original text by Molly Burford, adapted with thoughts and restructured for readability.

The worst relationship of your life will be with a manchild because he will be so damn fun in the beginning. He is charming and spontaneous and funny and these are the things that drew you to him in the first place.

But in time you will learn that a manchild doesn’t bring much more to the table.

After all, he expects that you have already set the table and gets upset when you ask him to load his dish in the dishwasher instead of leaving it next to the sink two inches from said dishwasher.

He expects that you will respect his time and his ambitions, but when you work long hours, you are accused of ignoring him.

He expects that you will have endless patience to teach him how to function as an adult over and over, but makes minimal effort to learn and forgets that patience has limits.

He expects to be applauded and congratulated when he finally throws out the trash or makes his bed (hooray! he has done the bare minimum!), but when you spend hours deep cleaning the entire house, go out of your way to make him a four-course meal, and anxiously wait for his return until two in the morning (you had hoped that the two of you could enjoy one dinner together) you are not deserving of the same applause and congratulations. why? because those are practices and habits you already had — therefore nothing out of the ordinary.

He expects you to keep a positive and upbeat attitude around him because your negativity 'deters' his incentive to change his habits, yet fails to realize that your stress originates from the fact that you are the home's breadwinner, mother, maid, life coach, tutor, and emotional support animal all in one. He fails to recognize that it is impossible for any human being to be sunshine and rainbows while dealing with the likes of him.

It will be exhausting and maddening.

Perhaps he would fare better with a humanoid. He loves his computer so damn much, anyways.

The worst relationship of your life will be with a manchild because you will see all of his potential and the man he could be if he just put his mind to it. You know he is capable of doing so much more with himself, his life, and your relationship.

And so you give him time. You wait. You hope.

You try and encourage him to grow up and do better because you want better for him and also for you. You do your best to show him the value of keeping a clean home, trying hard at work, of being a good partner. But it never gets through to him and this is how your entire relationship will go.

He drops the ball

and you pick it up

over

and over

and over again.

The worst relationship of your life will be with a manchild because he believes that his problems will always be worse and more important than yours. His time is more valuable than yours. His work is more 'real.'

When your work is overseas, it helps him forget that you have responsibilities and commitments too.

He fails to realize that the reason he has the time to work, learn, explore, create - is because you have been transfusing your time to him. Donating hours of your time - cooking, cleaning, scrubbing, teaching, arguing - to him. Sacrificing your energy doing the mundane so that he could frolic and expand his horizons.

And all this time, you've felt stuck. You're upset. You're only 21, too. You still have things to figure out, things you're anxious about, things you want help with.

But it will never be your turn for support, for a listening ear, for a shoulder to lean on. He will lash out in times of stress and expect you to just take it because he doesn’t know how to handle his own emotions.

The worst relationship of your life will be with a manchild because when you try to hold a manchild accountable for his bad behaviour, it will cause an enormous fight and you will wish you had just said nothing at all. You will argue for 8 hours over why he should've washed his used spoon in the sink. Over why he needs to tie the bread bag. Over why used floss should be thrown out.

Each incident will repeat for a minimum of five times. Yes, even the floss. (You know this because his insistence that you were lying drove you to a state of paranoia where you began collecting photographic evidence, complete with timestamps, of each instance. You have two hard copies and two soft copies on two separate password-protected USBs. You had no desire to be driven mad. But this was the level of thoroughness it required to silence the same excuses he used every time. You know them better than the back of your hand. So you come prepared. You nearly lost your mind.)

Truly, it is common sense. Yet he will still fight you, for up to twelve hours in one night, and die stubbornly on that hill before he can even comprehend admitting responsibility, apologizing, and resolving the matter.

You laugh-cry hot tears, like a maniac, because it would have been so much easier to have just done the task yourself, rather than attempting to guide him through it. It would have taken less than 5 seconds, and now it's taken 5 hours. "But it's for the sake of the longevity of your relationship," you tell yourself. You lie to yourself each day, tricking yourself into thinking that teaching him these things will pay off in the long run.

Because this is your future husband.

Because this is the father of your future children.

Because maybe after this time, he'll learn.

A manchild doesn’t understand the concept of responsibility because no one has ever trusted him to be responsible for anything. And now you know why.

He is unreliable and inconsistent.

The worst relationship of your life will be with a manchild because he will weaponize incompetence because he knows you will always fix his mistakes and pick up his slack. He knows that he can get away with messing everything up because he has you to clean everything up afterward.

The worst relationship of your life will be with a manchild because he will always have his excuses but never his sh*t together. He will never change and you will never get through to him. The issue isn’t that he can’t do better.

It’s simply because he does not want to.

You want a partner that raises you up, not one you literally have to raise to be an adult.

You want to learn and grow with your partner, not wait for them to catch up.

Don’t date a manchild because he will only waste your time.

When you finally let him go, you will feel lighter, happier; you will have more headspace, more calm, more time to yourself. Because you, not him, will be the protagonist of your own life. You will earn back 8-10 hours per day to study, work, exercise, eat, socialize, and live your life to the fullest, on your own terms, alongside people with whom you reciprocate mutual respect, care, and support.