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?

Yanbu in any way. I would not tolerate this nonsense from an adult.

@ivykaty44

ChilliWillies

serve them up turkey twisters, smash & sausages, cheese and onion pasty along with ready food and make yourself the most delightful food ever and enjoy....

Please don't do this, it's just continuing pandering to and enabling him. Just stop doing any form of food providing for your husband, he's an adult leave him to his own devices.

I agree with other posters about your son, you need to stop your husband's behaviour being perpetuated in your son.

I don’t think you lost it enough actually OP. My DH would have been wearing it and DS would have been told to sit his backside back down, 6 years old or not.

I wouldn’t be cooking another thing for either of them.

In this house, they’re told what I’m cooking. If they don’t like it or want it, then they’re fending for themselves.

The rule in my house is that you either eat it or make your own food

I refuse to cook more than one meal

YANBU.

Your husband is acting like an overgrown self entitled child.

Cook for yourself and your D.C. if your husband wants some he is welcome to it, if not he can prepare his own meal.

You are not his personal chef OP, you are his partner and he should appreciate your contribution to your family life like you do for him.

Omg what is wrong with your partner? He sounds like a petulant, self involved, rude child.

I couldn't share a bed with him. He's so disrespectful.

YABU for going to the shop and buying him something else!

Kids can be fussy and if they really hated it then I would be tempted to make something else but not if I knew that they liked it last time. But no way would I make something else for a grown adult!! The way you described him he is actually acting like a spoilt brat! How can you cope with him? He would turn me off him and I wouldn't be attracted to him after that.

Make him cook in future! The reason he gets 'stressed' is because he knows you'll take over and do it!

Let the ungrateful shits starve. They’ll apologise before long.

@ChilliWillies - I think you need to have a VERY blunt word with your dh about how his attitude and the things he says is affecting your ds. Tell him that it is as much his responsibility as yours, to make sure your ds has a healthy varied diet, and develops a healthy attitude towards food. He needs to know that it is utterly unacceptable for him to make negative comments about the food you cook, or even act in a negative fashion, in front of your ds.

He is an adult - he needs to understand his responsibilities, and that the priority is not his fussiness, it is your ds’s health and well-being, and he, as an adult, is old enough to control his behaviour so it doesn’t negatively affect your ds’s relationship with food.

It’s pig ignorant to say something someone cooked for you “tastes awful” or to say “yuck I hate this”. I’d expect it from a 5 year old but not a grown man. Sounds like he never learnt basic manners. Let him do his food shopping and cook for himself and see how he likes it.

Hi Chilli,

I feel I am writing with out enough information but because of your name I wonder if you like spicy food. Your other half seems to like bland food. I do not think you can carry on the way you are and perhaps you need to find a time when your child is asleep and you both are not tired or hungry to have a Heart to Heart. How this works is you agree to use a timer and then each person speaks without interruption for 5 minutes. You agree not to problem solve and keep your voice gentle. Then you give each other time to absorb what is said. Only then ask for suggestions about what to do next. If you find yourself loosing patience bring the discussion to a close and end it with a positive comment. " Thank you for listening." If you give respect then you can expect that back.

One thing that kills my appetite is food in bowls with sauce on top. I really do prefer a plate and the food separated and not piled up. I like to eat each thing and taste it. I like to combine textures of my choosing and I really do not like stews. We are all different and for your child's sake break the drama cycle that is not working for you both.

So, if you can agree you are different and have different needs that would start a kind exchange. I know he is rude and unhelpful and I am asking a lot of you to put that to one side. Labelling him a picky eater is stopping you from listening to his point of view.

I am hoping as you are an experienced cook you might cope with giving a choice and have a weekly menu so there are no surprises that start his bad habits. One solution I found was to have bread and cheese available so that if a child or partner found they could not eat what was there they could make themselves a sandwich and there is no need to comment or be rude.

best wishes

Janet

I think that's fair enough! He should be more involved in what's for dinner (even if it's just so he can say "please could I have my stew next to my potato, rather than over it").

I wouldn't let DS just leave the table. He can sit there while you eat and make nice conversation, like he would if he were eating. If he's hungry and has enjoyed it before, he'll probably try it and end up eating. I wouldn't do that with something new or that he really didn't like — I'd give him something else. But he can't just wander off when it's dinner time.

[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]
OP - 'serves same lunch as yesterday'

DH - 'what this again, how boring'

OP - 'No it's fine because as you always say when I ask you to suggest meals, 'you don't mind'.

But overall - honestly, don't even cook dinner for him! Make enough for yourself and DS, every night, different interesting things. Him: all the beige shit he likes is there for the taking, he can knock himself out boiling some pasta. DS, you can choose who you eat with. Wait and see DS start to choose more of your stuff.

And if ANYONE commented that a meal I'd made was 'really bad' - that would seriously be the last meal I ever made them. Fine to have different tastes. Not fine to be an utterly rude crass arse when someone has put themselves out to make you a meal

Your husband needs to learn some manners.

Don’t cook for him anymore. He can cook his own beige food. Honestly that would just piss mr right off.

And YADNBU!!

@jennygran1

Hi Chilli,

I feel I am writing with out enough information but because of your name I wonder if you like spicy food. Your other half seems to like bland food. I do not think you can carry on the way you are and perhaps you need to find a time when your child is asleep and you both are not tired or hungry to have a Heart to Heart. How this works is you agree to use a timer and then each person speaks without interruption for 5 minutes. You agree not to problem solve and keep your voice gentle. Then you give each other time to absorb what is said. Only then ask for suggestions about what to do next. If you find yourself loosing patience bring the discussion to a close and end it with a positive comment. " Thank you for listening." If you give respect then you can expect that back.

One thing that kills my appetite is food in bowls with sauce on top. I really do prefer a plate and the food separated and not piled up. I like to eat each thing and taste it. I like to combine textures of my choosing and I really do not like stews. We are all different and for your child's sake break the drama cycle that is not working for you both.

So, if you can agree you are different and have different needs that would start a kind exchange. I know he is rude and unhelpful and I am asking a lot of you to put that to one side. Labelling him a picky eater is stopping you from listening to his point of view.

I am hoping as you are an experienced cook you might cope with giving a choice and have a weekly menu so there are no surprises that start his bad habits. One solution I found was to have bread and cheese available so that if a child or partner found they could not eat what was there they could make themselves a sandwich and there is no need to comment or be rude.

best wishes

Janet

Fuck this. Her husband is an adult. She is not responsible for his silly food habits. An adult who needs pandering to (even my kids when toddlers weren't this fussy) shouldn't be indulged.

YA SO NBU.

Stop cooking for him and make sure your DS doesn't slip any further into copying this behaviour.

I would not be able to stand this, having a decent, well made dinner is so important and in these times it is something to look forward to each day!

I love your reaction Good on you!

If they're gonna be that picky then they can have all the beige food. Perfect.

There are many people who'd be falling over themselved for a partner who can cook a nice Sicilian Lamb Stew!

I think maybe what you love and what your dh loves to eat is totally different. I know I would love prawn and tomato with tagliatelle, but my ds and dh wouldn't, so I won't make it for family dinner, I would make it for my own lunch instead.
My ds is very fussy eater, though he would eat most of the things. The name is the key for him. If I say a fancy name, he maybe put off. So I normally say it's a beef/chicken/etc, if I cook something unfamiliar for him.

Oh god, my DH is a fussy eater, drives me insane! He once told me that he likes chunky soup better than blended because it's more manly [sceptical]. He will not try anything different or new. I once persuaded him to try something quite ordinary that he hadn't tried before and he spit it out in the bin like a baby!

I have to agree with @HeidiHaughton especially since he didn't want to be part of the planning.
I think the respect issue here goes the other way. If he gave respect he got respect but he is actively disrespectful.

I am hoping as you are an experienced cook you might cope with giving a choice and have a weekly menu so there are no surprises that start his bad habits

She's not running a restaurant! Anyway, the issue is that one week he will eat something the next he won't, so providing a menu in advance isn't going to help with that.

I'm the "picky" one in our house- vegetarian with a condition that reacts badly to spicy food, therefore I cook the meals: very often a meal that DS and DH will enjoy, with adaptations to make it something I can eat too.
However, this is a world away from the situation you describe. I'd be giving him ham sandwiches and a bag of crisps for every meal for a few weeks.

If my husband would make suhh comments about food I made.. The only way I would ever serve him lunch would be with some sprinkles of rat poison

I cannot tell you how much I feel your pain, especially with the sudden dislike of food that dd happily ate last week. I eat everything, dd is horrendous. Tbf dd has life long food issues, but it doesn't stop me wanting to throw plates at the wall some days .