Husband refuses to do chores around the house while he is working from home, wife calls him selfish for putting the onus on her despite her long commute: 'I wasn't going to be treated like her housekeeper'

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    AITA for telling my girlfriend I won't do all the cleaning just because I work from home?

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    I (29m) work remotely full-time. My gf (28f) works at an office. We recently moved in together,
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    and suddenly she expects me to handle all the household chores because I'm already home all day.
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    I told her that working from home doesn't mean I'm free to vacuum, cook, and do laundry between
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    meetings. I already do my fair share, but she keeps saying it's not equal because she commutes.
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    Last week I refused to do the dishes she left after dinner, saying I wasn't going to be
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    treated like her housekeeper. She snapped that I was being selfish.
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    AITA for refusing to do more chores just because I work from home?
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    Vintage2000s NTA - To be honest, WFH can (job depending) afford some additional flexibility at home like putting a load of washing on at
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    lunch time etc and there is obviously the fact that you're at home more so "dirtying" the
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    house more. So I do see that a partner who WFH might have that flexibility HOWEVER it has to be a conversation and agreement not a demand.
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    Since you just moved in together, it would appear you want the relationship to work so sitting down and discussing fair division of labour is a normal part of those
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    early living together niggles. You going to the internet to prove you have done nothing wrong doesn't particularly solve the issue.
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    Jack_Stuart M23 Excellent point about dirtying the house more. It really makes a difference!
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    AppointmentNaive2811 Ehh. I WFH 10 hour days and don't really leave my desk, often not even eating until 4
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    PM. It's case by case and this shouldn't be used as a "gotcha" unless it's demonstrably true
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    XhaLaLa Yeah, I WFH most days and the only space that is impacted is my desk (which I take care of each day anyway). There are days when I could have some
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    flexibility to get some things done at home, but far more days when I struggle to justify taking the time to make myself something to eat.
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    marygoore NTA but if she cooked you dinner and you didn't do the dishes, you s_k
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    giraffeperv Yeah that line made me stop in my tracks because I need context on this one. Just sounds nasty. Not the way to handle this.
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    Nrysis ESH It sounds like you both need to communicate better, because you are both making good points but also refusing to listen to what the other is saying.
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    You are saying that just because you are at home all day, that doesn't mean you have any time during working hours to do chores, which is true.
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    She is saying that because she has a long commute, her working hours are longer, and it is unfair for you to be sitting watching TV or playing games during that time when she has not finished her workday by arriving home. This is also fairly reasonable.
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    So the solution is somewhere in between, which is what I expect both of you were actually aiming at - you compare the length of your work days to figure out how much extra free time you have available, and full on that time doing some of the household chores. When she gets home, you then split the remainder equally.
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    Maybe that means you doing the cooking so dinner is ready when she gets home. Maybe her commute is an easy one where she can decompress reading a book on the train rather than getting angry at other drivers and you do a little less to give yourself
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    an equivalent space to decompress yourself. Maybe you ask to factor in the stress and difficulty of your jobs, your earning potential or other details to make a fair split for you both. There is no perfect answer, but you both need to communicate and agree on the suitable answer for you.
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    UnicornPencils I agree, ESH. The person working from home should not be asked to do all the housework, but I think it's fair that the person commuting could feel a 50/50 chore split was unequal.
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    I've done both long commutes and working from home. Where I live, someone commuting could easily spend an extra 15+ hours of their week just driving to and from work. So the person doing WFH certainly could pick
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    up a couple of additional household tasks outside of their actual working hours, and still have quite a bit more free time to spare. It's not an exact science, but trying to find something in-between would be the caring thing to do.

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