AIBU to expect DH to pay for all meals out?

[ElphabaTheGreen]

I do all the cooking at home - all of it, unless it's cereal or toast, as DH can't/won't cook. DH and I both work full time and we have two DSs - 3yo and 16mo. This means that I do a shit-load of batch-cooking to cope, including taking annual leave from work to cook if the freezer starts running low. DH does do the washing up, but it isn't nearly as time-consuming as planning, shopping for and preparing cooked-from-scratch meals all week.

At the weekend, we eat a couple of meals out as a family - nothing outrageously fancy. Usually just Frankie and Benny's or something equally kid-friendly and unglamorous, but it gives me a welcome break and the DCs like the change of scenery and the opportunity for chips.

Now, DH earns twice as much as I do. We have a joint account that we pay bills from which we contribute to proportional to our pay, but eating out gets paid for by DH. He's been getting increasingly huffy about this, with arsey sighs when he pulls his card out, then today he said I should pay for some meals out. I've told him in the past that if he expects me to pay, I really can't afford it, but I'd be happy to cook something a bit special instead so long as he keeps the DCs out of the kitchen. He thinks I'm being tight but I'm honestly not - in the past year, my new purchases have amounted to three pairs of the cheapest jeans from M&S and three jumpers off Amazon. DH has bought himself a midlife crisis classic VW campervan.

Given the amount of cooking I do, and the amount he earns in comparison to me, AIBU to expect him to pay for all meals out?

I am a single mum I would and do advise the same to my children but I also add work out how to fairly contribute towards daily living and household task division so you do not take advantage or get advantage taken of you

Well, then you are stuck in that mode (very common, happens to all of us about certain things and definitely happens to me) where you have the insight to see you are in a situation mainly of your own creation, but don't want to do anything to change it because the compromises you'd need to make make you feel threatened.

'We will review our financial set up to see if we can reach something a little more equitable that doesn't make me too uncomfortable'.

'I'm not convinced it would make life easier enough to justify the discomfort I'd feel over the compromise'.

'I could use ready meals more often then feel plagued with guilt'.

No-one likes change. No-one likes to change anything, especially that has some kind of emotional trigger attached. But it can be done and the results make it worthwhile.

I guess that's the bit that is entirely in your hands to do something about, not your husband's. Might be worth thinking about?

Your latest post is about what you could do to ease the cooking. Why not send DH on a cooking course instead? He's only crap because he's never had to learn.

As to the evening meal, there's no reason why your husband couldn't batch cook in advance like you do, so you just had to heat things up rather than cook from scratch.

You're still talking about taking time off work to cook, have you ever sat down and calculated how much that costs you?

Why would something 'more equitable' make you feel 'uncomfortable'?

Why would few ready meals make you feel 'plagued with guilt'?

Why do you have to deny yourself? - money, clothes, time, sensible investments.

You seem to have some kind of slave/martyr thing going on.

Elphaba I have been married for a long time, at least two of my kids are older than you, and we have never had a joint account. It suits some people but I would hate it and itwouldn't work for me. Don't bother about all the people who think that because it works for them it has to work for everyone. I find it quite arrogant when people tell me their way is the only way.

I think you have worked out what you need to do which is talk to your husband about how your finances have changed. If he doesn't realise then he probably is on dadsnet (is there a dadsnet? if not he is probably on campervan forums) saying how unreasonable you are because you expect him to pay for all meals out! I take it he isn't psychic.

I love the image that has been created, you in rags barefoot slaving over a hot stove and him living the life of Riley in his camper van. I think you should change your username to Cinders.

I'm honestly baffled as to how you can't see a 'compromise' between having to take AL and pay for nursery to batch cook or being plagued with guilt for serving ready meals.

What do you count as a ready meal? I know there is a difference of opinion on what 'cooking from scratch' actually is because I've been on threads where people make their own sausages, but you have claimed that there are only 3 ready meals available so I'm guessing that you aren't that extreme. Would a higgidy pie and a bag of salad or pre-prepared mash and frozen peas be a ready meal? Pre made ravioli? Pre made falafel? Would you eat veggie/quorn sausages and frozen hash browns and a tin of beans or would you spend your time grating potatoes and soaking dried haricots to make what should be a quick meal? Or would you not eat something as vulgar simple as a veggie big breakfast?

Forgot to say my husband can't cook (or won't cook) so he pays for meals out usually. Sometimes it does come out of the general food budget because if we are eating out I am not having to use the food in the fridge or buy stuff.

You need to both sit down and go through the finances, so he can't wriggle out of seeing how much of an in balance there is.

What we do is split the bills such that we end up with the same amount of money. DW is part time and we have children.

Its easy to say you have made a rod for yourself by becoming the home servant but your not the only one who has slipped into the role.

The weird thing is that under the banner of independent SM you're sacrificing yourself to your husband. There's nothing less independent than that.

I'm not sure you'll see it though.

Your DH can help with cooking without having to know how to make each dish.
He can chop onions or leeks, peel veg and potatoes, boil a pot of pasta or cook some rice or make a bowl of cous cous.

He doesn't knwo how to boil rice - buy him rice cooker.
He doesn't know how to boil pasta - supervise him a couple of times and explain how does the timer work.
Making a portion of Cous cous - again same as with pasta.#
Peelinh vegetables - try different utensils for scrubbing them.
Chopping onion - buy him professional chef's mandoline.

He can hold a job for which he is handsomely paid - he can do all above.

He can clear after you as you are cooking to make batch cooking faster. IMHO that takes a lot of time and is tiring too.Stop excusing him and pretending that he is incapable of doing such simple tasks.

What are you afraid of if you object to your husband's spending habits and tell him he's paying for meals out?

Are you worried you'll end up a SM like your mum? Is that why you capitulate? Afraid to rock the boat?

It's very odd that you're not comfortable with equality, you only seem to be able to see yourself in a self-sacrificing role.

If you truly see yourself as independent then stand up for yourself.

Stop with the 'it's fine he's bought a camper van, I don't need clothes anyway.'

Spot on grannytomine!

Is that why you capitulate? Afraid to rock the boat?

Yes, I've been wondering if that's why she is so keen to have him remain a dependant when it comes to feeding himself and his children.

Maybe if he was able to look after himself adequately he wouldn't need a wife around to do it for him.

I'm still bemused about you taking annual leave in order to cook so as to leave yourself more time with the children at the weekends. Surely that just means you have less holiday time to spend with them?

At the very least you should factor in a day's pay every time you do it and put that into the pot as part of your contribution to family finances. I know that you don't actually lose pay, but you lose holiday which has a value.

Either your dh makes up for his lack of cooking by pulling his weight elsewhere or he doesn't. You have said he does his fair share, Elphaba - so why is grannytomine spot on? Why does he actually have to pay for all your meals out? And does he not cook because he refuses to or because you look down on his pathetic attempts? Does he have to learn to live up to your ridiculously high standards or get out of the kitchen? If the latter, then it's just another example of your inflexibility making life unnecessarily hard for the whole family and you insisting on everything being done on your terms. You say you don't begrudge him spending his money as he wants, but you do - you disapprove of his caravan, so will have nothing to do with it and will make sure he knows anything he spends on it is his choice and done without your support or approval, and you think he should be delighted to pay for all your meals out. It's all very passive aggressive!

What's passive aggressive is reading into a thread your own idea of the OP's behaviour that is not supported by anything in the text.

The poor man has room-specific self-esteem issues.

It's a terrible affliction.

Let's hope he is at least confident in the bathroom.

The poor man wants a joint account.

He also seems a lot less bothered by ready meals than the OP.

And the OP has insisted several times that the financial arrangements were made at her own instigation and not what her dh wanted.

I'd be quite pissed off if I were told I could pay for my other half's haircuts from time to time, couldn't buy their clothes, but had to pay for all meals out. I would wonder why the insistence on demarcating "his" and "hers" money when I didn't really get to choose how to spend it unless I spent it entirely selfishly.

This really is like MN bingo. I'm P-A now. How long before I'm a narc?

Narcoleptic or narcissistic?

OP - I would like (as many more posters) to know what makes him terrible cook.

Is it your high standards or his laziness?

I bet the OP would rather eat out with the family than look after the kids while her dh makes an awful omelette in the kitchen.