Let me preface this by saying I’ve been with Finn for 6 years. Six years of what I believed was love, loyalty, and definitely a whole lot of patience. And when I say patience, I mean I’ve been the one supporting him financially while he bounced between passion projects. There was the YouTube channel that never took off, despite him insisting he’d be bigger than PewDiePie. The NFT craz he swore he was ahead of the curve on—spoiler: he wasn’t. And his brief stin trying to make it big in crypto, where he lost most of his savings. During all of this, I held us down. Mortgage: me. Utilities: me. Groceries: also me. Car payments? You guessed it, me. Finn was the dreamer, and I was—well, I guess I was the fool who kept believing in those dreams. Every time he’d come to me with a new idea, eyes bright with enthusiasm, I’d push down my doubts and support him.
“This time we’d be different,” he’d say, and like an idiot, I believed him.
Things started getting weird about 2 weeks ago. Finn began acting distant, spending more time than usual on his phone and making these odd comments about needing space to grow and finding himself. I didn’t think much of it at first—he tends to get philosophical when he’s about to start another project—but then he started making these comments about the state of the house, which was new. He’d point out unwashed dishes or unfolded laundry with this weird, judgmental tone I’d never heard from him before.
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Then last week, he sat me down at our kitchen table after I got home from work. He had this serious look on his face that I’d only seen a few times before, usually when he was about to announce another failed Venture, but what came out of his mouth made me question if I was living in some parallel universe.
“I think we should break up,” he said. “You don’t do enough around the house.”
I actually laughed. I thought he was joking, but when he didn’t crack a smile, I felt something inside me just shift. This man, who I’ve basically been mothering for 6 years, was accusing me of not contributing enough. When I asked him to clarify—because surely, surely he wasn’t serious—he doubled down.
“You never clean up after yourself, and I feel like I do all the emotional labor around here,” he said. “I’m always the one who has to point out when things need to be done.”
Let me paint you a picture. I work insane hours to keep us afloat while he’s at home brainstorming his next big move. Yes, sometimes I’m too tired to do the dishes right away or fold laundry immediately. Sometimes I leave my coffee mug on the counter or forget to put my shoes away. But you know what I do? Pay every single bill that keeps a roof over our heads and food in our fridge. Meanwhile, Finn’s biggest contribution to our household has been reorganizing the bookshelf by genre three times and throwing out my perfectly good Tupperware because it didn’t spark Joy anymore.
This is the same man who has a meltdown if the Wi-Fi goes out for more than 5 minutes. Guess who calls the provider every single time? Me. Every birthday, holiday, or weekend activity planned by me. He won’t even order takeout without asking for my input three times and then still managing to get my order wrong.
