Woman successfully reforms her Couch Creature by not doing shit!

EDIT: Here you go!

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e1ee6y/aita_for_leaving_my_husband_with_all_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Somewhere in my post history you’ll see I was unsure whether it was ok to dump the full responsibility of the household into my husband over Christmas, since he clearly didn’t respect me or the effort I put in to keep the house clean and feed the pets and otherwise organise absolutely everything for both him and myself.

So I stepped back. As many suggested, I spoke to him about keeping an eye on the finances, and I personally checked that the pets were cared for- but only when he wasn’t around, so he didn’t see me helping in any way. But that’s all I did.

EDIT: I stepped away for three weeks, whilst my deadlines were at their worst. I have of course begin to take over half of the household chores and organising again, but have deliberately scaled back how much I do so that he doesn’t go back to his old comfort zone.

And it has started to work. I came home multiple times to a cooked dinner, or a freshly stocked fridge. The dogs walked and a cup of tea ready for me. As the season progressed and it became clear that I was struggling with the stress of my assignments (I’m doing a masters alongside work, and Christmas time is full of deadlines for both), he started fielding requests for people to come over, running me hot baths and shooing away noisy visitors who wanted to interrupt my work so that he could run the house in my stead.

It’s not perfect, but it’s damn close: he’s spent a weekend helping me clean the house from top to bottom, and now helps maintain that level of clean. He went out and bought a new vacuum specifically to make the job quicker and easier, so it can be done more regularly, and I come home two or three says a week to him hoovering the downstairs without having to be asked.

I don’t know what did it. I know he spent a week where we were very tense and the house was in near-squalor before he put his video games away and stepped up. I know he rushed around manically trying to find Christmas gifts for everyone once it became clear I wasn’t doing it for him, and the stress was a lot for him. I know he came very close to throwing a strop on multiple occasions when it seemed he was solely responsible for the cooking and cleaning whilst I hid in the spare room on my laptop- but he’s taken a long, hard look at life without me there to pick up after him, and he’s started to pick up after himself.

Thanks to everyone who helped me realise I definitely needed a break! There was some good advice here, and it was great to hear I’m not an AH.

EDIT: thanks to everyone who now thinks it means I’m doing nothing at all and he’s gonna leave me. Of course that’s how it works /s.