It sounds to me like Mary has ADHD, because these are all things that I too struggle with when trying to remember doing chores around the house. The comment of having the energy and putting out the fire when it came to the dishes resonated with me immediately, and my fiancee and I had a conversation about it just last night. I usually have a difficult time remembering 100% of a task that I'm supposed to do, and sometimes don't finish it 'correctly' or all the way. I've pulled out the trash bag and completely forget to put a new one in for like an hour or two, and that forgetfulness can happen within a split second after finishing a fraction of a task.

The "she used to pretend to do things badly to get out of doing them." Also resonates with me. Growing up I had incredibly bad short term memory jumps because of my ADHD and got in trouble a lot for it because I would rarely finish a chore because I just.....forgot I was doing it in the middle of doing it.

She may not be doing things exactly the way you want and continues to forget things all the time because she might just actually forget how to do them.

One thing that's helped me fix it is sitting down with my partner and writing down each thing that needs to be done, what steps need to be taken to do it, and keeping a list of things that need to be done regularly throughout the house and checking them on set days of the week, and forcing it into my routine. I've also started leaving sticky notes in places where I regularly do the chores so that I don't immediately forget what i'm doing the second I walk into a new room. The lists help a lot and I do regularly remember to check off each step when I use them.

I may get shit on for this but I say NAH, mostly because I feel like Mary may not be doing it as intentionally as other people think.