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

He thinks he’s your boss doesn’t he?

He doesn’t have to eat in the dining room if he doesn’t want to, but he shouldn’t be stopping you and DC from doing so.

Who does he think he is?

Do you ever cook a roast on a Sunday??
Get the kids involved and helping?
What happens if you cook something DH can't cope with?

Lots can, but some can’t, not always at least. It’s a very wide spectrum and there are lots of different presentations.

You say Ok great, agree we need to compromise. Wanting to fry things is my issue and I’ll deal with it. Not wanting to eat in the dining room is your issue and you can get over it, or I’m frying food 7 nights a week. We both live here and you’re not the boss. One of us is prioritising our children and it’s not you.

“I've considered leaving him, but then I question whether I really am making a big deal out of nothing. I don't want to split up the family, but it's exhausting operating this way.”

You’re not making a big deal out of nothing! Eating as a family is so important, especially as they become teens and it’s one of the few ways you still spend time together and your husband is absolutely the problem here. (You also need to get your child off the tablet at mealtimes, it might be hard at first but will soon become the norm.)

Dinner A Love Story is an old school blog that is brilliant on this stuff. I read the whole thing from start to finish when I found it. Jenny Rosenstrach the author has some good practical books too.

2 is a bit little, but by age 3 this is a good target. I started with Sunday lunch, everyone eating the same food at the same time. Sometimes it was more brunch (pancakes etc), sometimes pasta, sometimes a roast. I just don’t want to eat dinner at the time a toddler does so that took longer to put in place. The kids also need to be able to eat a variety of food - I have no interest in eating fish fingers 3 nights a week, sometimes we will make different meals and eat at the same time (one for the adults, one for the children).

But after lots of practice, now with 15yo and 12 yo We can eat (mainly) the same food at the same time, and not start fight, and not throw things at each other. It’s taken quite a bit of determination and persistence, but it’s lovely now we’re here.

But your husband is going have to get on board - He sounds like the main obstacle to be honest.

@OwlBeThere it is, I am sure possible to have quality family interaction without sharing a meal time but for most families making a point of eating together is the easiest option. Everyone has to eat, most people eat at roughly the same time each day so it is a point in the day when members of the household gather, share a meal and chat. No extra planning or thought required.
Culturally shared meals are also quite a big event, most religions have some culture of shared dining. Significant milestones like birthdays or weddings usually involve eating together.

Of course there are families who for lots of different reasons can not share meal times and they have other ways to have those bonding experiences and check in with each other but they I would imagine need to be planned, for most families eating together is just easier.

@Rockininthefreeworld don't let your DH use the open plan as a reason not to cook proper food though. It's okay to sympathise about the food smells and explain that you, obviously, clean up afterwards. Cooking proper healthy food does create a smell but it is important to build good habits now for your children. (I am suggesting that your DH needs reminding of this not that you don't know it) Frying onion is the starting point of nearly everything I cook and the smell really doesn't hang around that long. (But fajitas smell really does, I think it's the smoked paprika)
All the more reason for him to move his office upstairs.
Meal planning can be a chore but meal times never have been iyswim.

Yes I would eat with the kids at the dining table. DH can sort himself out.

He sounds like a knob.

It’s not really relevant though, is it? He still needs to step up and stop being so controlling.

Wtf?

People with autism are still able to sit at a table and can cope without a screen!

It’s really worrying how people treat autism now.

A plastic sheet under the table and tell DH to work elsewhere.

Cook food the three of you will eat and let him sort himself out.

But you can though can’t you?

that’s the way of life. Unfortunately it would be down to your “victims” to detach from you and get your influence out of their life.

Based on what you have written, your DH is a controlling man who is unwilling to compromise and who leaves the parenting to you.

Does he have any redeeming qualities?

How did you get together with someone like this? I take it there never any dinner dates!

By your logic I could obstruct whatever I wanted and cause a major problem for another person, refusing to compromise in any way, and yet still not be responsible in any way for that problem, all because I supposedly have the “right” to do whatever I want.

Letting people the right to do what the hell they want, because they have the right to do so, is a recipe for being treated like shit in life.

Your husband has a lot of rules, doesn't he? Does he have responsibilities along with all the power?

I used to have a carpeted dining room by the way and I bought an ikea indoor/outdoor rug for under it as it’s scrubbable, and used a piece of oilcloth under the baby chair, wiped it down after meals.

I’d tell my dh what I thought, very clearly.
dh we need to talk. You know the dining room in our house? There’s a reason it’s universally called dining room in many continents, so if at any point in this discussion you feel like saying no one else does this, please do not open your mouth UNTIL you have rewritten all the language texts, English literature and real estate listings. Not a word until you can show me all those, edited. It’s a dining room for a family or group to dine in, and from now on we will be eating in there as a family with no phones or tablets, if you can’t do that then you may eat elsewhere but I will have our children experience a normal family eating environment and if I can’t do that with you then for our children’s sake I will do it without you, although you should be aware I will also feel a burning resentment of you.

Now, you’ve had a few objections to this in the past due to the smell. I have several times offered for you to work upstairs, so if you feel the smell is a problem then you can take up the perfectly reasonable alternative. First family dinner is Wednesday, any work left on the table at 6pm will be cleared, I plan to get dc to help lay the table and take no responsibility for work left on it. Again, I remind you someone with a perfectly good alternative work space does not make any complaints if he chooses to work in the family dining room.

and if he mentions ocd as a problem I’d say you have mentioned your ocd a lot - if it’s not enough of an issue to get a diagnosis and support then it shouldn’t affect your family. It sounds a lot to me like when you say ‘my ocd’ you mean ‘shut up wife’. I don’t want to hear about it again except to hear about your progress with diagnosis and support. And I l do not mean how we can support you, we’ve been doing that for years with no thanks and it’s not good for the children ; now it’s time for you to proactively work on it for a change.

and if my dh were reading this he’d agree that it sounds exactly like what I’d say!

I assume DH is ND?

Perhaps a unpopular take, but I just don’t understand why people are so
caught up eating together.
I understand the concept in that it’s a way for family time, social interaction etc, but you can do those things not at meal time.
I can’t eat with other people, it’s a sensory nightmare for me and I can’t do it, my kids don’t really enjoy it either. So we don’t.
we do however carve out family time in other ways, we go on long drives and talk and that seems to work well for us (most of us have autism and/or adhd and/or sensory processing disorder so in the car works as we don’t have to be looking at each other. We playgames together, we listen to
music together, there are other ways!

I have similar but less extreme problems to you op. My dh actually communicates with me on it while yours sounds a nightmare.

I recently gave up on this issue. Realised I could spend my mental energy elsewhere. Kid (6) gets fed, usually a snack tea like cheese, crackers, fruit when she gets home from school. At the table except Friday night tv night. I eat dinner for myself. DH sorts his own dinner.

The freedom once I stopped trying to feed everyone a proper meal was wild. Give it a try, he's a grown adult and he can feed himself if he's a fussy eater. Don't try to force this into something it can't be. Find another aspect of family life to enrich. Don't enslave yourself to unachievable domesticity.

When you met him, did you not go on dinner dates? Has he always been like this? At 6 and 2 I would argue it's pretty essential to lay the foundations and the familial norms. My DC are teens and one is adult, DH works away quite a bit and my eldest often has his dinner at his Girlfriend's so it's not always family meals here every day of the week but it's a bit different at that age as you know how to do it when it does happen, when they are very young, like your DC, we saw it as essential to show them how to sit at a table and socialise. When DH is around he is the one who is keen to have meals at the table as he likes cooking and wants us to try his stuff!

What does dh eat @Rockininthefreeworld

there is no rule that all have to have the same meal

yes good for kids and dh lol to eat same as you /try new stuff

but pick battles

so start off with all sitting down together

eating a meal whatever it is

I don’t always sit with dd 8 - but do a few times a week but may not eat with her as too early for me at 5ish but sit with a cuppa /cuppa soup and chat

hope chat goes well. Swapping to your office could help with smells

pointless to have a dining room and table and kids and not use it

Ditch the island for a big kitchen table. Islands with breakfast bars are a strange fad. Use the table for your prep, all your meals, games, homework, your work. If you can’t, stick to your guns about switching to the dining room for your work and do the same. Could you ditch the carpet in there for laminate? (Knock a wall out to make a bigger kitchen?!)
Whatever, get the kids involved taking turns to set and decorate the table and praise them to the skies for being helpful, thoughtful, careful people while doing the job. Get them to help you choose and cook. Put everything in serving dishes, only rule everyone must have a bit of everything on their plate. Absolutely no phones or gadgets at the table. Have fun! No words to add re dh. I wonder what his childhood was like?