He expects me to clean and cook for him. What should I do?
Hello!
Welcome to another exciting article on A Moment With Jennie. This topic is juicy. And I’ll be sharing my personal experiences as well as my words of advice to help as many people as I can possibly help, do things right for their own comfort and no one elses. Enjoy!
So I was conversing with a friend last night and she was talking about how her new man expects her to come over to his house to clean and wash and cook for him. She could not understand why there should be such expectations in a relationship that is barely months old. Why would he tell her to come and clean for him? It’s his house, he should do the cleaning himself. His clothes are his, he wears them, let him wash them himself. If he is hungry, he should go into the kitchen and cook for himself. Why does he expect her to be his personal maid just because they are in a relationship together? These were the things she was saying to me. She was mad pissed! She felt disrespected and insulted that he would not just insinuate such but demand and expect that she would just come running like a crazy person. Because in her own words ‘Only a crazy woman will put up with such!’.
I could not stop laughing at her expressions. And the whole conversation was funny to me, really. It also reminded me of something a school mate said to me a few years back in the university. There was an active argument going on about if girls should clean and cook for their boyfriends and this beautiful lady stood up and said ‘How can you go to your boyfriend’s house and not clean or cook? Same guy that has sex with you without protection and ‘releases’ inside you? If you don’t do that, then you are not ready to be in a relationship’. Well, that was the day I knew lots of women are letting men have sex with them without protection. That was also the day I knew a lot of women enable these women. That same day, I found out that not being able to clean and cook for a man means you are not ready for a relationship.
Listen to me, when you start off something in a relationship (could an act, a tone, a habit, a routine) right from the beginning of the relationship, it is expected that you carry on with it for the duration of the relationship. Once you start it, you have to keep going. There is no turning point for you. They have gotten comfortable with the routine, the tone, the habit, all of it. So why would want to change a few months, years down the road? They will start demanding those things of you. They will expect it and when you don’t do it, it’s a fault on your part. That thing becomes your responsibility.
If at the beginning of a relationship you as a man buys her expensive gifts and flowers, you plan and take mini vacations every other weekend, you take her out to fancy restaurants a few nights a week, you call her 5times a day, text her in between those calls, always let her know where you are and who you are with, just know that these acts have automatically become your responsibilities because she will keep expecting them from you and when you don’t do them you have failed to live up to your responsibility as a man in the relationship. If you can’t and won’t keep up with it, do not start it. Don’t start pampering her just because you are trying to woo her and then stop with the pampering as soon as she is totally yours, don’t do that. If pampering her is your way of showing her your affection, then you must keep showing her your affection the only way you know how to for the duration of your relationship.
And if as a woman, at the beginning of your relationship, you go to his house and clean for him, do his laundry, cook for him, take care of him every weekend, nurse him back to health when he is sick, baby him because he is your ‘baby’, if you do these things from the start then you must continue to do them for the duration of your relationship because he will get used to the way you take care of him and he will expect you to come over every weekend to clean and cook for him, you can’t stop because if you do, then you have failed in your responsibility as a woman in the relationship. If you were doing these things at the beginning of your relationship because you want to leave a good impression on him and make him keep you, and then stop doing them the moment you guys are officially a couple, then you should have yourself to blane when he complains or demands and expects this treatment from you on a regular basis.
A lot of women go into relationships and begin to treat men the way they watched their mothers treat their fathers, and they forget that these men are not guaranteed to be their husbands. They are not certain of how long the relationship will last for, they just go in and start playing the role of a house wife. And these men get comfortable to this style and treatment they receive. And go into every relationship expecting the same treatment from their women.
I am not against cleaning and cooking for your man. I am not against you being a good girlfriend to your man but honey, the reason for doing these things is what I am against. If your reason for doing house chores at his place is just so he will keep you and marry you later on, then you need to stop dreaming. You need to stop deceiving yourself and wake up! No amount of cleaning and cooking will make a man marry you. Because there is a 99.9% chance that the woman he’ll end up marrying would not even know how to cook or clean, while you are busy breaking your back and slaving away in the kitchen, sweating and trying to make the best dish for him will only end up with you being an ex. Be careful ladies. We need to be very mindful of the wisdom behind our actions.
Now, pay attention to my next words: If you go to your man’s house and you see the place is not as clean as you would expect it to be or you see how poorly he’s been feeding and you feel the need to clean and cook, then go right ahead. Because in the end you will be more comfortable in a clean environment, you will be eating from the meal too. And above all, never expect anything in return. And please do not make it habit. Because then it becomes your duty and your responsibility to always cook and clean whenever you are around. You let him know you don’t like how dirty his place is, let him make an effort to clean up when he knows you are coming over. And just to be clear, if he cares about you enough, he will make an effort to clean up and prepare for your arrival, just FYI.
So, in the case of my friend who was furious at the ‘audacity’ of her man to expect her to come over and clean and cook, I believe the man has previously been with women who do these things for him and now expects every woman he dates to do same without complains. And before people start going off on her, he didn’t suggest she comes over and do these things, he didn’t ask if she was comfortable or okay doing these things for him, he demanded that she comes over and take care of his house chores for him. It was more about his word was gospel and nothing else could counter it. Wrong. He is so wrong and same thing goes to the many men who go about expecting these things from women. If you need a maid, get a maid. If you beed a chef, get a chef. If you need your clothes laundered, take them to the laundry. Don’t put unnecessary pressure on these women all in the name of being in a committed relationship.
Lots of women do these things for the wrong reasons and that is why they end up hurt and heart broken when the relationship ends. Because they feel like they have invested so much only to be disappointed in the end. But it’s not the man’s fault. It is your fault for slaving for a man when you should not and for doing these things for all the wrong reasons too.
Like I said before, if you want to clean for him and cook for him, go right ahead. Just don’t go and start expecting a ring for cooking and cleaning. Clean and cook because you want to, because you want to feed him, because you feel the need to with no expectations in mind.
And men, please stop demanding these things from your women. Ask her if she can do these things and be very grateful if she does them for you. Because it really is not easy to clean and cook for someone else. If it were easy, why don’t you do them yourself rather than demand they do it for you?
That’s it for this topic. We may have to visit it again. But really, let’s be mindful of the things we do and the expectations we have of other people. Thank you for spending A Moment With Jennie, I hope this article has been helpful to you. Let us spend more intimate time together in the next article. Thanks for reading!
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