To be annoyed at DH's (non-)usage of leftovers?

[murmuration]

A bit of background: DH has CFS/ME and stays home with DD, while also starting up a business part-time (this is to explain why he can't just cook himself and DD lunch). I also have CFS/ME, but not as severely, and work full time (although compressed into 4.5 days a week). I'm also currently having health issues where I can't eat in the evening, so I don't have dinner (which makes this whole thing very weird).

I try to meal plan such that I leave DH and DD leftovers every weekday for lunch (4 meals, as I'm home for a late lunch on one day), and also provide dinners. I cook and eat lunch on the weekends, sometimes a dinner (but don't eat it), as well as dinner 1-3 times a week. This means I work to make sure DH has 7-9 meals worth of leftovers a week, and 4 for me to bring into work. Because of my current health issues, and because DH and DD share a meal (she's just 3), it means the meals I leave for DH are much larger than mine, so I can't easily just eat the ones I leave for him.

This weekend I had to throw out two moldy meals that DH had not eaten. This annoys me, as it seems like while he'll eat whatever I serve when I cook it right then, he picks and chooses the left-overs such that he'll go for the fresh-made meal from yesterday instead of the one from two days ago that needs to be eaten. And then he waits so long they go bad. Food waste just gives me the rage, and also I'm trying to economise by doing things like using less meats, etc, in a dish, and I find he is wasting entire meals!

Back before my health issues worsened, I used to stick meals I saw getting old in the freezer and take them in with me for lunch. But now they are so big they make me sick. Plus, even back then I'd have a terrible back-log, since I use less leftovers than him.

AIBU to expect DH to eat the food I leave for him? He does in fact want leftovers - if they're not there, I'll come home to find he's struggled to get food: he'll manage to get enough random items together to make a reasonable meal for DD (a banana and some bread plus some ham, cheese and yoghurt, etc.) but doesn't eat much himself.

Although now that I've written this, I'm being to feel like IABU. 7-9 left-over meals out of 14 is a lot in a week. Perhaps I should be cooking more single-serving items for dinner, as I currently usually make meals that have left-overs in order to produce the amount we need (which is made larger than it needs to be because of DH wasting them, argh!).

[murmuration]

Sorry to take so long to get back to this - even keeping up with MN is hard for me at times!

Maybe it would help if I answered some questions:

Why is it that it's your responsibility to provide food for him?

Because I like food, and I like cooking, and he hates both. Not completely my responsibility, in that if I was doing everything reasonably, and he still didn't eat, that's not my circus anymore. I came here asking if I was U, and especially as I've tried to think about what I've left him to eat, instead of just how much, I've found I wasn't doing a particularly good job of leaving behind food -- many people would balk at eating the same thing dinner, lunch, dinner, and lunch, and especially if something else was sitting there, choose that instead.

Everything was working fine until I couldn't eat dinner, and we suddenly had a lot more leftovers, of which I just thought, great, he can eat more of them, without thinking beyond just counting. The pattern had a long history of developing, in that we started making and leaving behind left-overs when he kept trying ready meals and discovering they were simply all making him ill. So it was a nice, cheap way to provide a safe ready meal-like option. He used to chip in the cooking more pre-DD, chopping what I gave him, etc., but now he's exhausted after a day looking after her so only does very few things, like grating cheese. But that I don't mind, as I do enjoy the cooking process.

Several things we divide responsibility for, and this is one of the more no-brainers: I love it, he hates it. The fact that he makes phone calls when he just hates it whereas I have full-on phobia is a much trickier division. Someone could just as easily ask him why he drives me everywhere, can't you just tell her to woman-up and get a driving license? But he sort of likes driving, and I hate it. (Although I'm actually really hoping to get a license this year! Just giving up on the manual and going for automatic; I'd like to be able to drive in an emergency, and we have an automatic car now).

What does he do to look after you now that you have health issues too?

He often will look after DD on a weekend to let me sleep a few hours - and given that he's done that all week, and I tend to sleep a good 3-4 hrs at a time, that is not a small ask (especially as it cuts into his potential work time). I try not take advantage of this so much, but sometimes I really need it, and he always says yes.

As previously mentioned, he drives me everywhere, including my many health tests. He has also done things like notice it is raining heavily outside and calling me at work to ask if I'd like him to pick me and DD up so we won't get wet walking to the bus -- whereas he would have otherwise had another good 1.5 hours to himself to rest or work.

And back when I was pregnant and heavily impacted by SPD (eventually couldn't walk), he both drove me everywhere and carried my bags into work for me (and at the end, would meet me at the door to the office area with my office chair and roll me all the way to my desk). Once he even wrote things up for me for a presentation as I couldn't stand.

So he does what he can within his abilities. I don't think it's reasonable to suddenly drop our 'I do the food' arrangement just because he doesn't want to eat the same thing many times in a row.

And, an update, after nearly 3 weeks of whiteboard:

Going well! I completely geeked-out and made a fancy spreadsheet that lets me plan a month at a time while keeping track of leftovers (and learned a lot about excel functions in the process). I found that I was overestimating how much I had to cook, as I'd forget entire meals and their leftovers when trying to keep it in my head.

DH seems quite happy to check the board for his planned meal, and the system is flexible enough that he can swap one for another if necessary (like when DD fell asleep before they were scheduled to share a dinner together, he warmed up the next day's lunch instead, which I was planning to make DD a side plate for as she didn't like that meal so much).

Still tricky to avoid leaving monotonous strings, but that just reinforces what had been happening without the planning. No food has gone to waste since we started, which was my main goal.

[Floralnomad]

CFS is only classed as a neurological condition because of the WHO , the majority of Neurology consultants in thus country do not agree . overthemill ,your dd is very poorly and will hopefully improve soon but as the mother of someone who has had CFS for 5 years and for whom everyday / week is a balancing act just to give my dd a quality of life believe me you will try most things offered in the hope that you will be in that small percentage for who there is success .

[overthemill]

There is no clinical evidence that proves that CBT or GET improves symptoms of CFS or cures it. There is much evidence that GET worsens symptoms. The NICE guidelines meekly state that some people may find it helpful and it should be offered. They are not a treatment for a neurological condition, like MS is a neurological condition.

[PacificMouse]

That's it. I've been struggling to find what was niggling me about your situation and I think I have found what it is.

Why is it that it's your responsibility to provide food for him?

In my house, if someone does things in a certain way for the family (eg cook, iron clothes etc), then no one is allowed to moan about it. If things aren't to your liking, then I would expect that person to either propose an alternative or do it themselves.
But you seem to be taking full responsibility for the food your DH is eating whilst he thinks it's ok to reject it wo proposing another solution.

I know you are saying that him not taking enough responsibility for his own health is a different issue. I actually think this IS the issue.
You cant find a workable solution wo his help and input.

[murmuration]

Sorry you feel that way, marmalade. I've actually found much helpful on this thread.

Looked up your terms. Definitely not 'codependent relationships' or 'caregiver burnout'. Even took some online quizzes - I get close the thresholds on the burnout, but that's because the questions ask things that are also impacted by my own illness (I found I was answering 'never' to most things and then a few things like are you tired?, 'always').

'illness behaviour' and 'sick role' was a lot harder to make sense of. Mostly I found a bunch of incomprehensible academic writing. My best understanding is it seems that illness behaviour is the study of people who are sick, and sick role is the behaviours a person who is sick is societally 'allowed' to have, although there is also a lot of recent controversy over how sick role and chronic illness interact. I'm not really sure what to take out of that, other than to see that people have made a study of sick people's behaviour.

I do think that DH could manage his illness better, but as I said that's a different topic and not really related to how I provide him food. I'd rather he manage his illness better so he could work more efficiently at his business, and take care of more of the home-things that are on his list of things to do. Making his own lunch would be way, way down on the list of things I'd hope he spend his spoons on! As long as he actually eats what I make, and we don't end up wasting food, I enjoy cooking. I've gotten tips here on how to get that to happen a bit better.

[MarmaladeBasedProtectionRacket]

People have been trying to help you based on their interpretation of the information you gave - some, but probably not all, may have missed the point, either due to incomplete information or genuine misunderstanding.

Google - illness behaviour, the sick role, codependent relationships and caregiver burnout - if none of that resonates with you - great, then I've missed the point too.

Good luck and keep yourself healthy if you want or need to be able to look after anyone else. Genuinely, I send my best wishes, and I'm off this thread now.

[jeanmiguelfangio]

I have CFS/ME, I'm a SAHM to a 2 year old and run a small business, and a dh that works shifts. Oh and a history of anorexia, so I can see where your husband is coming from. But I can also see how bloody frustrating he must be. Dh has a dairy allergy so I am used to cooking more than before.
I am sympathetic but he really does have to help himself too, because it is going to run you into the ground with your CFS. His comment of "itll last a week" isnt exactly helpful is it!!!! I agree with floral too, there arent exactly treatments to make you less tired or exhausted, but his problems with food could be looked into, or other parts of the illness.
I third the slow cooker- mine is a revalation!! It was cheap in the xmas sale last year and I cant believe how i coped without it!!

[Floralnomad]

No there are no therapies 'proven to work' ,but there are plenty of things to try including CBT and graded exercise , obviously these are not relevant for your dd overthemill as she is not in a position to try them at the moment ,but for someone who can go away alone for a weekend / have sole charge of a toddler they are definitely worth trying .

[overthemill]

Also, there isn't any 'therapy ' for CFS that is clinically proven effective in treating it. And if he dies all those things that's a bloody good reason not to be able to prepare food afterwards! It's called 'post exhertional malaise' and is one of the consistent symptoms of CFS/ME. So it's like you have 7 spoons worth of energy and he has used 6 and only has one left - does he look after daughter or cook? My dd has no spoons and if she cleaned her teeth in the morning she wouldn't be able to chew her food. It's nothing like being knackered or sleep deprived it's like when your laptop runs out of battery - there isn't anything left in it at all. And the body has no means to recharge the battery. So making food easy - I purée peas for my dd for example, give her food on plastic bowls and hold the teaspoon for her so she can eat - is the only way he can eat. I completely empathise. Dd also has mega hypersensitivities to smell and taste and most foods make her vomit. Good luck murmur

[whois]

Thanks for the update

[murmuration]

Thanks for the sympathy, overthemill. Glad to know I'm not the only weirdo who has ever provided remote meals for a partner! Currently calling them 'planned-overs', a term I saw once on MN. Might be confusing to just rewrite the meal, as he might think I'll cook it again, but maybe that wouldn't matter...

What the rest of you seem to be doing is starting with the assumption that food is a basic, easy thing and then wondering if he can't do that how can he do anything else? The thing is, even without the CFS/ME, this is a person with major physical and psychological issues with food. He had a childhood of being forced to eat food that made him ill (his family was a eat-everything-on-your-plate type). He's told me stories about desperately trying to choke down a breakfast that was making him heave as he wouldn't be allowed to go on the family day out if he didn't eat it. He got in trouble for malingering at school as he kept going to the nurse's office on particular days turns out they were serving something for lunch those days we now know is a migraine trigger, but at the time they just told a little boy with a migraine to stop complaining. And then there's his mother's kitchen: it's terrifying. Just a few visits taught me to be wary of opening her fridge, and I didn't live my childhood there. And even as an adult, food is something that he must have to live, and yet something that keeps hurting him. We're still finding new intolerances and allergies apparently it is not uncommon to develop a shellfish allergy as an adult, which has now removed an entire food group from our diet. We've recently had to nix brands of peanut butter and fish fingers, as they were making him ill, despite the fact that the ingredients didn't have anything particularly worry-causing (before it gets to a list of incomprehensible chemicals and unnamed "flavourings", that is; I've found some peanut butter that just has peanuts, oil, and salt in -- so far so good, so it appears he hasn't developed a peanut allergy, which can also happen as an adult).

Regarding restaurants and takeaways, most of his food sensitivities are to additives that are not found in fresh cooked food, and for the basic ingredients that he can't have, it is usually simple enough to ask the chef to leave that out. There are some cuisines that are just impossible for him, but most made-from-scratch food with a few easy to avoid items work. We have occasionally been caught out where a food he can't have is added as a random garnish or side, but for the most part restaurants work (not fast food, though - takeaways are things like fish & chips, pizza, or doner meat).

So this is why I've ignored the 'make him do it' advice. It really doesn't fit with our reality. I know what he's like on his own, and his problems with food are large enough he's just not capable of overcoming them even though he knows what is better for him (e.g., eating!!!). I don't think there is any particular eating disorder that describes him, but maybe it is better to think about it as someone who has something like that. For breakfast, he feels much better if he eats a variety of things, including proteins and carbs, as well as more than he manages on his own. But as I feed DD breakfast, and I know I've left lunch and he'll get that, his life isn't too badly impacted by his inability to take care of his first meal of the day properly.

I don't mind doing the planning and cooking (cooking is one of my joys); I just minded when he didn't actually eat what I had left and we were wasting food. But now I see I was simply counting leftovers and leaving him with occasionally unappetizing or monotonous strings of meals.

He took in the whiteboard with some amused interest, so that looks like it is going well so far. Also, with my new planning, I'll either be warming him up the less-preferred meal at dinner, or it will often be the only choice, so less likely that he will avoid things.

(Sorry if I've missed some comments; I've absolutely failed at being concise and I feel I've typed far too much already).

[OnlyLovers]

Jesus wept! I'm exhausted just reading that and I don't have CFS/ME. Stop chasing after him like this! He's an adult. I'd leave all the lunch to him from now on, including shopping.

Agree with this.

It's also a good point Mouse makes about the seeming discrepancy between all his food sensitivities and his ability nonetheless to eat in restaurants and takeaway places.

I think he's taking the piss.

[Penfold007]

OP please stop enabling his behaviour. You can't buy ready meals but when he chooses he can live off takeaways and restaurant food. He can't make decisions but is a SAHP, runs a small business and can go away to meetings. You both have a debilitating health condition but your the one running yourself ragged.

[PacificMouse]

mini her DH doesn't like leftovers that have been frozen 'as they taste different'
I agree that would make things 100x easier....,

[PacificMouse]

Another question for me is that one:
If he is sensitive to many foods and has to avoid them to the extend that you can't ever buy takeaways/already prepared foods, how on earth is he coping with going out to a restaurant?? And lived on takeaways as a bachelor (and would be happy to do that again if he could financially)?
That makes me wonder about his sensitivity to foods and his inability to choose (how does he manage to choose from the menu?)? I have to say, it makes me think he is difficult more than having real issues there...:(:(

[minimalist000001]

The simple answer is freezing the left overs. Labelling them and letting your DH pull out the one he wants, defrosting, then cooking.

If you find you have more then 8 meals in the freezer, stop making extra.

[PacificMouse]

I have a similar meal planning system in our kitchen. The reason is that I work late so DH is the one to do the meals in the evening, for him and the dcs. I take leftovers with me at work.
I am also the one to do the menu and shopping.
As DH is the one cooking most evenings, I do ask him what he would like or if he is happy to do x or y. When we started, DH had a very limited range if meals he could cook and I'm afraid my answer has been 'its in the recipie is in the book' (I put all the recipies we like in a notebook to be able to find them again easily).

IMO, he has a choice when you do the menu, not later. (And you aren't controlling to have a menu and to ask him to stick to it either because you've asked him his input). It might be that, at that time, making a choice is hard for him. But then surely, the fact he doesn't have to make a choice later on should compensate for that?
I'm pretty sure your system will work because basically it's putting on paper what you have been in your head, hidden from him, until now. I really would point that out to him!!

What does work well for us is a list of meals we enjoy. We use that 'list' (of staple meals) to do the menu and then make a point if having something different at the weekend when we have more time. If something new works then it goes on the 'staple meals list'. Maybe that could work for you too so you have a list of meals he enjoys and you can rotate them.

As an ME sufferer, I would say that he us choosing where to spend his energy. Food isn't his thing, fair enough, but at the same time, he isn't taking responsibility to look after his own diet. Now you will know as much as I do that diet IS an essential part of feeling 'well' with ME. So it leads to a next question. What does he do to look after himself or is he relying on you more or less completely for that too?
And why isn't he willing to spend some energy with food when he will know it's so important forhim to feel well?

[annoyedofnorwich]

Wow. Stop micromanaging him and running yourself ragged. What a load of unnecessary effort. No wonder he's acting so pathetic if you pander to him like that.

[trollkonor]

I really do have lots of sympathy fo you both, it must be fucking hard both being ill.

You said he always ate a poor breakfast but you always make sure toast and cereal are on offer. These are staple european or american breaskfast offerings, in various forms, and what many people start the day and go to work on. Yes I have, dawdled down the cereal and bread segments of supermarkets in many countries. You say he is better on a hotel continental brekkie. Why? Of course you can eat utter crap at one ;) Is it the waking up well before eating. Is it sticking to more of the protein laden eggs and meat, or a yogurt and fresh fruit. Or both but fewer carbs. Or carbs and protein, or carbs and fibre. Or? Cured meat can be full of crap even if they are french or german ;) but its protein like bacon and eggs. I think he needs to say what it is that makes him feel better . The nutritional content? The having it all laid out for whatever he fancies at that moment?

You can boil eggs and leave them in cold water overnight. He can take out the next morning and serve with rye or white bread. Grab a yogurt and bit of fruit. Generic cereal and slother something in Nutella. There you have it the very very basic hotel breakfast.

[thenewaveragebear1983]

Why not, instead of freezing/saving whole meals, save the components individually? Ie: cook veg and mash or roast potatoes, or part bake potatoes, and then freeze those in pots so that he can heat up and mix with other pots of the saved stew or bolognese or whatever. He could then have some variety such as open a tin of corned beef, or make bubble and squeak. You'd have to label things clearly. I've just done this in prep for having a baby and it's been so nice to go to the freezer and be able to choose a healthy meal instead of something breaded. Others that freeze well are caulk/broccoli cheese, curries etc

[HeartsTrumpDiamonds]

*look after you

[HeartsTrumpDiamonds]

What does he do to loo after you now that you have health issues too?

Have you made it very clear how much work it is for you to organize, shop and cook, and every time one of those meals goes to waste how much extra work that makes for you and how much money is chucked away? To him its probably a bit meh didn't fancy that today. For you its always thinking, always planning, always cooking and then the thinking doesn't stop, you need to second guess on top.

^^ This.

[trollkonor]

Agree with Goblin and Marmalade.

Have you made it very clear how much work it is for you to organize, shop and cook, and everytime one of those meals goes to waste how much extra work that makes for you and how much money is chucked away? To him its probably a bit meh didnt fancy that today. For you its always thinking, always planning, always cooking and then the thinking doesnt stop, you need to second guess on top.

I meal plan with my husband, its a simple list. I dont eat much meat, my husband doesnt cope with dairy, one child loves saucy food, the other loves dry food but we do it. On Saturday I cooked myself a batch of tomato and pasta soup, today I didnt much fancy it but I ate it anyway because i didn't get it in the freezer, I have to eat it tomorrow too ecause its cooked and there. Poor me! It's just lunch. My husband does the ironing in the mornng and I make packed lunches for everyone, myself included when not in between contracts. It may not always be what I fancied, or what he was in the mood for fuck it. Its lunch, its stuff you can eat.

If he's not going to play a part in planning then he needs to just get on with it. For the both of them get bread, get cold meat or cheese, get tomato, get yogurt and banana.

Not perfect but one of those quaker oats cuppa add water things or horlicks if he needs an easy filling hot snack.

[Floralnomad]

My dd has CFS ,and has had for 4/5 yrs , she couldn't cater for herself but then she couldn't go away for a weekend for 'work' or look after a small child either .What therapy is your husband doing to treat his CFS ?

[Ledkr]

Is it just me wondering why he cannot knock up the odd meal himself?
I know nothing of CFS or ME but I've cooked meals through 5 difficult pregnancies, recovery from numerous surgeries and 6 months of chemo.
In fact Ive found cooking a simple meal easier than caring for a 3 year old.