Moving in with one’s romantic partner is a big step and involves a lot of rejiggering of roles and responsibilities for the new household to run smoothly.
Sometimes certain chores were done differently and now you need to compromise. Maybe one person prefers to budget down to the penny and the other prefers to just have “fun money” and leave the rest to budget itself.
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Whatever the skills, preferences, or traditions each person brings with them, a new normal needs to be established through communication and understanding.
But what if one half of the couple just doesn’t have any of the required skills in the first place?
That’s what Redditor napsandhugs is up against as she considered moving in with her boyfriend and she turned to the r/AmItheAsshole subreddit to ask if it was wrong of her to expect him to show some initiative to learn those skills before they sign the lease.
She begins by explaining that she is 20 and he is 24. Currently, he lives with his parents while she has an apartment of her own.
They’ve begun the process of finding a larger space to move into together, but a casual aside in a different conversation has caused a big hiccough in those plans.
When he said, “I’d wear a nice shirt out, but I don’t know if my mom has done laundry yet,” she was surprised and asked him if his mom always did his laundry.
“Turns out, his mom does everything. And I do mean everything. He can’t cook anything, doesn’t know how to clean anything, never had to budget his money…”
She told him she wasn’t comfortable moving in with someone who didn’t have such basic skills.
“I’m scared of taking on the teacher/mom role in the relationship, and not being able to escape it, if that makes sense.”
She told him that she’s happy to help him learn to cook, but requested that they wait a bit to move in together until he’s leveled up a bit.
He got angry and said that she didn’t trust him to learn to do everything after they’d moved in and that it meant she didn’t care that much about him.
In a comment she clarified that it’s his lack of initiative that makes her question his assertion that he will learn and help out, “I do think he needs to show some initiative and responsibility before moving in, and it worries me that he doesn’t.”
The consensus ruled that she is Not The Asshole (NTA) in this situation, but it was definitely not unanimous.
“YTA!!! He wants to move in with you and asked you to teach him how to be a better person so he can better live with you! And you can’t take the time out of your busy schedule to show him how to do laundry? You’re a bad girlfriend,” said doobiehunter.
However a number of replies to that comment noted that she said she’d help him, but was afraid to sign a lease until he showed some willingness to actually learn.
Many of the No Assholes Here (NAH) opinions followed a similar theme.
“NAH but if you were invested in the relationship, you would not see it as work. It’s personal growth for him and growth for your relationship,” noted quartzcreek.
The YTA rulings focused on the sorts of red flags raised when such issues come up in a relationship.
Certainly before signing on a dotted line for anything.
Jenn3719 said , “NTA. I admire your ability to recognize the importance of this and to stand up for yourself.”
So what do you think should happen in this situation?
Personally, I think napsandhugs should sit down with her partner and calmly explain why it scares her that he keeps saying he won’t even try to start learning before the lease is signed. Perhaps even offer to show him how to do some basic chores at her current apartment before they commit to a lease agreement.
If even that isn’t good enough for him, then it could be that her fears are justified and he never had any intension of learning in the first place.
