To want my partner to cook meals on a schedule?

@SquaredShoulders

but likewise, I don't suppose you don't bother to cook every night until you're asked to.

most couples/families fall into some kind of routine so don't need to agree a time. When there was 2 of us & just two of us, dinner just fit naturally into the evening.

now. I live alone I eat (if I do) too late and I don't start assembling it until I'm hungry it's a bit of a recipe for disaster tbh 😂

Anyone getting a Little Shop of Horrors vibe?

"FEED ME NOW!!"

@Bluestone12 the OP is worded to keep the sex hidden, when people do this is often to try to influence the replies. Not sure why that's 'wtf' but ok.

This.
Very weird, I can't imagine asking another person to feed me. Why are you hiding what sex your boy/girlfriend is?

I think you need to discuss this and at the same time, I think it should be obvious and if your DH is the main cook, he should just step up and cook so that it's ready at a mutually convenient time.
In my marriage, over the years, sometimes I was the main cook and sometimes DH was but it was always obvious where dinner fit into the evening's schedule and the person cooking made it happen without being asked. When I was the main cook, I made sure that dinner was ready in good time relative to swimming lessons and bedtime and DH's arrival home. I did ask that he made clear when he'd be home so that I could plan accordingly. When DH was the main cook, again, there was a time which fit most evenings well so that was his target time.

You can’t make a sandwich or pour a bowl of cereal?

But isn't your partner cooking for both of you? If they're cooking their dinner as well, when would they do that if you didn't ask? Surely within a normal range of dinner time each night, unless they'd otherwise eat at totally random times of day?

In any case surely it's quite easy to ask in advance "when are you planning to cook tonight" or if their cooking times are too random for you, asking if you could have a rough dinner routine eg around 8pm.

“Every day I have to ask for meals to be cooked, and my partner will look at me and say, ‘Oh are you hungry? Ok’, and get up and make food. The only meal I don’t have to ask for is breakfast.”

no you don’t ‘have to ask. You choose to ask. Or you could say. ‘Do you have any dinner plans or shall I start something. Or ‘can I help’. Your partner is giving you a clear message that they’re not happy with the arrangement, you’re just choosing to ignore it

I provide all meals and hot drinks in our set-up, from her cup of tea in bed onwards. Breakfast is usually hot, lunch sometimes and dinner always. But if anyone insisted on fixed times they would get A Look. I’m amenable to things like ‘I have to go out at 7, if that makes a difference to when you do tea’, but that’s about it.

Loads of people like routine @GuestFeatu

You don't and that's fine.

That poster does and that's fine.

You get joy from mixing it up, other people get joy from not thinking about it.

Make your own breakfast and lunch, you shouldn’t expect your partner to do that for you. If you want dinner at a specific time, tell your partner that. They’re not a bloody mind reader.

My nana always had prepared breakfast by 8, lunch at 12 and dinner at 5, even if you were not hungry it was always bang on time. It was like a military regime. My poor granddad.

Not unreasonable imo. If you take on a job which affects other people then part of that job should involve taking the other people into account. It's my day off on a Tuesday, my job is the laundry. If I only did the laundry when it suited me then we'd be a bit scuppered for shirts and school uniforms on Monday!

My partner is also like this. The kitchen is very much their domain. They would prefer to be solely in charge of the meals and prep so that noone else can inadvertently use an ingredient earmarked for a future recipe. If one of us tries to help in the kitchen then DP stands there getting a bit hot under the collar because we're doing it 'wrong' and they're trying to tell themselves it's unreasonable for everything to be done on their terms and to their standards but that instead means they often can't bear to watch. Feels batshit to me, but it is what it is!! Sometimes I book the kitchen out and have a marvellous time cooking away with noone breathing down my neck at how I'm chopping the onions. However on the occasions I do cook it is often met with a 'oh this is actually rather good!' as though the expectation was cat food! Gotta laugh sometimes.

I'm sorry, because everyone should eat how and what they enjoy, but you make 7 days worth of oats at once? And eat some every day? Doesn't it get solid? And one batch of soup that you eat every day for a week? That does sound very dull and joyless.

Are you both in the house together all day every day for meals? Doesn't he say when he's going to cook dinner?

This is all so weird it's difficult to advise.

You have an extremely strange, kind of cold, set up; not really how people who love each other interact.

Why wouldn't they like it if you made yourself some toast for example?

Why do you even need them to do anything for breakfast or lunch? Can’t you put cereal in a bowl or make a sandwich?

It’s normal to have a standard dinner time, just agree that, or start making it yourself, cooking is only following a recipe.

So you just want set meal times rather than wait until you are hungry?

It's a bit weird that he makes your breakfast and lunch, but anyway...

The simple thing would be agreeing what time you both want dinner and then he gets it ready by that time?

Maybe you could cook a couple of times a week to give him a break from it too, maybe he doesn't actually enjoy cooking all the meals

Pre kids, our arrangement was to start cooking at 6pm. It didn't especially matter to us whether we were having something simple that cooked in 10 minutes or less, or something that took 45 minutes. Just that the process of making the meal began at 6.

Just make your own then or have an adult conversation and agree dinner time. This strict demarcation of chores is weird.

Surely the only cooked meal of the day is dinner?

Can't you help yourself to cereal for breakfast and a sandwich or soup for lunch?

We make overnight oats once a week, and a big batch of soup and that's it apart from an evening meal.