Oh god, I was unreasonable wasn't I...

[Peanate]

I'll try to keep this short. DH and I both work full time, and we take turns leaving work a bit early to pick up the kids. He had a work function to go to tonight, so needed to leave the house by 6pm, just as I would get home (he picked up kids).

I emailed him this afternoon asking him to just get the kids in the bath, and I'd sort their dinner out when I got home. I'm not eating the same food as the kids (or him) in the evenings these days so make my dinner separately most nights.

I got home and found that whilst he had put them in the bath, he'd also made a huge pot of cheesy pasta (that I won't eat), using half the ingredients that I was planning on using for my own dinner, and also most of the milk meaning there is barely enough left for breakfast. I know he was trying to help, but it was so not what I'd asked him to do - and in fact it had made him stressed as he had run out of time to get himself ready - which is another reason why I had told him not to worry about their dinner!

Anyway so I snapped at him (for ruining my own dinner plans, and wasting ingredients), and then he snapped back at me for snapping at him.

The upshot is that he's gone out without saying goodbye, and there are two large portions of cheesy pasta in the freezer.

I'm an ungrateful controlling cow aren't I...... (Go on, give it to me....)

Bogey you sound so bitter.

I am! I am bitter because every day on MN are women who are at their wits end because they do everything themselves and get told to micro manage their OH's because as men they "dont see the dirt" or "men's minds are different to womens" or "Get a cleaner". FFS! It is NOT too much to expect that he feeds his kids but it is also NOT too much to expect that he consider the rest of the family when doing so.

Would you feed your children a particular meal knowing full well that it would leave your OH with nothing to eat because of an intolerance? Or would you think about it and give them something else?

All the OP is asking for is a little forethought and consideration but because he is a man, it seems like she should just be bloody grateful he did anything at all and let the fact that she had to scrat around for her meal go.

"At least he did X Y Z" yeah and?! The fact that other men dont makes them shitheads, not him a hero.

I am bitter on behalf of womenkind who are told by each other that this kind of thing is ok.

And you would have your own block of cheese? Your own milk? Your own...tomatoes?!

Yes he does muck in but its not much use if it creates a bigger problem than there was to start with. The OP said "Dont cook, I'll do it as you are going out". No problem. Except he did and a) used up ingredients for her meal and b) the milk that they needed for the kids breakfast. 2 problems that he created.

Can you not see that a little forethought would have saved all of this? And saying "ah well, atleast he did something" doesnt excuse the lack of consideration.

Chipping. I never mentioned in my posts that the OP had to eat at the same time as the kids. I was just raising an eyebrow that she would could not bring herself to eat what seems like fairly nutritious food, cooked by her DH with the best intentions. It smacks of dietary 'over-control' and carb avoidance. Very few people are truly intolerant of pasta. Could she not have eaten a small amount, grateful for the fact that the kids are fed, thus saving a job. The kids could have toast in the morning instead of cereal no? I say thus with concern after a long personal history of eating disorder and obsession with my weight. I'm very conscious that i want to put my food behaviours to one side and not expose my kids to them. Just suggesting the OP considers the message this separate meals business sends to the kids!

I may be utterly stupid but if the OP doesn't eat pasta and he made cheesy pasta, then how did he use what she was going to have for dinner?

Because in my house cheese is not a dinner. So if DH or dd or ds1 made macaroni cheese for example, they wouldn't think of not using cheese in case it was for my dinner.

I wondered that too?

I ran out of milk and bread yesterday. I just sent ds1 to the shop before I left for work so we could have breakfast.
DH left early and I guess he got breakfast on the way to work.

Its not the crime of the century....you run out of milk in the evening, so you go to the shop to buy some for breakfast. Its not that hard is it?

I fear I may have totally missed the tone and point of this thread because I am confused why cheese and milk has caused so much trouble

everlong Of course his wife matters. But at that moment in time when his dc are hungry do you think she comes before them?

She didn't need to come 'before them' there was obviously other food in the house that was suitable/intended for them, that she had been going to cook.

She had made sure there was suitable food for both her and the children.

Agree with Bogey.

Bamboo I am sorry that you have an eating disorder, that must be very hard.

However, that doesn't mean that other people can't be allergic to certain foods, intolerant of others or just not want to eat a lot of processed carbs. Eating something as nutritionally lacking as cheesy pasta just because someone else has made it, isn't 'looking after yourself' either.

You said Disagree with some of the above. Notwithstanding food allergies etc, better to give kids the message that we all eat the same as a family, healthy wholesome food, rather than mummy eats something else. Runs the risk of normalising faddy eating or preoccupation with calorie control/weight

If Mum is eating after they are in bed, then it doesn't matter what she is eating, so what was the point in saying that if you aren't implying they should be eating together

What exactly is 'healty' about cheesy pasta??

What is wrong with avoiding processed carbs?

She has already said it gives her a stomach ache - why the hell would she eat it?

Tantrums I am assuming he used up all the cheese (& possibly vegetables) that she was planning on using to make her dinner. Cheese is not 'a meal' (but the veg are) it can certainly be the glue that's holding the meal together.

I'm with you tantrums! All a bit mountain and molehill in here.

See OP had not come back to explain what dinner she was intending to make and what she had instead.

Anyway, it's all a bit daft. She didn't tell him to pack his bags and leave, she snapped at him, he snapped back and quite probably neither of them have given it another thought whilst we are all here debating the issue, which seems daft

9 WEEKS????

Id be on my knees sobbing by then.

Bogey why so bitter and angry?

And let's just flip this shall we - to get a bit of perspective? What if it was the OP who had bathed and fed the kids after she had rushed back from work? Maybe because she was in a rush, she had used the 'wrong' ingredients to make supper? What if it was her husband who had charged in late just before she had to attend an important black tie affair and torn a strip off her and made her feel like shit as she left? Just because he could not now have his 'special supper'?

Who would be the horrible bastard then....oh yes, it would be the MAN wouldn't it? Utterly ridiculous, bile filled twaddle posted on this thread. Very eye opening.

Can't believe how ridiculous this has become.

I don't see the op stating that there was no food for her dinner, just not for the one she had planned. Unless her DH is a mind reader, how the feck would he have known that? Especially as she weirdly always eats separately, he probably just leaves her to it.

Nowhere does the op state that he is a lazy cunt who never does anything, she actually explains that they take it in turns to sort the kids etc.

I see no difference as to whether is was husband or wife who did this, and i am of the opinion that the op wasout of order and nasty to her partner who was going out on what shouldmhave been a pleasant evening. but I suppose people project their own circumstances/issues onto things and so post from that perspective.

Excuse typos, stupid phone.

He bathed the children and made their dinner, so why is the food wasted if it was to feed the children? Im confused by that.

It also doesn't make him a hero, how ridiculous, but it doesn't make him wrong because he just did what any parent would do surely?

Also confused as to how he wasted your dinner ingredients if you dont eat cheese/pasta?

Good post Monty.

I do feel that there are come posters on here who really don't like men very much and whatever a man does is wrong and the woman must always be right. Even when, as here, the OP is clearly out of order (and knows it herself).

And there are some posters on here who really don't like women and won't hesitate to stick the boot in at the slightest excuse.

Takes all sorts.

As the OP hasn't come back, I hope all is resolved. However, NONE of us are mind readers and without the following info none of us are really in a position to judge:

• Did the DH know that the OP needed the food he used (pasta aside) for her evening meal? If he knew and used it anyway, he's a git. If not, then better communication is clearly needed.

• Exactly what words were used to ask him not to cook? If he was asked not to cook 'because I've planned what they'll have and what I'll have separately' and he went ahead then he's an eejit. If not, then he can't really be blamed for using whatever he could find, although if I'd specifically asked DH not to cook (not that he ever does), I'd be flabbergasted very mildly ticked off if he had.

The using all the milk thing is pants and I'd be miffed. DH doesn't cook at all but he knows damn well to ask if the milk is earmarked for something before using it all, and has enough common sense to know that DD needs some in the morning for her weetabix.

There have been a lot of unpleasant assumptions made about the OP on this thread and it would be nice if she could come back and let us know the detail, but it wouldn't surprise me if she'd been put off coming back.

Not noticed any woman haters on this thread at all.

Plenty of overblown flabbers being gasted though.

Everlong 8 & 9 weeks - jesus wept woman, it's a wonder you are still able to post coherent sentences, definitely time for the little darlings to go back to school! Have a and some on me :) x