Originally my FIL moved onto our property so that he could help us with our 1.5 acres of land. I’ve never been particularly handy so it seemed like a good idea all around for everyone involved. He would earn his keep on the property by keeping things up for us while we worked to bring in money. Unfortunately, my career path is not a predictable business. There are good times and bad times in my field. This has led to me not always having a steady, well-paying job. I’ve been sadly caught in more bad times than good over the last couple of years which means it’s on my wife to bring in the majority of our combined income while I do my best to keep up with the housework and apply for new contracts.

Unfortunately, due to never learning a lot of important habits as a child, I did not grow up to become a very good housekeeper. I’ve gotten better over the years that my wife and I have been together but I admit that I’m still guilty of not remembering to clean up after myself every single time I step foot into the kitchen and leaving dishes for later on in the day after I’ve written some words on a word document. Sometimes those dishes even piled up and the kitchen would become a not very pretty place to look at. I never intended to let things get too bad in there but it did happen on one more than one occasion. This is on me and I fully admit to this sin.

Sadly, things recently got much worse throughout 2018 before culminating in December. Things were rocky throughout the year and it had already reached the point where very few words were exchanged between myself and my FIL. When I fell down the stairs in our home and dislocated my right shoulder, there were dishes already in the sink that needed to be done but after I got out of the emergency room, I couldn’t do them or much of anything else for two weeks. For that time that I was laid up, things in the kitchen grew worse and worse until we were out of things to eat off of. It was pretty bad and seemed more than a little overwhelming.

Around the first of the year, he stepped in and helped us out by getting us caught up on the dishes and silverware but instituted his new rule of making it well known if anyone left anything in the sink for any length of time even if it was the middle of the night. Luckily he’s never shouted at 3 am to do the dishes but a couple of days ago I had the audacity to leave a single plastic storage container and a butter knife in the sink and shit hit the fan. We had an eye to eye, tense talk in which his words were that I am “lazy, a liar, and an asshole” and that he fully intended to dial up the heat this year.

My wife did talk to him that night and told him to calm the fuck down but he is still building a case against me (example: my wife had a late night snack last night which meant that a bowl and a couple of pieces of silverware were left in the sink to soak overnight which he took a picture of this morning). I've also had to start keeping a private "chore chart" to use as counter-evidence and am also afraid to make anything to eat because if I leave even a speck of a mess behind in his clean kitchen, it'll lead to another blowup.

This isn’t a one-sided issue where either one of us is 100% right or wrong. This is an issue where both parties are at fault but it feels very much like I’m the only one who is willing to admit that.