With the arrival of the pandemic, people everywhere found themselves suddenly having to transition to working from home.
In some households, this caused significant strain as families tried to figure out how to handle their new schedules and lifestyles.
One Redditor found themselves frustrated on the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit as they were pushed to take on more of the household responsibilities.
The Redditor, who has since deleted their account, was still working, however, from their own home.
But when they began to have disagreements with their fiancé, the Original Poster (OP) wondered if they were wrong for not trying to do it all.
They asked the sub:
“AITA for telling my fiancé I couldn’t deal with everyday errands just because I work from home?”
The OP felt pressured to handle household and work tasks at the same time.
“My fiancé and I live together. We have lived together for almost two years.”
“I currently am working from home. He works outside of the home.”
“Ever since I started working from home last year, he thinks just because I am home, that means I can handle all these errands and household to-dos.”
But the pressure came to a head over a home delivery.
“The issue that had driven me to write this post is a gravel delivery. We rent our house, which has a very long driveway made up of gravel. It desperately needs to be refilled.”
“Our landlady is going to pay for it. She lives right near us.”
“The gravel delivery was supposed to happen this morning, while I would be working.”
“While this was already annoying due to the noise, it needed to be done, so oh well. After the delivery, they were supposed to drive down to my landlady’s house and get their payment.”
“Well, the gravel truck ended up breaking down so they can’t do any of this until tomorrow morning. My landlady isn’t available then.”
“My fiancé wants me to coordinate the payment for them and oversee the delivery and spreading of the gravel (that’s what the landlady/her son was supposed to do).”
The OP used the opportunity to set a new boundary.
“I flat out told him no. I have several conference calls tomorrow and just don’t have the time to worry about it. I told him that just because I am home doesn’t mean I am free to do errands or chores. I’m still working.”
“He called me an a**hole and said I could take my computer outside and work and it would only take a couple of hours. That isn’t an option due to the noise that will be present.”
“I told him he could leave the payment and I would make sure they got it, or they could get it out of our mailbox, but I was not overseeing the entire thing as he wanted. Or we could reschedule for when he was off work, I was off work, or the landlady was available.”
“Mind you, he does stuff like this ALL the time. Expecting me to handle all our responsibilities since I’m technically at home.”
“AITA for refusing?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some said this demonstrated how much respect the fiancé has for the OP.
“You know the answer … NTA. Tell fiance he just failed a test, he’s demonstrated he has little regard for your time and career, and he needs to explain why you shouldn’t reconsider everything.” – mikekingmoore
“He can now do all the grocery shopping and miscellaneous shopping since he’s out and about. He can take all the bills to work and pay those, he can do the taxes because he can take them to work and do those.”
“He can clean the bathrooms before and after work. He can come home during his lunch hour and clean the kitchen, laundry, and vacuum. He can start doing all the cooking on Saturdays and Sundays and freeze them.”
“He can start helping out. Your work time is not time for you to do anything in the home. List everything that needs to be done in the home and outside the home and then split it.”
“As far as extra things like this gravel thing, that needs to be taken care of by the landlady and she needs to reschedule it.”
“This is a red flag. When you have kids, who do you think he will expect to do it all? Let family and friends know what he expects while you are supposed to be working which will jeopardize your job. NTA. However, he is an AH.” – Feeling-Fab-U-Lus
“When my ex and I started working from home last year, I had to tell him multiple times he couldn’t just start talking to me because it absolutely killed my concentration for nothing.”
“I always did the ‘are you available, I want to share a thing’ charade dance when I needed him.”
“He never learned to respect my time and I eventually started ignoring him through my headphones.”
“To no one’s surprise but his, he is an ex.” – thehappiestelephant
Others agreed with the OP’s work-from-home frustrations.
“Why on earth do people think WFH means that it’s a free for all? NTA.” – smartiesmouth
“I work at work, with virtually no supervision. But I still do my work – if I was doing other things, the drop in quality would be noticeable.”
“WFH is no different.” – PillowOfCarnage
“I am also WFH. My husband works in a store. My MIL called me one day and said, ‘I am calling you because I know [husband] is working’.”
“Right. And what do you think I am doing? Watching the paint dry?” – Meilaia
“Exactly. My in-laws came by to drop some stuff off one day and were literally P**SED that I didn’t leave my very important zoom meeting to hang out with them a bit.”
“They also brought up to my SO (significant other) how there should have been no dirty dishes and the floor really needed to be mopped and how I need to be doing that since I’m at home.”
“Luckily SO knows the demands of my job and actually flipped out on them, telling them everything I do in a day.”
“Btw (by the way): my house wasn’t a mess that day. There was a bowl and a spoon on the counter from my lunch break, and granted the floor did need to be mopped, but it wasn’t nasty at all. Just a regular hardwood floor that hadn’t been mopped in a week.”
“Ever since then, they aren’t allowed to come over during the times I work. They have no idea what I do all day and I have a very complicated job. Not to mention typically on my breaks, I’m finishing laundry, wiping down cabinets, sweeping, moping, whatever needs to be done.”
“I’ll never understand why to some people ‘work from home’ means sitting on your a** in your house all day, free to do whatever is needed’.” – brandi__L
We’ve all struggled in some way with our work during the pandemic, but sharing the load in a unique way with the people we live with has been especially tiresome.
And the subReddit seemed to agree on this one, the OP shouldn’t have to do household chores they wouldn’t normally be able to do outside of the home during their work hours.