Wondering What The Bare Minimum Is? Here’s A Concrete Answer

We talk about the bare minimum a lot. When it comes to dating and our expectations of the men we meet, our bar is stuck firmly on the floor. Heck, for some of us, that bar is all the way in hell. We let our partners get away with absolutely anything. And we praise even the tiniest thing, propping it up as proof that they care. But what is the bare minimum really? If you’re having trouble conceptualizing it, I have a simple and concrete way for you to figure out if your partner is doing the bare minimum.

The bare minimum is everything he would have done if he was living alone.

Obviously, this supposes that your partner would have kept his home relatively clean if he wasn’t with you. (And if the answer is no to that, why even date this man child anyway?)

So what does this entail? He should be doing his laundry. He should be doing the dishes before they get gross. He should be avoiding clutter. The trash should be taken out every week. High-traffic areas like the bathroom and kitchen should be cleaned regularly.

Most importantly, though: He should be doing all of this totally unprompted by you. If he was living alone, he wouldn’t have someone nagging him to do this stuff. He would just do it.

Unfortunately, some of us would see this behavior and want to throw him a parade. He isn’t making me do everything for him! But you should be wanting more than the bare minimum.

Quit mothering your partner.

Then there are the men who are below the bare minimum. Once they get with a woman, especially if they move in together, he suddenly forgets how to do all of those basic things. He forgets how to use a washing machine. He leaves dishes for you because “you’re better at it.” It’d be cool if I could say that this kind of behavior is rare, but it isn’t.

In that case, let’s make a few of life goals:

1. We will never mother our partners.
2. We will never prop up the bare minimum as some kind of grand gesture.
3. We will only accept the same amount of effort from our partner that we’re putting in.
4. We will break up if we don’t get more than the bare minimum.

Of course, it sounds easy when it’s written out there in black and white. You know you deserve the best. But then we let ourselves accept less and less once we’re actually in a relationship. The next time you feel that happening, just think back to that definition of bare minimum. Don’t pick up the slack for a man who is suddenly doing less than he would have done alone.

You deserve the world.