Upset husband

Sorry I disagree about the dinner bit...chicken, salad and pitta bread really doesn't cut it for a grown man who gets up for work at 5am and gets home at 7pm. Perhaps a better joint communication would have been better...you explaining your busy busy day ahead and suggesting that he gets a take out for once for everyone 's benefit.

I find all these "must have HIS tea on't table" posts mystifying/excruciating. She has had a busy early evening herself and provided a totally adequate meal for a grown ass adult who can get his own dinner if her offering isn't good enough!

*Today i was very busy, school drop off, dog walk, collecting Christmas tree from garden centre, taking outside lights down from attic and online Christmas shopping.^

Dear God, what are your ”not so busy” days like? 😂 You are actually describing a dog walk, going into the attic and online shopping as chores? 😫

Yanbu in regards of food, but your day was not a very busy day. It sounds like an easy peasy day, describing some things that are done by working people every day. Yabu.

You seem to be confusing what a SAHM means as a role. The op has agreed to do meals during the week but this is exactly how women and marriages that have a stay at home parent in the early years can run into resentment. Being a stay at home parent doesn’t mean being a tradwife that always has a huge hot meal waiting for the man of the house 5 or more days a week. If once in a blue moon it’s something more simple then that’s what it is. When the op returns to work, will chicken salad and pita be more acceptable for the same situation?

I’d tell him to make his own effing tea from now on.

Their set up is their choice. Are you saying because she's a SAHM and he works and provides that it means their whole couple dynamic is stuck in the 50s? It shouldn't. She doesn't owe his grown ass dinner. She cooks dinner when she can, and if he fancies something else, he can sort it out. And seems like he did, with the fish and chips. Although he had to play the "poor me, I'm eating rubbish because of you" card 🙄 He could have, like other pp said, kindly say "Oh, I'm super hungry tonight, I fancy sth a bit more x,y,z. Do you mind making it or should I stop by a take away?". Like. A. Fucking. Grown. Up.

I had the same problem of not knowing what time DH was going to be home. So in the end I decided what time I generally wanted to time dinner for, and I started saying "dinner will be on the table at 6.00" so I was telling him, not asking him. I took control and did it my way.

The onus was then on DH to tell me if he wasn't going to be back in time.

What a feckin man-baby! The chicken was there and cooked, all he had to do was put on whatever he fancied with it. Unless there was no food in the house, it’s just weaponised incompetence. Presumably he could have bunged a potato in the microwave, stuck some oven chips in the oven, done some rice (do you have a microwave rice cooker?), egg noodles take about 5 minutes in a pot and add a Blue Dragon sauce sachet, M&S do freezer bags of single serving rice & veg, Tesco frozen mash is good for emergencies. You have 3 kids and it’s a busy time of year and you never know what time he’s arriving home? You’re not his bloody servant! I’m a SAHM mum too btw but my DH would just crack on with whatever food is there. Even my DS17 (since he was 13/14) can pull together a meal with cooked chicken and whatever is in the fridge/freezer/cupboard. Even if there was no chicken cooked in fact.

Grrr on your behalf!

To be fair, he is bringing home the bacon. 14 hours is a bloody long day! As a SAHM, yes he should have a hearty meal waiting for him. Get a slow cooker, 15 mins prep time (max) 10 mins for veggies before he gets back, easy days.

The first time a bloke told me he expected his dinner on the table would be the last. It's not 1957. And you don't run a cafe. If he doesn't like what's available then he needs to sort himself out,which he did infact do, so all good. No need for a berating text. That's just narky and unpleasant.

Yes, this!

@lechatnoir totally agree- it's not even the food, it's the attitude, - my H might say if he thought dinner was a bit underwhelming - just going to do myself some cheese and crackers after etc - my first H would have been exactly like the OPs H -

Like I said, I’m taking OPs descriptions with a pinch of salt.

It does look polarizing OP, but I think that most people are in agreement, a hard working man coming home from work deserves a hearty meal for sure, however, this does not excuse his behaviour. If he was disappointing with dinner, he could have said it in a more respectable way. Also, no need to go buy take out. It would have taken an extra fifteen minutes to cook some potatoes, rice or pasta to add to the chicken.

Definitely sit down and talk to him. He has to understand how he hurt you and that he should never do it again.

Tell him to f off to the far side of beyond and when he gets there to f off a bit further!!

No it isn’t, it’s horrendous, stepford wives, trad wife bullshit. He is clueless as to what you have done all day. You did make him a meal. He had a tantrum because he wanted something different. Berating you about it by text was verging on abusive- he literally told you off like an adult telling off a child. The power imbalance in the relationship is terrible and he has no respect for you or what you do.
But… it sounds like you’re ok with this? Are you very downtrodden by his constant criticism and expectations for you to be his housemaid? Or do you actually like to be subservient to ‘the man of the house’?

Get back to work, tout suite

Full time etc

Get a cleaner

Then he can learn some bloody manners

Eww I wouldn't be having set with a sulky man child like that, sending whinging messages, not "allowing" you to ever use microwave rice etc absolutely not.

i dont think there's anything wrong with chicken salad pittas for dinner! he works long hours in a manual job so he must have had a massive lunch anyway

She doesn't work and the kids are all in school so she's not even a sahm. Why shouldn't she be providing dinner?

Ok, so he’s not such an arse then. It sounds like you’ve found a solution that works for your set up in terms of batch/slow cooking. I would make it clear to him that you won’t be spoken to like that again though. Even if he was just tired and hungry, it was disrespectful - especially asking what you did all day. Everyone is entitled to a rare ‘less bothered’ day, around cooking/cleaning/laundry or whatever, without someone berating them for it.

99% he gets a home cooked meal and think the once he doesn't he can berate you.

Nobody would be berating me and getting fed.
Good to read you are returning to work.

I agree - op didn't have to go to the garden centre, get tree lights out of the attic or do some online shopping today, those jobs could have been done tomorrow when there weren't any school events on. Her husband had to go to work to earn the money.