Traveling together is a great way to spend more quality time as a couple. Yet around 70% of American couples say they don't get away together as much as they would like to. That's why we should seize all the opportunities we can get, even, let's say when our partner is on a work trip.
Unfortunately for this woman, her city break while her BF was on a work trip turned into a babysitting job. Unbeknownst to her, the guy agreed to watch his niece for the weekend. What's more, he even expected his GF to babysit while he plays football instead of enjoying her vacation in the city.
A woman came to visit her boyfriend and wanted to spend her vacation seeing the city
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But the BF sprang up his niece onto her, forcing the GF to babysit while he goes to play football
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Image credits: Getty Images (not the actual image)
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Women often don't feel equal to their partners in relationships
Reading through the comments, it becomes clear that people took issue with other things the boyfriend said more than just babysitting the niece. People drew attention to how he doesn't seem to look at this relationship as an equal partnership.
For one, he casually said that he's "letting" his GF stay at his place for free. Then, he expected her to fill the caretaker role for his niece, assuming that she'd automatically agree just because she's a woman.
Research shows that women don't feel their relationships are always gender equal. In a 2011 study, 43% of men and only 28% of women perceived their relationships as completely equal.
And this story illustrates this statistic pretty well. If partners expect women to take on the bigger part of physical and emotional labor – cleaning the house, taking care of an ill partner, putting their hobbies first, and even babysitting their sibling's kids – girlfriends are bound to feel like they're giving more than getting.
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These are the four reasons why "I do this for you, you do this for me" can doom relationships
The boyfriend seems to think that relationships operate on a tit-for-tat basis. He lets his GF stay at his place, so she should repay him by watching his niece. However, relationship experts caution that such a transactional attitude to relationships can be harmful.
The experts at Maplewood Counseling name four reasons why being transactional doesn't work in relationships.
- It makes partners doubt if the connection is genuine. When we genuinely care about a person, we want to help them and take care of them. Letting them stay at our place or spending time with them then isn't a chore but something we do out of love.
- It undermines trust and intimacy. If we keep score of the things we do for each other, a romantic relationship can start to feel like a business transaction. And there's no place for intimacy in a work relationship.
- It presupposes both partners are always at 100%. As much as we'd like, no relationship can be 50/50 all of the time. One partner sometimes takes more than they give, and vice versa. Failing to understand these natural fluctuations in a relationship can breed resentment.
- Many things in relationships are not quantifiable. How much is watching your niece worth? Will this repay the girlfriend's debt of staying at the BF's place for free? There are some things we can't put a price on, and keeping a spreadsheet of all the things your partner "owes" you is hardly possible.
That's why experts advocate to look at relationships as relational. According to Psychotherapist Terri Cole, in a transactional relationship, you're focused on yourself. In a relational relationship, you are focused on the other person.
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People in the comments were confused as to why the guy did not know how old his niece was
Still, most sided with the girlfriend, taking issue with some other things the BF said
Others were brutally honest: "YTA for dating this loser"
