Husband never appreciates my cooking

Maybe it's not that tasty?!

Can you both come up with an sgreement where he regularly cooks, like once or twice a week. And he has to do the planning for it too?

@WhatDoesMyFutureHold "My DH is the only one to cut the grass and put the bins out, I don't gush over it every time."
Does he do these things every night after a day's work?

She said he does say thank you, this was nice.

She wants gusto and an ongoing fuss throughout the meal. She wants him to dramatically perform his gratefulness the way her step father did.

I knew as soon as OP mentioned her father ‘s compliments to her mother and her family culture of gratitude that half of mumsnet would attack her for wanting too much praise. I cooked pretty much every meal for 30 years and my husband and children always thank me and they always thank and praise the cook when its not me, too. For instance when my daughters cook for each other or for us. We all appreciate the effort and thought that go into meals .

if op’s DH doesn’t then stop cooking for him.

Dh does most of the cooking in our house, and I do thank him and tell him it's nice, but I don't gush about it and heap loads of praise onto him. When I cook, he doesn't do that to me either. It would feel odd, almost false and OTT. It's like, yes it's nice, but what else do you want me to say? So long as the recipient isn't making yuk and sick noises and refusing to eat it, it's all good.

We always thank the cook! It’s a recognition of time and effort. However nightly effusive thanks no matter what would be very patronising.

You do sound very invested in your own skill. I don’t think producing a meal from the cupboard is magic, and I’ve not come across anyone who constantly boasts about ‘cooking from scratch’ who actually does (it’s a hassle to make your own pasta every time…..). A burger is not necessarily unhealthy, and even if it were, food is about both nutrition and pleasure.

If he doesn’t appreciate your effort and the two of you have vastly differently tastes maybe cook separately for a while.

Telling the cook "thank you that was lovely", is a 10 second job.

I pity anyone who thinks that is insincere and demanding.

It is absolutely the most basic of basic courtesies that my children have been reared with.

My husband would thank me for a sandwich, as I would him.

Really basic manners.

Certainly not a big deal in our house.

Cooking takes time, as does laundry, which I too expect a thank you for, from my near adult children, when I do it.

There are no laundry/cooking fairies in this house, these tasks take up someones time.

They are most welcome to take these tasks over, any time at all.

I think you need to start thinking that you’re cooking these nice meals for your self. And basically Thank yourself !!

I love cooking and when something is particularly nice I do say it out loud 🙂Luckily my husband is vocal about how much he enjoys my cooking.

It sounds like he doesn’t really care about food as such, if he’s only crazy about high status meaty stuff - he’s thinking more about the impression if the food than the taste or actual quality? In which case, there’s not much point trying to get an acknowledgment from him as it’s all meh if it’s not a gold plated steak. Maybe he should just do his own.

I do the cooking here and I wouldn't tolerate not being thanked for a minute.

But I have gotten a lot crankier over the last few years and have zero tolerance for not being appreciated.

Having your children late and still having to be doing daily dinners for teens at nearly 60 is not something you think about when having babies in your 40's!

My food is tasty even when simple and the fact I have prepared it means not thanking me is not an option.

Earlier this summer people were a bit slack about telling me if they were home for meals or not etc.

I said no problem at all, I will leave you all to it.

Minimal shopping as I went away for a couple of mini breaks, and no cooking at all for nearly 4 weeks.

Put manners on them all pretty quick.

It was a most pleasant break from thinking about feeding anyone but myself.

😂😂😂omg

sounds like a personality clash
my ex was rotten but the one thing he did do was hype up my cooking and make me blush, he was very charming

I would absolutely hate a big fuss being made every night. How fake and condescending. We both do things for the family every day and I am not going to fall over myself making a fuss and praising and celebrating DH every day for doing laundry and he isn’t going to do the same for me putting dinner on the table.

I am team DH as I would absolutely hate that kind of marriage. The insincerity and over the top fuss making would drive me insane.

DH is like this. So I stopped cooking for him and only made food for DS and I in exactly 1.5 portions so there was nothing leftover for him. After a few months of eating his pissy attempts at cooking, I made him something out of the blue the other day and he loved it. Couldn’t stop praising me.

There is honour in just preparing a loving, quality meal for your family.

<<< STEPFORD 100 METRES<<<

There is honour in just preparing a loving, quality meal for your family. You know it's good, they know it's good - you don't need to be told every time. Be secure in the knowledge that you already know it's good. Otherwise it's just going to feel forced every time. Then if your husband does make a point of saying how nice something it will be more special and real.

Have you tried not cooking one evening? A pile of buttered bread and a jar of jam marmite, marmalade on the table.
I have sympathy for you. My xp wouldn't eat anything I cooked as I was apparently trying to poison him....

We turned it into a joke, DHs need to applauded for having put a meal on the table, something I did most days. The kids would do a hugely exaggerated thank you.

I stepped back from cooking, he now cooks quite a lot of the time...we made a joke of the fact that fishfingers, chips and peas was his default.

I'll sometimes go for a walk after work and leave the stuff out that is to be cooked, and then I started just going for a walk and he works something out.

He does far more of the shopping now.

He's more appreciative of my cooking now.

It too about 3 years of chipping away.

It's worth it as I like him and he has other strengths. If I didn't I'd have been long gone.

Sorry should have clarified -if he'd punished me by not washing the car for me again I would have been happy. Not a random "punishment" (that sounded a bit dodgy)

This. Agree he should say thanks but expecting a huge gushing acknowledgement every single day is a bit much. It could very well be that he is just not that bothered about something you value - to him the meal tastes fine (not amazing) but he would be just as happy with a quick salad or toasted sandwich whatever.

You care about affordable and healthy meals with a lot of variety, which is great but others don't. There's a limit to how much you can applaud something which you really don't give a shit about.

An ex dp used to expect this whenever he washed my car -obviously I said thank you and understood he had spent a lot of time washing, buffing, polishing etc but I literally could not care how clean my car was. It seemed entirely pointless to me because it would get dirty again within a day or two so to me it represented a bit of a waste of time and effort so there was a limit to how enthusiastic I could get about it -if I'd gone ott I would have felt fake. If he'd "punished" me for not being sufficiently enthusiastic I wouldn't have cared at all, in fact would have preferred to not have to go through the whole charade!

So feel free to stop cooking for him if it bugs you that much but be prepared for the fact that he might not really be bothered and it might start ructions when DC start moaning about dad eating chips while you're having your tagine or whatever.

You say that he does thank you.

Personally, I couldn't be doing with having to make a massive fanfare every night the way your dad did when you were growing up. It's just not necessary.

A "thank you, it's lovely" should be all that's required - no need for all the gushing.

@Unappreciatedcook I cook relatively healthy too as I need to lose a ton of weight and suddenly developed neuro issues with gluten too. I used to think people were making this shit up, till it happened to me- apparently very common in your 60's (especially if overweight) . My healthy cooking stuff is not bland or boring! Stuff like punch of noms chicken in creamy mushroom sauce with spinach on whole grain rice is restaurant standard! Personally I think burgers and barbecue food are pretty boring. We are all different. My H likes oriental, especially Japanese so I do things like Teriyaki stir fried beef with sesame or miso Aubergine or prawn and chicken curries - some people have weird ideas of bland and boring- can only conclude they live on KFC ( which my H wouldn't thank you for) . If it is that your H would be happier on burgers and fried chicken then I would suggest he cooks for himself

It sounds like he likes different food to you.

You get to choose your preferred foods the majority of the time. He thanks you for cooking. He's not likely to go into raptures over healthy grilled meat and veg type meals if his tastes are stacked burgers, fried food and takeaways!

As long as he is saying thank you, I think that's enough. If you really want him to express more delight about the food you cook, maybe try cooking him his preferred meals once or twice a week.

If there's a general sense of unequal share of responsibilities leading to you generally feeling unappreciated, address that, and get him to cook more often.

Needing someone to go into performative raptures over everyday food is a bit much though. A simple "thank you for dinner" will suffice.

Is he appreciative of you in other ways? It sounds like he doesn’t really like the food or he’d prefer something else if he has to be prompted to say it’s nice everytime