AIBU to not want to decide what’s for sodding dinner?

Yes I hate deciding on dinners too so my partner and I sit down and decide for the week what meals we’re having, make a list and go together to Sainsbury’s. I really don’t enjoy cooking though. Used to go every day to one on the way home from work and that took far too much time so we do our weekly shop now. Also, we have a list of dinners we make, and add any new recipes to the list, so if we’re struggling for ideas we look at that. BBC good food is also a saviour for recipe inspiration. Agree with you, OP, this is one adulting chore I don’t enjoy!

This is exactly why I use Hello Fresh/Gousto etc

I brought this up very early on with DP about something I couldn't STAND about my ex and he really took it to heart. In ten years he's never once said "I don't mind". DF on the other hand oh my god, "I don't mind", "whatever"... Arghhh.

I menu plan the evening meals with a recipe magazine or those cards from the supermarkets.
Lunch everyone does their own or when the kids were small it would be something on toast or sandwiches and salad.

I live in a house where everyone is very definite about what they want for dinner. They will also cook it themselves. I actually enjoy cooking and meal-planning, ironically! But I only really need to meal plan for myself.

We have a 6-week rotating meal planner. New things might get added every 6 months or so. But now there is always an answer to that question that requires very little brain power from me (at least on an ongoing basis)

Here's a suggestion. Make a list of any meals they definitely like and just cook those on rotation.

Ughhh it is THE WORST!!!!!

It is definitely pure laziness at best. They all know Mum will do it, day in day out: all the planning, shopping, prepping, cooking, deciding. It pisses me off no end.

Feel your pain!

I meal plan every week. I let each person choose a meal and then I pick the others from a list I have on my phone (separated into categories for ease). Then it’s easy enough. It’s also vastly cheaper because I can ingredient match so nothing is wasted.

That's why I love Hello Fresh

We (loosely) meal plan and my 3dc all have to pick a meal each.
Our week tends to go like this:
Mon - chicken
Tues - pasta
weds - pork/beef
Thurs - freezer surprise (shopping comes on a Friday)
fri - beige
sat - changes weekly
sun - roast/stir fry/grill up depending on what we are up to

I sit down with a cup of tea and plan meals for several weeks at a time loosely based on the same type of food each week - one pasta, one Mexican, one fish, one meat and veg, one curry or stir fry, a roast or bbq for the Saturday, snacky supper on Sunday.

Then I find writing the weekly shopping list much easier because the planning is already done, just write down the ingredients we need and head to the shop.

Obviously it’s the same amount of work but it seems much more manageable to me doing the planning separately to the shopping stage.

This attitude was definitely a nail in the coffin of my last relationship. He had a long commute every day and I mostly wfh, so I was more than happy to cook dinner on weeknights - but anytime I asked him to tell me what he wanted that evening, it was "I don't mind, you decide". It was the lack of willingness to even allocate a fraction of his brain to contribute to our evening meal, just once or twice a week.

I ended up refusing to cook if he didn't tell me, and then he'd just order takeout which infuriated me even more (from a lazy-mindedness AND a health POV!).

He was (is) a lovely man, but so laid-back he's horizontal.

I love meal planning and organising meals. It soothes my disordered mind

I feel really lucky when I read threads like this. I like cooking and planning meals, bit also everyone in my house eats what's put in front of them. When DD had a fussy boyfriend, it drove me MENTAL, because I had to take his pickiness likes and dislikes into account every time.

For people who hate cooking and planning meals, I would definitely do a seven day or even 14 day rotation. Always have a couple of no-effort days, like sausage and chips, and omelettes. Sometimes I just go to lidl and copy their country of the week! Greek week is great in the summer, Alpine week is awesome at this time of year because fondue is also easy (well, it is for me). The meal rotation is definitely the easiest way to manage it.

I do all the meal planning. I do it fortnightly. We take it in turns to cook, whoever is home first on a work day or whoever hasn't been at work. It's a loose plan, generally with really quick and easy stuff for days when we may be both home late from work. Sometimes I really can't be bothered, and we have a week of meals that require no thought whatsoever. I like to eat different things all the time though so tend to mix it up.

It’s always been the bane of my life, esp when I had kids at home. Could guarantee what was one person’s favourite was another’s nemesis.

I made a list on my iPad of all the family meals I could think of, then at the start of each week I’d pick 7 meals - X’s favourite one day, Y’s favourite the next, etc. If I’d been trying to decide day to day I’d have driven myself mad.

I hate it too, OP.
I’m veggie but DH and DC eat meat, so some nights I’m having to choose two different meals.
I ask DH ‘what meat do you want’ before I go shopping. Always the response is ‘I don’t mind.’ Or ‘I don’t know.’ Why do I have to choose the meat when I don’t even eat it??!!!
I just do the same meals over and over and it’s soooo boring. I don’t have the energy to try and come up with something different.

I agree, it’s the worst household chore in my opinion!

I’ve started doing what my grandmother always did - cooking a big roast on Sunday and using that as the basis for a couple of meals during the week. I find it gives a bit of much-needed structure!
So we cycle through roast chicken, beef, pork and gammon, or very occasionally lamb.
And we have a set of meals that use each type of leftover meat as their base, so we choose from those - things like risotto, pasta, curry, salad, pie, etc.
So that covers three meals.
Then we often tend to make a spaghetti Bolognese on Saturdays, and use the other half of the sauce in a lasagne on a Monday, so that’s another two meals.
Then the other two days tend to be quick and easy because of work and school schedules - pizza usually, or something you can stick in the oven straight from the freezer.
But I still often come unstuck for weekend lunches! I always forget to plan for those.

This is why I only cook for myself! You can all fend for yourselves!

Here’s a meal plan from 02/06/2025. Nothing more than 30 minutes hands-on time. And at least half the meals can be cooked by anyone in the house at the time.
Monday: Rotisserie chicken, potatoes and salad.
Tuesday: Salmon and broccoli. Banana bread (also does breakfast).
Wednesday: Bacon and white cabbage Irish style. Fruit cobbler.
Thursday: Lemon chicken and chickpea/minted couscous salad.
Friday (hosting, not sure of time or numbers): Cold veal slices with tuna/boiled egg/caper cream (Vitello tonnato). Lightly pickled cucumber salad. Fresh fruit custard tart.
Saturday lunch: egg fried rice. Dinner out.
Sunday lunch:G.Rana Ravioli, charcuterie and 3 bean salad.
Dinner: Frozen pizza or leftovers.
Fresh fruit and vegetables every day.

It sucks any pleasure from cooking.
I had 20 years of that with DC at home. It's easier now it's just two of us.
I eventually had a system where I wrote a weekly list which was not set in stone There was nothing on there I knew the DC disliked .
They actually really liked it and it definitely helped me.

DH would be an "I don't mind" but genuinely is happy with 99.9% of food as long as I swerve a few consistent things like fish or cabbage. He's not the problem and would eat pretty much anything I'd fancy for myself.

The DCs... they can't think of anything productive other than wedges, cheese & bacon, but are quick to have an opinion if it doesn't suit... then they'll leave it and get hangry. Being ND does not help.

All the "easy" fall back options suggested on threads make me laugh... the toast, beans, eggs, baked potatoes, soups, cereal... every single one vetoed by DS1 🤬
He's a bloody nightmare. And DS2 can be fickle too. He won't eat DS1's staple of pesto pasta with olives. 🙄

Goes and slams head in fridge door

I share the weekly meal plan on the family WhatsApp so no more “What’s for dinner?”. No more grazing from the fridge as most things have been bought for a purpose. Snacks are crackers or fruit.

Obviously it’s flexible and at the end of the week my plan looks like a Snakes and Ladders board. But not having a plan gives much more mental load.

After 20 years of menu planning & cooking I am just so completely fed up with it. Left alone (rarely) I just eat wholemeal pitta & tomatoes & cottage cheese nowadays.

Women are sold this whole ‘o the joy of cooking for your family!’ bullshit- ‘o how fulfilling it is!’- but combining menu planning & cooking every day with FULL-TIME WORK, looking after kids, looking after elderly relatives, shopping, housework, laundry and family administration is not a fulfilling joy, it’s an exhausting misery.

Ties in with lots of bigger issues about how feminism has been hijacked by economic interests, not to liberate women, but to make them into exhausted, burnt out servants.