Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

AIBU to stop cooking for my ungrateful H?

146 replies

haggardolebat · 01/03/2014 09:40

Hello!
So my husband and I just moved into our own home, and I've started to cook now. RD and I eat what I cook but everytime I cook for him he'll come home and decline my meals. I feel really bad because I am trying to be a supportive wife as he works 6 days a week and he's supporting me by doing so (SAHM) But I don't what to do since he doesn't want to eat it. he'd look at it like it's poison and eat a few spoonfuls and then make his own dinner. We are from different cultures, I'm English and his family is Ghanaian. His mother has always been his cook, even after we got married, because we were living with her while saving for our place. And she'd always do the cooking for the family. I always helped her cook but the time taken to cook a meal is unrealistic for me to do everyday (She spends the whole day cooking and loves it but I have school pick ups etc and I'm 39 weeks pregnant too) not to mention, it takes a lot of practice and I don't want to experiment with dinner.

AIBU to stop cooking for him and just cook for DD and I? I know it'll cause fights between us which I really do not want, but I can't take the insults. The food I cook is loved by DD and she's a fussy eater so it's not like it's disgusting food.

What would you do?

OP posts:

falulahthecat · 01/03/2014 22:35

Just make him rice and beans boiled together & fry up some plantain, will take you 30 mins tops and when he complains tell him it's Ghanian food so he can't complain?

Lottiedoubtie · 01/03/2014 22:44

OP don't feel you have to answer my questions if you don't want to. But think about things.

If you don't share his religious beliefs can you cope with the 'women have a place' head of the household stuff?

My DH and I are both Christians but don't subscribe to that view. I don't think I could live with a man who would silence my arguments with references to Gods will, I can't imagine what that would be like if I didn't even believe in him.

You need to decide if you can. And if you want your children to grow up believing that example.

nennypops · 01/03/2014 22:55

When we ask where do you go from here given that he won't eat either English or Ghanaian food cooked by you but insists that it's your job to cook, that's really a question for dh to answer, not you. He's the one who's created the problem. Really the answer seems to be for him to grow up.

foreverondiet · 02/03/2014 01:14

If he is so disrespectful that he says you have to cook for him as GOd ordained you to, and he doesn't like the food you cook and he can't easily show you what he does like, then yes shouldn't cook until he changes his attitude. If he can't respect why you won't cook for him under these circumstances and is verbally abusive that you don't cook then yes ltb.

FortheLoveofGodwhatNext · 02/03/2014 02:14

Oh I do like the irony of this.

"it's your role as a wife and a mother to be cooking for the whole household. You can't pick and choose what God ordained"

You see, it means precisely the opposite of what he thinks it means. It really means he has to make do with what the wife and mother puts in front of him.

He's trying to have his plantain and eat it.

squoosh · 02/03/2014 02:43

'it's your role as a wife and a mother to be cooking for the whole household. You can't pick and choose what God ordained'

Oh dear.

I wouldn't hold out much hope that someone so utterly conservative is going to start appreciating your efforts anytime soon. The fact that he values McDonald's over your home cooked meals is a bloody cheek.

YankeeMum8 · 02/03/2014 05:23

YANBU, but I have a feeling he won't be happy if you stop cooking dinner either! Seems like there might not be pleasing him no matter what you do.

EirikurNoromaour · 02/03/2014 07:08

How can you possibly live happily in a relationship where your husband holds such different and fundamentally problematic views on your roles?

MusicalEndorphins · 02/03/2014 07:35

I don't think you should be breaking up your otherwise happy home because he doesn't like your cooking.
Just carry on cooking and make enough for him. If he doesn't eat it you can either freeze it for a meal for when you don't feel like cooking or have it for lunch the next day.

He can continue to cook his own or learn to tolerate the food you cook.
My son eats meat, his partner doesn't, yet they have been together for 9 years and just make their own food or meatless food.

Food shouldn't get in the way of love! It is only food!
You eat it digest it and expel it.

Oh oh, I know! Apply to go on Wife Swap! That will show him how UR he is.

JapaneseMargaret · 02/03/2014 07:39

Oh for heaven's sake.

I am struggling to have any sympathy here.

How have you found yourself in this position? Do you not know the man you married at all....?

Is his attitude really a revelation for you? Because if so, why on earth did you say 'yes' when he asked you to marry him...?

You clearly don't know this man at all.

manticlimactic · 02/03/2014 08:05

Find a chapter in the Bible that says something about wasting food and when he doesn't eat what you put in front of him quote it.

FabBakerGirl · 02/03/2014 08:16

at antimatter. What crap.

chesterberry · 02/03/2014 11:32

From the sounds of it your husband's attitude to marriage, and the man and woman's place within that marriage, is a bigger problem than the cooking alone, however you have stated the cooking is the aspect you want advice on.

YANBU to say that you will just stop cooking for your husband. However, if you would prefer him to sit down and eat with you maybe you both need to compromise with regards to the foods you're serving. You say you plan the meals and make a meal-planner for him to look at so he knows what you're having each week. Do you plan the meals individually or do you sit down and do it together? If the former perhaps you could change it so it's something done together, that way he has input and if there is a food he particularly dislikes (eg: a roast dinner) he can say and make sure it's not on the menu. Perhaps you could agree one day a week will be 'Ghana Night' and on that day you will make the effort to spend a few hours cooking a Ghanaian meal, but on the understanding that he will not compare it to your MIL's cooking and appreciates you are still learning to cook in that way. Perhaps at the weekend if he doesn't work you could try to cook something from his culture together so that he is there to help you learn to use the different ingredients. On the other nights you could agree on what other, less intensive to prepare, meals you will make, some of which might be African (eg: you could make eggs, rice and plantain occasionally if that is quick) and some of which will be foods from your culture which you're more familiar with and comfortable cooking. You could also ask him if there are any aspects of British cooking he particularly dislikes. I have a friend from South India who really hates the fact British food almost always contains potatoes so if I have her over for dinner I try to make sure I am serving a meal with pasta or rice. If even after you have tried to get him more involved he isn't happy to eat the food you've cooked, even when it isn't his favourite meal, then I think I would start to question his unwillingness to compromise.

Cleartheclutter · 02/03/2014 11:40

Is he Christian? There is a guy at work who is a very faithful Christian and believes in very strict husband and wife roles

HermioneWeasley · 02/03/2014 12:06

My best friend is separating from her utter cock of a husband. She wasted 10 years and got thousands and thousands into debt because she also took her vows seriously.

He didn't.

Please think about whether this relationship is fair. If not, you cannot carry the vows on your own.

greenfolder · 02/03/2014 12:26

just stop engaging in this. unless you really think that God does require you to cook. in which case, no doubt He will supply the answer

AngelaDaviesHair · 03/03/2014 01:37

It's not really even about learning to cook Ghanaian food, because if you try he complains it isn't like his mother's. SO he's using this as a stick to beat you with. The question is why.

Happy to recommend a recipe book if you think it will help though.

MorrisZapp · 03/03/2014 01:55

Do you also think that god wants you to cook for him? If you don't, then your marriage is an unworkable mismatch.

CheerfulYank · 03/03/2014 01:59

My best friend (we are both American) is married to a religious Ghanaian man who doesn't care for a lot of non-Ghanaian food. Either he eats what she's made or he makes something himself. He usually has a big container of jollof rice (which I love) in the fridge for reheating and some of that stew I can't think of the name of.

He just gets on with it. Because he isn't a prick.

Toadinthehole · 03/03/2014 05:59

To be honest, I'd just let him cook his own dinner.

BlessedAssurance · 03/03/2014 16:29

Op, please remind your DH about another verse in the bible where one is instructed to eat what is put before him since he wants to go all biblical on you. Also a woman's role in the bible bible is helper to her husband, not doormat meaning you work together as a couple. He doesn't want to eat what you make for him, so be it but to want to turn you into his mother is not on. If he is so happy cooking for himself again so be it. You are pregnant and the last thing you need is stress caused by an ungrateful that. Religious differences aside, he needs to appreciate the fact that you are making an effort.

I am African and DH is Norwegian. I have yet to meet a person so accepting and accommodating as him. I don't expect him to eat my food all the time and the few times i make African food i always ask him if he wants something else but he won't have it. He eats what I eat and if he wants something else he makes it himself but without the drama and definitely before I have made something. And guess what I'm Christian he is not but we respect each other, in fact when we got married i tried to be the perfect wife, did everything for him whilst working Ft. I was knackered until one day he sat me down and explained that he didn't want a slave, but that he wanted an equal and that i was never to cook, wash and wait on him hand and foot. He is still the same almost 10yrs i have known him.

I hope things work out better for you Op. He sounds controlling to be honest and he will get worse. Look after yourself now and leave him alone to make his jollof rice. Honestly it is not that great. Would rather have English food than African. Sunday roast is much more delicious than the popular jollof rice.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Swipe left for the next trending thread