don’t want to start something. I suspect that you would be willing to get involved with him if he’d shown any tangible sign of being into you.
Stop looking at him all the time. Stop dissecting every move. Distance yourself from him. Those would be pretty obvious for someone who truly doesn’t want to get involved with him.
Most people go their whole lives without writing in to an advice website. If you have to write in multiple times, including a time where you change your identity, then your relationship is a train wreck.
I think something else that I’m not sure if other people touched on as much is that I think that you guys are sort of making it worse by aiming to have the entire group meet up. I don’t mean that as a dig because I love having all my friends together, especially for a celebration. But it’s hard enough to get 6 child-free couples together as it is. I think that most people don’t have that large of a friend group to where they are inviting them all to their home at the same time, because I think that even child-free friend groups would probably have similar complaints that they can’t find a time when everyone is free or people double book themselves or whatever. I think the only reason you don’t have people bailing or making plans on top of your party is that parents don’t often have as many social obligations anyway, so probably no one else is inviting them out on those days.
Anyway, my point is that I think that this situation doesn’t necessarily have to come down to whether you and your friends are compatible anymore or whether they care about you or not. But I think that you guys have very high expectations that are sort of destined to not be met. I try to schedule time with two of my friends (one lives near me and one lives an hour away), and even though we only make plans 3 times a year, it takes weeks and weeks of planning to find a weekend where we are all free (and nobody has kids!)
I think finding child free friends will help, but I think if you just sort of accept that the group is not going to hang out together, you may still be able to enjoy spending time with smaller subsets of the group without feeling like they don’t value you.
People aren’t “dwelling on it” just for the heck of it. You’re asking for advice, and the advice is to not do what you’ve been doing and do something else. Also, when you ask a board full of people for advice, you will likely get multiple posts with the same feedback.
Going to other people behind her back is beyond inappropriate. It’s fine to have doubts and be concerned, but that doesn’t give you the right to talk about her business with others. If you have issues in a relationship, TALK TO THE PERSON YOU ARE DATING. If you feel that you can’t trust what they say, then there isn’t enough trust to sustain a relationship.
If I were her and I found out you were doing this, I’d dump you on the spot.
I was told by a relative that a loved one has a drinking problem. They called me to ask for me to reach out to the person during a hard time, while the person was drinking heavily, and were not aware that I didn’t know. Since then, I can confirm that it’s true. This is someone I’ve known for many years. I was told not to let on because that person would not trust them (and they are the ones the person calls to get a ride when they are drunk or whatever), so they were worried that the person would be less safe if they couldn’t trust them. That’s beside the point here.
My point is that it’s really hard to say what’s going on here. It could be the relative overreacting or being overly critical. But it’s also entirely possible that this person is a recovering addict and never told you.
I also agree that a serious partner does need to know about an addiction. Not even just for the partner’s benefit, but anyone who is in recovery who actually cares about their recovery would know that they’ve got to disclose that for their own benefit too.
I think you need to tell her what you heard and also not jump into any more commitment yet. If it turns out this is true and she didn’t tell you, then I suspect she’s not going to be the best person to buy a house with. Not necessarily BECAUSE of the addiction, but because she hasn’t learned not to hide things and is not all that concerned with sobriety.
