about coming home and dinner time?

[KellysZeros]

I'll try and describe the scene. DH and I have just moved house to a new area (no children yet). He has a busy job and I'm looking for new work (and quite likely to be doing some freelance work). We have 1 car and we live about a 10 minute drive from the train station that DH uses to get to work, and I've been dropping him off, and picking him up. I've therefore been responsible for keeping the house in order, making dinner, etc, while I look for work.

Last night, I send DH a message at 5pm asking what time he might be home. He messages back to say he'll be at the train station at 6.30. Then messages a bit later to say it will be 7, then again a bit later to say it will be 7.30.

I pick him up from the station, and when he gets home, he starts to complain that dinner is not ready. (Dinner was going to be something I could make in 20 minutes - fry some fish, boil potatoes and steamed beans). I explain it's difficult to plan when I don't know when he'll be home (he has a habit of being late, or underestimating how long something will take - together, we're often late for things).

Anyway, he says he would like to use my laptop to write some work emails while I cook dinner, so he goes off to my office (where I've been doing the freelancing). I cook dinner and after 20 minutes, I shout upstairs that dinner is ready. 5 minutes later, I go up and tell him, I wait (hungrily) downstairs, and after a further 10 minutes say I'll start without him. He eventually comes down after another 15 minutes. He then complains that my office was a bit messy.

I appreciate he has a busy stressful job, but I think his behaviour last night was so disrespectful and I'm still angry with him this morning. He feels that he is being put under pressure to come home on time, and he feels overworked.

AIBU to be annoyed with him last night?

I never know when my DH is going to be home and have given up trying to pin him down to a time.
So on the whole he gets leftovers from what I've cooked me and DCs.

If/when he has courtesy to give me ample notice I'll cook something 'fresh'.

Simples!

Also DH is not allowed to say anything except 'yum yum yum this is tha nicest thing I've ever eaten' about whatever I put in front of him

If I've learned one thing in life it is that precedent sets routine. You might start out thinking 'oh how nice I have this free time just now to cook Brian a lovely dinner', Brian may even say thank you the first few times.

Then a month later Brian's like 'didn't we have this last Tuesday'.

I would never cook regularly for another able bodied adult but I'm a mn oddity. DP and I keep ourselves alive, fed and clothed. DS gets his handed to him but to be fair, he's only six.

I put soup in front of ds and dh the other day and ds (3) started crying and said "I can't eat soup you made Mama. Daddy said it tastes like farts!" Cue sheepish look from dh and a very silent meal.

But by the time you've made dinner for one person you may as well have made it for two. It's far more expensive and time consuming for there to be two sets of dinners and dishes an evening

Haven't read the last page or the rest of page one as struck by him not coming to the tale for half an hour after he was told it was ready. This was to get you back in your place. You made him wait for his dinner so he decided to make you wait to eat yours. Great if you did eat but next time call him, give him a coupe of minutes then eat but don't call him again.

My OH is exactly like this, how difficult is it to send a text?! I used to wait and eat when he arrived, but it was just so impossible to plan and we were eating so late! I've decided to just do my own thing, eat when I want to eat and he just has to heat up whatever it is when he gets back.

Goingtobeawesome

I totally agree, although I have a sneaking suspicion that OP didn't have his dinner ready to punish him for being late.

I don't think this has anything at all to do with the dinner and is more to do with the fact that OP feels like she's got the shit end of the stick when they moved and is worried that she's going to lose her identity and life. This is perfectly justifiable but they need to find a better way to communicate ASAP or it's going to turn toxic very quickly.

Thanks everyone. DH will be at home around 8.30 to 9.00pm tonight. I'm cooking tonight and then we will discuss a reasonable plan

Are you picking him up from the station again Kellys? What about if you want a couple of glasses of wine before 8.30? Do you have to put that on hold too?

I hope you are listening to the older and wiser posters on this thread.

tonight he got a lift home, and I cooked and ate at eight - he got warmed up food and it was less stressful. I would like to plan a meal time in the future.

Wait, so he told you that 8 was a reasonable time to eat dinner and then he still got home at 830/9?

If I was being kind I'd say perhaps his perfectionist streak has ramped up somewhat due to the stress of the move/new job/etc. He's obviously feeling out of control in pretty much every other aspect of his life, so the only thing he can control is you.

I think that's a really slippery slope and you need to push back hard.

No, to be fair, he said that he would be home late last night, so I did eat around eight. Tonight he's home even later (after work reception! I am sure he's not having an affair, honest)

YANBU. It's fair enough for you to do most of the housework if you're not working but that doesn't make you his skinny to be ordered around. Sounds like he thinks he has higher status because he's earning the money, I couldn't stand that, especially if you plan to have kids/maternity leave I'd want to sort it out ASAP.

If he's at an after-work reception tonight he won't want dinner, surely? Plates full of nibbles at those things.

I am the person who was getting home later than promised or forgetting to ring. DH really pulled me up on it and now I am much better. I text an estimate of when I will be home and text again if that changes a lot. Either way, I always text when I am leaving.

Most of what I would add has already been posted by others. One thing though: it is not right to have a situation where one partner sets the standard of how things should be done and the other partner is expected just to make it happen.

I always cook dinner (DH cooks for the children earlier in the evening. He dislikes cooking, I love doing it). DH will wait for me to get home even when I'm going to be late rather than cook for himself. It would be completely unreasonable for him to start laying down rules for what I should and shouldn't cook. I take his preferences into account and I ask him what he'd like. Sometimes he is given a choice. When push comes to shove though, I am the cook so I decide the menu. And in a very busy week, it might well be something defrosted, or leftovers. There has to be flexibility.

Oh, and what your DH's mother used to do is completely irrelevant to your living arrangements as a couple. Times change.