AIBU or is DH?

[OhThisIsJustGrape]

quick back story: DH doesn't cook. Ever. Claims he can't, although has managed to knock himself up steak and oven chips on occasion and can boil pasta (after I had to tell him the instructions are on the back of the packet).

In almost 16 years of us being together he has never made me anything more substantial to eat than toast.

His main excuse is always that even if he did cook it, I wouldn't eat it due to me not trusting him to wash his hands/cook food thoroughly etc. Tbh I do have a bit of a germ phobia but I know that if I thought for one second that he followed basic food hygiene then there wouldn't be an issue. To me, he is using it as a get out cause.

I'm a SAHM, 4 DCs of which 2 are preschoolers. I have tea on the table for him every night without fail mostly. Often it's cooked from scratch. I've come to hate cooking over recent years, so much so that I rarely even eat what has been cooked as I now have zero interest in food. DH works very long hours, only ever has sundays off and the only contribution to the household tasks is putting the rubbish out when he remembers and putting DD2 to bed each night. Kids are bathed before hr comes home and I often iron in the evenings. My weekends are spent catching up on cleaning as he is here to occupy the kids so I make the most of it. I hate that my weekends are always full of chores whilst he gets to play with the DCs, I feel as though I never get a day off.

Anyway, after the DH non-cooking thread the other day in which lots of posters suggested buying the DH a cookery book I thought I'd try that idea. I just said to DH that I was going to buy him a cookery book for Christmas so he could learn to cook, I quickly added that I would only expect him to cook on weekends.

His immediate reply was 'fuck off am I working 60 hours a week to then spend all weekend cooking'.

I am honestly shocked. I told him that it was one of the worst things he has said to me, I feel he has totally devalued everything I do, 7 days a week may I add.

Oh god, I'm over reacting aren't I? I feel really shit because he doesn't seem to accept that I work too. He's an excellent dad but I get no help in the house whatsoever and I'm sick of it. This remark is just the final nail in the coffin I guess.

AIBU?

Are people not listening to Grape. She said about takeaways and eating out:

"We can't get takeaway because we live in the arse-end of nowhere, too far to deliver and almost a 25 mile round trip to collect.

We do eat out occasionally but with 6 of us it's expensive. Certainly can't do it every week."

So why does it keep getting suggested as a solution?

Then there's the claim he works six days a week 12 hours a day when actually he works 60 hours a week, it's the OP who works 13 hours a day, seven days a week.

Or that she hoovers and cleans the bathrooms every day when she does it once a week.

How does inventing stuff about her life help her?

So why can't meals be prepared for the freezer at the same time as being cooked for the evening? Why can't a ready meal or similar be eaten on some evenings? Why can' sandwiches/salads other non-cooking meals be bought and eaten?

All of this Squeaky suggested as did others.

Exactly who is not listening to the OP?

I don't think that believing it's unfair of the DH to never cook is the same as saying Leave Him, or cackling, is it?

Maybe Grape could buy those sort of re-heatable takeaways you get in Asda/Tesco? I am sure her poor delicate DH could at least heat a meal through once a week.

BOF... No, of course not. But he does, doesn't he - puts fishfingers and the like in the oven for the children? Why can't they all eat an oven-easy meal now and again?

OP didn't respond about the 'germ' issue; I suspect that's part of the problem.

As far as the 'leave him' and 'cackling' goes, there have been constant references to 'stepfords' on here, par for the course when other boards don't have the interest/traffic, I suppose. I'm sick of it, actually.

Why can't a ready meal or similar be eaten on some evenings?

Because Grape has already said:

"Oh, and if I served him up a ready meal more than very occasionally he would not be impressed."

Exactly who is not listening to the OP?

Well going by the above - you for starters.

Beans on toast Thursdays and a frozen apple pie nice pud in the oven? Less pressure before end of week to get any last minute phobic cleaning done.

Supermarket curry/ chinese pack Saturdays?

I've told DH to fuck off for stuff that's probably worse, so I wouldn't be getting a divorce lawyer just yet but i would have a candid chat about expectations on weekends. You both had a family that i presume you both want to enjoy. Tell him that you want one day where you ALL do something together, that is not chore related . Tell him how hurt you are by his comment and how it's making you look at the entire situation and you want to make some changes for the benefit of the WHOLE family.

I'm guessing that to have had 4 DC's with him, there is stuff you like about him.

She just sometimes wants a night off from thinking about anything to do with food apart from eating it. How is that a big ask?

Doing the thinking, preparing, cooking and serving for even just once in his life would be (from the shit starting point) a kind thing to do, when she is at the end of her tether wouldn't it? It seems like even this is too much for some, never mind the other stuff that she's talked about.

You are so right AyeSmagic - it gets very irritating always being in charge of everything. It is not too much to ask the other adult in the house to do his bit for one night a week.

Yup, telling her to cook different things or get a ready meal in is completely missing the point.

so there's no marital problem that can't be solved by being a more efficient housewife then? interesting.

miserable? being treated like crap? feeling like a domestic servant that the man you married wipes his feet on?

all you need to do is batch cooking and freezing - that'll solve it.

or magic ready meals - the great salviour of marital problems like your partner telling you to 'fuck off' when you suggest that he could make a meal once in a blue moon

no, nothing stepford esque here at all.

FGS isn't the OP allowed one day off from sorting out freezer food or making anything simple....blah blah

She just wants a day off from having to feed everyone ALL the time..

OP you are not being unreasonable and your DH is being an entitled twit apout it

thunderbolts... Exactly... the key phrase being if SHE served it to him. Her husband feeds the children with oven food sometimes so if she doesn't want to cook and he doesn't want to cook, he has a choice, doesn't he?

You've said the most outrageous things on this thread and not acknowledged them when you've been picked up on them - pregnancy at 17, for example.

I have been listening to the OP who I believe has now left the thread. I think I'll follow suit as I don't want to get into the inevitable slanging match, it's too tedious. The nit-picking from you reminds me very much of another poster who left and I think has returned.

Blimey, there are a lot of replies on here. I can see IABU, he does work hard and he does get very stressed. He's a great dad at the weekends, very hands on with the children.

But, he has clear ideas of whose job is who's, for example when I worked it was always me who had to take time off if the children were ill. If the children have appointments or meetings at school it is always my job to attend, it would never occur to him to go even if it meant I had to drag the young children along too.

Someone further up thread said about this being my wake up moment (or words to that effect) and that's exactly how it feels. With that one sentence I feel he has said it all - he doesn't really value what I do at all.

Yes he works hard but he loves his job. Believe me, over the years it wouldve been so much easier for him to jack it in but he doesn't want to because it's his life. It has been almost like another woman at times and I do resent it. The children hardly see him, he's always stressed and I have spent years and years picking up the slack. It's had it's plus points too but not quite enough to make up for it all.

When Squeaky said about running your own business means you can be flexible I laughed out loud. DH has only been taking a weeks holiday for the last few years. Before that, the only time he had off was at Christmas and that was only because everyone in the trade shut down too.

I have spent the last 12 years living like this and I think I've had enough. Maybe today has been the last straw - if I'm overreacting then fair enough. All I want is for him to want to help me. For him to see that the last 18 months since having dc4 have been incredibly difficult and for him to want to pitch in and help me out just occasionally. I hate cooking so why can't he learn to cook just to take the pressure off me once a week?

I do plenty for him in return, things that people who supposedly love one another do purely for that reason - because they love each other.

I could write so much more but I'm already feeling pretty unreasonable so will leave it there. Thankyou to all for your replies, especially those who have supported me and those who have made mr see I'm BU.

But lyingwitch, if the OP is to be batch cooking why can't her DH just stick something in the oven a couple of times a week?

As I (and others) have said, some of us have 'menfolk' who work full time and cook, and indeed some of us work and cook.

His attitude stinks, and even if he is working 60 hours a week if he lived alone he'd have to look after himself.

The OP has 4 kids, and even if she had no kids I don't think there's a bit in the marriage vows about being a fucking skivvy.

YANBU OP!! YANBU!!!

You didn't pick me up on anything lyingwitch (was that you nitpcking BTW?). Getting a girl pregnant at 17 is not a good thing for a male to be doing. Look at the situation it has landed Grape in - the guy's domestic servant for the last sixteen years and tearing her hair out now.

He's done well out of it though he's got someone at his beck and call who think's she's being unreasonable just because she asked him to cook one meal a week.

You're not being unreasonable Grape, the question now is - why are you putting up with this treatment?

YANBU at all!

DH works hard and I am a SAHM but if ever I don't feel like cooking he will do it without any fuss. He acknowledges that me being at home and taking care of the kids means he can do his job.

OP, you sound so worn out.

He loves his job, you are disenchanted with yours. Can you sit down together and work out a solution so that you are both happy?

YANBU. Working long hours does not excuse you from all the dull as domestic chores.

I have four children. My husband has always worked long hours, often abroad for weeks at a time.

When he's home we share the bits and pieces that need doing at weekends, and when the children were small he usually cooked one meal at the weekends. We tend to go out on our own now they're older.

Mind, I never, ever did housework at the weekends, apart from washing and ironing. Even when the children were small, they'd help me dust and hoover.

He needs to pull his weight when he's home. I imagine he hates the thought of cooking. That doesn't mean he can't do it. What if you hated it too? You'd still do it.

You know the "loves his job" and the equating of your PND and his experience of work doesn't stack up, don't you?

I hope you're listening to all the people who say you aren't being unreasonable, Grape.

You never answered either if "fuck off" from him to you is common in your marriage.