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?

[quote ChilliWillies]@PlanDeRaccordement I ask them both when I do the meal plan, DS always asks for the same lunch on Saturday, which I make, DH literally says ‘you know me, I don’t mind’😱!!! He contributes no ideas but moans if the meal rotations get too boring 😡[/quote]
I think my response to your DH would be 'Well clearly you do, since you invariably moan at me. So stop with the faux-don't-mind please, and engage with the meal-planning, or it's back to beige for you'.

Yes. I really really would.

@CoddledAsAMommet

I did this, I got so incensed with four children and their different food complaints that I went to Iceland, bought as much beige food as I could and served it every night for an entire month. I'm a good cook, I enjoy cooking and make an effort to provide a variety of meals. But God, the moaning! They were fed up with freezer food after day 4 but I stuck to it for the whole month. It really showed them I had my limits and they've all been much better since.

Yep. That's what I'd do too

I have often said to my partner that a picky eater would be a deal breaker for me. Try downing tools and making him choose and cook meals.

Let him cook for himself. No way would I put up with that. The rule in this house is either people eat what I cook or they sort their own food out. Obviously when our children were small and with our grandchildren I am a bit more tolerant but I do not cook lots of different things. He sounds impossible to please.

If DP had acted like that, I wouldn't be cooking for him AT ALL. No sandwiches, no beige food, no meal planner together. Fuck that shit! Your 'D'H can feed himself. If he doesn't like cooking, tough shit. Learn to do it well, or learn some damn manners, and show you some real gratitude for everything you've done for him, and all the lovely food he's had so far.

DS however, I would have a conversation with, and explain gently, how rude his and his Dad's behaviour was. I would probably let him try whatever was on offer each night (just a spoonful to start with, seems to make my youngest less resistant if it's only a tiny bit) and if he didn't like it, he could have a plain sandwich and some vegetables. We have a rule here though, you can't tell if you like it or not until you've had 3 bites.

YAB completely U.

I can’t believe your ‘snapping’ constitutes going out and buying substitute food and continuing to prepare and cook it for the rude, ungrateful sod.

Sorry OP - but I think you’re a complete doormat, and your great stand was nothing of the sort.

'To cheer you up'

Op, this is awful. Truly awful. This implies that you were in the wrong, and that he's such a lovely nice guy he cheers you up anyway.

Fuck. That.

If he'd delivered the flowers with a 'I'm so sorry I was a complete bellend. Etc' that would have been ok. But to deliver them with the implication that he was the victim. Yuck.

I'll bet you a hundred pounds you think he's great now. Give it ten years.

I like cooking, I like it a lot. And since I cook we always eat what I fancy. If you don’t want it, get your own. No one does.

As for lunch, they can go get fucked. That’s not cooking that’s grunt work of which they are capable of doing their own grunting.

DH is a picky eater & hates cooking but still says “thank you for my dinner” every night and if I ever say I don’t think I did it very well says “you cooked dinner for me dear, I’m not going to complain, am I?” That is the correct response!

I'd be blowing the fuse too. DD is going through her beige food phase, even but we have the "try once and decide" rule and she actually realised she liked some food she didn't before.
Your DS - OK, six, beige is the colour.
Your DH has no excuse. I hate fussy adult eaters. He can cook for himself for the foreseeable future. Don't let the flowers sway you.

Excellent response, OP. I bet that's stunned them both.

Good for you! What a dick head! What's the recipe of the stew? Sounds fit

Do you think your husband could be "negging" you and it's backfired?

He isn't on the autistic spectrum, is he? This kind of pickiness, especially being hyper-senstive about food served in the 'wrong' dishes or with the 'wrong' accompaniment reminds me a lot of my autistic brother. Your description could have been him. If that's the case, then he isn't being U as such - he won't be able to cope even with minor issues like a different kind of potato. If he's undiagnosed, then he won't be getting the support to help him deal with basic issues like this.

If he isn't on the spectrum, then he's an arse.

Have to agree - your DH has not got it at all. I agree with what @NoSquirrels said, but not the wording. I'd suggest you explain how his behaviour makes you feel (this is textbook psychology-speak with teens) as I reckon he'll get all defensive if you go on the attack. Not saying that's acceptable, but you really need him to understand this and the long-term effect it could have on your DS. Your effort is not recognised, the love you pour into cooking for your family is disregarded, you are diminished and made to feel worthless by it. He needs to hear these words. Fed up is not enough.

YANBU, and they'll probably enjoy the bland food sadly until you feel you have to get something more nutritious down DS.

I think his comments about stuff you've gone to the effort to make are really rude.

If he's that picky he can buggering make his own food.

I agree with PP's about the sandwiches too I think. You're not their cook/maid.

I'd never cook anything for him again!

I'd definitely stop cooking for him.

He can sort himself out from now on, can't he?

@arethereanyleftatall

'To cheer you up'

Op, this is awful. Truly awful. This implies that you were in the wrong, and that he's such a lovely nice guy he cheers you up anyway.

Fuck. That.

If he'd delivered the flowers with a 'I'm so sorry I was a complete bellend. Etc' that would have been ok. But to deliver them with the implication that he was the victim. Yuck.

I'll bet you a hundred pounds you think he's great now. Give it ten years.

My thought was that he was thinking, 'Oh no! The wife-robot is malfunctioning! Quick, what can I do to reset it & get it working again?'.

I'd focus more on your DP than your DS! Leave DP longer than DS seems as its DP whose taught him that behaviour!

The part where I boggle is that you went and got the food and still served him? I think he could manage this himself. Presumably he stops himself from being rude and presumptuous in other environments?

You are being very generous to shop and make lunch for DH at all. I would stop that. And if it takes him forever to cook then let him take forever.

At the very least I would declare a 100% moratorium on moaning. If your DH moans that's it, he gets nothing at all on the table the following day. You do you and DS, but DH can cook for himself. If it happens to be a day when there's no white sliced bread then he buys it himself or goes without. The next day you cook for the family as usual, if he moans then the next day food is off again, until he gets the message. And you can pick DS up on moaning too - he can eat or not eat what he's given, but moaning is bad manners and not acceptable.

Arfid, sensory issues, autism and OCD don't justify the moaning. I couldn't live like that. DS has autism and he can eat or not eat, but moaning is not allowed.

I am the only cook - he can cook, but gets ridiculously stressed by it and also takes 3 hours to make anything.

Practice makes perfect, or if not, at least it teaches appreciation. Stressed or not, your DH needs to cook for the family himself regularly. Unfortuantely you are not allowed to make reamrks when he cooks boring shite. Model gracious behaviour for DS.

YANBU.
My DH makes his own lunch as he will only eat either cheese or marmite sandwiches. Any idiot can make those! Yours likes equally boring food which I'm sure he can make himself. DS can have what you eat or hs Dad can make him an alternative if he refuses.

OP WHY, just not WHY, WHY, WHY will your DH not engage with meal planning?That is the adult way forward, surely? If he can't do that, then - I fear - you have a much bigger problem.

My DH eats 99% of what I cook, but has said, for decades, that he does not like chilli. Fair enough, there are zillions of recipes that don't contain that. I don't need to confront him with that. So very, very rarely would I cook something 'hot'. In fact, I can't remember the last time I did so. But he would never, ever, be so disrespectful of me to say 'ugh'. He'd eat the potatoes and the salad and the other veg. I'd see; I'd get the message. I wouldn't cook it again.

However, I quite agree with previous posters that the bigger issue is your DC's attitude to food. Please don't make it an issue with them, if possible. As a child, I genuinely hated certain foods. My DMother - who was a very good cook - was brought up at the end of rationing in the 1950s and could not abide waste, for understandable reasons. She meant well. But I can vividly recall being sat for hours over plates of (eg) stewed blackcurrants and custard. As a child, I felt SO GUILTY.

Blackcurrants still make me heave. But today I grow blackcurrants and I pick them - in spite of the smell and the squishiness - because my DH loves them and he makes truly excellent - or so I am told - blackcurrant jam. That's something I 'm happy to do for him - but I'd be appalled if he demanded it

OP I'm only saying all this because there is a REAL difference between simple fussiness and other, much deeper, emotional issues. Today, looking back, I understand where my late DMother was coming from; having been brought up in a time of rationing, she was fearful of scarcity. But - and this is my point - those issues don't take precedence. They have to be worked through. They don't trump your "normal" feelings. Your DH might have issues . But so do you. You have an equal right to express your feelings about food. Tolerance works both ways,.

@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.

Good for you. Stick to it. Your DH manners are appalling. And you are right not to allow your DC to think this is acceptable. If DH doesn’t learn some manners I would tell him to buy and cook his own food.

My DH has never behaved like this. He is very clear that he appreciates being provided with food without having to do any of the work and remembers to thank me.

I think you have the right plan for your DC as well.