In this personal narrative, the speaker recounts a past relationship where her girlfriend consistently avoided helping with dishes and other cleanup after meals. Over several months, the speaker grew resentful but, drawing on her study of "Conscious Girlfriend" work, she resisted the urge to blame and instead observed her own fear of offending her partner. She eventually approached the topic calmly, asking for help with the dishes. The girlfriend revealed that childhood criticism from her mother made her anxious about doing chores wrong, fearing the speaker would be displeased. The conversation led to mutual relief and a better understanding of each other's needs. The speaker emphasizes that self‑reflection and curious, clear communication can prevent conflict, encourages viewers to share similar experiences, and ends with a typical call to like, comment, and subscribe.
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So in this video, I want to talk about a challenge that I faced years ago when I was dating somebody, and she would come over for dinner. She didn't like to cook, and I did, and she would come over, and it was so fun to make her these beautiful meals. Or sometimes she came over during the day, and we would go to bed, and then afterward I would fix us something to eat, you know, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, late-night snack, whatever it was. And then I would either clean up while she was sitting there, or sometimes I would just wait till she went home and I would clean up. And it took a few months because I was really into her, but then at some point I started feeling resentful that she was never Helping to clean up. And she was never even getting up and taking things off the table, putting them on the counter. She was never washing dishes. But then, because I had been studying Conscious Girlfriend work already at that point, I thought, well, this has gone on for months now. If I bring this up with her, she's gonna feel bad. She's gonna feel ashamed. Um, You know, and I have a little bit of frustration at this point, so I might bring it up in a kind of a blaming way. And so I was really stuck. And so a couple more months went by, and I was just observing myself and how I was not bringing this up. And I was like, wow, the longer this goes on, the worse it's getting. But I just didn't know what to say. Have you ever been in a situation like this? In the past, what I would have done was probably just blow up, and at some point I would have said, like, what the fuck? You know, I cook for you time after time after time. You never offer to help do the dishes. But I knew I didn't want to do that, and so for a long time I just And I was looking at, well, why am I so scared to bring it up? Okay, I'm scared of offending her. I'm scared of making her feel bad. I'm scared of saying it wrong. But at the same time, I know that not saying it also creates a problem. And so finally, after spending a lot of time with this inside, finally one night we had dinner and I Started putting things in the sink, and I said, you know what? I'd really like if you would help do the dishes. And she's like, oh, I'd love to! And then she said, you know what? I've been feeling funny because I'm aware that, you know, at home I always wash my own dishes, but I've never done that here. And I said, yeah, I noticed that too, and I was kind of wondering what was up. And she said, well, you know, I think that what it was is that when I was a kid, my mother always criticized me, and no matter what I did, there was some way that I did it wrong. And so I was scared that if I washed the dishes, it might be wrong for you, or if I put them in the dishwasher, maybe you're really fussy about how they get stacked and I might do it wrong. I was like, Oh my God, I'm so glad that we had this conversation because I'm actually not fussy at all. And she felt relieved. I felt relieved. But I could see how, you know, if I had gone into a story in my head, I might have been like, she doesn't respect me. She doesn't care. She just thinks that I'm the one that should do all the work in this relationship. And it could have gotten so far out of hand. So if you've ever had a dilemma like this, first of all, I want you to know you're not alone. And second of all, sometimes when we learn how to explore what's going on inside of us, we get to a point where rather than exploding or stuffing it, we can actually bring something up in a simple, clear, natural way. With curiosity that gets good results. So if you've ever had an experience the opposite of this or like this, let us know in the comments below, and please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. See you soon.
