So apparently I'm having 18 people for a lunch party on Monday.

[Womblealongwithme]

DH and I were supposed to be at a party 3 weeks ago and unfortunately, I came down with a sickness bug so DH went on his own.

He has just reminded me about the bank holiday party we're having on Monday and asked what I needed him to do for it. Except I wasn't at the party and knew nothing about said party. DH is the loveliest, kindest man on the planet and was diagnosed with ADHD about 10 years ago, which means that sometimes, he has conversations with me in his head, that don't quite make it to me! (Like inviting all and sundry to said bank holiday party!) So, dear readers, I need ideas from you lot quickly. We don't have a barbecue so I have my fridge and an oven and not a lot of kitchen space.

Add to that, that most of tomorrow will be taken up with various sporting activities for DS and DD so I don't have a whole lot of time, pretty much Monday morning only! Oh and it needs to cater for vegetarian and coeliac guests. Help!

Disclaimer - DH will absolutely be involved in prep and feel awful that he has sprung this on me!

@Womblealongwithme have a great day. Enjoy the food and the company.

I'm not trying to censor anyone opinion hyperbolic, much but I'm not going to pretend it's comfortable to see a woman being torn to shreds and sneered at because she refuses to toe the line that people feel she should.

There's another thread going right now where an OP is clearly in an abusive relationship and all the posters are being incredibly kind and supportive. Even though the obvious solution is to shout LTB at her nobody is because that's not what she's asking for.

No idea what relevance your DH has, unless he speaks for all menfolk. And actually I wouldn't know where to start with a meal for 18 people. Even a "bloody buffet". But then I guess that's what Uber eats is for.

The dh can provide for the dietary needs guests.
But it's probably to heavy a menu for lunch and too much work.

Presumably, OP's husband has contacted all the people he has invited to check they will be there. I hope the event goes well in the end. Personally I am glad this is not a situation I need to face. I would like to know what was chosen though for the people to eat.

They're not coming. OP declined to check, and DH will not have done. However, we'll never know. OP has bowed out (probably presciently).

I think you (and your husband) are getting a hard time because for most people, me included, catering and entertaining 18 people is a big task that requires a lot of planning - and would scare me if I only knew about it a few days before! But you sound very chilled about it and if it’s not as much of a big deal to you that’s okay. Hope today goes well for you!

Well it's Monday, it's lunchtime, and it's party time. But we're not invited - the OP has bowed out. Did they finally realise nobody's coming? The Olio app is designed to prevent food waste - just saying ...

Tbf, if she was doing the party, she'd be busy doing that and whatever the kids were supposed to be doing!

The kids were yesterday, and 'I expect they'll reply the day before' meant yesterday too. Plenty of time to update us on that. But I'm guessing the OP already bowed out when starting to realise nobody was coming after all.

Tumbleweed.
OK, I'll start - here's what I think happened. Nobody confirmed on Sunday. OP realised DH had dreamt he'd definitely invited the guests. Ringing round the friends, they asked if anyone was free for Monday lunch. Half of them were, and turned up. They had an impromptu great time. Everybody said there was so much food and it was delicious.

IF @Womblealongwithme survived Costco and got round there and out in one piece she'll probably be portioning up and wrapping the leftovers either for the freezer or to give to people to take home if it isn't freezable

I was in Costco last week , there was a huge queue round by the dairy bit ...but people were queuing for bottled water !

No idea why . OK , some will be buying for retail , but they couldn't resell Kirkland own brand .
And every other person I see has a re-usable bottle .......what did these people know that I didn't ?

(Answer is probably: plenty )

@Womblealongwithme Hope it went well today. You had good weather for it.

For those of us that live in the country uber eats is not an option. I guess if op could do that she wouldn’t need to post for ideas.

I was snappy and apologise for that. I am sick and tired of reading how women are treated on here. It really gets me down. Others choose to look the other way, and the men continue to be utter dicks because they are being enabled.

I hope op’s dh did all of the work yesterday, whilst she relaxed and enjoyed the day with her friends. That’s what I hope for, and he apologised and promised to discuss future plans with her going forward.

I do host for large numbers, and it is exhausting. I enjoy it but it is always tiring, and the clearing up seems to go on for days!

Nestingbirds

I'm not going to post on this thread again because it's redundant, the OP hasn't been back for days and I have no desire to argue with strangers! 🙂

I do understand your perspective, even though you and I disagreed on the thread, and I am equally frustrated by reading of situations where women are clearly being abused or a man is clearly being an arsehole but I do also understand that there is nuance.

Your relationship is mutually respectful as is mine but I can probably guarantee that they don't look the same. People's relationships, lives, households run differently. There isn't one way of doing relationships and some people do thrive on chaos. But also no one and no one's relationship is perfect. Because people aren't perfect.

The OP asked about catering ideas. She probably thought it would be a bit of an exchange of ideas and she said herself she was looking forward to it and I chose to respond to that element. She didn't sound desperate and if her relationship overall works for her there isn't a problem for her.

I've read plenty of threads, spoken to plenty of women in real life where abuse is present, where the man is obviously a complete waste of space and maybe the OP's husband is one of them but she wasn't asking about that and she said it wasn't the case. And, I'm sure that if it ever became a problem for her, she'd post about that.

And I also believe women. I don't think it's appropriate or necessary for people to pile on to someone when the tone of their message is positive even if the content doesn't sound right to them because its not how their own relationship looks. Or it's not a perfect situation.

The OP didn't come back because of those comments. She was hounded off her thread by strangers claiming to know her relationship better than she does. Even if you and others were right, how is that supportive?

I think many of the posts were saying they couldn’t offer any support as they fundamentally disagreed she should be doing anything at all.

This was his mess and he must fix it. Offering catering ideas felt similar to the threads asking how you stay with a man that cheats on you/ abuses you emotionally etc. Ir is enabling men to continue to behave poorly. Reinforcing the very stereotypes we are working tirelessly to reverse.

So many pp refrained from offering menu options and rightly questioned why on earth this was op’s problem? We shouldn’t be normalising such poor male behaviour by glossing over and facilitating it. I was amazed anyone was prepared to do so.

Whilst all relationships are different and unique I agee, there is commonality of respect, consideration, thoughtfulness and care that will run through most of them. I am glad people were outraged, it shows progress to me that women are not born to serve men with other women cheerleading mindlessly.

I would hope most could see that op’s dh is very far from the sweetest man that ever lived, if that were the case he would have immediately apologised, and made all of the catering arrangements himself! Or cancelled discreetly.

I am so sick of male entitlement, I have almost become allergic to even a hint of it.

Many people weren’t just disapproving of the DH, many posters like me were questioning the role of the guests and where were they from a communication point of view in the last 3 weeks.

Yes quite. If they are supposed to be op’s friends why haven’t they checked in with her. Mine would have always messaged to ask what they can bring as a minimum, and probably checked it was still all on. It is odd.

Mumsnet quickly rumbled me and deleted it, but I still think my childish spoof thread about left-over food had more than a ring of truth about it (my screenshot here might not make it through either).

I wouldn't blame the Op for abandoning the thread.

There are some oddly aggressive & posts for a thread that about easy foods for a Bank Holiday party.

Sorry, I think OP abandoned the thread as the realisation dawned that they were defending the indefensible. DH had not done what he thought he'd done. There were no guests. However, even then, I'm sure they rallied and rescued the situation with an impromptu gathering.

But you don't know what he was doing while she knocked out a quick post on here asking for ideas.

You don't know whether he was writing a list of ideas, looking to see what they had in the freezer, cleaning the house. You just don't know because she didn't say and filled in the blanks yourself from a biased perspective that was no more likely to he true than the above.

I would hope most could see that op’s dh is very far from the sweetest man that ever lived, if that were the case he would have immediately apologised, and made all of the catering arrangements himself! Or cancelled discreetly.

He did apologise. It's there on the first page that he felt awful and that they were going shopping together.

But so many suggestions were telling her to go out and make other plans, to not be there, to cancel. She didn't want to do that. Those people didn't need to comment at all of they didn't want to suggest a reasonable solution.

Personally, I'd consider it to be a pretty shit relationship where someone made an error and the other person fucked off and left them to deal with it themselves. Where equality could only be achieved through the constant threat of punishment and humiliation. Or where that was considered a reasonable response.

There was not a single sentence anywhere that suggested he was taking care of the catering.

You don't know whether he was writing a list of ideas, looking to see what they had in the freezer, cleaning the house

Except that she said that he 'asked what he needed her to do for it'.

ie, he'd done no thinking or planning of his own and wasn't planning to do so unless given explicit instructions.

The vast majority of men who do this can somehow hold down a job and keep up with their allocated tasks at work without needing to be micromanaged or spoonfed what they need to be doing. Yet seem incapable of doing the same at home.

But equally there wasn't one that explicitly said he wasn't.

Perhaps she didn't feel the need to detail their whole itinerary for the day.

Or perhaps it wasn't real at all and none of it happened.

Who knows!

Why would op need catering ideas if her dh was doing it all as he should?? She was very much dumped with the problem as we all know clearly from her posts.

Her gushing praise of him and getting in her excuses for him early was a good indicator that he is indeed entirely useless, sadly for her, and she had 18 people coming and nothing organised, and apart from some hand wringing he was not planning to do anything on the catering side.