If I am AIBU pls feel free to slap me round the face with a wet fish. If I am not, can you help me articulate my feelings....

[Mikethenight2good]

My husband is a fantastic cook (not his profession). We host people often, he loves to cook. However I am getting really tired of the other stuff that comes with it. So today for example, we have some family coming for dinner. Pretty informal, people we see often. Hubby has had a tough week and is really under the weather, so today I go to M&S buy lovely food that can be popped in the oven. Hopefully not too much work. (He still wanted the dinner to go ahead). But usually he tends to take up the whole day cooking and he can't possibly help with the children, and actually, it would be helpful if we could all get out from under his feet.

So it comes to early evening and twitching hour(s) commence with our LO and we are in the throws of dinner bath and bed. However, he can't help, as he is prepping for tonight dinner. I question this, but we apparently we need extra stuff on top of the stuff I bought, so he is cooking that.

He has a tendancy to bellow for me from the kitchen like I am his kitchen slave when he needs me for something. It's not what he says it's the way he says it.... I can't really explain this very well..

So after getting the kids to bed and inbetween numerous visits upstairs to settle the baby I am sorting out drinks and I always sort out hubby a drink. We sit down to eat, lots of praise and thanks to hubby for the dinner.
I clear up & sort pudding out, but he has to come and take over. He is quite precious about 'his kitchen' but also there is an element of him that won't let his limelight be shared.

He loves all the attention, I feel like the poor side kick, they leave, he goes to bed. I clear up, load dish washer and clean up kitchen.

I am so fucked of with it. The whole praising him for being such a fantastic, and how lucky I am. For what it's worth, he has barely cooked a thing all week as he is so poorly apparently. It's like the everyday mundane jobs don't do it for him but the really attention seeking high praise ones do.

It is like this week. I had a job interview one evening so hubby has to pick up the children and get them ready for bed. He takes a picture of him snuggled up with the children and puts it on social media with some narrative bed time with daddy. Again lots of gushing praise etc. I do this every night. Every. Fucking. Night. Nope, no parent of the year award here.

I feel I should feel lucky to have him. And I am to a degree. But he is fucking lucky to have me. I do so much for our family, and it's not even recognised or Acknowledged.

So if you have got this far, thank you for reading xx

XH could be a bit like this. All 'I'll cook Christmas dinner, you just sit down' and no sooner was my arse on the seat than he needed help with the gravy or wanting to know how long to put the roast potatoes in for. I would have had more rest with him buggering off and just letting me do it! When he cooked, he used every dish in the place and I was expected to clean up, as that was fair. Funnily enough, when I cooked (the majority of the time), I was expected to clear up as well! Smack him with a wet fish, OP!

I get this all the time

My parents think I'm a lazy cow and dh does everything

'Oh isn't he good, you're so lucky ' because I told my sister he was sorting one Xmas present for one dc this Xmas, no your husband is a useless fecker, mine is normal not a bloody saint

Oh I've just remembered an absolute classic from dh this week

I started a new job on Monday

It's involved us all getting up earlier, being super organised in the morning , getting dcs to childcare etc

Tuesday morning dh is still in bathroom when I need to go in so I nagged him a bit, and he said ' don't have a go at me, I'm doing the best I can for you '

I nearly killed him, like my new job is for me not the family

XDH was like this. I later discovered everyone knew and thought he was a glory-hunting twat, but nobody (me, them) had the guts to call him out on it.

I would have been perfectly happy if he'd just said "I couldn't have done it without Purple" or "it was fun, the real challenge is doing the other 20 meals a week that Purple does". But no, he didn't because he thought he was a superhero.

I've washed up for you.
I've hoovered for you.
I've cleaned the bathroom for you.

NO YOU FUCKING HAVEN'T

What would happen if you had said 'oh today's meal is from M&S, which I bought.'

Id reply "oh yes the training is going really well. DH can now cook wonderfully. Very soon we are adding in doing it alongside caring for the children and then adding on the tidying up afterwards. And you've said you can't wait to be as able to multitask as amazingly as me haven't you"

Ok, so it's PA and you'd need to judge your audience.

and probably not a great idea!

Yanbu cooking is clearly a bit of a hobby for him, he still needs to pull his weight with everything else

I like cooking and do most of it. I have a split in my head between practical, everyday cooking, which is quick and simple, and fun cooking when I am doing fancy pants stuff. Fun cooking, like your dh does is a hobby and therefore comes second to taking care of children and boring family stuff. When I get to do it I consider it my me time. Yes dh gets to eat it, but really it is me that benefits from spending the day mucking about with pastry.

I think you should just tell your dh that there isn't time for his hobby tonight, it is not necessary and there are more important things that need doing.

As for the other stuff, you could try leaping out from behind the door with a party popper and shouting 'hurrah, you are so clever!' everytime he puts some dirty clothes in the basket.

Yawn

I support you completely with this, no wonder you feel resentful. That unwillingness to share in the mundane tasks and also to clear up after his cooking sessions. My ex would make a meal once every blue moon, never ate with us. It would be something really simple such as lasagne (he was usually off work for a period of time, I worked full time) and then I couldn't enjoy it because he kept sitting and watching me eat it. He would question me about it all the way through, and after the meal. It also meant the kitchen was then full of overpriced products shoved in cupboards and fridges, no one was going to use and then I had to clear out!
I hated it, would much rather have had a sandwich and some peace.

Perhaps next time you should pick a meal you want, mark your territory and tell him to clear out and do the tasks you normally do. Write a tick list for him, see how he likes it.

Seriously read the book "wifework" he truly believes the mundane is beneath him!

He needs to do the shopping beforehand and the cleanup afterward if he's the one insisting on all the dinner parties.

And I would find something urgent to do with a friend on the day so he's got the kids.

This is very typical of some blokes. They love to show off by cooking xmas dinner or Sunday roasts but have no interest in the day to day drudgery of cooking everyday family meals or cleaning up after their extravagant show dinner.

I am Australian. I know the BBQ rules well.

Oh god yes that would drive me insane. I think it's just the way of the world!

DP wants some kind of award when he cooks once every ?3 months. Yet I cook the boring meals day in day out. Why do you think I cool boring meals? Because I have to do it every day and it's really chuffing tedious.

I'm petty so I'd craft some medals and adorn him with one every time he wants praise for some mundane task that you normally do without even thinking thinking (or posting on social media).

DH was off work last week

I explained in the morning that the meat was marinating in the fridge and X wanted pasta and Y prefers noodles

Get home to everyone starving asking what's for tea -

Ffs!!!

Behind every amazing man cook, there is an even more amazing female washer-upper and general dogsbody.

Tell him v gently that you're not cleaning up after him from now on. Place everything in a cardboard box if necessary and leave on the side for him to do next time. Use crap disposable cutlery and paper plates until sorted. You know, the kind that snap when you cut into a roast potato, plates that cannot hold food and go floppy. Serve ready meals or sandwiches. shouldn't be honouring invites if he is not well enough to buy a ready meal from M&S to then pass off as his own serve up to guests, leaving you to do all the crap.

Why do you enable it?

When he bellows orders at you, why do you obey?

When he leaves the washing up, why do you do it?