Anyone who has a business will tell you that the couple of months leading up to Christmas are the busiest, but they are also the most lucrative ones. The shopping marathon usually begins in November when Black Friday sales start even before Thanksgiving and it doesn’t stop after, as you have the Cyber Week sales as well. People are hunting for deals to purchase the thing they were eyeing all year and are piling up the Christmas presents.
A woman on Reddit is one of those business owners and she takes this period very seriously because if she works hard now, she can be more relaxed the rest of the year and take the whole of January off. She works so much that she doesn’t even have time to do chores. This is what caused an argument with her boyfriend, even though she warned him that this is how it will be.
More info: Reddit
Business owner works non-stop during November and December without having time to do chores, which is not understandable to her boyfriend
Image credits: Marco Verch Professional Photographer (not the actual photo)
It’s already been about 5 years that the Original Poster (OP) has run her business, so she has her set rhythm which includes grinding during the pre-Christmas period, decompressing in January and having a more relaxed rest of the year, using up the profit made in the November and December months.
During those couple of months, the woman works about 12-18 hours a day and she doesn’t really do anything much more. She meal-preps in October to not waste time on cooking, she doesn’t leave her office so there isn’t much mess and chores to do except washing the dishes (thankfully, she has a dishwasher) and doing laundry, which does tend to pile up.
However, the woman feels that it’s worth going through this intense period as for the rest of the year, she has more free time and has enough savings to live from. The proof that she is successful is that she owns a house and recently, her boyfriend moved in.
The woman has been doing it for about 5 years and knows that if she works hard during those months, she will have a more relaxing rest of the year
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The man has a regular full-time job and works a fixed amount of hours every week. When he moved in, the OP warned him multiple times several months ahead that in the months before the biggest festivities of the year, she will be working so much that he will have to do the chores alone and maybe do hers as well.
The boyfriend had a weird reaction to the OP’s warning, as he didn’t really believe that she would work so much and was pretty dismissive. And when the woman started to work the hours she mentioned and stopped doing chores, the man was upset.
He blew up at her, cussed her out and was yelling behind the locked office door about how it is so unfair that he has to do all the chores by himself.
But when she works 12-18 hours a day, she will not do anything else for those two months
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It is important to point out that the OP was living alone before and the house was never a big mess because she didn’t even have time to cause it. Also, she would do a deep clean in January when she wouldn’t work a single day.
The mess that the boyfriend was talking about was mostly his doing and he was blowing up at the woman for not cleaning it up when she was working more than him, earning more than him and paying for their entertainment during the rest of the year. On top of that, he was warned about it several times.
When her boyfriend moved into her house, the woman warned him in advance and reminded him several times that he would be left alone with the chores
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The readers were appalled at the audacity of the man. Not only because he firstly didn’t believe his girlfriend when she said she would disappear to work for a while and then showing a surprised Pikachu face when she did, but also for cussing at her.
There was nearly unanimous agreement that the woman should kick out the boyfriend from her house for disrespecting her and not supporting her when he is also enjoying the fruits of her labor.
At first he didn't take too much notice of her warning but when she stopped doing chores, the man was pretty mad
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Although in this situation, people lean toward supporting the woman more because of how much she works and that the mess in the house is mostly created by her boyfriend who clearly disrespects her, in general, it is advised to share house chores equally.
This aspect of a marriage is actually so important that among other things like having shared interests and shared beliefs, 56 percent of married couples including parents and non-parents mentioned sharing household chores as a very important factor to a successful marriage, according to Pew Research Center’s survey.
When the woman told her boyfriend that he can skip her chores and do only his own, he still was angry and cussed at her and yelled at her locked office door
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Another interesting finding is that “Those who earn about the same as their partner are more likely to say the division of household labor is about equal (65%) than those who earn less (52%) or more (51%).”
So the workload outside of the home and the size of a person’s income also has an effect on how the chores are split. “Among those parents who earn less than their partner, 41% say they personally take on more chores than their partner, while just 6% say their partner does more around the house. And among those who earn more than their partner, 29% say their partner does the larger share of chores, compared with 20% who say they personally do more.”
The mess was never an issue when the businesswoman lived alone and she thought the result was worth the sacrifice, but wonders if she was wrong
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Image credits: Timur Weber (not the actual photo)
Quartz argues that it doesn’t matter how much the incomes of two people in a relationship differ, but the more important aspect is “the allocation of scarce resources, and finding smart ways to allocate your own scarce resources.” Which means that everything won’t be split 50/50.
It truly depends on the couple and even if, aside from the chore distribution, it seems unfair, maybe it works for the couple. Clearly, it didn’t work for OP’s boyfriend and people’s judgment was that he was guilty. What is your take on this story? Let us know in the comments.
People in the comments were pointing out how disrespectful the boyfriend was and that he knew what was waiting for him, so his protest was stupid
Image credits: osseous (not the actual photo)
