MIL & Partner shaming me - rant
My partner video called his Mother while he was making dinner a couple nights ago and I was sitting at the kitchen table drawing on my tablet. The conversation starts off as a pretty average catch up and then she asks what my partner is making for dinner and if I’m helping. My partner responds by giving his mother a look of “are you kidding me” about me helping with dinner. He doesn’t really say anything, just pauses and looks at her and kind of laughs. MIL then asks if I’ll be doing the dishes, another moment of silence and a long sarcastic stare from him. Meanwhile I’m sitting right there (off camera but she knows I’m there). I step into camera view and say “no comment” and kind of laugh it off to break up the awkwardness. She proceeds to go on about how when she was visiting her brother he made dinner while his wife did the dishes. There is no reaction from either me or my partner so then the topic gets changed. Once the call is over neither of us bring up the topic of dishes/cooking and just move on with our evening, but I couldn’t help but feel shamed, embarrassed and guilty.
CONTEXT: My partner has previously brought up his frustrations with me not cooking or doing the dishes much. I used to ask if he needed help with dinner and he would say no. I would sometimes try to do the dishes but he would get annoyed that I was in the way. Sometimes right after dinner my partner will do the dishes and I feel guilty that he’s doing them instead of me. Just because I didn’t get to the dishes immediately after dinner doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to do them, I was just going to get to them a bit later. We talked out our issues and it was a pretty rational conversation. I’ve agreed to help out more, I do the dishes pretty regularly but really don’t care to cook. I’ll bake once in a while, order food in or I’ll make snacks and simple food. I do laundry and clean up around the house casually. Aside from cooking, all other chores seem pretty equally distributed between the two of us now.
So I was surprised when he didn’t back me up at all, at least about doing the dishes when his mother made her comments. Since then I’ve felt guilted into helping cook more, so tonight I am going to make dinner. My partner also asked if I can make a slow cooker pasta later in the week so I will do that as well. I understand that my partner doesn’t want to have to cook or think about making food every night so I do want to help out more to make him happy, it’s just how guilty they both make me feel about it. I don’t want to help out of guilt, I want to help because I actually care. The more that people try to guilt me, the less I want to do the thing that they’re making me feel guilty about, if that makes any sense?
I hateee the “So and So cook and clean so why don’t you?” approach to the situation. I am not a housewife. I wish I could live on my own so I don’t have to worry about wanting to cook or clean for anyone but myself. I live for the rare weekends that my partner is away so that I can order food and not have to worry about being judged for not cooking or cleaning.