... about husband and (sort of) adult daughter.

[JennieLee]

Husband is retired. 22 year old daughter is currently at home - not working - though will soon be moving out to start job and live in flat in another city. I'm doing freelance work of a type that can be quite draining - unpredictable, working with varied teams, demanding clients, lots of flexibility required.

I got back yesterday to find loads of undone washing up all over the kitchen and my daughter looking very sorry for herself while stirring our biggest pan which was completely full of lentils coming to the boil.

I asked her what was up and she said she was tired after going to the shops. The bag of flour she'd bought had been heavy.

I probably sighed and then she started saying why was I angry with her. I said it had been a long day for me and focused on making myself a couple of tea and getting out of the way.

The eventual meal - my daughter has vegan tendencies - was a very watery bland dhal and rice. My husband has been away and she's been cooking pulses with rice constantly in his absence. I ate what was on my plate but refused a second helping.

While they were eating seconds I got up and had some Stilton on a cracker - perhaps because I'd been very physically active at work, my body was craving a bit of animal protein.

My husband can never see anyone eating without wanting to have the same thing himself. So after his second helping he get up and began to get cheese and biscuits for himself. I said, 'Can you do me Stilton and a cracker too'.

Normally it's the other way round. I am up and he'll ask if I'd just get him something - so I'm constantly making him toast or fetching jam or salt or making him tea.

He started faffing about and saying did I want him to have Stilton rather than a cheddar. I said No, have what you like. About five minutes later he sat down with a plate of Stilton on oatcakes for himself. I said 'Where's mine?' 'Oh did you want some as well?' he asked. He then got me - after more faffing - a very tiny bit of Stilton on an oatcake.

This was the point where I got cross and said, 'I asked for a cracker. Do I have to ask four times to get something really simple? He said he hadn't heard. My daughter then got up and got me a cracker.

But I just feel so defeated. It doesn't seem that much to want to come back to a cleanish house when two people have been in all day. And for one of those people to cook an edible meal. Or for the other person to be able to fetch me a bit of cheese if the meal is not that great.

I just feel my life is pretty shit right now.

OP, absolutely get your irritation.

I bet you put up with a lot of selfishness.

The meal sounds disgusting and you are having a variation of it lots of nights because she cooks this shite in huge amounts.

Disgusting.

Start spelling out or make a list of what you want done and tell them you expect.

Your DD moving out is a great time to tell your husband he had better step up re house and meals.

Spell it out and take no hostages!

Coming home to a messy house is bloody annoying.

Also start being a lot less accommadating.

This is what works with self-absorbed people IME.

Hope you have a nicer day today💐

Is this real? I’ve never seen a thread which is just a list of utter non-issues like this one is. So your daughter dared to feel tired, and that annoyed you because you felt you were more tired? I can’t stand people who make tiredness or emotions a competition like this. Everyone is entitled to her feelings and you did ask her what was wrong! Your daughter cooked a healthy meal for the family which you happen to have not enjoyed? I’m sure she’s eaten meals that you’ve cooked which she didn’t love before - at least she cooked for the family! Are you usually this critical and negative and ungrateful? Okay so she didn’t clean the kitchen after cooking. In most households, the cook doesn’t clean. Maybe she wanted to sit down and enjoy the meal she had just prepared for you which you had been so thankless about? Your husband not getting you the snack you wanted is mildly irritating. I can’t believe it bothered you enough to write a thread about it! Did you just have a particularly bad day or are you always this negative and critical? I hope it’s just the former because if it’s the latter then I feel for your husband and daughter. You can’t be easy to live with if you often act like this. I honestly can’t get over the end of your post where you said you feel like your life is pretty rubbish at the moment! I bet there’s people out there reading this in absolute disbelief, wishing that their biggest problem was that their daughter kindly cooked a meal which they happened to not enjoy that much, or that their husband accidentally got them a bloody oatcake instead of a cracker. Hang on a minute... is this a reverse?! Could it be that your daughter wrote this? Because that would make more sense. I really think she’s the one with something to complain about here (being snapped at for feeling tired, cooking a healthy dinner which was criticized, watching her dad get told off for getting the wrong snack)! I hope this is a reverse because otherwise it’s just ridiculous.

Reason: only ruminants and hind gut grazers can break down the cellulose of plants. Out of this they manufacture long chain fatty acids that are the building blocks of protein which they store in fat. The brain of humans is made up mainly of fat (the myelin sheath that surrounds the literally billions of nerves that make up the brain).

In nature, ruminants and hind gut grazers are prey animals in the food chain. (They have a biological response to go into shock very quickly and succumb. Watch any documentary and see how quickly they shut down). There is a REASON that lions catch wildebeest, tigers catch those suka deer, snakes catch mice and polar bears seals (and polar bears only eat the fat interestingly enough). It is because the grazers convert grass.

The short gut of human cannot manufacture these long chain fatty acids. That is why we eat grazers. Vegans deny human reality. Denial is neurotic. Your choice, but don't tell me how healthy you are and how I should be like you.

I get it.

You've been out at work all day and you come home to a messy house and an unappetising meal - we've all been there!

However your daughter did take the time to go shopping and cook - why isn't your husband taking any blame? He should be doing the majority of the housework now that he's retired, surely?

@Bookworm4 read the above.

I bet you have never heard the word 'cellulose' before in your life. Or what bacteria in the hind gut break it down, or what it is broken down into. Or what that has to do with nutrition and how we are biologically linked to it. I don't think about from some stupid ravings about 'the environment' you have ever stopped to consider an ecosystem.

So go and tell your ignorance to someone else.

apart, not about

If people are home all day they should be doing the lions share of the housework. You need to spell it out.
Why don't you get involved with your daughters cooking and on your off days do some cooking together. Buy a vegan recipe book and cook the recipes together. Show enthusiasm for it and encourage her with it. She will hopefully start to enjoy cooking and trying to cook new things.
Can't imagine you are getting much in the way of nutrition at the moment. Which is probably half the cause of you feeling low and grumpy.

Bookworm - couldn't agree more (about the ignorance). I've vegan. Perfectly healthy and fit, thank you.

But that's maybe because I have bothered to educate myself about how to be vegan and ensure you get the necessary nutrients (it's really not difficult). And also how to cook vegan meals that have texture and taste (it's all in the seasoning and finding those umami tastes) (again it's really not difficult).

Very few people realise I'm vegan. Many people comment on how fit and energetic I am.

MN loves to hate the vegans, it’s so ignorant. After a run this morning I better go back to bed instead of work and dream of my watery rice 🤣
My diet is much healthier than the crap I see folk shovelling into their fat faces every day, all the ‘lovely kind’ mummy’s on here but happy enough to eat dead animals and mock others who made a good moral choice.

Certainly love to hate this kind of vegan. From far, far, away. . .

Someone cooked you a meal and you got up and ate something different whilst they were still eating the meal. I would find that very rude if I were your daughter.

If you don't like what your daughter cooks, ask her not to cook for you and cook something separate for yourself in future.

Mumsnet law number 123: if a poster mentions the word “vegan” in a post then the thread will descend into a heated debate about veganism within 20 posts and all hope of the actual issues in the OP being addressed will be lost forever.

I have met healthy vegans and I think it's possible, but only if they really know what they are doing, eat enough good fats and protein and understand what they are at risk of missing out on nutritionally. That is pretty rare, especially when a lot of people want to try it as a fashion and think that just eating lots of organic lentils = "healthy".

Oops, got sucked into tangent 123 :o

I don't think we've got enough to go on here OP. My husband is a dick. I've read your OP and looked at the assumptions people have made from it, and I wonder is the problem that your DH is generally a dick too?

On the point of your post. No YANBU. DD should cook a decent meal and have tidied up. DH should have been more considerate.

On veganism, I make a great Dahl, but it involves many spices, a mortar and pestle, fresh ginger, chillies. As others have said, veganism is a great healthy diet as long as you know what you’re doing. The more recent explosion in vegan processed convenience food does not make a good diet.

It does read a bit like an episode of Wallace and Gromit.

I think you were all probably a bit unreasonable and tired

Sorry about 123.

I get where you're coming from OP. Are you possibly hormonal as well at the moment? I find my tolerance evaporates to the point where I should have red lights flashing and klaxons blaring when I am.

It sounds like it's definitely time for daughter to leave the nest, and find like minded flatties, so they can all evolve their cooking skills and diets together!

If DP is now retired, and you're still working, then you need to discuss and renegotiate who does what and when. He might want to take up cooking as a hobby. . .

If he's the absent minded professor type, then asking him to get you a snack was only ever going to end in yet another disappointment.

Am I missing something?

Bigger picture notwithstanding, it sounds like you were really rude throughout tbh, especially about the meal.

You are angry that she didn't make something "edible"? When you got home she was already cooking (so it's not like you had to do any nagging) something from scratch for you all. I think you are being extremely rude about it. If you want something different you should (politely) suggest could we have X tonight, or make it yourself.

I get why your husband frequently mishearing would be annoying but not worth more than an eye roll, he got you the snack he just didn't hear you the first time. Not nearly as rude as you sneering at your daughters home cooked meal and making a point of getting a snack while they were still eating, noticeably irritated the whole time.

If they never do the dishes I get that, but if they just hadn't been done YET and they did them later, you need to chill.

I get that you were tired but you sound like a really critical, passive aggressive person to live with.

You were tired and had a bad day. I can’t fathom how your DD cooking you a bland meal and your DH only giving you a small amount of cheese equates to having a shit life.

God but you sound like a whiney pain in the arse. A meal got cooked - dont like it, cook your own. Someone got you an oaktcake w cheese instead of a cracker. Big. Fucking. Deal.

Not surprised that your dh lives in his own head sometimes.

It sounds like your dd and dh have been a bit thoughtless, and you were tired which is never going to end well.

Your dd needs to try and spice up her meals, your dh needs to listen (I have one of these so feel your pain), and you need to bite your tongue when you're tired.

But when you have a partner who just by default can't be bothered to lift a finger and has to be asked to do anything and doesn't listen, it's hard not to nag and whine. I came to this conclusion after many years with mine. He put me in a position where I could either:

• Do everything myself for a quiet life, while he had lots of lovely rest and spare time

• Nag and remind and "whine" which he then reacted badly to and made out I was soooo unreasonable while he was Mr Chilled and lovely bloke

• Leave because I'd had enough, I did leave and guess what, whiny nagging cow no more.

OMG why are you constantly fetching food for him? It’s not become the norm for to serve him.

Either tell him to sort himself out next time or get him to serve you in equal measure!

Did you do the washing up?