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 think its pretty obvious the PA poster is on a frolic of her own, to be fair. It does bother me though OP that money you facilitated in the earning of, by covering childcare at weekends, has been spent on a luxury item without consultation instead of the mortgage as you planned. 30k has got to be a pretty big chunk of what you owe surely?

OK - if DH cooks, he gets insanely stressed. INSANELY. It doesn't help that he tries to go on his iPhone at the same time or watch the cricket or listen to something on the radio. His ability to multitask at the best of times is shaky, but when he tries to do it when cooking it all goes completely to pot. Even if I can talk him out of trying to use devices at the same time, he oscillates between begging me to stand there and coach him through whatever he's making then shouting because the DCs are in his way and making him even more stressed. I can either stand there and coach, or keep the DCs out of his way. I can't do both.

I don't think that's laziness on his part or unachievable standards on mine. I think it's a straight-up person-task incompatibility. It's just easier and less stressful for everybody if I do it.

I would love him to take time off work himself to help stock the freezer. I think I'd get home to a weeping, emotional mess surrounded by burnt saucepans and a partially eaten bowl of cornflakes, cricket commentary wittering away in the background.

His parents never made him cook. Can you tell?

And to whoever asked earlier, 'ready meals' to me are stick-in-the-oven complete meals. When I batch cook, I make pasta sauces (veg bol, pesto), chilli, vegetarian pies in many forms (mash or pastry topping), cauli-broc cheese and par boil then freeze roasties to go with, veggie burgers...kid-friendly nutritious stuff, but without going so far as to weave my own lentils or hand-craft tofu with the power of my mind. It's hard to get component parts such as pre-made pasta sauces without loading up on salt and sugar.

But it's the dh's money, you see, Fanny...

Can I just add...the repeated suggestion that I 'cover childcare'...no. I'm a parent. I don't 'cover childcare'. I do more solo parenting than he does. I don't expect payment, I don't do it in exchange for anything. I love how I'm an emotionally abused, financial cripple with control issues, yet if a male on MN says they do 'childcare' for their children, the fury and might of women on here descend and say YOU'RE A FUCKING PARENT NOT A BABYSITTER.

But I digress...

I don't cook.

It's not beneath me. I can do a few meals. I bet I cook twice a year.

Dh probably puts the washing machine on less than that.

I don't see the issue with him not cooking tbh.

Dh cooks from scratch 95% of the time and has never taken a day off work to batch cook though.

I think it's a straight-up person-task incompatibility.

I think it's a straight up feigned helplessness.

He doesn't even bother pretending to turn his full attention to it, which shows that he is just acting all crap until mummy you take over.

My parents never made me cook. But I'm an independent adult who values being able to look after myself and now my children.

So I learnt. I would be utterly ashamed of myself to be unable to do something so easy and fundamental to being a fully functioning human.

I don't try to "multitask" when cooking. How revolting to be using a phone while preparing food. Dirty bugger.

It's good that he's raising this by being unhappy about it, because it raises two much bigger issues that you need to address as a couple. Why is responsibility for meals not shared/what does he do to balance out the workload? Why haven't you got equal access to family money? Who hands over the payment will be irrelevant if you sort these things out.

Incidentally, and this may have no bearing on your situation, my ex became really difficult about money after he had an affair. He would only pay the mortgage which was less than 20% of our outgoings. Lucky for me, he has been forced to pay more than that in legal minimum child maintenance since I left him. Hopefully this is irrelavant to you.

Doing childcare does not equal babysitting, as well you know.

Stop being so disingenuous.

I honestly can't believe the hype over the taking AL to batch cook. I don't mind it, honestly. It's the least stressful option IMO. I know women who work PT and use one of their days off to 'get ahead' on jobs while the DC are with the grandparents. WTF is the difference? At least I get paid for it.

I only raised it to illustrate that I put a lot of time and effort into cooking decent food. When DH then wants us all to go out, I don't then see why I should be expected to pay for that occasionally, as well as putting the graft in at home.

Well, make up your mind OP. Why, exactly, does it make sense that your dh should always pay for meals out and should apologise to you for not doing it with a smile on his face?

Nobody is calling you a babysitter OP and there's no way you could've thought that. You said earlier that you take the DC solo outside your work hours, in order to allow DH to spend more time working on his business, and you're fine with this as the plan is that the extra time will garner more money to pay off the mortgage. Very sensible plan if I may say so. But if DH is using some of the money he's been able to earn in this time you've spent caring for the DC without his input, that means he's getting benefit from that time and you're not.

Why is responsibility for meals not shared/what does he do to balance out the workload?

I have actually explained the practicalities of why I do the cooking upthread (the one about the times we get in from work). He does dishes, house maintenance, bins, cleans up after the DCs. The division of labour in the house is equal, I assure you.

Why haven't you got equal access to family money?

Eh? I can access the joint savings - he actually can't because he never got around to getting log-in gumph for that account.

Why should your dh pay for you to spend time cooking sauces the rest of the family would happily pour out of a jar from the supermarket? You say you don't mind doing it in one breath, then say you expect your dh to pay for it in another.

Spending time with your children is not wasted, unbeneficial time, though, Fanny.

You've been pretty clear OP that the financial arrangements that you have are at your choice and instigation but they still leave me baffled. And I also had a mother who told me to always keep my job (I did), and always maintain my financial independence (I did), and to be very very careful who married.

A husband complaining that he always pays for the meals out is just strange to me. Are you not a joint enterprise? A family, pooling resources and abilities and yes sometimes money to keep the whole show on the road? If he is short at the end of the month because of the meals out, wouldn't he say, "Do you have 20 pounds spare Elphaba, I'm short after this weekend?" You put way more into producing your children than your dh did- that is the nature of pregnancy etc. How did you balance that within your relationship? I may not be saying this right but it isn't the joint accounts that matter it is the concept of what is a family/couple.

People post all the time at christmas about wanting to spend it with "just their own little family" but for many that "own little family" doesn't seem to extend to the whole journey through life and you have people married with entirely separate money, entirely separate feelings of responsibility towards their children and entirely separate standards of living within that family. Like why would you even think about your retirement being more comfortable than his? Aren't you planning for a joint retirement, a joint future together?

I am married 20 years plus. I thought long and hard before I married my husband because I knew it was a really big decision to create another family and especially to have children together because we wouldn't then continue as two people living separate lives. The irony is - as another poster pointed out - in a divorce, all these separate resources would be lumped in together.

I see marriage/family as both of us rowing the same boat in the same direction for the benefit of everyone on that boat - that extends to me helping his extended family/friends if needed and vice versa. On MN it sometimes looks like two people rowing, each a member of a different union, and each working to rule.

And why did he buy the camper van too early? At what age are your family all too young to enjoy camping in it?

I think you both put all your cash into the shared account and take out exactly the same amount for spends. Say £50 a week each. The rest is family cash for bills/meals out/saving.

Chopz - unfortunately, the OP would not tolerate that. It appears her dh would...

Who on earth said that the time was wasted? It's time he derives financial benefit from and OP doesn't though, and its interesting that whatever benefits there might be to wangling two toddlers solo whilst cooking, he isn't availing himself of them.

I do think the idea of having limited family resources and large amounts of personal spending money is utterly mad, but the OP doesn't.

Kids in high chair, toys or snacks in tray. DH learn to cook. OP watch and supervise once he's tried and can't..He could easily learn to do Saturday lunch.

Yeah I don't get that at all. If one partner is allowing the other to earn more by their actions, the one who's financially benefitting has no fucking business going through the other's account for a spare forty quid while buying a camper van.

What does wangling toddlers solo involve?

IF wants a joint account why is he moaning about paying? If it was joint there would be no that's mine, that's yours, why the issue? He still would have enough money of his own to piss up the wall.

That depends rather on the toddler roundabout. I believe OP gave us some anecdotes upthread.