Sometimes I think being in love with someone means constantly choosing patience. But lately, that patience feels one-sided.

I got into a huge argument with my fiancé last night over laundry of all things. It sounds small, but it wasn’t just about dirty clothes or folding shirts. It was about empathy, about emotional labor, about how exhausting it is to feel unheard by the person you love.

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I usually do the laundry every week without complaining. Even when I’m juggling a full-time job, college, and the never-ending cycle of cleaning, I still make time to get it done. I’ve asked him for help before, but he always turns it into a joke or shrugs it off, saying if I started the task, I should finish it. There have even been times he literally pushed the pile of laundry aside and lay in bed while I folded everything.

So this week, I asked him to do it for once. Just one thing. And he did, sort of but he asked for my help the entire time. Two loads in, he was already complaining and telling me he didn’t know where to put my clothes. When I refused to help, he got irritated. I reminded him that whenever I ask for help, he never does it, and suddenly I’m the one with an “attitude.”

At first, it was playful. We were laughing and teasing each other, and I even decided to do what he always does I went and lay on the bed while he folded the laundry. That’s when everything flipped. Suddenly he was angry, saying I was being disrespectful and unfair. But all I did was mirror the same behavior he’s shown me for months.

I told him he was acting like a victim, complaining about how hard it was to do laundry when I’ve been carrying the mental and physical load of our life together school, work, cleaning, groceries, bills everything. He apologized eventually, but only after I listed out every example of when he failed to show empathy or appreciation. It’s like he can’t understand until I spell it out for him word by word.

And the truth is, I know part of it comes from his ADHD. He gets easily overstimulated and burnt out from simple tasks because they don’t interest him. I get that. I try to be patient, but it’s exhausting when I’m the one constantly compensating for it. It’s not that he’s lazy it’s that he doesn’t think deeper. He doesn’t realize how emotionally draining it is to feel unseen.

I love him. He’s a good man in so many ways. But sometimes I wonder how long a relationship can survive when one person keeps having to explain what empathy looks like. When I say I’m tired, I don’t just mean physically. I’m tired of carrying the emotional weight of two people.

Maybe it’s not just about laundry. Maybe it’s about wanting someone who looks at you and says, I see how hard you’re trying.

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