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Original poster

So many martyrs at Christmas

161 replies

Changinforaflamin · 17/12/2019 08:23

And it’s always women... why?

Why do we do it to ourselves? Why do we struggle to just say no and do things the way we want? Or why do we let lazy partners get away with doing nothing?

I’ve been guilty of this myself but my husband never does it and I don’t get why.

Please enlighten me Grin

OP posts:
WorraLiberty · 17/12/2019 11:29

As an adult my attempts were all pretty good worra. As a young child my mum supervised me when cooking so results were always reasonably good and by the age of 12 I could cook quite well (or at least quite well by my standards). I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t cook.

Well that's great.

Your DP has literally millions of video tutorials on the internet to 'supervise and teach him'.

Really really easy step-by-step guides.

Pfefferkuchen · 17/12/2019 11:30

Wanting to eat decent tasting food does not make me a martyr.

well, enjoying cooking and going all out to serve a beautiful meal is lovely, but only as long as it makes you happy, and you don't moan and cry about - basically as long as you don't become a martyr about it Grin

Pfefferkuchen · 17/12/2019 11:30

I hope all you mothers of sons are teaching them how to cook!

I am not.
I leave it to DH, he's teaching my daughters at the same time.

WorraLiberty · 17/12/2019 11:33

All these men who can't cook
I hope all you mothers of sons are teaching them how to cook!

I doubt it somehow.

Kids learn best by example and if the example given is that women do all the cooking and men do none, that's a whole new generation who think it's ok.

Pipandmum · 17/12/2019 11:34

I love Christmas and everything associated with it so am happy to do the shopping and card writing, decorating etc and don't moan or think it's a hardship. However I told my husband I was not buying his parents their gifts nor writing cards to his friends. If he didn't do it that was his choice.
I was lucky that he always cooked the Christmas dinner!

ShamblyChristmas · 17/12/2019 11:44

Because otherwise someone will spend a crap Christmas alone (when they don't want to and have made it clear they don't want to).

Surely, just as we expect men to be an adult and help and do the mental load, we can expect people to be adults and sort their own fucking plans?

If you do t want to spend a day alone, make some fucking plans

Absolutely, if the person is not elderly or frail in some way, or in poor mental health, or if their husband hasn't killed himself, or is recently widowed (the latter two apply to two separate individuals in my family for example).

Call me old-fashioned, but sometimes it is simply the right thing to do although I know that view isn't popular and leaves me wide open to accusations of martyrdom.

It's not that you actively hate having them to stay, it's just that you may not choose to at that particular moment, owing to other stuff going on in your life, but Christmas is a fixed point.

All I am saying that this isn't simply a black and white situation and it's sometimes not as easy as saying "right, the drawbridge is going up this year". It may be possible for a couple of years here and there to do that, but not every year.

IWorkAtTheCheesecakeFactory · 17/12/2019 11:46

I hope all you mothers of sons are teaching them how to cook!

Their dads can do that.

rhubarbcrumbles · 17/12/2019 11:47

Great if DHs are teaching sons and daughters to cook. I can't imagine children not learning to cook TBH, how will they cope at university or when they leave home let alone at Xmas.

bluebluezoo · 17/12/2019 11:48

I was lucky that he always cooked the Christmas dinner!

Why does that make you "lucky"?

You do everything else from the sounds of it, surely it's just him doing his share?

It's the "for me" mindset. I have consciously made an effort to stop asking DH to "load the dishwasher for me", or "clean the bathroom for me".

It isn't "for me". He isn't doing me a favour and I do not need to be grateful or appreciative.

ffswhatnext · 17/12/2019 11:48

All these men who can't cook
I hope all you mothers of sons are teaching them how to cook!

Mine saw both sexes cook. They were encouraged to be involved from a young age. Same with everything else. I didn't want them leaving me unable to be independent adults. Fucked up loads of stuff of course, but I did the best I could to ensure they wouldn't be dependent on anyone else. If there's someone there to share the load with, awesome. If not, they will still manage.

BertrandRussell · 17/12/2019 11:49

I remember somebody asking Jay Rayner if he could cook and he said “Of course I can - I’m an adult”

LovePoppy · 17/12/2019 11:53

^Absolutely, if the person is not elderly or frail in some way, or in poor mental health, or if their husband hasn't killed himself, or is recently widowed (the latter two apply to two separate individuals in my family for example).*
Fair enough in these cases, but this isn’t the norm.

Pfefferkuchen · 17/12/2019 11:55

I can't imagine children not learning to cook TBH, how will they cope at university or when they leave home let alone at Xmas.

they'll start with pot noodle, get bored, experiment and start cooking. It's not a hard skill to master.

I can cook quite nicely, DH cooks superbly and none of us cooks on Christmas Day. None of us wants to be stuck in the kitchen all morning when everybody else is having fun, and we usually have people around. One of my kids might want to take over one day, or not.

The day women will stop talking about MY kitchen and have rules, things will improve a lot.

ffswhatnext · 17/12/2019 11:58

Absolutely, if the person is not elderly or frail in some way, or in poor mental health, or if their husband hasn't killed himself, or is recently widowed (the latter two apply to two separate individuals in my family for example).

Maybe I'm a bitch because none of those reasons would still get a person I didn't like into my home.

56Marshmallow · 17/12/2019 11:58

I do all of the kids presents for several reasons. I buy in advance to take advantage of sale prices (90% of what they have, I haven't paid full price for). I know what they'd really like because I have conversations with them in the months leading up to Xmas. DP is quite a detached parent so wouldn't really know what to buy them. I want the kids to enjoy what they're given. DP would leave everything until Xmas Eve. The present buying, the wrapping, the food (so wouldn't be able to get the main food we'd want).

He volunteers to do the wrapping.....on Christmas Eve. I have it done at least a week before then so I know it's done. I don't want to be up until 2am in the morning dealing with it all.

He very rarely cooks and he won't cook Xmas dinner because he uses the excuse that he's a veggie. If I ask him to peel potatoes, he'll do it reluctantly. He'd also do it timing wise that everything else would be ready an hour before the potatoes because he is seemingly unable to time plan effectively.

I never, ever shop for his side of the family. He's usually running around like a loon trying to do it on Boxing Day and panicking that he can't get the right voucher for his Dad because the shop is shut!

tillytrotter1 · 17/12/2019 11:59

When I commented that OH hadn't written a card, except to his old girl friend who I doubt he'd recognise in the street, he asked who had put up the outside lights in the cold and wind, which is true.
He gets 'helpful' in the oddest way, he once put a load of washing in on Christmas morning, only when I came to take the roasting tin from the oven did I realise that it included both oven gloves! His main job is to keep everyone out of the kitchen, personally I can't bear people in there being 'helpful', especially as they insist that they do it this way. No, go and munch a sausage roll and have a few drinks, leave me to it.

81Byerley · 17/12/2019 11:59

My husband and I had a conversation about this the other day. Not that I'm a martyr, just that I do all the shopping, wrapping, decorating, cooking. He's willing to help, and will wash up, vacuum, clean the bathroom, etc. He can cook, too, but I like it how I like it, so I prefer to do it myself. I'm not a martyr, but I do think I may be ever so slightly controlling....

56Marshmallow · 17/12/2019 12:01

I used to do photos in frames if the kids and photo books for his parents. DP moaned about the cost several years in a row so now I just do them for my side of the family.

56Marshmallow · 17/12/2019 12:03

DP does the tree with the kids. I am the one who had to get up in the lift though and sort all.og the other decs put. If I didn't, then the decs wouldn't be up until Xmas Eve.

LolaSmiles · 17/12/2019 12:05

I hate the use of “martyr”. In my experience it’s usually used to describe a woman trapped in a circle of societal expectations and sexism. Calling her a martyr is a good way of avoiding addressing the issues that put her in that circle, and blaming the victim
I agree to a point but I think anothe poster sums it up well here:

Many of the posters on here just want us all to eye-roll at their useless families and help them polish their halos, when they could do with a kick up the arse to be honest
I can think of one family friend who retired early, fills their days with volunteering and hobbies (good for them by the way), but then positively loves complaining about how busy they are, how they're always everyone's go to person, how the societies and groups would fall apart without them, and so on.
They were the same when working, the utterly indispensable person who the whole team relied upon.
They are the same with their family. So they complain and nag at their DH for not loading the dishwasher properly, not pegging the washing properly etc. We've stayed with them and there's nothing wrong with how their DH does things, it's just not the martyrs way. DH will make tea for martyr when she's been out being superwoman and she'll make silly "jokes" about it and how he's starve without her etc. Unsurprisingly over the 15 years we've known them their DH has done less and less because he can't win either way.

At Christmas, the tree has to be themed and done in a certain way, cards have to be handmade (but that naturally means complaining about doing the cards for her in laws 'for her husband' when he was quite happy to send normal Christmas cards but she insisted they had to be crafted by hand), they refuse help in the kitchen but make a big deal about how they're a slave to the kitchen at Christmas and so on.

Some people are just martyrs by personality and they need a reality check.

WorraLiberty · 17/12/2019 12:09

I hope all you mothers of sons are teaching them how to cook!

Their dads can do that.

How? When so many mothers are swallowing the crap that the dads can't cook? Confused

WorraLiberty · 17/12/2019 12:12

they'll start with pot noodle, get bored, experiment and start cooking. It's not a hard skill to master.

Or they'll settle down with the daughter of a Mumsnetter, raised in a home where because the man 'can't cook', the daughter feels she has to do it all because she's swallowed that crap just like her mum did.

Dyrne · 17/12/2019 12:15

81Byerley there’s nothing wrong with doing it all if you enjoy it or want it a certain way - it’s only if you were moaning that your DH “never does anything” while shrieking at him that he’s done the decorative bow on the wreath wrong.

rhubarbcrumbles · 17/12/2019 12:19

I was married to a man who said he couldn't cook, his first xmas present after we met was a cook book along with a note in his card saying he'd be getting nothing but cook books for xmas until he learnt to cook. He didn't get one again Grin

bluebluezoo · 17/12/2019 12:23

also- why are professional chefs nearly always male- if "men can't cook"?

If it was a blue brain thing then how do you explain Gordon Ramsey, Jamie Oliver, Keith Floyd, Phil Vickery, marco pierre white, that gino bloke, james martin, rick stein, et al?