Feeling resentful of cooking...

[PlopSofa]

Have you ever thought you just can't make yet another meal?

It's like I've been doing this, feeding the family for 16 years now, 2 DC and a DH and I'm so fed up of cooking for them all. Night after night. On and on it goes.

I like good food but DH incompetent and the kids rock up each meal time like it's a hotel. So it's just me in the kitchen.

Please no suggestions for getting them involved. Both on the spectrum and it's hard to get anything done, let alone cooking. DH works night and day, never around so he's no good either.

I am so fed up of cooking. How do you muster the energy to cook night after night after night, if it's always you?

If I won the lottery I'd employ a professional chef.

Tonight it's an M&S ready meal as I can't face cooking again. They are tasty but I feel guilty too. I should be cooking from scratch. But I hate the time and effort it takes. I just hate cooking. I never realised that being a DM I'd have to cook so much and try and be creative. It's one of the things I dislike the most about being a DM. The endless cooking.

I now have my steady 7 meals which revolve round day after day, week after week but OMG I am so fucking bored of it all. Add to that the sensory issues of kids/DH that won't eat certain things. The limited list. OMFG.

I crave an escape to a place where I can just cook for myself and eat out, maybe on the streets of Nice or some sunny getaway with a view of the sea where I can just be alone with no one else to cook for!

Do you watch "Bread"? The matriarch has four adult sons and a daughter presenting themselves twice a day at the table, ready for food. The mother does it all but you can tell she is regretting her life being wasted, with nothing to show for it.
I buy food and leave it in the fridge for my adult son to sort out for himself.

Oh my god. 100%. Just didn't realise that being a Mum meant being a chef and cleaner FOREVER. Stupid of me, probably. Recently experimented with batch cooking and that's ok when you can muster the energy for the giant cooking sesh and clean-up afterwards. Yes it's great in the week but is it worth sacrificing a whole weekend day for? There are just no solutions. I have some super-rich friends and they eat out ALL THE TIME and that's what I'd do if I had the money. Eff cooking. I'm so done.

I feel for you. TBH it's not just the actual cooking it's the thinking about what to every night and get the shopping for it.

@allistrvealed Yes!! This!! It's the preparation, the thinking "what shall we have tonight". Oh I can't even. I just can't. Because it's so DULL because it's going to the SAME as last week and the week before.

@warmleatherette yes eating out is the answer I agree but it's so bluudy expensive these days! I also didn't realise the cleaner/cook role was FOREVER either. Wish someone had told me, I might have reconsidered! Is it too late? Asking for a friend.

What are the meals? Maybe some posters on here could suggest some hacks or batch cooking ideas to help?
Also, yes, it’s a grind. I try to do a couple of days a week very low effort, without takeaways. Things like shop bought pizza and a big salad, tortellini with a basic sauce, or eggs on toast. Would any of these work? I think it’s the chopping and frying/baking which creates mess that grinds me down.

It's not forever

I have come out the other side

There are meals that I never have to make and eat ever again

It gives me such joy!

Have you got a Cook near you? Brilliant for when you don't have another meal in you. I've been doing it for 50 years so I think that I deserve a break!

I know how you feel. I actually love cooking but I get so tired doing it every single night. And my kids are fussy and like different things so I sometimes do two or three things or variations of one thing! Some nights I just can't be bothered. And no I cant get DH to do it. He's a good cook but works unsociable hours. I need to eat early. I'm discovering lots of very simple meals- one pot dishes and tray bakes.

I've changed how I eat now, unless I'm making a meal the majority of us like ( I think there's 3/4 dinners like that ) then I will cook my dinner for lunch and put the oven meal in for them and DH will finish it off for them.
I loved cooking but cooking for people that don't like what you like is soul breaking eventually, YANBU.

I hear you. Some days I just want to shove a packet of cornflakes at them.

Agreed.
DH moaned tonoght he had the same thing as last Wednesday.
Won't be an issue next Wednesday - he can cook for himself.
Does my head in too op, so bored of it

Ha! I remember my MIL, as her youngest was finally leaving home, declaring that she would never cook dinner again. At the time I didn’t really get it but now I really do. (And, for what it’s worth, now, many years later, she does enjoy cooking again - occasionally and on her own terms.)
My own crunch point came during Covid (so many people at home wanting so many meals each day!), and my solution has been to make everyone else also cook (and plan!) meals, but it sounds like that won’t work for you. I don’t think there is anything wrong with M&S or similar a couple of times a week - plan it and embrace it. Everyone will survive and your mental health is worth it.

Scratch cooking is overrated unless you really enjoy it or need to do it for finances

There are plenty of ready options that are not a load of shit. No guilt needed at all.

A balance is whats needed.

I can't cope with cooking either. I'm in my 50s and have been doing it since age 14 when my mother expected it. I've been known to cry and have walked out of the kitchen and gone upstairs to hide in bed when I've been feeling particularly bad (asc/adhd/depression). Ds (asc), who has just gone to uni hates it as well and often won't eat due to having to prepare food. I do his food shopping and take M&S ready meals, snacks and fruit as well as protein drinks and vitamins in the hope he'll eat, but he has lost weight recently.

I simply can't express how much I hate food prep. I often just have cereal or toast. I don't know what the answer is. Having an autistic child who has annoying rules about food just adds to the hellscape. There is so much that ds won't eat.

The slow cooker has changed things for us - you literally dump everything in and leave it, (particularly easy if you WFH), if the family don’t like it they can make something else. It means no stressing at 5pm and no mess! Counts as a home cooked meal, usually there are leftovers and makes you feel less guilty about alternating with an easier oven dinner. This is a good cookbook

www.amazon.co.uk/Poppy-Cooks-Delicious-effortless-flavour-packed/dp/1526676990

Bloody tedious agree. Sick it. Had spag bol tonight last night fish. They all eat different things. I give up.

I dont. Im totally over it. My kids are happy to cook thankfully and usually do a night a week each. Husband will do one .what I am really done with is the thinking about it.

Same here

I know you've heard all this before but just try to just lower your standards

We're having naan bread pizzas tonight

Pre grated cheese, bought sauce, I may chop some peppers to go on top

Every one fed, no-one dead etc etc

I know you said your husband is work in all the time but is there no way he can take ownership of 1 or 2 nights per week even if it's to put something in the oven from the freezer? Same for the kids? If they can't make something at least get the other family members to do the meal plan for a few nights a week.
Cooking doesn't have to take a long time, there's nothing wrong in having eggs on toast or jacket potatoes type meals etc a couple of times a week (or more!).

OMG, here's a post I can identify with! Popular one too I see.
Two weeks ago, I thought I wouldn't be able to bring myself to cook another meal! So lucky DS stepped up and gave me a break for 3 days, enough to restart the cooking machine that I've become. Usually I just go on like robot, making soups, making meals, but not baking desserts anymore, that's defo out.
I seek out one pot meals, casseroles, crock pot stews, that kind of thing. I don't buy ready meals cos with 5 ppl eating, there's never enough and it's not cost effective, and therefore does nothing for my MH, only makes me feel guilty for caving, and not saving, as that's what cooking at home's supposed to do, right?
It's got to be good for something. I tend to eat cereal and toast, toast, toast, I can't even think of making myself an egg or something, too much work to prep and cleanup. I don't even like food shopping anymore and batch cooking isn't for me either, too much work on the weekend, talk about your time being "eaten up" and gone without a trace in 20 minutes! Good to see I'm not alone anyway.

I’m afraid if you let other people (usually men) off the hook and martyr yourself this is what happens.

What would they do if you were unexpectedly abducted by aliens? Would they sit on the sofa and starve themselves? No they wouldn’t. It’s ridiculous for women to still be doing all this, and conversely men doing nothing, in this day and age. Just stop.

Can you extend the recipe list to 14 meals, even if some of those are COOK meals or pizza or fishfinger sandwiches!

Both kids at uni- I had toast for tea yesterday- bliss!!

I agree with you. I am a carer for a close family member and I am the only one who is able to physically cook. I had a spate of getting take away for days on end because I couldn’t face cooking. It was expensive but I was so weary of cooking and needed a break from it

Yes OP! Have just been having these exact thoughts. I used to really enjoy cooking however since becoming a stressed out single parent to a child who definitely leans towards the beige/bland/shite type of food I've lost all energy and enthusiasm for it.