I snapped at my boyfriend after being overworked at his local business for months, now he’s giving me the silent treatment.

A young woman shared her frustrations about being overworked while helping her boyfriend run his newly opened coffee shop. Despite her sacrifices—balancing a full-time job, household responsibilities, and long hours at his business—her boyfriend has been ungrateful and critical.

After snapping at him during a stressful moment, he responded with the silent treatment, leaving her questioning their relationship. Read the full story below to learn more about her dilemma and how she’s coping.

‘ I snapped at my boyfriend after being overworked at his local business for months, now he’s giving me the silent treatment.’

So basically as the title says, I (26F) snapped at my boyfriend (26M) yesterday and now he is giving me the silent treatment. I will provide a little more context to it though. So my boyfriend has recently opened up a coffee shop. He only had enough money for the opening costs and things like that, but he cannot afford to hire staff.

Basically he opened this business without a business plan, with nothing else to fall back on despite me advising him differently. I have a full time job as an accountant and I work a 9 to 5 from home. I try to help him as much as I can.

I usually go everyday from 6 to 11 or 12 to help him out basically doing everything I can (dishes, cleaning, barista duties). Mind you, I have never worked in a coffee shop before. My regular at a coffee shop would always be plain black coffee.

So I don’t know much about fancy drinks, but I am trying my best to learn as much as I can and be as fast as I can. Apart from the weekdays, I am off on weekends from my job so I will go to the coffee shop from morning til night to help.

We also live together so after I come home which is pretty late, I am the one who does the laundry, cooking, cleaning, doing the dishes, all of that. There are days I will stay up until 2 am. Then the morning starts again at 6am sharp. My boyfriend claims he cannot hear the alarm in the morning.

So I have to physically get up and make him wake up so he can leave for work. It usually takes him half an hour to leave the house and by then I have up until 8am to sleep a bit more. Sometimes, I find it impossible to fall back asleep and by the time I feel sleepy again it’s time to get up for me.

Needless to say, I am exhausted everyday. I feel like a zombie who’s just trying to get by everyday. I haven’t seen my family since March (when the coffee shop opened) because I literally have no free time.

The thing that really pisses me off though, is that during afternoon rush hour my boyfriend will get very angry, will say very mean things if I make one mistake while trying to help him out. He hasn’t said a single nice word to me or even a thank you for helping him to try and make his dream come true.

I usually try to maintain calm as I know he’s also overworked so I try not to take all the mean things to heart. However, yesterday while he was once again being mean and saying not so nice things I snapped back in a very angry tone.

He told me not to ever speak to him like that again and gave me the silent treatment. In the morning he didn’t even say goodbye and he hasn’t texted me all day. I feel like I absolutely don’t deserve this behavior after all this s**t and I am seriously considering breaking up with him. I have a steady job and I can make ends meet on my own.. Any advice?

See what others had to share with OP:

MorthaP −  Girl wtf are you doing. This dude is a terrible business owner and boyfriend and he needs to actually face consequences. Stop helping him. This dude is fully exploiting your free labor at every turn. He doesn’t give a f**k about you.

Iguess9727 −  You’re all so right and I am so thankful for all the comments and advice. I was upset about the silent treatment but now I see that it was a blessing as it just made open my eyes truly. I felt ashamed to open up to my family about all of this because I know that if they knew he’s berating me,

that I am acting as an alarm clock for him, they would have dragged me away from this man a long time ago. For all this months, I have been feeling like someone else is living my life and I’m just watching from afar. I realize I really need to get my s**t together and leave.

I just booked a weekend vacation with my family as we speak. I am not going to go to the coffee shop today. If he doesn’t wanna talk, neither do I. I’ll come back Sunday. I’ll start looking into new apartments asap, pack up my s**t and leave.

hawkcarhawk −  It sounds like you’re the one actually running this business. He wanted to start a business, had no plan, did it anyway, and now you’re running it for him while he berates you. You’re also exhausted.

So what exactly are you getting out of this? You’re not even married to the man. Just stop. Stop helping him and leave the relationship. How on earth could this possibly improve enough to make it even somewhat worth it for you?

coloradyo −  If he can’t afford to pay staff, and wants you to work there for free as a volunteer, maybe he just shouldn’t be in business and hasn’t thought this through or planned this out enough. Let him fail and learn from it, especially when he recognizes that he went into it without a business plan. I would quit both the guy and the relationship.

DYITB −  Go visit your parents this weekend. Leave after work today—or take PTO and leave this morning—and come back Sunday night. If he wants silent treatment he can have it right back, and he can get his own adult self out of bed tomorrow. You are not married and this was not a joint effort. He clearly does not appreciate what you’re doing, so stop doing it.

ontarianlibrarian −  Guess who is not going to help their ex-boyfriend anymore? If he can’t appreciate your effort, it’s time to look after yourself.

miflordelicata −  26 and he can’t get himself out of bed to run HIS business. Abuses you and when you stand up to him, he does the silent treatment. You must find him so attractive. Go see your family. Maybe prepare an exit plan. You are propping up something that will fail, the business and your relationship.

GoldHardware −  This dude is an a**sive l**er who basically expects you to be his barista slave, complete with the mistreatment. What are you getting out of this relationship? In what way is this guy filling YOUR cup?

Please believe me when I say, being alone is better than being with someone who makes bad decisions and treats you poorly. Pull up your anchor and sail off into the sunset. Let him flounder around in his dinghy alone

bestheckincsm −  Bruh this is crazy. You should stop helping him yesterday and start your exit plan. This s**t is over. Do you tend to be a volunteer to help?
Did he ask you for help at the restaurant or did you just show up to help and it stuck? The answers don’t really matter either way break up but if you would answer that would be nice I’m super curious.