Not everything that takes effort is work.

If you want to do those things and it takes effort then it is just effort. If it is an obligation because the relationship will collapse if you don’t put in more effort than you want to put in, then it is work. People have different levels of effort they want to put into a relationship, and if there is a mismatch it will create work for one of them if they drag it out and that is going to put a ton of strain on the relationship.

A little work is fine as long as the overall relationship is good, but if most interactions are work then it is a terrible relationship.