AIBU to have finally snapped?

[ChilliWillies]

Strap yourself in, this will be long. I’ve also name changed as what I’ll write is so identifying if you know me.
DH is a fussy eater. He claims he isn’t and that I’m the ‘weird’ one as I eat almost anything. DS6 is also going through a phase of saying he ‘hates’ the food I’ve made. For the record, I’m a good cook and am often complimented on my food.
I have managed to expand DH’s very limited palate over a lot of years so we can have less boring food, but any new recipe is met with suspicion. I can almost accept this, but what is CANNOT handle is that he changes his fucking mind! Something I made last week that he really enjoyed, this week ‘tastes awful’. I never know if he will like something that week or not. He also has form for getting annoyed about how food is served - I served curry and rice in big pasta bowls once and he made a big performance of tipping it all out onto a plate before he would eat it. I am the only cook - he can cook, but gets ridiculously stressed by it and also takes 3 hours to make anything.
Last night, I put dinner on the table, DS said ‘yuck, I hate this’ (he doesn’t, he loved it last week, getting this behaviour from his dad 😡) and left the table. DH poked at it dubiously, tried a bit and said ‘this is really bad’. It was some Sicilian Lamb Stew, leftover from the week before, that I’d frozen and then defrosted yesterday, served over a jacket potato. I explained he had liked it last time, and he said ‘what, with a jacket potato?’ I explained last time I’d served it with mashed potato and he literally said ‘oh that will be it then, you shouldn’t serve it with a jacket potato’!!!! 😡🙄. As if that would change the taste of the stew completely.
So, I actually lost it, stormed out, went to the shop and bought crappy white sliced bread, (he will moan if I buy unsliced bread, or anything with healthy seeds and grains in it) cheap ham, burgers, chicken nuggets and chips. When I got hone, I told him that’s what they were getting from now on, I give up.
He clearly didn’t believe me, because when I made lunch just now I made them plain ham sandwiches and made myself a new chicken story fry with peanut noodles recipe I’d been wanting to try. He’s got the right hump and is now not speaking to me.
So, we’ll done for getting this far. AIBU for subjecting to them to ham sandwiches and beige food for at least two weeks until they realise how good they had it?

I think you were very generous buying and making the beige food tbh. I'd be completely letting them both fend for themselves. How bloody rude he is and now your son is copying his behaviour. You have my sympathy OP

I think YABU for making your husband lunch when he’s being a total wanker about food.

But YANBU to be pissed off

Dh cooks his dinner if it’s a night I’m having something he doesn’t like. Tonight I’m having lamb shank and he’s having chicken tikka on a baguette with salad.

@AmandaHoldensLips

Fussy eaters can piss right off and make their own food.

THIS ^

In f*cking spades!

If they don't want to shift their backsides to cook something, they can sodding well eat what is put before them

I wouldn't be making any meals at all for your H (his behaviour doesn't merit "DH" imo)

Is your H twelve years old ?!

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I'm just wondering who the 4% saying YABU are!! Inlaws😂

Forgot to add:

Why should you have to cook two different meals when it's him being a dick about it?

I would have done the same. Followed by I will leave you to do all your own food, and just cook for you and ds

You know DH has a 'very limited' palate and is not super-enthusiastic about new recipes even after a long time. I have a feeling he won't really mind loads if you retaliate with 'beige food' and give him free rein in what he consumes - he'll just get used to it, perhaps with a tinge of relief

But this means that OP eats beige food, too - unless she provides two different meals every night (Bugger that!)

Why should she? Let him take a turn with the cooking and have whatever flavourless delights he can conjure up in 3 hours. (OP can heat up something delicious from the freezer that she put aside on one of hER cooking days)

Update: he’s been and bought me some flowers (and my little DS bought me a single red rose too), to ‘cheer me up a bit’. I think he thinks that means I’ll be making nice dinners again...... (I won’t).
To everyone who said they wouldn’t let their 6 year old get away with those manners - no normally he wouldn’t, but as I let rip at both of them and then stormed out, I think he’s got the idea that it wasn’t a good plan to act like that.
I do understand that DH’s behaviour is not good. I don’t mind (much) if I make something completely new and he doesn’t like it, that’s fair enough, but it’s when he says he does like until I cook it again, and then he doesn’t!
I think I’m going to hammer the point home with beige meals until he’s bored (won’t be long) and then force him to engage with meal planning. Maybe I’ll make it a family activity on a Thursday night 🤔.
DS is getting beige food until he’s seen me having a few of the things he really likes and isn’t getting. Each time I’ll be explaining that if I cook him nice food, I expect him to sit nicely, try it properly, and if he really doesn’t like it, stay at the table and he can have bread and butter instead. And if he starts saying yuk again, he’ll go back to beige food and no spaghetti Bolognese or his other favourites.

I'd leave him to sulk to his heart's content. I would not prepare ANY food for him, beige or otherwise. I would also explain that his behaviour around food is affecting your child's relationship with food and until he's able to behave like an adult, rather than a whiny brat, at the dinner table he will eat alone.

I've always been happy to accommodate the food preferences of people I cook for but he makes that impossible for you. You must have the patience of a saint I'd have told him to fuck off and prepare his own food long ago.

I wouldn’t be telling your DS he can reject good food for bread and butter anytime he likes. Apart from that YANBU and your husband is disgustingly rude and also infuriating and patronising with the goddamn flowers to ‘cheer you up’. He basically thinks you had a strop and maybe you’re on your period or something and wants you to stop causing a fuss.

I would cook for you and your DS. Tell him off if he speaks rudely about the food. Let your DH make himself whatever he wants.

DS is getting beige food until he’s seen me having a few of the things he really likes and isn’t getting.

I really think that in making food into a punishment for your ds, you will do more harm than good in the long term. you made your point when you got cross, which is fair enough, but I think serving up punishment meals and deliberately eating something nice yourself in front of him is asking for trouble down the line. the problem is your dh, not your ds, he was only doing what little kids do, which is to copy the behaviour he sees from adults.

I think I’m going to hammer the point home with beige meals until he’s bored (won’t be long) and then force him to engage with meal planning. Maybe I’ll make it a family activity on a Thursday night 🤔.

Why are you still catering to him at all? FUCK the meal plans and family activity, this guy has shown you that he thinks kitchen work is women's work but he can also be rude and ungrateful. Punishing him with beige food is ridiculous.

'Thanks for the flowers, but I've had it with your fussiness and rudeness. I'm done. You get your own meals from now on.' And then walk the walk.

He treats you the way he does because you allow it.

You're showing a crap example to your son, too. Fuck the beige food. Just serve him up. He says, 'Yuk' he is dismissed from the table, up to his room and he can have bread and butter for supper if he apologises.

Thanks for the flowers, but I've had it with your fussiness and rudeness. I'm done. You get your own meals from now on.' And then walk the walk.

He treats you the way he does because you allow it.

This a million times over.

@ChilliWillies

Update: he’s been and bought me some flowers (and my little DS bought me a single red rose too), to ‘cheer me up a bit’. I think he thinks that means I’ll be making nice dinners again...... (I won’t). To everyone who said they wouldn’t let their 6 year old get away with those manners - no normally he wouldn’t, but as I let rip at both of them and then stormed out, I think he’s got the idea that it wasn’t a good plan to act like that. I do understand that DH’s behaviour is not good. I don’t mind (much) if I make something completely new and he doesn’t like it, that’s fair enough, but it’s when he says he does like until I cook it again, and then he doesn’t! I think I’m going to hammer the point home with beige meals until he’s bored (won’t be long) and then force him to engage with meal planning. Maybe I’ll make it a family activity on a Thursday night 🤔. DS is getting beige food until he’s seen me having a few of the things he really likes and isn’t getting. Each time I’ll be explaining that if I cook him nice food, I expect him to sit nicely, try it properly, and if he really doesn’t like it, stay at the table and he can have bread and butter instead. And if he starts saying yuk again, he’ll go back to beige food and no spaghetti Bolognese or his other favourites.

Flowers are nice. Here, have some more

The thing is: you're still doing the cooking ("I think I’m going to hammer the point home with beige meals until he’s bored"); you're still doing the food-based thinking and planning ("force him to engage with meal planning. Maybe I’ll make it a family activity on a Thursday night.")

Sod all that. Just tell him

"I am fed up of cooking and catering to people who can't decide if they like a particular meal or not. I am fed up of asking what you'd like to eat and being told you don't mind when you clearly do. I am fed up of my child getting into the same habits around food. I'll cook for DS 4 nights a week when I make my meals, and you can cook for DS 3 nights a week when you make your meals. I am not cooking for you any longer, DH."

Stop making him food! Do enough for yourself and DS and let DH make himself whatever beige rubbish he wants.

Honestly op they’d be wearing that dinner if they were like this with me .
If they are fussy make your own .
My dh & ds love their food, I could dish anything and it’d be wolfed down . Dh always makes a point of saying thank you that was lovely even if it was pie & chips . My dd on the other hand was always fussy as soon as she got to a teen she started cooking for herself she’s vegetarian and eats at different times to us anyway .

sorry but f*ck that, your food sounds great and your DH an ungrateful twat who has now taught your DS the same poor manners. If I was you I would make the food as per normal and serve it up for everyone. Whoever decides not to eat it goes hungry. I certainly would not be wasting money on crap beige food as you did, albeit can understand why you did that but it hasn't solved the main problem. The main problem being that your DH has no manners when it comes to food he doesn't like.

YANBU and I say that as a fussy fucker.
Because I'm fussy I'm 100% responsible for feeding myself and catering to my likes and dislikes (shopping,cooking etc.) I wouldn't expect OH to cater to it, or limit his choices for me.

he’s been and bought me some flowers (and my little DS bought me a single red rose too), to ‘cheer me up a bit’

Wow this is textbook - it's fine for him to act however he wants because he'll just grab some flowers so you don't complain.
If this was the first time he acted like that it may wash but it obviously isn't.

The flowers so spectacularly miss the point.

I'd tell your dh he's on his own regarding what he eats from now but after one or two beige meals, get your ds back onto eating varied meals, with you with no more rudeness.

YABU because you've put up with it for so long. I also think your DH is being a plonker and doing it to hurt. Why else?