It’s an actual thing. When it feels more like you have a teenage son than a partner it’s hard to get turned on by them, even if you weren’t already too exhausted from clearing up after them.
So much this. Working all day is exhausting. So is keeping the house. Having to do both all of the time when you have an able-bodied partner? Gross. No one wants an adult child as a partner.
Men have no idea just how exhausting it is to have to carry all of that weight. Well, some do, I’m sure. I haven’t met any, personally, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there.
Having a partner that is an actual partner gives you the room to breathe and relax. And honestly, that is the real turn on.
I’m a man who had to do this. My partner was going through some pretty rough times in grad school, then left school, and had a lot of mental health work to go through. I was trying to be supportive, but we had to have a few conversations where I said that I didn’t find her exactly attractive in the moment because it felt like I was more of a guardian than a partner. It’s gotten a lot better since then, but it can be hard when your partner is going through hard times (or is just lazy, in some cases) and doesn’t see things as you do.
Everyone needs to put in effort. It doesn’t need to be symmetrical (meaning you don’t have to do all the same things), but it should be approximately equal in terms of effort in both the relationship and your living situation
Look, you’re not entirely wrong. But this is a very gendered experience (as in, disproportionately affects women). Of course it happens the other way around, just nowhere near as often. You don’t have to get so fucking defensive about it. This is the world you live in, deal with it.
This isn’t a stereotype, it’s a well-documented sociological phenomenon. Women typically do the majority of unpaid / organizational labor in a household, even when they work full-time outside the home. And part of why this is such a problem is that this work is often not witnessed or acknowledged by their partners, or even dismissed as “unimportant”.
I know it’s yikes. It felt icky to write it out, but I did because its true. It’s well documented that women are far more likely to be “running the house” even when working full time. So many articles, podcasts, and books have been written about it. There’s even a comic floating around the internet. (english.emmaclit.com/2017/…/you-shouldve-asked/)
Because this is a gendered issue. Although men on average do slightly more paid labor, if you count total labor (both paid and domestic) women work more.
This has serious consequences for women’s careers and is a major relationship strain that men may not realize is happening.
Well documented observations are not politics. That’s just fact. How we decide to react to those facts is politics.
Both is the answer. You do look hot doing chores. Also chores done is a turn on. It’s like oysters and chocolate, but your house is tidy and it’s not gross.
Does she act on your appearance as a more attractive mate when the chores are done? If so, then it doesn’t matter if it’s real or a ruse. Win-win, literally.
It’s a thing. There’s nothing less attractive than having to play parent to an adult who can’t pull their own weight in managing a household.
Can’t recognize that a full trash can needs to go out without being told? Can’t realize dishwashers that are full need to be run without reminding? Can’t find where clothes need to go when they’re clean?
If that workload is falling on one person most of the time, over time it can become a source of resentment.
When both people have full time jobs, it’s like coming home to a second job.