u/Dry-Cry-7362

I need advice on how to communicate effectively and reach a constructive resolution regarding the living situation I currently share with my girlfriend of 4 years.

To preface this: I love my girlfriend deeply. She’s a wonderful person, incredibly hardworking, and someone I genuinely see a future with. She works full-time while also pursuing an MBA on weekends. Her hometown is far from the city we currently live in, and she moved here years ago for university, which is where we met.

The issue is our completely different standards and attitudes toward shared living spaces.

Growing up, my girlfriend and her family moved around a lot and lived in many different places. I personally feel this contributed to her not developing much attachment or responsibility toward the places she lives in. To her, a home often feels more like a temporary place to stay rather than something to maintain or care for.

Meanwhile, I was raised in a very strict household with high standards regarding cleanliness, hygiene, and shared responsibility. Cleanliness isn’t about perfection for me, it’s tied heavily to comfort, peace of mind, and emotional well-being.

We’ve lived together for almost 3 years now. In the beginning, things were manageable, probably because both of us were putting in extra effort. But over time, as work stress and burnout increased for her, she gradually stopped participating in household chores almost entirely. I slowly ended up taking on most of the responsibilities around the apartment while she focused on work and leisurely activities.

To add context: I earn more, and work a hybrid job, while she works fully remote and spends almost all of her time at home.

Things became significantly harder when financial constraints (not from my side) led us into a shared living arrangement with her mother in a 2-bedroom apartment. I want to be clear that I could comfortably afford to live alone, and I also have the option to stay with my own family in this city. I chose this arrangement because I wanted to support my girlfriend and help ease financial pressure for both her and her mom.

But the living conditions have become unbearable for me.

There’s clutter and hoarding everywhere. Kitchen counters are greasy. Bathrooms aren’t cleaned properly. Hair accumulates all over the floor and drains. Piss-smell accumulated in bathrooms, Things will gradually gets worse over time, with no one cared until I had to personally go fix, clean it.

A recent example pushed me close to my limit:

I came home from a 4-day business trip and found that I had no clean clothes or towels available, just overflowing dirty laundry basket. I went into the room to look for clothes from a clean basket of laundry I had done last week that awaited to be folde- hadn’t been touched yet, and a dead cockroach is inside. The floor was dirty and covered in hair. The bathroom sink was clogged and its floor was sticky from soap residue. Then I walked into the kitchen and found streaks of sticky grime across the floor that had clearly been “cleaned” with baby wipes in the kind of way that just spreads the mess around instead of actually cleaning it.

I genuinely almost lost my mind.

The hardest part is that we’ve already talked about this many times. I’ve tried approaching it gently and emotionally, explaining that acts of care around our shared space make me feel loved and respected. I’ve also tried being direct and saying cleanliness is a non-negotiable standard for me.

Nothing changes long-term.

Her response is usually that she simply does not want to do chores, and that if cleanliness matters so much to me, I should just hire housekeeping. Which I have thought about, but ultimately see this as a temporary bandaid solution, because hiring a maid may solve some visible problems short term, but it will just drags us down further into being lazy, irresponsible, complacent and reliant on it

At this point, I’ve started developing resentment and anger because I feel completely defeated. I’ve even started expressing frustration in unhealthy ways, like punching walls or throwing objects when I'm alone, which I absolutely hate about myself and do not want to become.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

I’m trying to find a solution that doesn’t destroy the relationship or create conflict with my potential future in-laws, because aside from this issue, they genuinely are good people.

Has anyone dealt with something similar, especially when the issue is not love, loyalty, or compatibility, but fundamentally different standards of living?

TL;DR: I love my girlfriend of 4 years and genuinely see a future with her, but our completely different standards of cleanliness and shared responsibility are making our living situation unbearable for me. I’ve gradually taken on almost all household responsibilities while living with her and her mother in a cramped apartment to help them financially, but repeated conversations about chores and hygiene have led nowhere. I’m becoming increasingly resentful and emotionally volatile, and I don’t know how to fix this without destroying the relationship.