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When the household chores won’t do themselves I can’t say how many times my mother has tried this technique with me when I was a teenager, surprise: It never worked. I’m not saying I don’t do my household chores now; in fact, I just put all my clothes in the washing machine, I’m saying it didn’t work THEN. I had to learn this all by myself when I became independent, having countless issues with roomies.

24-year-old girlfriend decides to only do her laundry and dishes and leave her slothful 27-year-old boyfriend to fend for himself: 'You can’t really help me help you. The only way to take something off my plate is to do it yourself'

When should our nitpicking stop? In these modern times, there's a pretty widespread idea that our partners should be there to satisfy our every need, and that we should be so pragmatic as to leave them ASAP if there is a very minor box they don't check. Evidently, I do not subscribe to that way of thinking, and today I'm going to explain why.

44-year-old woman considers leaving her boyfriend over a pillow: 'I just feel like I've run out of ways to calmly communicate why this is important to me'

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Who determines our relationship to love and marriage? At first, I thought this was yet another story about a guy getting cold feet right at the moment he is asked a big question. This is how it always goes for me: everything seems to be going fine, and at some point, I decide to bring up some variation of the ‘what are we?’ question, and all we had goes up in flames.

25-year-old woman asks her 27-year-old boyfriend about clarity on their future and he breaks up with her: 'He later said he spoke to his mother and she said he should marry 6 months after finishing postgrad'

We’re not born knowing how to not be anxious around love, and our first experiences with it are filled with all-or-nothing scenarios. I remember how I felt every time my high school sweetheart didn’t immediately text back. I would succumb to the deepest pit, thinking my life was definitely over. At that age, it’s very hard to tell the emotional mind that the other person might be occupied and has not spend its afternoon thinking about how to destroy you.

17-year-old boyfriend wonders if its okay to not want his same age girlfriend to go to a girls night out: 'I was unable to go to the girls night because I was a boy'

The movies that taught us how to act and feel when in love forgot to mention stuff like mortgages, inflation, and the cost of airplane tickets. When we enter a partnership, we do so without knowing what pervasive bad habits our loved ones have and what damage they’ll eventually cause in our relationship. That unknowingness is, in part, good because if we knew everything from the get-go, we would never form any kind of couple.

Frustrated husband considers leaving his wife due to her repeatedly making bad major life decisions over the last 10 years: 'Am I being resentful and unfair?'

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Some errors, like forgetting a name, missing an appointment, or saying the wrong word, may be read as expressions of a wish or a conflict that has not yet surfaced through words. Seeing it through that lens, the fact that the girlfriend from this story missed the flight might not be ‘just carelessness’; instead, it can signify a much deeper truth.

24-year-old guy considers dumping his 21-year-old girlfriend because she missed a $650 flight to visit him that he paid for: 'The day before the flight, we barely even talked, and she just seemed so nonchalant about it'

Marriage vows typically contain a phrase that refers back to the “what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine” idea; the way we think about that union has been ingrained in us for centuries. However, when one thinks of that, one thinks of shared belongings, goods, food, and shelter, not about claiming authorship for everything our partner has done before we were even in the picture.

35-year-old man insists on sharing authorship of a book he didn't write with his 33-year-old girlfriend: 'Were not even on the same lease yet and he wants to be on the spine of a book that took me four and a half years to write'

It's a tale as old as time, you say you don't like surprises, and your significant other hears: 'I've spent my life secretly wishing somebody would throw me a surprise birthday party', and the rest is history; or should I say: the rest is this story. Just to add insult to injury, some people approach gifts in a 'what I would like to receive' way instead of actually thinking about the other person.

23-year-old boyfriend throws a surprise birthday party for girlfriend and forgets to include her and her friends: ‘It was four people, his best friend, a mutual friend, my roommate, and her friend I didn’t know’

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Wife refusing to pay for moving costs as the husband received a $10k bonus for it, he doesn't see the problem in her having to pay half of the cost when she doesn't have the means: 'We're moving for HIS job, a move his company is PAYING for.'

When we are suspicious about our significant others, any minor detail can send us into a never-ending spiral of paranoia. For the jealous person, it takes only a glance, a comment, or an unrecognised object to confirm their worst fears. Yes, I’m already assuming the boyfriend in this story is not guilty as charged; otherwise, why would he ask people on the internet what else he can do to convince his girlfriend he didn’t bring anyone while she was at work?… Oh wait.

25-year-old girlfriend finds a lighter near the sink and assumes her 27-year-old boyfriend had someone else in the house while she was at work: 'I swear on everything that nobody came over and I genuinely do not know where the lighter came from'

I wish someone or something could protect us from the ridiculous fights we pick and the mistakes we make in our first relationships, but we are at the mercy of stronger forces and find ourselves pushed to go through that character arc alone. Everything feels so dramatic when we're in our early twenties; you couldn't pay me enough to go back, but no one can take the pleasure of watching and analyzing someone who's still in the trenches away from me.

22-year-old college student got dumped by his 21-year-old girlfriend simply for talking to a female friend: ‘From my girlfriend's perspective, she believes: I hid important information.’

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Are we always obliged to follow our loved ones' rules? Our most meaningful rules might appear ridiculous to somebody else, but part of the art of learning how to love is respecting what our significant others deem important, even though it sounds ludicrous to us. That’s my position anyway, but let’s see what this Redditor has to say.

32-year-old neat freak is mad about his same age fianceé not taking her shoes off inside his house: ‘Refusing to respect my rules regardless of how silly you think they may be will send me into orbit’

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31-year-old man states that his coworkers' flirting is part of their culture, insists on ‘separating family from business’, leaving his girlfriend questioning whether he simply enjoys the attention: 'Am I overreacting?'

Very few things in relationships are as countable as money, so when we do the math and the facts don’t add up, we probably should go back to square one and reevaluate our future with the other person. Nine times out of ten, it’s very hard to find a balance, and leaving becomes part of the equation.

28-year-old man is found hiding $77,000 from his fianceé while she was paying for pretty much everything in their lives, making excuses when discovered: ‘I was planning on showing it to you as a surprise.’

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Husband lands himself in hot water by proposing they purchase a Mother's Day present that is clearly for himself: 'We have a 50-inch that is older but works well enough for me...'

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21 Break-Up Memes to Turn Heartbreak into Glow-Up Energy