About DP and online shopping

[blackjacker]

So I'm pretty sure on the whole I'm not BU but there are a couple of aspects that are possibly U.

My DSC visit every weekend and until I had my DS (6 months) I meal planned and cooked pretty much every night, including the nights his kids stayed. Once DS was born I asked that he take on meal planning, shopping and cooking the nights DSC are here. We shop online, in practise this means I still do the bulk of planning and shopping and he has the login and can add whatever he wants or needs for the weekend. The shop comes the same day every week and the cut off for editing is the same every bloody week. For 6 months I have had to remind him that a) his kids need feeding and b) to add stuff to the shop. This isn't just one reminder, I'm usually texting him right up to the cut off time and as he doesn't like the website he usually asks me to add his items.

So last week I reminded him as per usual and he asks me to add a couple of snacky bits and some wine. Nothing for the DSC meals. I decided not to highlight this and let him deal with the fallout. Lo and behold the weekend comes, he asks me what's for dinner (ffs) and I remind him it's his responsibility at the weekend and he didn't order anything. He was super pissed off that he had to go to the supermarket and said we were meant to be a team . I said I'm not reminding him anymore, he needs to be organised enough to sort it himself.

This week, nothing added. Oh well, no dinner sorted for the weekend again but I'm fucking fuming. He will say he was working away but he wasn't working in middle of nowhere, there's evidently wifi as he's found time to game on his laptop in the hotel room.

This is all incredibly petty and at the end if the day the DSC miss out. I HAVE meals I could cook this weekend but how is he going to learn to take some responsibility? This has the mental load written all over it and I want him to see that he is relying on me to do all my jobs and remember to remind him to do his.

So AIBU? And if not, I need some bullet points on how to convey this to him in a calm, non argumentative way. I'm on mat leave at the moment but this is the tip of the iceberg and just one example when it comes to division of labour and I can't see things changing when I go back I work (especially as things were no different when I was actually at work).

Just RTFT and saw he's a lazy shit generally. Stop fretting about adding stuff to grocery list and talk to him ffs. You're going to end up splitting up because you resent him so much. He needs to take on more around the house. Not this random grocery task because it makes something simple very convoluted but other things.

I'm thinking I should open a business getting my dh to train other men not to be utter shits.

Feminism is alive & well in our house, he works a demanding job, commutes an hr+ each way, pays a (male) cleaner, does more cleaning than me, all the gardening, all the household admin &at least 50% of our disabled dc admin (there is alot of this), he makes all snack pack ups/sorts uniform night before. &All diy or organising workmen. He does most bedtimes and v early mornings. He is the only one in our house who knows how to work the iron.

I care for the kids (in school 2hrs a day), I do 50% kid admin, I do all the kid organising (buying clothes etc-bigger deal as sensory issues/obsessions etc), I organise extra therapies/facilitate play dates (again difficult with anxious kids)/plan activities, I do most of the washing, bathroom cleaning and some washing up/kitchen cleaning and remind him to change beds. I work a little when i want to and as fits around carers allowance (for my mh &to keep skills upto date). I do all night wakenings (alot still sadly).

I normally do the shopping list online but he will if we get short, he picks up more from the shops but normally I prompt him (as often run out while he's at work). We share cooking but have no issue if one does want to &he will order take away or cook just for me without problems.

More importantly I feel emotionally supported and valued in our family. And we still love spending time together. The op sounds very lonely. And that's the problem with the mental load is how alone it leaves (mostly) women feeling.

I would make a fricken fortune if I could get him to train other men!

There's no training required though really, it's an attitudinal shift. Once someonem views it as being their responsibility they would just pitch in.

Sure, that's what I mean though, train men to have a better attitude, train them to look past their socialisation, get them to recognise women are not here for 'wife work'.

However it was partially tongue in cheek & part because I can't believe how I would ever cope if my dh made left me feeling that alone within our family.

Plus I do think it's men's responsibility to fix male attitudes not womens.

Same way I think it's men who are responsible for teaching other men not to be violent, not women who should teach their daughters not to get raped etc

@NoMoreNotToday that sounds like a fair set-up. I can think of a few candidates if you ever start the consultancy.

You need to stop reminding him, otherwise you're still carrying the load of being the person who remembers that he needs to do that. Tell him you won't be reminding him at all and if he wants things added to the online shop he can do that, otherwise he can do a second online shop or go to the supermarket.

DH and I have a similar setup (he cooks at weekends and I don't plan those meals) but I tend to have a lot of food in the house so sometimes he makes something with what we've got and other times he goes to the shop. E.g. we always have frozen chicken, pasta, jars of tomato sauce, cheese, beans, vegetables, frozen pizza, chips, flour, eggs. DH won't complain if there's nothing in the house but I like a well stocked cupboard anyway so this works for me.

YADNBU!

Regardless of whether you have 10 children, no children and whoever their parents are or are not - why on earth can he not manage to cook/ organise just 2 meals a week at weekends?

If he can hold down a job and decide what to eat from reading a menu he has the skills to put 2 meals on the table. Hasn't he even got the wit to say that it will be A and B one week, and X and Y the next? It is not difficult - the OP is not expecting gourmet meals.

The fact that he has ALL his children to provide food for means even more that he should pull his weight on those days.

He just doesn't want to. That is really shit.

Then to claim a lack of 'team work' when the OP won't let him get away with being selfish and lazy is disgusting arsehole behaviour.

LTB. Really.

And the fact that anyone would apologise for this selfishness makes me so

"I fail to see why you can't just add in a bag of chicken nuggets or whatever the kids eat for the weekend anyway. It's a few clicks of a mouse."

Its not though, is it? Its the remembering it needs to be done, the thinking about "what did they have last time so they dont have the same thing every time", the working out of quantities, thinking about preferences and allergies and nutrition. Then the thinking about "what will he have time/energy to cook from the options that we've narrowed it down to", and do we need any sides? If this meal needs rice, do we HAVE rice or do I have to add that as well?

The final "and this is the decision" click is NOT the total work involved here.

YANBU at all! Some of the responses on this thread are bizarre.

I would make meal planning and shopping entirely his responsibility. You could generously cook the weekday meals he has planned and shopped for, and he can cook at weekends.

You're not being at all unreasonable. Having said that...

Whilst I understand the "he cooks when the SC are here" is merely about a fairer division of work, the step children might wonder whether it's personal. In fact, many posters here have assumed it is.

Maybe it'd be better to agree a division of the work which doesn't have the potential to make the SC feel any less loved and welcome. However, you should really stick to your guns on your husband taking full responsibility for some more aspects of running the home, which means not relying on you to remind him!

Whilst I understand the "he cooks when the SC are here" is merely about a fairer division of work, the step children might wonder whether it's personal. In fact, many posters here have assumed it is.

That would be fair enough except the OP has said she cooks for the SC on Friday nights and provides breakfast and lunch on Saturday/Sunday. Dear Daddy only has to cook 2 meals, the OP does all the rest.

The sdc may take it personally that their dad never bothers to cook for them also

I would keep it up. He will never step up otherwise. The dc don't really care ime. And they will survive.

For the record I don't think it's petty. He said he would do it. You rely on him to do it. He's letting you all down. Letting him face the fallout is basic stuff. We use it on toddlers all the time!

Besides how do you know he won't have the exact same attitude with anything else he takes on?

Don't go down the fuming route btw

That still gives a message that you are in control of this task. I'd be surprised and disappointed. I ask was he thinking of us all eating out? He thought you were a team? Well so did you.

It will take time for him to reset his thinking in this. You need to give it at least 6w.

Has everyone read the post properly? Before her own child she used to meal plan and cook for the step kids. Now she has a baby to look after herself she's asked the father of the step kids to pull his weight in the ordering of the food. Not cooking, not taking care of the step kids, the ORDERING of food, which takes less than half an hour. I don't think she's being unreasonable about him not thinking about his own kids' welfare. They're not neglected by the OP from what she says as she has cared for them in the past.

I can't stand men who don't think and forward plan.

If the problem is it's too hard for him to plan two meals

Then maybe the solution would be for him to do it all, so that he gets better at it and it takes much less effort. Or he does everything else, to free you up to do the food planning, shopping and cooking. That would be my starting position.

Whatever you do, please don't fall for the line that it's too difficult for him, so you should suck it up. Some of the answers you have receive, explain why this is still an issue, years after we spotted the inequality. Sigh, all the best.

p.s. Congratulations n your baby

Glad others have picked up thee 'Y chromosome' anomaly. I just actually had to google it to make sure I hadn't misunderstood the basic biology at school for all these years (lighthearted, not being a GF or being mean disclaimer)

Nothing useful to add that hasn't already been said though so shall slink back under my rock.