The Most Unfair Things People Have Seen In Relationships Due To Gender Roles

Let's face it: not all relationships are created equal, and the roles that people play in their relationships are not created equal, either.

Sometimes, that fact can be attributed to an inconsiderate or bad partner, or even just tough life situations, but often, it's because of people putting too much weight on gender role expectations.

Already cringing, Redditor nealie_20 asked:

"What's the most unfair thing you've seen in a relationship due to gender roles?"

Bonding With The Baby

"The one that haunts me a little was a young mum who posted in a Facebook group asking how to encourage her boyfriend to hold their baby. Baby was 10 months old, and he had never once held her because, 'that's your job.'"

- emohelelwhy

"My dad once admitted to me that he basically never held my brother or me when we were babies."

- monaforever

"It's just so crazy to me. My mum and dad had fairly traditional gender roles in that he worked, she took care of us and worked part-time when we were older, etc, but my dad was always very involved with us at any age. And he was only 18 when I was born!"

- emohelelwhy

Men Making The Decisions

"My daughter has a peanut allergy, so my wife was trying to get her an accommodation at school, and they were ignoring, delaying, and generally d**king her around."

"So I took a day off work to go handle it. They were all, 'Yes, Mr. Dragons. Right away Mr. Dragons.'"

"My wife is still p**sed about it 20 years later."

"I kinda joked it off, you know, 'What do you give an angry gorilla? Whatever the f**k it wants.'"

" So now she'll tell me to, 'Go use that Gorilla privilege.'"

- Taograons

"Ugg, can confirm. This happened to my best friend just this year."

"Her son's/my honorary nephew's school psychologist had concerns about his ADHD medication and how he was behaving in school and was interested in having him receive a secondary evaluation from a school-affiliated psychiatrist to discuss options. Okay, fine, let's go."

"Why did weeks go by of my friend communicating with this school psychologist without so much as a referral for her son to go to this school-affiliated psychiatrist? Because the person above the psychologist needed to refer him and was effectively refusing to return my friend's calls, emails, and internal school board messages."

"I finally told her, 'You know how much I'm going to hate saying this, but... Have you tried having your husband call instead?'"

"She screamed, '[MY HUSBAND] SAID THE SAME THING THIS MORNING.' [expletives, expletives, expletives] 'Fine, fine, I'll call the school psychologist, put my husband on, and see what happens.'"

"Why THE EVER LIVING FORK did she call the school psychologist that day, and the person above her immediately accepted a transferred call from A MAN, and in full knowledge of everything my friend and the school psychologist had already discussed, said, effectively, 'Oh yes, I'm well aware, let's get that referral for you,' put the referral in, and my nephew was able to see that school-affiliated psychiatrist less than a month later?"

"(And yes, his doctor and the school psychiatrist have since collaborated, and with an improved diet, adjusted dosage on his medicine, and a very well-loved fidget toy that he uses to get through some of his lessons, my nephew's now at the top of his game.)"

- TheBookishAndTheBard

Double The Workload, Not Double The Fun

"My parents. Both of them had full-time corporate careers, brought in equal amounts of money."

"My mom was the one doing all the cooking, cleaning, organizing, housekeeping, and taking care of my youngest sister."

"We children mowed the lawn, did laundry, and washed the dishes once we were old enough."

"My dad? He claimed he was doing so much for the home, and all he did was drive the car to maintenance a couple of times per year and switch the lightbulbs."

"Even when my mom was on business trips, her responsibilities were assigned to me, the oldest daughter, including cooking and picking up my sister from daycare when I was barely a teenager myself, rather than to my brother, who is seven years older than me and even LIKED cooking and taking care of my sister."

"Needless to say, to him, 'The divorce came out of nowhere,' while my siblings and I were always wondering why it didn’t happen sooner."

- oceanpalaces

"This was my parents' dynamic, too. Both had full-time jobs, but my mom also had all the housework and childcare. I used to argue with her about it as a kid, but she's too entrenched in religious gender roles to get it. Couldn't be me."

- Realistic_spite2775

Not A Normal Weekend

"I know a woman who had super busy weekends, because that is normally when she’d clean, do laundry, buy groceries, etc."

"Then she’d head to her boyfriend’s house and clean and do laundry."

"Then she'd do the same at her boyfriend's parents' house."

"Every. Single. Week."

- Hofeizai88

"I was going to say that is a normal weekend, but then I read the part where she does it for her boyfriend's house too. And then the part where she does housework for his parents? WTF?"

- WatcherOfStarryAbyss

You Cook, I Clean

"When I used to go to Thanksgiving at my maternal grandparents' house, all the men would end up getting drunk in the living room while the women cleaned up after dinner. Thankfully, I am no longer invited."

- diet-smoke

"The worst part is that I’m going to assume the women did all the cooking, too?"

"Sure, we could argue that if one group cooked, then the other should clean, but let’s be real here..."

- AddLuke

"When I was a kid, the only time my brother was expected to help clean up after dinner was when we had guests for holidays or whatever."

"But, every single family holiday, he would 'have to go to the bathroom' immediately after dinner for about 30 minutes, so by the time he came back, everything was done."

"Enter me, who had to pick up the slack. My parents never seemed to notice or care that he did this."

- monaforever

Financial Abuse

"My mom and my ex-stepdad. My mom got pregnant and married him when I was 15. He lived 2 hours away and told her to quit her job and move there, and he would take care of everything as the 'provider.' I stayed in my hometown with my dad because I was in a competitive school that I had to apply to."

"My stepdad was supposed to take care of the finances, but cut my mom off completely and wouldn’t even give her gas money to visit me. According to my stepdad, my dad should have been paying for everything and driving me to a town two hours away so I could visit my mom."

"He expected my mom to do all the cooking and cleaning with a high-risk pregnancy, AND expected my mom to get a job. He didn’t believe her when she said no one would hire a pregnant woman, and he said, 'Deliver pizzas if you have to,' when she was a 40-year-old pregnant woman. When she was home, he would get mad if he came home and she wasn’t perfectly put together with hair and makeup."

"When my brother was born, she went back to work immediately, and surprise, surprise, she worked 40 hours a week, and he expected her to do all the housework, cleaning, childcare, etc., AND to give all her money to him."

"I visited maybe two to three days a month, and he treated me (a girl) like a maid and to clean up things that I wasn’t even there to dirty up. I remember one time I made food and put water in the pan to soak, and he put it in my bed because he was so p**sed the kitchen had one dirty pan."

"My brother is now a teenager. Do you think he has chores? No. Absolutely none. His dad has hired a maid to clean."

- youre-the-judge

Mental Gymnastics

"I know a guy who dragged his wife and kid across the country because he was training to be a fighter pilot."

"He got really close, too; he was actually flying fighter jets and was only a few more months of training. Then the pandemic hit, and he refused to get vaccinated, and the air force bounced him."

"Now, I don’t care your opinion on the pandemic or the vaccine, but to make your wife quit her career (as an engineer, by the way!) and leave her family to follow YOUR dream only to, voluntarily, bail on that dream moments before it’s realized is extremely unfair, selfish, and generally s**tty."

- DoritosLocosCannoli

Everyone's Work

"I watched a friend work her way to a high-ranking lawyer position, only to come home to a filthy house that SHE was expected to clean entirely on her own, on top of being the primary caregiver to her children."

"She worked late into the night, studying, reviewing cases, cleaning, and rising early to care for her children... just so her partner could play video games in another room."

"He worked half the hours she did, and for much less pay, but refused to do 'women's work.'"

- Automatic-Mess-2203

"May this love never find me."

- IndianLawStudent

"Fortunately, my friend's story has a happy ending."

"She remained a lawyer and she packed her bags and moved to a hotel for a while, and she left him with the kids during that time."

"After that, they started talking and working through it when he realized what he'd really put on her plate."

"Turns out, his traditional mother was in his ear about his wife not Playing Her Role Properly in the Home."

"Now they get along fine and share the load properly. She just needed a break and for him to realize that he wasn't valuing or respecting her. And they don't speak to his mother anymore, either, LOL."

- Automatic-Mess-2203

All On Her Shoulders

"My ex only ever changed our daughter's diaper one time and would never be alone with her."

"The one time he did change her diaper was in the hospital, and it was poop, so he refused to ever do it again."

"Because he worked and I was home, he figured it was all on me and refused to help when he was there with us."

- Bodees1979

"Congrats on your breakup and divorce!"

- Japan25

All Caught On Camera, No Less

"Maybe not the most unfair, but certainly the most ridiculous. There's a YouTuber couple, Paul and Morgan, who are Christian fundamentalists and believe a good wife must submit to the husband."

"Paul does not have a job because he is pursuing his dream of becoming a professional pickleball player. He is constantly gone and spends full-time hours playing pickleball ball, 'training,' and going to various spas and facilities to 'recover.' He comes from a well-off family, so his parents finance a large part of his lifestyle. He doesn't bring in any money through pickleball, because he is simply not very good, and it's not exactly a lucrative sport."

"Morgan? Pickleball was her thing. Paul only started after Morgan had already been playing and had been doing pretty well. He decided he wanted to become a professional player, and of course, she had to stay home with the kids while he 'trained' for eight hours a day."

"Morgan was always a significantly better player than Paul, but he claimed it to be his one true passion. She had to stay home with the kids, then couldn't play because she was functioning as a single parent with limited time/energy. Did he have prior experience in pickleball or as a professional athlete? Nope."

"Morgan had a lot of mental health issues and previously had issues with overwhelm/burnout and breakdowns. Did Paul ever take a step back from becoming a professional pickleball player to help with any of the child work or mental load? Nope."

"Morgan then had an aortic dissection, was put on stroke watch, and had to significantly limit herself physically. She was not allowed to pick up her children because the strain alone could kill her."

"How did Paul step up? He didn't. He's the man of the house, and becoming a professional pickleball player was how he was fulfilling his role. He couldn't take time away from pickleball because he's trying to go pro, and pros don't bail on their commitments like that! So what did he do? He left his wife home alone with their young children and went about his life as normal."

"She had to call on neighbours to come lift her child out of the crib for her, because her husband couldn't take time off from 'training.' He left his wife, on stroke watch, home alone with babies, while he knew she could die from just picking them up."

"What if there was an emergency and she died because she had to move the children? That's just God's plan, and God really wants his special boy PicklePaul to go pro."

- notyourbeans

"What the f**k…? Sometimes I read something and I just hope it’s made up or that these people have been staging their life because that’s one of the more f**ked up stories I’ve read in a little while."

- Boo_Rawr

The Boomer Shift

"My friend's parents are Boomer fools."

"In the 2000s, the father earned 50k a year and the mother earned 50k a year. They were both government employees, so their salaries are public information."

"Despite earning the same salary, and working similar jobs, the mother did 100% of childcare, cooking, cleaning, household project management, and staying in contact with relatives."

"Now that they are both retired, the father sits in front of the TV all day. The mother still cooks, cleans, does household project management (budgeting, meal planning, groceries, picks up prescriptions, deals with the bank, pays bills, books doctors' appointments), and stays in contact with relatives."

- PenImpossible874

"Boomer women had it the worst because they were expected to work, but society hadn't progressed enough for the husband to do anything around the house."

- D**n_Dog_Inappropes

"In general, Gen X and Millennial men are only marginally better, having been raised by Boomer men."

"They are 'progressive' not in chores/mental load, but being somewhat more hands-on with kids."

"As a 41-year-old woman, I literally do not know a single married hetero woman who has a spouse that really steps it up. They all have the same story, too. The husbands did great with chores up until their kids came. Then they couldn’t keep up, and to varying degrees, they just sit on the couch and either watch TV or scroll their phone while their wives do all the household management."

- InkedBrush

Husbands, Religion, Or Both?

"This Catholic lady in a group meeting was so sad and unhappy in her marriage."

"She had a ton of kids she didn't want, and clearly she never took care of her body, hair, or anything else."

"She was upfront about feeling worn out and used up, and unloved, and she felt it was because of her religion."

"I just stared at her, hoping that she'd break free and have a life at some point."

- Late-Chip-5890

"My mother technically shouldn't exist. She is number five of six. Her mother asked for sterilization after number three, but her doctor refused on the basis of 'morality.' I think about this a lot."

- pigeontheoneandonly

"Emasculated"

"My soon-to-be ex-husband would not 'allow' me to mow the lawn, even though he worked 80 hours a week, and it usually rained on his one day off, so the lawn was a disaster."

"Once I finally got fed up and mowed the lawn, he didn't speak to me for hours, and told our marriage counselor he felt emasculated."

- 37_lucky_ears

Incredibly Incompetent

"An ex-friend of my husband once proudly proclaimed that he had never changed a nappy (diaper for my American friends) on any of his kids."

"I looked over at his partner, and she gave me this weak smile that just broke my heart."

"My husband promptly mocked his friend relentlessly for being so incompetent and lazy that he couldn’t even change his own children."

"Needless to say, they later broke up, and we kept his ex-wife in the divorce and ditched him instead."

- SarNic88

Marriage is supposed to be all about love, respect, and building a life together, two people coming together as a team against all else. But it seems that for some couples, because of gender expectations, they're never able to form that team fully.