Or is Dh - evening meals

[CarolPeletier]

Dh decided to become vegan about a year ago. I have tried desperately hard to make interesting and tasty family meals but am really struggling.

Many of the recipes I find take ages and I have three small children so need quick and easy meals. It also dictates the rest of us either eat vegan every night or I make two meals.

Last night was the last straw. I made spag bol with soy mince, quorn has egg in. He complained it was too chewy and my cooking had gone down hill. I informed him it was my limited ingredients which has made my cooking, and meals for the whole family, go downhill.

I make homemade curries, tagines, skewers, pies, stews, warm salads... I'm no chef but feel I make an effort. Wibu to tell him to either eat dairy again or cook himself?? I am a sahm so feel pressure to put a meal on the table for when he walks in.

Jeez, no way would I be cooking vegan dinners for this ungrateful sod.

New rule. He cooks for himself. You cook delicious meals for you and the DC. Let's see how committed he is then.

howabout there is a difference between making a guest welcome, and having this total PITA of a situation to deal with every day because your DH has issued a decree from on high.

You are his wife not his mother!

He is an arse.

If my DH told me my cooking had gone down hill he would not be my DH anymore!

Stop! Try thinking of it this way:

He has not adopted a vegan lifestyle at all. What he has done is decided to eat a restricted diet and them commanded his wife and the local café do all the hard work, researching foods, recipes, buying, prepping and making his restricted diet for him. He is doing nothing - except moaning when someone, who is doing something for him he won't do for himself, fails to meet his seemingly exacting standards.

Read that a few times....

His long hours and your being a SAHM are a joint decision you made, you owe him nothing as you are currently both enabling each others lifestyle. Your problem is that he has imposed an extra chore on you and seems not to appreciate what it means for you and your kids.

Read all of that out to him a few times...

That he has not realised how much of a chore this is might be because you are striving to please him, given that you think you owe him. But, as you are married, have kids and are a partnership, working together to give them a good upbringing, a quick chat about the realities of his lifestyle choice might get this all out in the open and sorted out.

Read that out to him as well

Please please tell me that while you're doing this fry up for him every morning that he is helping get the dcs sorted for the day. If he is sitting reading the paper, I may well hide the thread.

When you speak to him, please don't just make it a practical issue about food. Start with how he spoke to you, and why that is not acceptable.
I do get that you two have an arrangement, within which you do the cooking. That absolutely does not mean he gets to take that effort, or you, for granted.

Once he has acknowledged all the above and apologised, you can work out a deal. Eg he cooks for himself so many nights a week, you cook the rest of the time or he heats up a frozen meal prepared earlier. Or, he does his own fry up (he should anyway btw) and you do all the evening meals. Or whatever you like. But please do make him do something, otherwise he will never appreciate that it takes work and planning, and so he will continue dismissing your efforts.

No he is helping, he does loads... He helps with bedtimes, baths, does the gardening, will hoover for me. I am far from a stepford, but I do have a thing about having a meal on the table ready. Thanks for.the advice everyone, will have a chat with him tonight.

Surely at the weekends he can cook in bulk and stick portions in the freezer. If, every weekend for a couple of months he cooks something different and freezes 8-10 portions, he'll have a lovely variety of meals to choose from.

Then you can still have a hot meal ready and waiting for him by taking it out and reheating it for him when you are doing the normal family dinner. And removes the potential for him to bitch about the cooking too.

My DH spent years working in a long-hours, stressful job and ... would come home and cook the evening meal! Is he a god, you ask? Well no, just a decent human being. It's not the law that someone who has a long-hours, stressful job can't possibly be expected to also cook or take care of themselves. You'll find plenty of other people, like my DH, cook at the end of their stressful working days. Plus I'm not sure yours looking after 3 kids is easier. He gets to take a lunch hour and go to a café: I know plenty of working people who don't get to do that, and likewise SAHPs. Do you do it yourself, every day?

On another note, I would not want to restrict my children's diet to vegan on a daily basis anyway, so I would have said at the start 'that's fine for you, but it's not going to work for the whole family so you need to figure out your plan for dealing with it'.

Stop making breakfast now! You spend all day with small children - that's something I would (personally, other people can do as they please obv) hate, hard, relentless etc - you have equal rights to demand he cooks you an elaborate treaty breakfast that needs at least three different cooking implements etc. I live alone. I have to provide for myself all the time - he's an adult and can cook for himself. Personal care and all that.

He Hoover's for you?

He needs ro be producing decent meal suggestions for you at the very least.
I wouldn't have clue what you cook for a vegan apart from Veggy curry

Glad that he helps. Whew. But he doesn't hoover for you. He hoovers. That's it, really. He is not doing you a favour by doing these things, he is contributing equally to the upkeep and maintenance of the household and family. That is all.

He needs to look into vegan ready meals that he can heat up quickly a few nights a week.

My daughter is a veggie who doesn't much like dairy products (was allergic to milk as a younger child) so we compromise - sometimes I cook a veggie meal for everyone, sometimes she makes her own dinner, and I also have a small selection of frozen things on hand that can be heated up quickly if necessary.

He is clearly being unreasonable with that comment but it was probably just badly thought through. I think all the "make the bastard cook for himself" comments are probably an overreaction. On the more general theme the thread has gone onto in relationships you do things together/for each other. I don't think you "owe him" anything for going to work any more than he owes you for looking after kids but If you have different dietary requirements (e.g he is vegan and you/kids aren't willing to eat vegan food all higher time at home) you need to between you cook separate meals and who does that is going to part of a wider question of how you share out work, child care, chorea etc.

I was going to say that maras my DH Hoovers the house that we both live in. Unless of course OP your dh floats over your flooring while you and the dc shed dust and crumbs every step you take.

He is being unreasonable. He made the choice to change his diet and he needs to be responsible for the additional complications that come with it.

DH has been a little rude about insulted my cooking once. He didn't do it again.

I've re-written your previous post: She looks after our DCs very long hours, at times it can be very stressful, without which I wouldn't be able to focus on my career unhindered and possible do a job that I enjoyed less or quite frankly had less kudos , so I do sorta owe her some sort of courtesy. I know I work hard too etc, but really - if I had to leave work every time the DCs were sick it wold be a massive pita. Plus she has sacrificed her career, at least for a few years so I guess I have a bit of an issue feeling I owe her...

In reality the whole 'owing' each other thing is rubbish, its a team effort.

He'd have been cooking for himself right from the moment he became vegan in my house!
You've been enormously patient and you and your dc have had to fit in with his choice of diet. I'd be suggesting now that he either fits in with your diet or he cooks for himself

So many absurd overreactions and assumptions on this thread (e.g. that the OP's husband is forcing her to cook and that her children are having veganism thrust upon them, when the only questionmark seems to be whether the evening meal is vegan). OP has suggested her husband does not usually make such comments about her food. His ill chosen words warrant a discussion, not a character assassination or posters dictating how the OP and her husband share the stuff that needs doing. Only the OP can decide if the arrangements are fair.

OP (and OP's dh), there are vegan meals that take 20 minutes or under - e.g. scrambled tofu on toast, various pasta and rice based dishes. An alternative base for spag bol is blended mushrooms and olives with mashed tofu stirred in towards the end.

I seem to have somehow lost the point and shown myself to be a 1950s stepford wife.

Can I say, I love cooking. I always have. This is partly why the vegan thing annoys me because I no longer make my favourite meals and am unlikely too as the children will not eat some of these meals either. So cooking has gone from being a hobby and love to a chore with mostly mediocre results.

On the issue of who does what, we have our things in the house which each of us do and it mostly works well for the last twenty years. The cooking is my thing, and perhaps 'owe' is the wrong word, but it would somehow feel unfair to stop cooking for him.

As a bit of background, my husband has chosen to become vegan for health reasons after a medical battle. Being vegan is not necessary but the psychoanalysist in me believes he initially did it to take some control of his body and life back and as a way to make a big lifestyle change that he believes will help longterm.

He peed me off last night with the comments about my cooking, but honestly, I do not think refusing to cook for him will do our relationship any favours long term.

Will have a chat tonight and let you all know how it goes.

Thanks

I wouldnt bother cooking for him more than a couple of times a week and he can have toast for breakfast, lots of it if he is hungry. I see your decision is to carry on cooking for him though.

BUT You must make it clear to him that any comments about the quality of the cooking will not be tolerated and will result in a complete stop to all food provision for him.

You are at SAHP and your priority is your DC and the home. You can provide healthy mels but you are not his personal chef.

As a veggie who grew up in a non-veggie house (and with a Dad who didn't consider anything without meat to be a meal) some tips to deal with different diets within a family;

1. I think people have said already but don't cook two meals, cook 1.5. E.g. Have the same veg and carbs and replace the protien with a couple of vegan sausages in the oven or whatever other ready meal/frozen bulk prepare vegan thing, cook a vegan meal and add meat at the end after serving dh's, have frozen/ready melas so you can cook & eat the non-vegan things you like sometimes etc. If you do that some nights then all eat vegan some nights it becomes far easier.
2. Find out the few key health issues around veganism and focus on those rather than a generic balanced diet. E.g. For vegetarianism everyone assumes protien is the issue but actually it's vit B12 and omega 3, you get get those through marmite on toast, substitutes and fortified cereals mainly. If you take care of those being vegetarian is probably healthier than most meat diets. I assume for veganism it's the same plus some others but I don't really know.

YABU to cook him a breakfast every morning.

So toast doesnt fill him up, I assume he is not incapable of making himself a breakfast that does?

The man is a demanding petulant child and you are letting him get away with it. But hey, if you are happy with that....