To not want to cook a full foreign Christmas spread for people I’ve only met once?

I'm not sure the OP is genuine to be honest, but on the off chance you are - stop being such a martyr.

It really isn't cute and it doesn't make people like you.

He's invited his family, so he will obviously be sorting out their sleeping arrangements and cooking his own traditional food.

Stop fluttering around like a put-upon Victorian housewife for goodness sake 🙄

My PIL have different cultural heritage to each other and guess what, when FIL fancies some of the dishes that he grew up with, he cooks them.

It’s easy enough for your partner to find receipes online and he has several weeks to practice.

Just keep saying no, OP, he invited them and if he wants to give them certain dishes, it’s his problem.

Seriously, you're happy being pregnant with a baby whose dad is a mysogynist?

Wake up.

You are not in a relationship but servitude.

No no no no you are not his slave op to rush around and look into solutions to deliver exactly what he wants!! He woukd find something wrong with this option anyway and it certainly wouldn’t save any money.

as an aside, do you think a traditional Christmas meal with enormous pressure to satisfy his family is the way to start exploring his food? Do you think he has a role in introducing traditional foods?

Why do you think that you have to do anything at all that he says?

Why can't he cook the traditional Christmas meal of his country?

Was he this nasty before you got pregnant?

Just don't do it OP. Go and stay with your family and leave him to it. He's unbelievably selfish and taking the piss.

Correct me if you’ve mentioned this, but why isn’t your partner doing the cooking?
If he wants his family over and only interested in eating food from his country then he needs to bloody man up and cook the food himself.
What a lazy, idle, selfish arse!!!

WHY ARE YOU HAVING A BABY WITH THIS MAN? Focus on getting some self esteem and dump the lazy bastard. He does not respect you and you think he’s going to be a good father?? FFS.

He does not have you over a barrel for this reason.

I've been married to someone from outside the UK for 25 years and never cooked the traditional Christmas meal he grew up with.

His mother was from a different European country to his father and cooked a kind of "inspired by" mixed version of the meals from her country if origin and her husband's, because she lived in her husband's country and back in the 70s and 80s ingredient availability stopped her cooking exactly what she grew up with.

The first years my husband and I were married I cooked a British meal for us and our small children, then later we moved to the country he grew up in and his mother kindly invited us all to join her and FIL and DH 's siblings for a huge gathering and she cooked her hybrid meal, which we all enjoyed (and cleared up but she wouldn't have anyone else cook).

MIL sadly died after a short illness and the first year FIL and one BIL who had moved back in with him tried to replicate her meal but it was all a bit sad.

Now we host at ours - FIL joins us (he downsized and doesn't have room to host) and whoever wants to depending year on year. I cook whatever version of a Christmas meal my nuclear family and I agree on, but as I cook I have veto and nobody objects. It's usually my own hybrid these days.

Whoever cooks decides the menu.

If your (partner doesn't seem like the right word given the context) boyfriend wants certain food then he has to cook it, otherwise how can he expect you to cook something you've never eaten?

Obviously you have bigger problems though - he invited people without asking you, is telling you what to cook and trying to manipulate you by sulking and stropping.

Abuse often begins during pregnancy.

If you're only five weeks pregnant you don't have to continue the pregnancy - you still have time to stop the train wreck of the rest of your life and separate completely from this man without a child keeping his hold over you for the next 18 years and beyond.

This is not a normal bicultural relationship - its not because he's foreign, it's because he's a dick.

It sounds like he is deliberately setting you up to fail which is cruel and not what a loving relationship should be like

he’s got me over a barrel because he’s had a British Christmas with my parents the last few years and thinks it’s time we had a traditional Christmas for him which is fair enough. But then I’m having to do the cooking, I don’t know where to start.

If he wants a "traditional" Christmas in the style of his home country then he is welcome to produce it. If he means a misogynistic Christmas where you do all the work then he is not welcome to have it. Seems his true view of you is starting to creep out.

Are you sure you want to be in a relationship with this man, OP? Because he sounds awful, and you've given multiple examples of awful behaviour from him. It's not just the Christmas dinner, is it? It'll be far, far easier to break up before the baby is born.

Agree with PP. This whole scenario is really uncomfortable to read.

He is throwing previous years Christmases in your face (if you both live in the uk, of course you're going to have a British Christmas more often)

He is deciding what you both do for Christmas without even discussing it at all. In a healthy couple you don't present things like this as a done deal.

Even though you are pregnant and not familiar with the food, he is expecting you to do all the work (preparing, hosting, cooking). This suggests he is selfish and sexist. He is setting you up to fail here OP and that's not fair. You're never going to be able to cook a feast of completely unfamiliar food for people you don't know, to the standard they are used to (unless you are a professional chef).

I'm married to someone from another country, am a good cook, and its taken me a long time to be confident cooking food from their country for his family, even when it's not expected and not an occasion

His attitude and lack of understanding and compromise is really worrying OP

Why would it be on the OP to find out about and cook his national cuisine (festive Christmas fare to boot!), when he doesn't and won't cook?

I'm surprised after several years together that she has shown no interest in trying to cook something from his culture. This is an absolute basic.
I agree she should not have to cook the whole thing herself, but I wonder who has been doing to cooking in their marriage so far?
we cook dishes from all over the the world in our house, without having a heart attack about trying something new.

Op, he’s had British Christmases given to him. You did all the work to give him your Christmasses. If he wants his traditional Christmas then that’s on him to do the work for. Tell him you’re not the cook or his slave and hasn’t he thought one single time you’ve been preparing your traditional food that it’s on him to prepare his? Not that you should do all the work and jump when he says jump, why does he think he shouldn’t do anything for you? Why does he think it’s not on him to cook his food? and that you will be at your parents for Christmas reconsidering the relationship.
the relationship has no future at all by the way, you owe your baby better than living with this man and how he treats you, and I hope you don’t come back from your parents, it would be best for you and baby. This man won’t be a parent. He will never cook his child a meal, even if you’re away or unwell, or worse. That’s not a dad.

My father isn’t British. In his culture it’s not common for men to cook, but he learned how to cook his traditional Christmas Eve meal because of course he missed it but he loves my mum and knew it would be unfair to make her cook food she knew nothing about. He doesn’t cook often, and even at Christmas mum mucks in with peeling veg because multi-tasking isn’t his forte but for 50+ years he’s cooked Christmas Eve dinner. If your partner is a decent human he’d figure it out and not put it all on you.

He sounds like one of those abusive tossers who will never be satisfied with anything you do.

You'll run yourself ragged trying to please but nothing you do will be enough. You'll just wear yourself down until you have no fight left in you and you’ll be a shadow of your former self.

It’s what he wants.

Can you leave him ?

Perhaps you can find a local restaurant/caterer that makes his cuisine?

If he pushes back about a restaurant/caterer - then yes he is being totally unreasonable and there is something more worrying here.

As an aside - are you not planning to learn a bit about his culture/food for your child's sake?

Run...
Run like the wind...
Seriously, it won't get any better 🙁

It's fair to take turns on the type of Christmas dinner you have. So if this year you cook him his traditional food, then next year he's going to do a full British spread for you, right? No? I didn't think so.

Don’t say this lightly but he is showing his true colours here. No discussion, no respect. Talking in the foreign language in front of you says it all,
Unless you want to be going through this next year with a baby in your hip, run. Was the pregnancy planned?

He invited them, he can cook

This is a blessing OP. He is sexist and selfish and doesn’t really seem to like you.

dont stay with this man. He will expect you to obey him. He won’t lift a finger around the house. Your children will grow up seeing you being treated like this and think that is acceptable.

Leave now. This won’t get better.

FFS OP, either tell him if he wants to invite his family for Christmas done in his style he is welcome to do it and you will be supportive, but not do the hosting (peppeing the space, cooking the foods he wants, etc." or if you want to be the homemaker then lean in, learn about his culture, have your best go at cooking the feast (I would suggest roping him in for some things) and laugh about what goes wrong.

But simply moaning and wringing your hands about it as though you have no agency is just a bit pathetic.

OP you deserve so much better than this man who just wants to be the big fucking I am in front of his family. If you are really going to do this then buy as much as you can pre-prepared. If you can go out, then do

If he wanted you to cook because he felt he was useless at it, and he asked nicely, that's whole different kettle of fish than him telling you that you will be.

Or him saying of course he would clean, shop, wash up, make up the beds, tidy up - rather than him telling you that you will be.

The man is a total leech - please see the massive red flags waving and have a bloody good think about whether this shitty life is what you want