Relationships are meant to be an exchange of give and take. They don’t need to be perfectly balanced, but they also shouldn’t be obviously and harmfully one-sided.
Redditor Trick_Water_9702 was trying to determine whether that line was crossed with her boyfriend (BF). The original poster (OP) wasn’t sure if she was overreacting, and asked the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for perspective.
Her question concerned a recent issue:
“AITA for refusing to get my boyfriend’s lunch?”
However, there’s a lot more to the story:
“A bit of backstory: my (30F) boyfriend (30M) quit his job to take some time off about 3 months ago. He lives at home with his parents so he does not pay rent, and has a healthy amount of savings, so I was initially very supportive.”
“Lately, however, my patience has been wearing thin. He sleeps all day and can barely be bothered to mow the lawn (his one weekly chore at his parents house).”
“He went on for weeks about wanting to get started on his resume, but insisted I needed to ‘help’ (aka do it for) him as he couldn’t do it himself. He also began to ‘forget’ his wallet everywhere we went to eat, paying for maybe one fast food meal every 2 weeks.”
“I work and am lucky to make a good living, but I have my own apartment and bills to pay and cannot afford to be supporting another person’s food expenses full time. He also has a bad habit of promising to pay me back for things and then not for weeks, even after being reminded multiple times (hundreds of dollars).”
“I explained to him that I was happy to each be paying our own way and watch our spending together since he was unemployed, but I couldn’t afford to continue paying for him for everything.”
“I said I was beginning to feel taken advantage of, and that I hadn’t realized when he quit his job he expect d me to start paying for him all the time. He got extremely offended and said it was mean and rude of me to accuse him of such a thing, and that if I were unemployed he would do the same for me.”
“It all came to a head today while working from home – he came into the room and said he was hungry and wanted lunch. I said I was planning to order myself food from Panera, and he said he wanted some too.”
“I said ok and asked if he would pick it up (as he was just watching TV) and he threw a fit, saying it was too far (7 min) and that if I wanted him to pick it up I would need to pick a place 5 min away or less. I was frustrated (really, 7 min is too far?), so I told him that we should just do our own thing for lunch, which made him even more upset.”
“He said I was being childish, that I was already planning to go get it so what did it matter? I told him I could either pay for his lunch for him and he could get get it (he uses my car, btw) or he could pay for his own food and I would get it, but not both.”
“He is furious and went and shut himself in a room, after yelling his order to me and telling me to let him know when I got back.”
“I will not be getting his food, but am I being unreasonable?”
“I admit I am making a point here, but I’m getting pretty fed up.”
OP thinks she might be making a big deal over covering small expenses while her BF is unemployed. The AITA board can help determine this.
This is done by fellow users who include one of the following in their comment to judge:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
OP has more than put herself out there for her BF. She’s covered a lot of things she shouldn’t have to and her BF seems unwilling to start looking for a new job.
If not paying for lunch is what makes him upset after everything else she’s done, she’s not the one wrong here.
“NTA – holy moly, does this guy have any good traits? He sounds lazy, unmotivated, entitled, whiny.”
“If this is how he’s acting as your boyfriend, do you really want to see a future with this guy? People tend to be on their best behavior while dating!” – jacraek
“Congratulations OP you have managed to find yourself a leech, someone in his behaviour definitely needs to change if he wants this relationship to last because his attitude is not something that you deserve to put up with for much longer.”
“NTA” – Scarsguard11
“NTA. I missed the part of your post where you explained why you haven’t dumped this guy yet.”
“He has his own mommy, so the relationship with you seems a bit redundant.” – TheBestPeter
“NTA.”
“He’s an adult and should start acting like one.”
“That aside, how is his mental health? It still isn’t an excuse if it’s bad, but getting help may improve your situation.” – HotBananaCoffee
Many other comments questioned why OP was still in this relationship.
“YTA”
“Not to him, to yourself.”
“You seems smart enough to see where this situation is going, why are you making a big deal over lunch? Do the right thing for both of you.” – mad_throwaway123
“Very good point, thank you for your response” – Trick_Water_9702 (OP)
“NTA but (and I say this with the nicest intent) [you’re] an idiot. You’re wasting part of your life on this jerk.”
“He has no motivation to work (which would be sad even if he were a billionaire), mooches off of you, and can’t even be bothered to run to pick up his own lunch.”
“You know you’re not going to get this part of your life back, right?” – horsendogguy
“NTA. A partnership is meant to be just that. You’re not his sponsor.”
“I think the lack of motivation, sleeping all day and unable to complete basic tasks does scream depression to me. I obviously can’t be sure, but that is how it manifests for a lot of people.”
“I would try to have a conversation with him about this though, outside of an argument. Tell him you are becoming resentful of the money borrowing and that you don’t want to feel like this in the relationship.”
“Say you feel that the unemployment is not benefitting him and perhaps he needs the structure of work. Maybe approach how he is feeling and whether he feels he needs any support with that” – Laurajenn
“I think I agree. I’m thinking a long serious talk, and then if nothing changes I need to move on.” – Trick_Water_9702 (OP)
In some of her comments, OP has made it clear she’s done dealing with her BF’s behavior. Whether that leads to them breaking up is unknown, but if he refuses to change or get help, it likely will.
It’s important to remember that while you can help someone in your relationship, it’s not your responsibility if they refuse to help themselves.