Boyfriend won't make an effort

Post Reply New Topic

Hi all,

I was in huge doubt as to wether or not I should post this on here, but I need advice from y'all.

So here is the thing: boyfriend and I have been dating for about 2.5 years. We have been living together for a few months now. As you might know, I (25) spread my wings when I was 20, while my boyfriend (30) lived with his parents before living with me.

I feel comfortable around my boyfriend. We rarely argue and get along great. I think my boyfriend is sweet and smart. He supports me when I need support. I did have problems with the fact that he is not so good at taking initiative in the beginning of our relationship. I was always the one to plan or next date, the one that sent the first message after not seeing each other for 2 weeks in a row. I told him I did not feel comfortable with this at the time, but he responded that he is simply not that good at taking the initiative.

As our relationship progressed I found myself being irritated with his passive and imo lazy attitude. It struck me, when he still lived with his parents, that he never helped out his parents around the house. It was just like hotel mom and dad, really. He never though of helping his parents out by cleaning is own room, occasionally getting some groceries for the family, putting the dishes in the dishwasher, cooking for the family every now and then. I found out that my boyfriend would sleep from eleven or twelve 'o clock at night until twelve 'o clock in the afternoon in the weekends. After that, he would jump right behind the computer to game for the rest of the day. He rarely went outside for a walk or any other type of activity. Only when I asked him to go do something together, he would get moving. Rarely he would suggest to go do something at his own initiative.

Now that I am going through a stressful period at work, I've noticed that my irritations are growing bigger. I am trying my best to keep my health in check by exercizing regularly, eating healthy and meeting up with friends and family. My boyfriend however does not exercize, does often times not even leave the house, does not eat fruits and hardly any veggies, and has no friends at all. Whenever I can't cook for him, he will order fastfood or go to MacDonalds. Even though the consequences of this lifestyle will be his, I do find this behaviour kind of off putting. I am starting to question wether I want to eventually get married and have kids with someone that leads this type of a unhealthy and passive lifestyle?

When we started living together, we split all househould chores. He said he knew what he had to do. However, he forgets to do a lot of the chores on his list. We are talking things like vacuum cleaning, taking out the trash, putting dishes in the dishwasher, cleaning the table. If I don't remind him of these chores, he will not do them. He just postphones and forgets. I've talking to him many times about this, but he always gets very defensive. He will take care for a few days, but then he just slips back into his old patterns. Nothing changes, really. I constantly have to remind him of his chores, but I am looking for someone that takes an equal share of responsibility for our household. The word 'partner' doesn't exist for nothing now does it?

Since a few months I've noticed my attraction to my boyfriend waning. I don't feel like getting intimate with him anymore. He always tries me to get sexy with him, but I just don't feel like it aymore. Eventually I will give into it and just go with it, but I don't really enjoy being intimate with him at this point anymore. I have lost sexual desires for him. Sometimes I am even a little bit put off my his attemps. This is clearly very frustrating to him.
What putts me off even more is his hygiene: my boyfriend will sometimes not take a bath/shower for several days. I've also noticed that he doesn't brush his teeth every day. I find this rather disgusting and it doesn't help as far as intimacy goes.
I do realise the whole lack of sexual desire is a symptom of something bigger. I know it has to do with the fact that I am irritated by some of his behaviours/personality traits.

Anyway, yesterday the bomb burst. We were both sitting at the dinner table and I decided to tell him what was bothering me. I told him about my frustrations regarding our househould, his personal hygiene and the general lack of a balanced and mature lifestyle. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned the lifestyle things, since these are not my problems. I asked him what he thought of what I just said and he replied: "uhm, it's quite a lot at once". I get that it was a lot of information for him at once, but I tried talking to him about all these things earlier. After that he just continued playing games on his mobile phone. He did not attempt to talk to me for the rest of the day. I thought he might needed some time to think about it, so I give him space as well. He went to bed quite early and didn't speak to me for the rest of the day.

Today when he got out of bed at the meridian hour he still didn't talk to me. I didn't know what to say either so I watched my favorite tv show. After some time I decided to open the conversation with him again. I had made a list of chores and hung it onto the refrigerator. I thought this would help us both out a little bit. I then tried to explain how I meant the things I said to him yesterday. He said he hated it that I gave him the silent treatment all day. I then tried to tell him that this was not my intention, but I didn't know what to say to him, because he did not seem open to futher discussion. He then said that I continued on about the issue for too long. He was also annoyed that I didn't mention him getting the vacuum cleaner out right after our conversation. I then told him that I really appreciated this, but that I wanted to communicate with him first and foremost. He then became very annoyed, started about me continuing on too long about the whole the thing. At all escalated a bit for there. In the end he said it was all my problem, my fault and that he does not care about it. I asked him: so now what? According to him the solution would be to act normal again, because he can keep up with the silent treatment much longer than I can and it would't do the atmosphere any good.

Consequence: he is frustrated with me, I am frustrated with him. I am spending the night at my mom's house right now (was planning on doing that anyway).

What to do now?

He sounds depressed. He has to decide to deal with that.

As to getting people to do chores, praise works. Praise people, and they will seek more praise. The only tricky part is finding the best level. Too much praise can backfire.

In the past I have been known to urge people to not be in such a hurry to get out of a relationship when others are telling the OP to end things.

In this case, I would say that this relationship looks like it's dying. I can't see much future for this. Relationships end. The first LTR doesn't always lead to marriage and marriages don't always last.

I would consider @jrjones9933's suggestion that he has depression and consider whether getting treated for that can make a difference. Plus some general counselling to ascertain whether the relationship has any real basis for going forward.

Props to you for your use of "the meridian hour" in a sentence!

I can't resist the urge to let the "Bad MaxE" out of his cage with the following observation. You may be running up against some cultural issues. It's my impression that many young white people in Western Europe feel entitled to an extreme degree and that his behavior might seem quite normal to a typical girl he would know from high school. You might want to consider looking at fellow immigrants for your future romantic entanglements (now back in your cage Bad MaxE!).

Thank you for your response guys. I never really thought about him being depressed to be honest. But now that you mention it, it might seriously be an option. I might try talking to him about this, although I know he isn't interested in any type of treatment.

I don't think there are any cultural differences at play here. My mother is from south america (very westernized) and my father is as western european as it gets. Mother has been living here since she was 18, I was born and raised here am de facto half European. I also feel very much Western European and don't consider myself an immigrant.

He could be suffering from depression, which can improve...but he has to acknowledge it and be willing to get help/support. You could tell him you are concerned about him and would like him to seek some depression help, and offer to support him with it(that is if you still want to see if things can improve and the relationship can work out). If he still refuses though or gets pissed at you for suggesting it then there may not be much you can do to salvage the relationship.

I have had depression and it certainly can contribute to bad hygene, I mean I have had periods of time I've gone like a week or longer without taking a shower...and that is pretty gross, but when you have depression its hard to care. I still have depression symptoms sometimes but I have to keep up on managing it and not falling back into habits like not showering...I have a boyfriend so I don't want to be all dirty and gross when we get intimate, plus it does feel better to be clean just in general. But yeah like if my depression started getting bad again and I was unwilling to do anything about it I don't think I'd expect my boyfriend to stick around as much as he cares, because he'd get the brunt of my negative behavior.

Chronos reminded me of another element of evoking disclosure and work. You have to choose one of the following:
If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well.
If something is worth doing, it is worth doing, full stop.

Chores will get done to the standards of the people doing them, or they get done resentfully.

@Cafeaulait I apologize for having assumed you are an immigrant. Not because I fear having insulted you, but because I misunderstood; and when I misunderstand, then I feel I must apologize.

There is someone in my distant family who had just told her husband that there has to be change to their behaviour or she will leave. It looks like you may be in the same boat as her as she had put up with certain behaviours for a while with no real change happening.

I wouldn't recommend the ultimatum like the one i just mentioned unless you absolutely have to.

Sounds like the beginnings of the "seven year itch."

I've had this happen to me a few times. Our relationship has become too "complacent." She gets bored. She wants to break up. She breaks up with me.

I do think the guy should help out around the house a bit more.

But be nice about it. If you're nasty about it, he will surely rebel.

Did you finally get the Master's?

He's not compatible with a working woman, what this man should seek instead is a traditional man/housewife relationship.

Get rid of 'im.

I would've gotten rid of him when he gave you the silent treatment, then accused you of giving HIM one; then said he could do it, for longer than you----that's gaslighting!! Better yet, I would've never moved-in with him, after seeing how he acted, when he lived with his folks.

Like others have said, he seems depressed, which can make him uncaring, and unmotivated to do anything. Have you talked to him about it?

Secondly, nagging won't help the situation. The more you criticize, the less likely someone is to do something.

Finally, it seems like you two have different lifestyles. You seem like the healthy, energetic, friendly type, and he seems like to the complete opposite (some of it might just be the depression, though).