Husband can't cook

[hashbrownsandwich]

Husband lived alone for 15 years. He is successful in his job and is highly skilled, so he's by no means unintelligent.
I am a trained chef. I don't work in the industry anymore but obviously that's my background.

Sometimes, I get fed up of being chief meal planner, shopper and cook, on top of working 4 shifts a week in my day job.

We have a reoccurring argument because whenever he cooks, I can guarantee it will either be undercooked/overcooked or cold by the time he's dicked about trying to plate up (aka splat it on a plate).

He says I'm being an ungrateful cow when he serves up undercooked food to the family. For example, this morning as I'm not feeling great he said he would cook some hash browns, beans and toast.

He literally follows the packet instructions to the dot. I can clearly see the hash browns are raw, he serves them up and he's taken so long doing the toast that the beans are cold.

I tell him we can't eat raw potatoes and they need longer. He hits the roof saying I'm ungrateful and they're edible.

Am I being an ungrateful snob?

His line is always that he needs more practice to cook properly, yet he won't accept when he's wrong so he's never going to learn.

When he lived alone he would eat some very strange combinations and I've tried to explain to him that while he might enjoy something like pork chops and pasta, it's not something I would serve to the family.

Sorry I think I'm just ranting now!

There was a post on here very recently where the OP (a man) was in the same position. Wife couldn't cook and he didn't want to eat her awful cooking but was sick of cooking 100% of the time. The general consensus was that he was an awful, selfish person who should either be cooking all the time or be supportive of her efforts. It'll be interesting to see how different the opinions are when the genders are reversed - I'm actually somewhat skeptical of your post and wondering if it was one of those posts intentionally set up to compare to see the difference in responses.

Do you have dc?

Cook for yourself and he cooks for himself, you both split dc cooking and don’t say a word whatever the other chooses to feed the DC

Oooh I didn't see the other post but I'm going to try and find it now. You are right though, if there's been similar and it's the other way round it'll be interesting.

I can promise you this isn't a reverse, I thought I would post because it was either rant on MN or combust inside as he's just said 'I'm clearing up your things now' as if the plates etc are my doing alone

Some people would burn a salad.

If he's a shit cook, then he can do other chores.

@frazzledasarock

Do you have dc?

Cook for yourself and he cooks for himself, you both split dc cooking and don’t say a word whatever the other chooses to feed the DC

That wouldn't really work though, I cook for the DC and that's fine, they can't do it themselves so I accept that. My middle child loves helping me cook and he's probably better at 6 than my DH is at 39.

If we were to cook separately it would be twice as long and twice as much tidying up.

@RosieCrumpet I dont think that was the general consensus at all on that thread tbh

Its difficult because I can see from both sides. On one hand if your partner is picking at your cooking or telling you its wrong, or they dont enjoy it when youve gone to the effort thats quite disheartening, I wouldnt want to cook for that person and generally I think we should be grateful when someone cooks for us. If you dont like my cooking cook yourself attitude

However it is equally frustrating whne someone just wont learn. Or cant do basic things like cook a frozen potato product,

This has definitely given me the boost I needed to teach dss the basics of cooking.

My own dc have learned from watching me plus common sense but dss really doesn't seem to know what to do.

@Lockheart

Some people would burn a salad.

If he's a shit cook, then he can do other chores.

You are probably being the voice of reason here. You're right. He is great at DIY, he can fix the cars, he does all the outside jobs for the animals etc. So actually when I think of it that way I probably am being a selfish cow.

I guess the thing is, he wants to cook. Not all the time but he says he used to enjoy cooking (as I say, I can't vouch for the quality or content of the meals he would cook himself) but he's scared to now because he knows I'll be critical.

My DH worked as a chef when we were students so can cook well in a commercial kitchen. However, because of his batshit mother, his domestic cooking skills were dire. We cooked together and benefitted from his professional experience and my domestic experience and the food is much better than it would've been if either of us cooked alone - but there were a few tedious years to get there.

I'm sceptical that an intelligent man can genuinely be such a shit cook. My feeling is that he doesn't care, doesn't want to, and just can't be bothered to give the meal attention and headspace. His attitude is the problem and the OP is right to be pissed off.

@Livedandlearned

This has definitely given me the boost I needed to teach dss the basics of cooking.

My own dc have learned from watching me plus common sense but dss really doesn't seem to know what to do.

Completely agree, I think everyone should learn to cook, even if it's just the basics and they can adapt to their own taste.

Okay, that x-posted with you saying that he wants to cook.

Maybe he is just terrible then.

@BaronessBomburst

I'm sceptical that an intelligent man can genuinely be such a shit cook. My feeling is that he doesn't care, doesn't want to, and just can't be bothered to give the meal attention and headspace. His attitude is the problem and the OP is right to be pissed off.

See that's the frustrating thing, he is such a logical, methodical, balanced thinker both professionally and in general, that this is why I'm so confused/annoyed/baffled that he can't use common sense to see if something is cooked or not.

He goes to the effort of trying to make things nice but he fails at the basics.

Unless someone has SEN or can’t read, or both, it’s a case of CBA rather than ‘can’t’ IMO - and that’s women as well as men.

Anyone of normal intelligence who can read and is willing to make the effort, can follow a simple recipe.

I can’t help wondering whether your dh is purposely undercooking etc. so that you won’t ask or expect him to do it again.

@hashbrownsandwich if he wants to cook because he enjoys it (but is no Gordon Ramsey) then perhaps you could cook together at weekends for example - if you wouldn't find that too stressful.

Maybe he'll learn and eventually he will be able produce something edible!

How much do you really really want him to learn? And are you the best person to teach him?

I tried to teach my DH to cook, who was from a similar background to yours and in the end we decided for the benefit of our marriage, it wasn't worth it.

I really like cooking, I like food and while I can teach others, somehow he just irritated the shit out of me when I tried to teach him.

We reached a compromise where he can now cook rice (yes this was a genuine improvement from where he was!), boil potatoes, cook pasta and reheat stuff but his job is all breakfasts, all lunches, all washing up and putting shopping away. Mine is cooking. sometimes that cooking is ready meals if I can't be arsed

I think you're being unreasonable.
You dont want to cook, but any time he does you spend the time complaining about it.
I think you need to accept he wont be able to cook to the standards you want.
He can cook and he does cook just not how you like it.
You need to think whether you can accept this or just do the cooking yourself.
I agree with others constantly complaining about his food will just knock his confidence and make it more likely he will mess up.
An alternative would be to get takeout on the days you didnt want to cook.

At least he tries. Been with mine 27 years and he can’t find the kitchen.

When you had the raw hash browns, did they get eaten? Is it that he actually enjoys foods that you don’t? Such as undercooked/overcooked things.

Does he follow cooking instructions to the letter? I had a perfectly intelligent, wanted to cook, housemate who would take stuff out after 20 minutes because the book said that. I think it was genuinely a lack of confidence in the kitchen that sort of affected her ability to think logically about it. But she did want to learn and she was prepared to listen and she did learn.

Not trying to say it was all down to me, but I think I did teach her stuff. Probably helped that we weren't a couple and there wasn't any of the resentment that builds up when you think he's shit at cooking and he's scared you'll criticise his cooking. It's a real issue. If you can sit down, talk about it and both agree to reset the resentment, he could learn.

If hes scared to cook for you thats not good. I dont think its great to be so critical all the time someone is scared to cook for you. You cant really have it both ways have food your standard of cooking but not cook

Have you actually tried to teach him? Cooked something together?

I grew up surrounded by cooking, cooking shows on tv all the time, family always cooking. I never really understood learning to cook because Id been so surrounded by cooking that Id always known. Dp didnt and really didnt know how to cook, and would constantly make silly mistakes because he had just never really seen anyone but him cook. So sometimes we'd just cook together, or Id get him to come do the poatoes while I do the meat. And he learnt that way, I cant really expect him to have an inate ability to cook

Meal prep and cook for together? My husband could only cook a couple of meals well when we got together.

I used to ask him to help me cook. At first, just chopping stuff.

And when he tried things I knew wouldn’t work, I tried to shut up and let him work out what went wrong. But mostly I woul dex interfere ☺️

Now he cooks a bunch of stuff really well, and we share more of the household cooking.

How did he feed himself when he lived alone?

I’m trying to teach my teenage daughter to cook before she goes to university next year. We struggle through her frankly inedible cooking once a week while she learns.

I would say to let him practice a small number of dishes frequently until he gets them right. So he should do the hash browns again next week, add 5 mins onto the cooking instructions and start the toast off a bit later this time (you'll have to resist being too critical while he figures out the best timings). If he's methodical, that should work well for him.

And obv he should be picking up significant other tasks around the house (laundry?) to even out the chores burden.

@BaronessBomburst

I'm sceptical that an intelligent man can genuinely be such a shit cook. My feeling is that he doesn't care, doesn't want to, and just can't be bothered to give the meal attention and headspace. His attitude is the problem and the OP is right to be pissed off.

Spot on 👌🏻 It’s laziness and he can’t be bothered to learn .

I divorced due to this kind of attitude (couldn’t cook , clean , do laundry etc etc )

Now my Ex DH and I are dating again ... I’m regularly invited round to his immaculate flat where laundry is up to date to partake of a truly delicious 3 course meal ..

He could have gotten to this place so much sooner and things could have been so different..

OP it’s not that he can’t - he just won’t .