AITA for being upset that my partner didn’t tell me he was going to dinner with his mom?

TL;DR: boyfriend and I have been arguing as he doesn’t think we need to tidy the house before his mom visits, despite me having told him this makes me feel better. After a day of cleaning in preparation for bf’s mom to visit, boyfriend disappears for 3 hours. Shows up after and says he went to dinner with his mom. Didn’t text. Didn’t bring food. Ive been waiting, because he said we were getting dinner together.

Yesterday at 11:55PM, my boyfriend of 5 years told me that his mom was coming to visit today and staying for two nights. We hadn’t cleaned our place. Sheets weren’t washed. We had two rugs sitting in the hallway that need places to go. I’ve told him before that I like to have the house in a somewhat presentable state and need advanced notice before someone comes to visit. A ton of my anxiety is home related. We agreed on these two points.

We got into a fight yesterday because I got very stressed about the things we needed to do before his mom got here, especially since I’m super busy at work and wouldn’t have time and I found out at 11:pm the night before. Today I ended up spending 2 hours surface-level cleaning which took me away from work. He kept insisting it was my problem since he didn’t care if it was clean. Or that he would just clean once she got here. From past experience with him, I knew that second thing wouldn’t happen.

I’m frustrated because we’re partners and this is a need that I’ve communicated clearly (and I don’t have many things around the house I ask him for). And it’s something we agreed to.

Cue him picking up his mom from the train. He’s rushing out the door—hasn’t done a thing. He sees that I’m also rushing to finish things. Im ironing my clothes, doing my makeup, and getting towels from the dryer, expecting him to be home in 10 minutes from the train since it’s super close.

I haven’t made dinner or ordered groceries (I don’t have a car) despite the kitchen being empty because he said we’d get dinner and I didn’t need to worry about it. We’ve been arguing so I know it’s a bit awkward, but I’m expecting us to figure it out.

What I didn’t expect was for two and half hours to go by before he comes home. He says they grabbed dinner. No text or heads up that I should eat. No leftovers. No anything. There’s hardly food in the house because I thought we were going to dinner. Looks like I’m making rice and a can of beans.

It’s not that he needs to tell me about his every movement. It just feels so completely inconsiderate. And it feels like other things like this have happened, and i cant tell if I’m nuts or if he just doesn’t care. And yes I’ve brought this up to him, but he thinks I’m being overbearing. Maybe I am.

Posted Sep 29, 2025, 11:36 PM UTC

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