In a relationship with a man who can’t cook AT ALL

Depends how important it is to you personally. I get the love language thing for sure I would miss that terribly

I’m a real foodie and had an ex like this when I tried to suggest we cooked together he was so disinterested he suggest I cook for myself and he eat a ready meal! Binned him on the spot.

try to see if he will cook with you? Or do a course together of a type of food you know he likes and that you would like to learn more about ? There’s loads of great cooks who do one on ones

now happily married for 10 years to a fellow foodie and it’s glorious to be cooked for by someone who shares the passion

Does he enjoy, really enjoy food? Ive been married with wife for 30plus years, she pretended to be interested in food and cooking when we met. It was a lie. It took years for me to realise, she never said “actually i only like kfc, McDonald’s kebabs etc, which is what she eats 4/5 times a week now. I look back and realise I was blinded by love, I so wish I had addressed this early in our relationship, we dont even sit and eat together anymore or at least extremely rarely she hasn’t gone out for a meal in decades, occasionally will come for a lunch but under protest and usually ruins it because she really doesn’t want to go. Good luck, hope he actually likes food!

I do the cooking in our house; DH does the cleaning.

For me, that’s a great trade off, so it wouldn’t be a dealbreaker. I get nights off when we go out for dinner, and we probably get takeaway once a fortnight.

But if pushed, he does have a small repertoire of dishes.

I think it's more that after a year of saying he wants to learn, he has not seemingly tried to start. This indicates to me that anything else new or difficult he may avoid in future.

See, i can do that with chicken, potatoes and greens BUT after being at work, i dont want to stand in the kitchen cooking, then having to lean up everything
Frozen pizza, ramen, frozen meal - easy, fast and no mess
I hate cooking, like despise it, its messy, boring, tedious and kills my appetite

Pasta and ketchup is odd, id go butter and parm as lazy pasta personally

Cooking isnt everyones thing. Only you can decide if you ok with that.
If im 'cooking' its take out night or super easy meal night which DH is ok with
He is the cook in the family

My father is like this. Never cooked a meal for the family or prepared even a sandwich. He sits on his backside while my mother serves him. He expects to be served by other women too.

To be fair to him, he did do a lot of housework and did all the ironing. But no cooking. I remember my mother going away one night when I was very young, maybe 7. He tried to scramble eggs and he couldn’t do it. Burnt little balls of egg bits.

It’s all part of a deliberate weaponised incompetence to avoid doing it. Without a wife/servant to do it, these men would learn pretty quickly how to cook.

I’m with you. Sitting and talking to a partner while they cook for you is lovely. If this man won’t learn a few basics, then I’d walk away of you are not up for a lifetime of serving him.

My partner can't cook, apart from cheese on toast (which I've much enjoyed!). I'm not interested in cooking, just do very simple things - tried Hello Fresh but didn't like it. But he can buy delicious birthday cakes, can mend things and we've survived somehow. Too busy to worry about it.

One of my DB can't/won't learn to cook. He gets takeaways every night.
My son however knew how to cook a roast dinner from the age of 18.
It's an important aspect of family life.

He couldn't even manage a takeaway or a ready meal when you were ill in bed?

What a prince.

So, have you told him it doesn't work for you? Sending recepies doesn't count.

I'm not sure I understand your problem - he can prepare small dinners like beans on toast, there is nothing wrong with cooked eggs, and frozen veg is a valid veg.
If you would enjoy tinned tomato sauce significantly more than ketchup, use your words.

I suppose, the question is, do you love him? If yes, communicate about your needs and preferences, and fix this one small thing together.
If you don't, don't bother moving together no matter if he starts cooking better curries than your brother does.

It's 2025, we have air fryers, chicken thighs are EASIER than pasta with ketchup.

I had to re-read that to check you weren't talking about your three year old DC.

Watching someone eat pasta with ketchup would make me feel sick. I would bin him off for that alone.

28 years and not one meal cooked for me....... although when I was ill in bed with flu he did switch the heater on in the kitchen so it would be warm when I cooked his tea🤔

My DP of 3 years doesn’t want cook. He can but is not good at it or enjoys it. We don’t live together and I cook all meals when we are together. I like to cook from scratch and I am a confident cook. I love trying new things.

he is not adventurous and turns out not a confident cook. When we are apart he lives off of takeaways or ready meals.

but he has started to cook and try new things. Some are jar sauces and others an experiment. Turns out he wasn’t confident and thought I wouldn’t eat it. His experiments are interesting and terrible but effort and I smile and eat it like it’s the best food ever. He also has started to try lots of new foods.

would encouragement work?

Anyone who can read can also cook so he can’t be arsed. DH is also like this but because he does another zillion things around the home I can live with it. We play to our strengths.

I’m surprised you’ve lasted a year. I hope the sex is very, very good…

That's how I feel about it. I mean, if a man is incapable of actually feeding himself properly, and is happy to be completely lacking in the simplest of skills, I just can't respect him and I don't know how he can respect himself.

If there's a very simple task that I can't do, I learn how to do it. Because I'd think less of myself if I, for instance, can't change a plug, or maintain my own car, or put a shelf up. So I learn how to do it.

And it's just as well, because I'm now widowed and my kids have flown the nest, so I need an those independence skills.

Assuming that most men want to feel, to some degree, 'manly', why on earth would they make themselves so incapable?

If he wants to have a relationship that involves getting married and having children then he certainly needs to grow up. Unless he thinks he can feed his children nothing but pasta and ready meals.

I couldn't do it OP.

Firstly it will have an impact long term on his health to be having noodles and ketchup for dinner.

Secondly it's deeply unattractive that someone has got to that age without the most basic skills.

Finally, what if you had kids and then split up and he's giving them pasta ketchup for every meal? Gross.

Where’s his self respect? Seriously! I’m not trying to be be mean. To not be able to prepare basic food like a scrambled egg - even if it’s 5 incredibly simple dishes on repeat - as an adult is pathetic! Is he expecting a woman to do it for him, like a helpless child?

If he has lots of other qualities and you get on well, I would try and encourage him to try and cook things you want to eat.

My DH didn't cook much when I first met him (2nd marriage for both of us). He could cook a bit, but used ready made sauces, ate a lot of pizza and occasional frozen vegetables.

I love food and like to eat a mainly wholefood diet, so I explained to him what I wanted to eat and how I made things. I also cooked lots of different meals for him so he got an idea of the kinds of meals he might be able to make.

He listened and started cooking proper food from fresh ingredients. 13 years later and he is quite a competent cook.

He doesn't love cooking like I do, but he makes decent dinner a couple of times a week and does lots of other chores.

I would explain to him that eating well is important to you and that if you are going to live together you might need to work out how that is going to work as you don't want to be the only one doing the cooking.

Depends on whether he likes food or not. If he loves food he will learn regardless of whether he learnt growing up.

If he doesn't care, and you care about food, then be very careful. It's such a vital part of life to lose

But what is his plan if he decides to marry and have children? Just leave it all to mom.

No?

Or at least not in my experience. I'm coming up to 70. My late husband was a keen cook, and as he retired first he did most of the evening meals. He also cooked dinner every weekday when our children were babies. All my friends of similar ages have husbands who enjoy cooking. Both my son's in law cook, and one of them in particular is the main cook of the partnership.

The generation above might be a bit different, but I don't think it's usual at all for men not to cook.