A young expectant mother sought guidance from the Reddit community after her growing responsibilities — and her boyfriend’s lack of support — became overwhelming during her pregnancy.
The 19-year-old, now 25 weeks along, shared that she stopped working because her boyfriend urged her to stay home for the duration of the pregnancy. While the suggestion initially felt supportive, it quickly became a source of tension as she ended up handling nearly all household responsibilities on her own.
She described her boyfriend as clean but not tidy — dishes were left undone, trash accumulated and his work clothes routinely landed on the floor. With his full-time schedule running from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., she tried to manage the home independently, but the effort took a toll. “After a while of trying to keep up on it all my own,” she wrote, “my overwhelmed-ness and mental health completely crashed.”
The soon-to-be mom explained that she understood her boyfriend also dealt with mental health challenges, but the strain of maintaining the home while navigating pregnancy symptoms became unmanageable. “I did alright for a little while,” she said, “but with the overwhelming messes and lack of help at home with everything else on top of it, I fell behind on it all and then got too overwhelmed to even know where to start.”
Her sense of isolation intensified after relocating to live with him. She had no local friends, and her boyfriend rarely wanted to go out, leaving her feeling trapped indoors nearly all day, every day.
Despite this, she continued trying to make progress. She shared that the living room and spare room were finally in good shape, leaving only the kitchen and bathroom. But for her, those “easier” rooms came with physical limitations. Her sciatica — already an issue before pregnancy — made bending, scrubbing, and certain movements painfully difficult.
She made it clear that she wasn’t asking him to take over everything. “I’ve begged him to help me a little,” she wrote. “Help scrub the tub and I will do the rest of the bathroom. Help me with the dishes and everything else I will handle.”
Although he initially said he would help, he never followed through. Then, without warning, he told her the kitchen and bathroom needed to be completely done by the next day.
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“I expressed to him that I was confused because he was supposed to help even just for the two smaller but harder on me tasks,” she explained. But he insisted that because he works and she doesn’t, the entire load should fall on her.
Earlier in her pregnancy, she admitted she might have agreed. But as the physical discomfort increased and day-to-day tasks became harder, she reached a breaking point. “I’m feeling really overwhelmed and hopeless,” she wrote, adding that the messes weren’t catastrophic but still “pretty bad,” and tackling them alone in a single day felt impossible.
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In her post, she asked the community whether she was wrong for expecting some help. One commenter responded, “Being pregnant makes it harder to do everything else, especially cleaning the house. The deadline for ONE DAY while being pregnant is just so over the top and he should at least help you a bit. NTA.”
Another commenter added, “This is not good for you or for the baby. The only deadline that matters here isn’t that bulls— tomorrow, it’s nine months from now when the amount of chaos in your lives is going to explode. You guys have nine months to learn how to be a better/more efficient team, and right now he’s not supporting his teammate.”
