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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

About DP and online shopping

244 replies

blackjacker · 07/09/2017 18:20

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 Hmm. 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).

OP posts:
SilverBirchTree · 08/09/2017 07:20

Keep doing what you're doing OP. He can run to the shops if there is no food, not your problem to solve.

If DP feels unduly burdened by this simple task (as some PPs seem to think he is) then he can brainstorm a solution and bring it to you.

The very fact that you're spending your time working through this problem is evidence of the 'mental load' that you are shouldering alone. Pretty sure this bloke isn't on Dadsnet right seeking input on his meal planning/cooking/division of labour and wondering if he is being reasonable.

eddielizzard · 08/09/2017 07:22

cooking 2 meals is hardly an imposition. of course he can do it. having a penis doesn't render him incapable of doing it.

BusyBeez99 · 08/09/2017 07:23

It's still a bit 'us and them' though. Just do the shop online yourself and then he cooks.

Quartz2208 · 08/09/2017 07:25

Maybe get him to list 10 meals he can make and then you rota them over a five week period

He knows by not dong the online shopping bit you have to take over. By agreeing in advance you can add it to the shop and then it's there for him to make. By not adding you are in a battle of stubbornness if you do the shop he has less wiggle room on the cooking which is what you want him to do

I think it shouldn't matter whether they are your dc or dsc and I think initially some responses focused on that part. But it's incidental to your issue which is you want him to share the load

averythinline · 08/09/2017 07:26

Its not working....this would also annoy me so dont suggest you give up but think i would try different solutions first to see what does work...as your right it needs to be sorted before you go back to work..

eg try the together approach- meal plan/do online all at once at some stage whether its the weekend when the dsc are there so they can take part in it as well...

13bastards · 08/09/2017 07:29

@AlternativeTentacle
Agreed 100%

lljkk · 08/09/2017 07:31

This isn't about cooking.
It's about Meal planning.
My husband was honest enough to admit he was rubbish at occasional tasks & especially those that require advance planning. But give him an every day task & he'll get it done (he's great with routines).
Your husband is failing at occasional meal planning.
So, is another bloke who needs routine.
(my DH now cooks all nights that he's home, and has done for years -- but we both do food shopping, whatever seems required).

If your household MUST meal plan (we don't meal plan & nor do we waste food), then that job probably needs to go to OP.
But the husband can still cook on weekends; for that matter, he should cook every weekend, not just when his DSC are there.

More wins in that picture than in current situation.

thereallochnessmonster · 08/09/2017 07:32

I would find something else for him to take responsibility for

Rolling my eyes hard at that

He's not a child. He'a grown man who should be cooking for his own dc, and playing his part in managing his house, not being a lazy, PA twat.

Can't BELIEVE some of these responses.

TheGoodEnoughWife · 08/09/2017 07:33

Completely not being unreasonable and the 'not cooking for step children' is a red herring. He cooks two meals at the weekend.

Those saying just plan two meals and add the food needed to the shop - this is what is the most hassle out of all of it! The bloody planning!

I would love someone to plan our meals and shop for them and just tell me what to cook. But that doesn't happen (well, it does quite a lot but that would be because I am married to a proper grown up who, despite owning a penis, can plan, shop, cook and clear up!). This is the mental load part.

He doesn't get to opt out because he doesn't want to. It is two meals. He is capable and it should not be the op responsibility to help/facilitate/plan/encourage.

Ragwort · 08/09/2017 07:33

I think the fact that they are step children is a red herring.

^^ This is probably true, if the OP had rephrased her comments as 'DH can't be bothered to plan and cook the meals at the weekend', everyone would agree that he was being unreasonable in his expectations that she does all the 'wife work'.

It is the fact that step children were mentioned and that OP felt she shouldn't have to prep and cook for the DSC that makes the whole thing sound so petty and ridiculous - as if she was willing to cook for herself, DH and their child - but not the DSC. But perhaps this is not what she intended to say?

jelly10 · 08/09/2017 07:36

I haven't read the whole thread so sorry if I'm repeating what others have said...

I totally understand the frustration if you feel like you're doing all the household chores and also having the mental responsibility for planning them. But I think there are better ways to divide them than basing it on when your step children are staying and trying to split an online shop between 2 people. I work almost full time and find the worst thing about doing the online shop is having to plan what we're going to have before I place the order as it always needs to be done mid-week when I'm busy with work and everything else. Plus I think it would be difficult to add items for just one or two meals as you would have to check whether any shared ingredients were already on the list.

It might be easier if you did the planning and ordering, and he did some of the cooking. I also think it makes a difference if you present it as 'you do the cooking at the weekend because I do it during the week' instead of 'you do the cooking at the weekend because your children are here'

TheGoodEnoughWife · 08/09/2017 07:37

I agree. And I really don't think that is the OP thought. She has said she gets in Friday evening meal for them and breakfasts.

It is just a wish for the other adult in the house to take responsibility for two meals a week. Completely reasonable!

EssentialHummus · 08/09/2017 07:37

I never know what to say on threads like this, and get myself in a tangle over "mental load" stuff. I have to say, I agree with this from a PP:

Never give someone half a job
Its inefficient and doesnt work

In your shoes I'd order whatever suits you and leave him to make it (not in some vindictive four hour prep way, just an ordinary meal), with the proviso that if he doesn't want that thing can he let you know by [Thursday].

Mirrorballfrog · 08/09/2017 07:37

If your household MUST meal plan (we don't meal plan & nor do we waste food)

Totally off topic but may I ask how you do this? I don't like meal planning as don't always fancy what I've planned but I waste so much food otherwise!

TheGoodWife16 · 08/09/2017 07:38

As you clearly view his children as 'his', not a joint responsibility whenever they're in his care, I would advise you to be prepared for huge resentment and bitterness when they're older.

I fully understand that you'd like him to do his share, but this smacks of point scoring at the expense of his children.

Treat others as you'd like to be treated OP - the fact that they're not apparently worthy of your time and effort when something simple like meal planning is involved is pathetic.

I feel hugely sorry for his children.

pigeondujour · 08/09/2017 07:40

I feel sorry for his children too. Must be shit to have a dad who gets limited time with you but doesn't look forward to it enough to do the most basic of planning, and also doesn't care about you being fed.

TheGoodEnoughWife · 08/09/2017 07:40

These threads always give me the rage.

The suggestions that the OP should just get on with it, not make a fuss, pick up the slack because her husband 'doesn't want to' - all of this could apply to him but they don't for some reason. Why isn't he encouraged to just get on with? Do the meals at the weekend because his wife doesn't want to? Told to not make a fuss as it is just two meals?

The encouragement to silence a woman from other women is shocking imo

Mirrorballfrog · 08/09/2017 07:41

As you clearly view his children as 'his', not a joint responsibility whenever they're in his care, I would advise you to be prepared for huge resentment and bitterness when they're older.

Bollocks to that. I was always glad when my stepmother made my father take responsibility for us. Thank fuck someone did!

❤️'D my step mum. Not my Dad so much.

chickaleta · 08/09/2017 07:45

Sorry if this has already been said but just stop reminding him. Place your online order and when it gets to Saturday morning ask him what's on the menu.
He'll just have to go to the supermarket won't he?

Ellisandra · 08/09/2017 07:49

I'm still trying to stop my eyes rolling around my head from this dick asking the OP to add wine to the order because he "doesn't like the website". Fucking hell. And we know he's a laptop gamer, so he's not a rare breed technophobe.

I'm also a bit Hmm about the phrase "mental load" though. Sometimes, we create mental load when we don't have to. My mother cooked for 8 every day. Every Saturday we had sausages and chips - yes, in the days before everyone had freezers so that was hand peeled spuds poor woman! But there was low mental load around that meal.

He can make the same meals each weekend, or alternate two. It's an easy routine and once it's a routine the mental load decreases.

I think it's a poor battle ground because of the emotive issue around them being step children. But it's a battle worth fighting on another front.

PoorYorick · 08/09/2017 07:52

You sound as though you don't include the stepchildren as part of the package of your family, and he sounds like a strategically incompetent tosser.

Myhomeismycastle · 08/09/2017 07:56

Christ on a bike Hmm some of the comments on here!

OP isn't asking the world is she? She's ultimately asking for DH to take some responsibility for his children being fed.

As for comments like 'go in the kitchen & cook whilst he spends time with his DC's,' & 'you're not working right now, so you do it all' Really? People think that's acceptable to say Confused

Liiinoo · 08/09/2017 07:59

I don't think YABU. If this is the agreement you both made and committed to then it is reasonable to stick to it, no matter how clunky or awkward it may seem to outsiders.

What is unreasonable is to keep reminding him of it. That's treating him like a child and you have now reached a point when if you don't remind him repeatedly, you become the one at fault when he forgets. Let it go. If forgetting makes more work for him he will start to remember. If after a few weeks he is still forgetting then talk to him and suggest that if you take over his shopping responsibilities he can do X or Y instead.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 08/09/2017 08:01

Yanbu

Its ever so easy to do an online shop together if you both want to. One of us does a chunk and then the other finishes

I may have missed how old the children are but if they are old enough could you give them a list of potential food so they can pick it...just one list, not a new one every week

Then they can tell daddy what they want and he can pop it on the list

Eolian · 08/09/2017 08:03

YANBU that he needs to pull his weight. YABU to divide online supermarket shopping into two peoples' tasks. Either you do it or he does, but he should do 50% of the cooking.