Paul Moore 🥉

Say it directly and set a boundary. Try, 'I care about you, but I can only do 20 minutes tonight and then I need to rest.' Offer a specific time to catch up later so it's not a shutdown.

After a 12-hour shift you think the plates will wash themselves, but nope, they breed. We stopped arguing by doing a 15-minute reset the minute we walk in, both of us, timer on, no phones. Whoever cooked is hands-off for cleanup, and if neither cooked, we do paper plates on brutal weeks. It cuts the resentment and the sink stays under control.

Not complicated: look at them and say, 'Ouch. Not cool.' Then shut up and let the silence do the work. If it keeps happening, your partner has homework, not you. Thread closed.

A simple framework that works is minimum standard plus ownership. Sit down once when you are both calm and list the recurring chores, then agree on what "done" looks like for each one so you are not arguing standards later. Assign end to end ownership for each task, meaning the owner plans it, does it, and closes the loop without reminders. Use a time and energy lens rather than a 50–50 tally, so the person with the heavier week takes shorter daily tasks while the other picks up the longer or weekend ones. The script I use is, "When I end up doing dishes and laundry most nights, I feel burned out and worried I'll resent you. I want us to feel like a team. Can we set clear owners and a check in so it stays fair even when our weeks are uneven?" Then decide on a swap rule so if someone gets stuck late, they can text and the other covers, and it automatically flips the next night so the debt does not linger. For a tiny kitchen with no dishwasher, make dishes a daily nonnegotiable with one owner at a time. Set a concrete target like sink empty and counters wiped by bedtime, and use a five minute timer so it does not balloon. The person who cooks does not do dishes that night, or trade cooking for laundry if that fits your energy better. Do laundry on a cadence, like one load every two days, with a clear finish line of folded and put away that same day so baskets do not pile up. Add a 15 minute weekly huddle where you look at the coming week, reassign based on who is slammed, and ask three things out loud: what feels unfair, what worked, what needs to change. If emotions run high, use the script, "I'm not blaming you. I want a plan we can both live with," and stick to the agreed standards and owners rather than relitigating every task in the moment.