This is my first time posting in any subreddit, so forgive me if I don't do this correctly. It is also a throw-away account. So that's why I'm fresh and new and sparkly. Anyway, let me get to my question. I, (middle aged) have two kids (20's, m). They both still live at home with me, one is working and the other is finishing up their schooling. Both are legal to drink, legal to drive, legal to do just about anything. Neither pays rent, one pays either a utility bill or an entertainment bill every month to help out.

The other half of their DNA is no longer in the picture, save for one, maybe two times a month, where they go out for dinner or coffees or so walk around town. Thus, it's just myself and the boys, 24/7. The issue arises from asking them to do simple things like chores. Nothing like cleaning out gutters, or even mowing lawns. Just simple picking up after themselves, and the dishes on a rotating schedule. Maybe help me bring groceries in. And definitely pick up after and take care of their pets.

Whenever asked, both of them roll their eyes, cuss me out, ask why I haven't or can't do the things they're being asked to do, and generally it escalates in to an argument before they do a half-ass job of the chore, and results in them not speaking to me for the rest of the evening. Recently, the arguments have shifted in to them calling me abusive for asking for help around the house. The one who works says they had a long, hard day, and don't see the need to contribute further by wasting their down time on dishes. The other says they have had a long, hard day at school, and doesn't need to sweep the kitchen floor. I really mean it when I say I am not asking them to slave. I just don't want to do the dishes eleven times a day, or sweep six times a day, or be a maid to what amounts to adults. I think this should be a shared common space, since they are living here, and making 98% of the mess that accumulates. Bearing in mind I do the shopping, pay the bills, cook, and do the bulk of the choring - except the catch is, I'm also ill.

They both know this, they've been to countless doctors appointments, watched me recover from surgeries, and see how badly each day treats me on the pain scales. I'm not going to get better, I'm only stalling the inevitable, though it's uncertain when that inevitable will be. I would like to spend some of that time not picking up after two grown children.

The most recent disagreement came after I had gone to get some new things for the house that needed to be replaced; all that fun stuff you wish you weren't spending money on and instead getting Lego. The box was too heavy for me to carry, so I left it in the car. This was a week ago, now. The box is still in the car. It's not a particularly heavy box - it is just too much for me. They've both been asked, and neither will retrieve it. The last time I asked, I was called an a-hole, told I was abusive, because none of their friends or acquaintances have to do anything around THEIR homes, and I should get the box myself because I am not doing anything else, so why can't I.

Where I might be the a-hole is...I told them that if they didn't have the decency to do one simple thing a day for me to help keep up the house, while living here for basically free, they could both start looking for another place to stay, and that if I was going to be doing all of the things one does when they're an adult and out on their own, alone, I may as well live alone, too.

My ex had a particularly nasty habit of throwing money at things to make issues go away, but it doesn't work with chores, but I think the established pattern they were taught growing up that I tried to break is unbreakable. Schedules, rotating, begging, pleading, asking, demanding - nothing has ever worked. Am I really abusive for telling 20+ year old's that they have to either shape up or get out of my house, ending their basically free ride?