Welcome to Bootleg Therapy: an advice column for wayward hearts. Think of me as your virtual stranger at the bar with a raspy voice and a weird scar on their cheek; the truth is in the worm at the bottom of the mezcal bottle. Submit your questions anonymously on brokebutmoisturized.com for a chance to be featured.
“Chore Chart” fan
My boyfriend and I live together in a house he owns. He has a physically active job in construction and I have an office job that I’ve performed from home since the pandemic. He’ll often come home from a long day of work and expect me to make dinner or for the house to be clean when he gets there because I’ve been home all day (albeit working). It feels like he thinks my job is bullshit (I have to admit there is a fair amount of Netflix watching that gets done while I’m typing away from my couch), and he often has an attitude if I look to him for dinner or if the house looks the same as when he left. Since I have more time to do it, should the housework be my responsibility? Does it make me a bad girlfriend for not wanting to do all the work, even if I know it would be an act of service for my boyfriend/make him happy? Help!
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Dear “Chore Chart” fan,
If you read this newsletter, you may have seen that a few months ago, my partner asked me to start paying rent. For clarity’s sake, I wasn’t just not paying rent (my life could never be so glamorous). We had broken up, I moved home, and his friend moved in and took over my lease. When I moved back in, it was under the condition that I wouldn’t have to pay until our roommate moved out. That condition was reassessed early when his student loans kicked back in and he realized his girlfriend banked half her salary while living la vida loca.
The whole scenario precipitated much introspection on the age-old romantic controversy of household responsibility and what constitutes true fairness. Now that the world has gone remote, this friction is only amplified by the new expectations we incur from being home all the time.
I get the vibe that you’ve absorbed your boyfriend’s gripes. Let’s review the evidence, and dissect whether any of it is justified:
Right away, you let me know he owns the house. Is this information relevant? That depends. If you contribute toward the mortgage and/or bills, then I’d say who owns the home is extraneous, and that you likely only mentioned it because he’s held it over your head to strengthen his case. However, if you don’t pay, then I’d say he has a point. I believe in an egalitarian partnership. Not paying rent creates an imbalance that should be tempered via some other form of reciprocity, like housework. In short, if you aren’t contributing financially to the home, you should probably be doing more cooking and cleaning than him. We could really stop there, but let’s continue…
You say you watch Netflix while you work—work being the operative word. You and I both know you can’t chop vegetables for tonight’s dinner and remain active on Microsoft Teams. Does a little Ozark running in the background make you any less on the clock, or has he convinced you that work and entertainment can’t possibly coexist because his job makes him unable to relate? Blue collar workers sometimes struggle to sympathize with office jobs because they have a different concept of “hard work.” Fair, but not reason enough to project homemaking expectations onto you. This brings me to my next point…
Do you actually “have more time to do it?” Or, does being home simply give him the impression that your time is less accounted for? Now this is where I give you something to remember for life: your free time is your free time. Just because you have more of it than someone else doesn’t mean it should be filled up with extra work. Someone who loves you should be happy that you have a good work/life balance, not bitter that you don’t use it to their liking.
Acknowledging the act of service thing leads me to believe you guys know your love languages, and that this is his. I’m compelled to ask: are your love languages amply nurtured? If the answer is yes, then again, consider reciprocity. Say you’re a “Words of Affirmation” person, and he makes a point to compliment you often. You would want to return the affection in a way that speaks to his preferences. That means cooking and cleaning more. If your needs aren’t being met, though, and he still expects you to step it up at home, then again, we have an imbalance.
The thing about fairness is it’s completely nuanced. Some people are happy to carry a heavier load than their partner, whose love and companionship is plenty in return. Those people are called “sugar daddies” and we find them at expensive hotel bars. I’m kidding. But if you feel the housework should be an even split, put all the elements of your partnership onto a scale and see what happens. If his end tips, you better grab the hamper, love.
The actual GF
My boyfriend and I started dating in early December. He was home in PA for the holidays and we quickly hit it off. He made it clear that he intended for us to be in a committed monogamous relationship before he took off to finish his lease in Portland, OR. His best friend is a girl and they often travel with one another… long distances, days of traveling. He assures me that they are strictly platonic and calmly reassures me and explains the sleeping situation every night. But I am still severely uncomfy. I tried to extend an olive branch to her and followed her on Instagram, she didn’t follow me back only making me feel even worse. Am I overreacting?
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Dear The actual GF,
If you would have written another advice columnist, you might get a predictable recipe of half-baked truisms:
“ReLaTiOnShIpS aRe AbOuT tRuSt!”
“ThIs Is A bYpRoDuCt Of ToXiC mOnOgAmY!”
“MeN aNd WoMeN cAn Be FrIeNdS! He’S wItH yOu, NoT hEr FoR a ReAsOn!”
I’m glad you didn’t, though. I’m glad you wrote my straight-no-chaser, bruised-but-never-broken ass.
The rumors are true: I only have a bachelor’s degree in an easy major from a no-name school. But I went on for my PhD in Getting Men to Do What I Want. Maybe that’s a charmless admission of no intrinsic value. Maybe it will take me further than conventional wisdom. Either way, class is in session.
Let’s start with what we know. Your boyfriend likes you enough to commit from across the country. Do you know how huge that is? There’s this sexy desperation in imagining all the different landscapes separating you from the creature you pine for. Lush green hills and snow-capped mountains… concrete and skylines. The hopeless romantic in me is squealing. Sir either wants love or validation (i.e. someone to text), and I’m apt to believe the former.
Your boyfriend’s female best friend is mostly threatening because she’s a mystery. Or rather, their relationship is a mystery. You haven’t had the opportunity to absorb their in-person energy—to get a feel for whether there’s chemistry behind the shaky promise of separate beds at that Airbnb in Joshua Tree. If anything, you are underreacting in my book. But this is a good opportunity to assert your needs in a way that is self-assured and fair, not insecure or controlling.
I have a lot of male friends, some of whom I’ve slept with. Today, you could not pay me to look at them as more than siblings. I didn’t expect my partner to get that, though. So I pumped the brakes on our friendships until he could meet them and experience our dynamic firsthand. Something of this nature is a generous expectation in your case, too. He should be willing to limit their hangouts to group outings, and absolutely not travel with her, until you’ve met her and/or have developed a genuine sense of trust in both him and their friendship. Travel is especially sticky because one special trip and you can see someone in an entirely different light. People fall for friends all the time; it is perfectly human, even when you’re in a relationship. That’s why healthy monogamy requires squashing the possibility. The foundation of monogamy, after all, is pragmatism. And there’s nothing practical about adding unnecessary insecurity to your brand new relationship. As for the Instagram thing, I’ve thought about multiple best case scenarios, e.g. she’s not super active on there, or she doesn’t follow people she hasn’t met in person, and I’m still coming up short; conclusion: it’s fucking shady.
Because you haven’t been dating long, you need to come correct in your request. Make this an issue of data, i.e. the probability of someone having feelings in an opposite sex friendship is high and therefore I am being logical. Maintain an air of detachment—a sense of independence and having your own life, only willing to be so vulnerable because you happen to really like the idea of sharing it with him. He’ll respect your honesty and the exchange will be revelatory, for better or for worse. (You must be willing to confront the “worse” and see if it’s worth tolerating, or it will only get worse.)
As a collective, we have consumed one too many therapy-speak Instagram infographics that we’ve been gaslit into ignoring our own discomfort out of fear of looking toxic. Thus, a lot of people would read this and encourage you to address your insecurity before dating, rather than projecting that onto him. I think that’s solipsistic and denies the fact that successful relationships often require sacrifice—that we are vessels for trauma that we must work through to feel comfortable with banal shit, like opposite sex friendships. You’re not always going to be prepared when you meet “the one.” We are humans, not Lean Cuisines. It’s about becoming prepared together, mixing all the raw ingredients to make something truly delicious. Something to savor.
the lean cuisine line are we kidding, magic
Great insights.