Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I want to start eating meals as a family but there are so many hurdles to overcome

408 replies

Rockininthefreeworld · 12/10/2025 19:59

Please don't judge me. I'm really looking for some advice and just feel so dissatisfied with our whole set-up 😔

I have felt bad about the fact that we never eat as a family. We have two children, age 6 and 2, and they always eat separately to us. This is for a number of reasons...

  1. DH is a very fussy eater, and won't eat 90% of the things I make for the children
  2. DH and I both work full-time until around 6pm, making eating together quite challenging. Having said that, we both work from home a lot, so it is do-able with some planning (but then, see point 1...)
  3. We have a kitchen island but no room for a dining table, which means eating together in the kitchen is just sitting in a row. This makes conversations feel a bit challenging.
  4. We have a dining room (although carpeted...) and I'd love us all to eat in there, but DH gets very very funny about mess and smells. I've tried to approach the subject but he just gets annoyed and shuts it down. He uses the dining room to work, which is very annoying to be honest because I feel like that's a whole social room that we've just completely lost out on.

The 2 year old is at nursery full time which does give him "social eating" time, and I think the 6 year old is fine because we do eat out and I often go back to my parents where we sit together at the table. But, he also gets very bored if I'm not constantly entertaining him and he's not a stranger to the tablet at the table. I hate that and feel quite ashamed.

I just don't know how to handle this. I feel so dissatisfied with the whole arrangement, but DH isn't going to support me with it and it feels difficult trying to do it in the kitchen anyway. I just want us to have a nice family meal together, even just at the weekends, but even if we manage that it still has to be in the friggin' kitchen and no-one will talk to me, DS will moan for his tablet and DH will be on his phone. I've tried to implement this before (in the kitchen), and it just felt pointless in the end because I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

Does anyone have any advice? 🙁

OP posts:
reversingdumptruckwithnotyreson · 15/10/2025 12:59

I have no advice OP because the whole situation just sounds incredibly bonkers and stressful to me, but I also just want to say that your children aren’t the only ones that eat at a different time from their parents so please don’t feel bad. It seems to be the common set up in my workplace, so surely a lot of parents are doing it.

I commend you for being inventive enough that you can cook without onions or garlic because I’m pretty sure it goes in 90% of my food, I can’t imagine cooking without them.

TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams · 15/10/2025 11:17

@Rockininthefreeworld While a small win, that sounds like a good start to what you were hoping for. Repetition and frequency will get you there in the end.

Three small things I'd recommend.
Kids love laying down the law. No tablets for your DC1, no phones at the table either. Unless your husband wants to encourage a screaming tantrum at the table he will apply the same rule to himself to show there are no exceptions.
When DC1 is a bit older, if funds allow I recommend moving to an iPad rather than a kindle device. Unless they have changed how they work, you can't pause a game or a program. It made them an absolute battle ground for us for the simplest of things. An alternative is to save them only for times when you know you can draw a halt in a civilised way like a car journey.
Eating out. Doesn't have to be every week or anything fancy but you can use restaurants and cafes, even picnic tables as a build on your kitchen island. The main thing is that you are all eating together without devices and your children are learning how to stay seated long enough to engage and eat a meal. It's also a neutral space - your husband can have something plain, the rest of you can have gravy on roast veggies or whatever. Some colouring pencils and paper and simple games will keep people occupied a bit. 2 and 6 will be a bit challenging though for a while.

Bowies · 15/10/2025 07:11

OP he is being completely dominating and you and your DC can’t use the dining room, which is impacting all of you.

He needs to go and get professional help, it’s absolutely not okay his issues are having such an effect on a whole family, especially one with young DC.

If he suspects he has OCD, he should seek a diagnosis and support with it.

I would be putting my foot down. If he can’t operate in a family - which your PP suggests he can’t - he shouldn’t have had one, but he did, so now needs to step up.

Obviously the gentle conversations aren’t working. It isn’t going to be pleasant OP but it’s time to put your foot down, he’s being extremely selfish and controlling as well as unsupportive and irresponsible, especially as a parent of young DC, in not seeking diagnosis and treatment, if that’s what’s needed.

Nantescalling · 14/10/2025 21:15

crayolaviola · 14/10/2025 17:26

OP, in the long term it isn't going to be sustainable for you and the kids to live like this, with all these rules and control. It will affect them, and you.

Can you start to sketch out in your mind what leaving might look like? When it might be possible? What will happen financially?

It's something you can gradually start working towards.

Has the idea of leaving been discussed previously in this thread?

crayolaviola · 14/10/2025 17:26

OP, in the long term it isn't going to be sustainable for you and the kids to live like this, with all these rules and control. It will affect them, and you.

Can you start to sketch out in your mind what leaving might look like? When it might be possible? What will happen financially?

It's something you can gradually start working towards.

BusWankers · 14/10/2025 17:06

TotallyUnapologeticOmnivore · 14/10/2025 16:51

People who can't cope with something as normal and natural and pleasant as the odour of a meal being cooked have no business getting married and having children, it's not fair on anyone involved. And how does one even do normal cooking without sometimes frying an onion?

Loads of people can't have onion! I have at least 3 colleagues that can't eat it in any form.

TwinklyStork · 14/10/2025 17:01

TotallyUnapologeticOmnivore · 14/10/2025 16:51

People who can't cope with something as normal and natural and pleasant as the odour of a meal being cooked have no business getting married and having children, it's not fair on anyone involved. And how does one even do normal cooking without sometimes frying an onion?

Really?
Do you realise you’ve just said that autistic people shouldn’t be allowed get married?

TotallyUnapologeticOmnivore · 14/10/2025 16:51

People who can't cope with something as normal and natural and pleasant as the odour of a meal being cooked have no business getting married and having children, it's not fair on anyone involved. And how does one even do normal cooking without sometimes frying an onion?

SomewhereInTheMIdlands · 14/10/2025 14:47

When were were kids, we had compulsory eating at the table every single day. I have avoided this since leaving home decades ago. Every meal was a total carry on, endless arguments and slapped legs under the table accompanied with shouting and being told off. It was the absolute worst time of day.

LeftBoobGoneRogue · 14/10/2025 14:05

@Rockininthefreeworlddo you have a kitchen extractor which extracts to outside because that should help with cooking smells? Recirculating ones are pretty poor. I would also investigate installing some sort of kitchen door to stop smells getting into the hall and the rest of the house.
You should not be restricting the range of foods your children eat just because your husband thinks he’s turned out ok. Everyone needs a wide range of food to get all the nutrients they need, especially children.
Im afraid I couldn’t cope with someone as fussy and inflexible as your husband.

nightmarepickle2025 · 14/10/2025 14:04

My DH was difficult about this, wanting to eat later, so I started doing it on my own with the kids and leaving him to eat whenever he wanted to and eventually he ended up joining in with us as he got FOMO

Isinglass20 · 14/10/2025 11:49

I couldn’t stay in a relationship with someone who is a picky eater possibly because he was pandered to by his mother. And you don’t want to transfer this behaviour to your own children who will learn how to manipulate their relationships.

Can you imagine what they will all be like in 10 years time with everyone doing their own meals and eating in their bedrooms while looking at screens. A nightmare.

And since food will be a lot more expensive and a greater percentage of income will be spent particularly if buying individual unhealthy meals.

So OP will have to get a grip and start eating together every day and every meal IN THE DINING ROOM

Comtesse · 14/10/2025 11:40

Hereforthecommentz · 13/10/2025 20:29

I hate to tell you they use tablets all the time in primary schools for learning games. Get off your high horse.

Show quote history

Not sure any school is dishing out tablets when kids are eating though are they?

Learning to eat with others is part of our wider, social education and we do our children a disservice if as parents we just give up and rely on screens all the time.

lilkitten · 14/10/2025 11:07

I agree with some others - you eat with the DC, DH could eat later. Over time this will change as they eat differently and at a later time

sashh · 14/10/2025 07:43

Rockininthefreeworld · 13/10/2025 11:01

I'm sitting here coming up with all these solutions for how we can make the kitchen work better, without any building work, and how I can try and extend the island or fit an extendable table in etc etc...and then I just get really worked up thinking "all I want to do is eat a meal at a table with my children." That shouldn't be so hard!!!

Stop coming up with solutions.

You have a dining room, it is ridiculous not to use it for food.

I'm quite stubborn about things but one thing that helps me is to have a date and a plan.

So we are mid October, tell him from the first of November you will be using the dining room for its intended purpose. He has that long to find a place to work, the spare bedroom, the kitchen, a café or the library. Finding the place is his job, not yours.

mamamamamamamamamamachameleon · 14/10/2025 07:31

BreadstickBurglar · 12/10/2025 20:07

I would be having family meals with my children at the dining table and if DH didn’t like it he could lump it. Realistically if he won’t eat what you have he needs to either bring his own food or just sit and chat while you all eat.

If I want to eat with DH later I sometimes just have a really small portion of whatever the kids are having for dinner with them. You could do that if you really want to eat with your husband but given he doesn’t eat what you eat and he sits on his phone, I say stuff him and do your own thing with the kids. They’ll remember whether you all sat down together or not. You could even play a little game or do a kids jigsaw or something post teatime and before bed.

This

mathanxiety · 14/10/2025 01:09

TwinklyStork · 13/10/2025 13:32

I didn't say it was, but let's not just assume he's deliberately being an arsehole because he's a man. He very likely has a disability, at the very least a really unpleasant and difficult mental health condition.

Show quote history

And yet he manages to hold down a job and presumably manages to refrain from inflicting his issues on his colleagues, stomping around in anger in front of his boss or having temper tantrums on Zoom meetings when things annoy him.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

mathanxiety · 14/10/2025 00:50

CautiousLurker01 · 13/10/2025 19:10

Really? She says he may be ND. These are ways to compromise.

The alternative is to leave him and she doesn’t seem to want to do that. YET. All the PPs here, of course, are gearing straight to that.

Compromise will take the heat out of the situation and enable her to reassess and make rational decisions about how she wants to move forward. The knee jerk reaction on MN is to immediately move to LTB [easy when it is not your life you are blowing up and you are hiding behind a keyboard]. This may be the decision she ultimately needs to make, but RIGHT NOW, on an immediate day to day basis, she needs to dial down what is going on in her house and take the tension out of meal times for her children. If she does that, he may feel less overwhelmed and also be open to compromise. And consider an assessment/support if he is ND.

At the moment she is as unwilling to compromise as he is [eg. she wants them all to eat together, she does NOT want to use the kitchen island, she seems not to consider that he may feel the need to have a designated workspace rather than feel he must camp out in the dining room] and, as is obvious, she is fed up, emotional and using this space to rant because tensions are ramping up … and both parties seem to be becoming more and more entrenched in their positions which makes dialogue and compromise less and less possible.

But I am done here.

Show quote history

Something tells me you haven't read any of the OP's posts.

ThistleTits · 13/10/2025 22:59

LindorDoubleChoc · 12/10/2025 20:15

Your husband is the problem. I don't know what you do about that, but what does he actually bring to the table?

Moaning and a phone by the sounds of it.

JungAtHeart · 13/10/2025 22:48

Sorry OP but fuck that! Why does your DH get to dictate where you eat … and what you eat??? Why are you accepting this shit from someone’s undiagnosed son? This is about your children. And your time with them! If your DH doesn’t like the smell of fish, you can’t eat it??? Honestly I just wouldn’t put up with it. He sounds like a selfish dictator. If your DS sat around the table every day it wouldn’t take long before he was used to it and didn’t need his tablet anymore. My teen DDs have been eating at the table all their lives - we do our highs and lows of the day together every evening. When they were small we had a topic jar that we took it in turns to choose from. It was so much fun once I’d separated from their dickhead Dad 😂

SemiRetiredLoveGoddeess · 13/10/2025 22:43

Maybe you could eat together, a couple of times as a family over the weekend. With meals you could all enjoy.

dewfirst · 13/10/2025 22:38

SilkAndSparklesForParties · 13/10/2025 19:44

@Rockininthefreeworld and as kindly as possible, how did you get from dates with a man who has significant food issues and an aversion to shared mealtimes, to making not one but two babies.

I dated a chap twice and on the second date he told me about his mum's chilli. Mince, gravy and baked beans. I ran, slowed down only by the rolls of red flags.

Because typically ND people can mask these traits ( often if undiagnosed this masking has been developed as a coping mechanism ). It’s only after kids and real responsibility comes along that the mask dissolves. It’s very tough for everybody then. But I absolutely agree that being ND is not a licence to behave like a controlling bully.

Laura95167 · 13/10/2025 21:59

Whats the point of a dining room you cant eat in?

Maybe start with weekend breakfasts- cereal and pastries and coffee? Minimal smell, blandish, surely he cant have a problem with that.

Cherryicecreamx · 13/10/2025 21:46

The fact your DH is fussier than the kids 🙄

Sounds like you have space in the dining room but he is putting up an obstacle. Carpet wise why don't you put down a big wipe clean mat ? And maybe negotiate by saying you'd like the family to dine together at least at the weekends and make this the space to do so.
Have to agree sitting in a row at the kitchen island doesn't sound ideal so I'd be pushing for the dining room option.
You can then implement new dining table rules, like the tablet.

bakebeans · 13/10/2025 21:36

Make a list of what DH likes/ doesn’t and what the children like.
it doesn’t have to be every night that you sit together.

why don’t you plan for one day a week either Friday night or a weekend when you all sit together to eat. Sunday Roast dinner once is a classic one that suits a lot of tastes