Tidy Kitchen

[NeverDropYourMooncup]

I've not put this in AIBU because I'm not that daft it's a generalised whinge/rant and it's not a Relationships one for the same reason.

DP is a fucking martyr to the endless drudge of cooking and cleaning the kitchen. Spends hours in there and it always looks like a pit. And the food is variable in edibility, but he insists it's his thing and as I work longer hours, I wasn't about to take it on even if he would have let me.

He's got an Induction for a new job tomorrow and, as I was fucking starving, I decided I'd cook for once. In twenty five minutes, I'd unblocked the sink, cleaned the sink, cleaned the hob, cleared and cleaned the surfaces, put Monday's shopping away, thrown away the perishable food he'd left out uncovered for four days, minced aromatics, sliced and marinated pork, stirfried pork, vegetables, herbs and made rice noodles, cleaned up as I went along, swept the floor, washed up the wok and spatula and only had to wash up two bowls, chopsticks and wipe over the sink and hob again. It's perfectly clean and hygienic in there now and I'd be happy to cook again tomorrow - but I'm dreading the prospect of him insisting that he takes back his rightful place as head chef messmaker and martyr in the evening.

All I ever hear is how much time it takes to clean up the kitchen and how long it takes to cook food and how he's so tired after having to clean the kitchen before he cooks that he can't possibly clean up afterwards as that would be another hour's work. And it's all self inflicted, as if he'd clean up as he went along, there wouldn't be all this extra work.

HOW can half an hour's work I shouldn't have to do in the first place as the kitchen should be clean take him two hours? And still result in burned/cold/raw/undercooked offerings and a kitchen I would expect from a freshers' flatshare? Just HOW DOES HE DO THIS?

Yes, I'm whinging. No, this isn't strategic incompetence, as he doesn't want me to take over. It's genuinely a half arsed crap job and I have absolutely no idea how he manages it.

I'm not the only one with this, am I? Please tell me that somebody else suffers the same nonsense with somebody who wants to do something but is utterly shit and continually overestimates their competency?

I totally understand. Our kitchen perpetually looks like the aftermath of a chimps' tea party. Followed by a plague of locusts.

I think they don't clear up as they go along. Everyone says I'm really quick at cooking but I just do stuff so if the pasta is boiling then I'm grating the cheese or wiping the worktop or washing a pan. Takes me maybe 30 mins to assemble a cottage pie, have it in the oven and have everything washed up and kitchen tidy

Get a slow cooker and have a few meals a week done in that.

When I was working I had a couple of slow cooker meals in the week, My sister used to make a pile of chopped root veg and put chipolata sausages on top and a little stock and roast and have with a baked spud that she had microwaved and finished off in oven or just crusty bread and butter.

Doing those sort of one roasting tin meals is great. I like to put slices of bacon on the bottom of a roasting tine an chuck lots of veg and a cheese sauce on top. While it’s all baking I clear up the kitchen.

I hate horrible food, just tell him and mean it.

I could never tolerate this, not any of it. The shit food and the filth, no way. I'd be telling him this nonsense ends now.

@LucentBlade

Get a slow cooker and have a few meals a week done in that.

When I was working I had a couple of slow cooker meals in the week, My sister used to make a pile of chopped root veg and put chipolata sausages on top and a little stock and roast and have with a baked spud that she had microwaved and finished off in oven or just crusty bread and butter.

Doing those sort of one roasting tin meals is great. I like to put slices of bacon on the bottom of a roasting tine an chuck lots of veg and a cheese sauce on top. While it’s all baking I clear up the kitchen.

I hate horrible food, just tell him and mean it.

Oh, I forgot to say that I also made the mistake of looking in the slow cooker - it was used last Saturday

If he worked as many/more hours as me, I'd happily fuck him off out the kitchen and deal with it myself. I used to cook for a family of four from scratch in a kitchen that had exactly 60cm of worktop and where you had to crouch in the hall to open the fridge door because there wasn't enough space for a both human and an appliance door in there. This kitchen is far bigger than that, so it's not a question of his needing more room and it is just the two of us plus cats, not how I lived with ex/kids/cats/dogs.

Much as I object to the principle of my working more and taking on work at home as well, maybe I'll have to. I originally refused because I was the only person cleaning the kitchen properly, leaving it clean and then coming back to see that he'd trashed it again and was all Tiredness and Woe, Woe, It's So Difficult To Put Onion Skin In The Bin. And it would certainly save me money ensuring that food isn't wasted because he's left it out for bacteria and flies to enjoy.

That's what gets to me most, the Cassandra like wailing of exhaustion, Woe and Misery about how hard it is. It's like the kitchen equivalent of the Dressing Gown of Doom - the Washing Up Sponge of Misery and the Bleach Spray of Desperation?

Sounds depressing OP, I hope he has other good qualities which improve your life.

Id be honest and tell him exactly how exhausting it is listening to his ridiculous moaning and living with the mess and shit food. Isnt this just another man who thinks he's great at something when he's fair at best and then leave a huge mess for others to live with
Sod his fragile ego and tell him the truth. Not so you have to take over and do it all but so he can buck his ideas up and stop being a man child about it all. As if you have to be soo grateful for his pitiful food offerings that he can leave a mess and expect to be patted on the back for continuing on with this herculean task

Mine's the same. It's worse if he decides to mop. All furniture, shoe rack, bins etc all appear in the living room so the floor is completely clear and it still takes him half an hour to create a dirty swamp he then proceeds to dry with a tea towel. Again, not strategic incompetence, he cheerfully cracks on with it all and gets slightly offended if I try and get there and do it first. Food is edible though which is the saving grace but I feel your pain. Maybe just keep the door shut and pretend you don't have a kitchen or a partner?

Sounds like you need to step up and cook more regularly? Perhaps if you cooked half the meals he'd feel less aggrieved about it and moan less. Having to cook dinner every day does make it unenjoyable in my experience.

@babouchette

Sounds like you need to step up and cook more regularly? Perhaps if you cooked half the meals he'd feel less aggrieved about it and moan less. Having to cook dinner every day does make it unenjoyable in my experience.

Maybe if I wasn't shooed out of the kitchen, you'd have a point. And, of course there is the issue that I'd then have to clean it before use, which, if I've only got home from work at 9.45pm and I'm back out for work again at 6.05am, sounds a teensy bit like taking the piss.

So firstly my husband is a great cook but I do see a lack of strategic planning - I’m like you op I do things in a logical order and keep tidying as I can. I try not to interfere as his food is fab and the kitchen isn’t student flat share state but his systems do baffle me.

I am the worlds slowest cook mind you, takes me forever to chop etc so I can’t really complain.

Id wonder about quality of life for both of you if you're out of the house for nigh on 16 hours per day. Maybe he's unhappy and this is his way of expressing it

My ex was a chef and he did all the cooking at home which was great. Restaurant quality food each evening. But oh my god the mess! His argument was that he had staff who cleaned up after him. At home it was me.

I'm not a good cook and I dont like doing it but like alot of people i do stuff as I go along. I've lived in mainly open plan homes and I cannot bear the mess or not having a clean cup for tea in the evening.

You are not alone! My DH is a good cook to be fair, but he is the one out of the house for long hours so I tend to do the cooking, which I fucking loathe (although my results are good).

But on the rare occasion DH announces he will be cooking, and it's usually a big occasion too, think New Years Day, Saturday when guests are coming etc. It is like a bomb has gone off. While the food is tasty, it isn't tasty enough to warrant the massive clean up which he then leaves to me. Yes, he does clean up after me in the week, but thats usually putting the dinner plates in the dishwasher and turning it on as I've cleaned already.

I had to plead with him as he wanted to cook Christmas Dinner this year.

Can you suggest a job swap, so you do cooking for 2 weeks and he does something else, maybe he finds he's better at cleaning the bathroom for example.

I once asked my DH to try the following next time he cooked:

• if you make some rubbish put it in the bin/recycling/compost straight away
• if you generate washing up put it in the dishwasher or next to the sink (if too big for dishwasher) straight away
• when you're waiting for something to cook, wipe down any surface messes

He agreed to try just those things as an experiment. Lo and behold the kitchen was in a sensible state after he cooked. And he was surprised!

He's only patchily stuck to those rules since then, but it was an improvement at least.

I think he genuinely had no idea about doing these things before, and always claimed cleaning as he went was too hard because he had idea how to do it.
To promote matrimonial harmony I prefer to think this is because no-one ever showed him how to cook, rather than because he's dense. But you change judge for yourselves.

Maybe you could try this on your DH?

The fact that there isn't even any lip-smacking, mouth-watering, grub at the end of all the mess and mayhem would be the killer for me.