To be annoyed DH did a big shop & made this meal?

[lechatnoir]

I've been at an event all day with one of my dc and asked DH to get a few bits from the shops. I asked him just get the basics to tide us over until the food order comes on Monday evening plus gave him the ingredients needed for a specific pasta salad dish my friend asked me to make for her bbq tomorrow.

So first AIBU: to be annoyed he did a massive shop - cupboards & fridge are full so I'm going to have to cancel the order I spent a good hour doing last night and then faff around working out whether we've actually got any meals for the week in the £180 shop he did

And 2nd AIBU: to be really pissed off he's made some other completely random pasta salad dish. It does sounds lovely BUT it is neither what was requested by me/the host and won't be touched by the kids which was the whole point of mine! I can't work out if he was doing it to save me a job (in which case I look like a bitch) or to show-off his cooking he is a keen amateur chef convinced he'll win master chef one day

DH is always saying he feels he can't say or do anything without me criticising so I really really don't want to moan but FFS how hard is it to just get what I asked!

So AIBU and a negative, moaning old nag who needs to let it go or AINBU and he's a knob who ignores instructions & requests,, goes off piste then gets cross when criticised.

@lechatnoir

I've been at an event all day with one of my dc and asked DH to get a few bits from the shops. I asked him just get the basics to tide us over until the food order comes on Monday evening plus gave him the ingredients needed for a specific pasta salad dish my friend asked me to make for her bbq tomorrow.

So first AIBU: to be annoyed he did a massive shop - cupboards & fridge are full so I'm going to have to cancel the order I spent a good hour doing last night and then faff around working out whether we've actually got any meals for the week in the £180 shop he did

And 2nd AIBU: to be really pissed off he's made some other completely random pasta salad dish. It does sounds lovely BUT it is neither what was requested by me/the host and won't be touched by the kids which was the whole point of mine! I can't work out if he was doing it to save me a job (in which case I look like a bitch) or to show-off his cooking he is a keen amateur chef convinced he'll win master chef one day

DH is always saying he feels he can't say or do anything without me criticising so I really really don't want to moan but FFS how hard is it to just get what I asked!

So AIBU and a negative, moaning old nag who needs to let it go or AINBU and he's a knob who ignores instructions & requests,, goes off piste then gets cross when criticised.

This sounds mildly irritating but is something that it would be over the top to get upset about.

Go to the shop and buy the ingredients to cook the dish you want to make vs the dish your friend requested.

Tell him to cook the rest of what he has bought for the other meals this week.

Why is this your problem? He bought this stuff so presumably planned what he'd intended to cook with it, so let him get on with it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Oh dear. I’ll stop biting soon, but in the meantime for all those at the back:

OP: could you pick up a few bits to complement our mutually agreed weekly food order? I also need to make this pasta salad with X recipe to take to a bbq.

DH: Ok. Except I’ll ignore all of that, buy whatever I fancy, let you deal with whatever crossovers or lack of basics that causes, and make a different pasta salad ‘for you’ because I’m so nice I’ve totally ignored what was needed in order to do my own thing

Ugh.

Just book a new slot for your shopping and keep what you ordered in your basket!

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@NumberTheory
Blah blah blah. Whose to say the DP didn’t meal plan when he did the big shop. Youre all assuming he bought £150 of beer and £30 of cheese puffs to spite the OP.

Are you often so controlling in your life? I suggest being a bit more flexible.[/quote]
Surely the controlling person in that scenario is the one who ignores the meal planning done together and already ordered to do his own thing without consultation?

My assumption that he didn't meal plan is based on the OP's comment that she will have to go through what he's bought and work out if they can make meals from it. I wasn't assuming beer and cheese puffs, but I was assuming he hadn't said - I've got stuff for Shepherd's pie, Stir fry, a curry, Salad with salmon and a Pizza for Friday. As well the usual for the kid's lunches, milk, bread, tea, that coffee you were asking for, a bunch of fruit and some chips and biscuits for treats.

I need to take into account everyone's preferences and what the kids will/won't eat.

This is where you're going wrong. There are no preferences in tedious weekly meal planning. There's no kids will or won't eat. There's simply opening the cupboard, making what's in there and everyone eats it or has a round of bread.

Op, embrace it or fight it, its your choice but fighting over everything being done your way is tons more stressful. I guess it depends how you want to live your life.

If this is all you have to worry about @lechatnoir consider yourself very lucky.

Meal planning with kids is an utter bitch of a job. Trying to balance what the kids eat with trying to broaden their tastes, what the shop actually has and what is realistic to cook after work around various activities isn't a 5 minute job. If I've planned that, I don't want that planning wasted!!!

For a BBQ I want something the kids will eat with zero fuss - so a clever grown up salad will risk fuss - not helpful!

Scene 1.

• Is there anything we can bring?
• Well, actually, I hardly like to ask, but you know what a fussy eater Archie is, and what a nightmare it is to get him to eat veg and dairy, and he won't touch any pasta except Tesco Basic twists, but for some reason he does really like those in a simple salad I make which is just twists tossed in a little Hellmann's mayonnaise (unfortunately he can tell the difference between that and other kinds) with diced cucumber, tomato and some tinned sweetcorn, drained - the kind with peppers is best, and some grated cheese - has to be Red Leicester. Is there any chance you could knock up a bowl of that?

• No problem!

Scene 2.

• ... so I said we'd make a bowl of that. We'll need Tesco Basic twists, Hellmann's, a cucumber, tin of sweetcorn and Red Leicester. We've got tomatoes. Could you get all of that when you go out for the bread later on?
• Really? I could make that amazing Ottolenghi salad I showed you the recipe for ...
• Another time that would be great, but this is what Kate asked for, so we have to make that.

Scene 3.

• Hi Kate, here's the pasta salad. I'm really sorry it's not what we agreed. Clive made it from an Ottolenghi recipe. Is there anything else Archie can eat?

Ok how many of you have kids who will actually eat pasta salad, or indeed any salad that isn’t a carrot stick, at a bbq.

Pasta salad is Monday night tea food, not bbq.

Erm... we always have pasta salad at a BBQ and my kids love it!

PS to above post: huge bonus here is that I had no idea if Ottolenghi had ever put out a recipe for pasta salad and it turns out he did, so now I have that on my list to make soon. Looks marvellous, but 20 years ago when I had a fussy eater in the house, he wouldn't have gone near it. (Take heart, parents of fussy kids, we took the line of not worrying about it and hoping for the best, and he did indeed grow out of it and will now eat almost anything.)

Here's the Ottolenghi recipe. smittenkitchen.com/2014/06/pasta-and-fried-zucchini-salad/

Christ talk about first world problems

This thread has absolutely blown my mind! So many women have such depressingly low standards. By about page three I was starting to think it was all a piss-take (still hoping).

If you’d be ‘grateful’ that your husband, having seen you do a full online shop, then does another full shop thereby making a mockery of your efforts, then you have a really shit husband. But don’t take it out on the rest of us by expecting us to be grateful for half-arsed ‘help’!

I can’t stand all this “Just cancel” or “Just re-schedule”, “Just re-do everything.” It may not be the biggest job in the world to cancel an order, but it’s the principle, surely, and the disrespect for OP’s work? So many posters frequently mistake size of problem with nature of problem; it presumably wouldn’t take, for example, a superhuman effort to stand up every time your DP entered the room as a mark of respect. But I hope not even the handmaidens of this thread would brush that request aside with a “Just stand up when he comes in - it’s not rocket science.” But I bet some would

If I see another “poor bloke” or ‘men can’t win” on this thread, I may weep.

If this is a one off, it's no big deal. But if it's the latest in a long line of OP's partner 'trying' rather than 'doing' as somebody pointed out way upthread, it must be infuriating.

Meh. Tell him to rejig online shop so no duplicates and update meal plan.

I wouldn't give the pasta dish a second though - DH hands it to host.

@Shakespeare79

This thread has absolutely blown my mind! So many women have such depressingly low standards. By about page three I was starting to think it was all a piss-take (still hoping).

If you’d be ‘grateful’ that your husband, having seen you do a full online shop, then does another full shop thereby making a mockery of your efforts, then you have a really shit husband. But don’t take it out on the rest of us by expecting us to be grateful for half-arsed ‘help’!

I can’t stand all this “Just cancel” or “Just re-schedule”, “Just re-do everything.” It may not be the biggest job in the world to cancel an order, but it’s the principle, surely, and the disrespect for OP’s work? So many posters frequently mistake size of problem with nature of problem; it presumably wouldn’t take, for example, a superhuman effort to stand up every time your DP entered the room as a mark of respect. But I hope not even the handmaidens of this thread would brush that request aside with a “Just stand up when he comes in - it’s not rocket science.” But I bet some would

If I see another “poor bloke” or ‘men can’t win” on this thread, I may weep.

There are more posts complaining about this than actual posts with people saying it. Also maybe read the thread, OP said they both put equal effort into meal planning and cooking usually, so not sure how he is making a mockery of doing the online shop. Most people aren't saying its not annoying, but that it's not a huge deal, he can meal plan and cook for the week as he did the shopping.

It’s possible and likely that both of the ends of the spectrum that this thread swings between are true.

Ie

The OP is inclined to be a bit controlling.
Her DH is inclined to be a bit thoughtless.

But they basically both work hard and generally try their best.

Sometimes they could do with talking/listening to each other better. Sometimes the stresses of life get the better of them and they make mistakes.

Generally though neither of them are twats. OP for instance uses online message boards to relieve her frustrations and keep in check her tendency to want to control rather than being aggressive, passive if otherwise. And It’s likely from what OP has typed here that her DH isn’t that bad either, just occasionally hankering after carefree solo shoppin and cooking without having to plan around work and fussy kids.

Just make sure you keep talking to each other and you’ll be ok. Enjoy the bbq.

@Frugblie
I’ve read the entire thread thanks, so there’s no need to tell me what’s in it

There are many, many comments telling OP she’s ‘hard work’, that her husband ‘tried hard’ and that she should be ‘grateful.’ If you missed those, maybe have another look?

Not sure what your point is aside from trying to misrepresent the thread? If OP and her husband usually have a better and quite equal arrangement over shopping and meal-planning, then that’s great 😀 Doesn’t mean that the swathes of handmaidens leaping to the defence of ‘poor blokes’ who are ‘only trying to help’ is any less depressing.

I would assume he got a bit carried away and enjoyed mooching around the supermarket and then preparing the pasta dish.

I would reschedule Monday's big shop for the following week.

[quote Shakespeare79]@Frugblie
I’ve read the entire thread thanks, so there’s no need to tell me what’s in it

There are many, many comments telling OP she’s ‘hard work’, that her husband ‘tried hard’ and that she should be ‘grateful.’ If you missed those, maybe have another look?

Not sure what your point is aside from trying to misrepresent the thread? If OP and her husband usually have a better and quite equal arrangement over shopping and meal-planning, then that’s great 😀 Doesn’t mean that the swathes of handmaidens leaping to the defence of ‘poor blokes’ who are ‘only trying to help’ is any less depressing.[/quote]
They do, OP has posted about what their usual arrangement is, perhaps instead of throwing pathetic and tedious comments like handmaiden out actually read it . And yes I have seen those comments, also seen the numerous ones moaning about people saying that.

@frazzledasarock

Having a husband who shops and cooks without lining is not a massive prize.

Some posters have incredibly low bars.

I wouldn’t have bothered with DH if he didn’t cook or clean. He eats food too, and expects to live in a relatively clean environment. If he preferred to live in squalor we’d have clearly not been compatible.

And I didn’t marry DH to be his skivvy

Agreed. I find it amazing that so many people think OP should be grateful her partner did two jobs incorrectly just because he did something. I presume he knew the online shopping had been done? So why buy a full shop? (If he didn't know then I would think OP is being unreasonable but thats not how her post comes across). Same with the pasta salad. If he knew that she was to make a specific one then making a different one is unhelpful. She is only unreasonable if he didn't know the specifics and thought it was just a requirement for a pasta salad.. in which case he was being helpful.

"Meal planning with kids is an utter bitch of a job. Trying to balance what the kids eat with trying to broaden their tastes, what the shop actually has and what is realistic to cook after work around various activities isn't a 5 minute job."

I've just read this and it made me tear up. This is my life. And I fucking hate it.

I'm giving serious consideration to the "cook what you like and anyone who doesn't eat it can have bread and butter" approach suggested slightly further up. I can put salad on the side and they'll be perfectly well nourished.

@Frugblie
You seem oddly fixated on telling me to read the thread, which I’ve done. It’s not exactly hard.

My first post, that you took exception to, was not about the OP’s regular arrangements; it was specifically about the sad state of this thread - and this thread is about a time that OP’s husband fucked up in an annoying way. The fact that OP later went on to detail the way they normally operate is kind of irrelevant; fact remains that he rode rough-shod this time. And it was the discussion of this time that brought out all the handmaidens.

My comments were about the sheer depressing number of pathetic apologists on this thread. The fact that there are other voices on this thread does not negate the fact that there are many, many posts that scream Poor Men. It’s depressing.

Now, let’s see what you find to criticise now. 🙄

Agreed that some of the low standards are quite depressing.

But this doesn't have to be a big issue either - reschedule the online shop as it is and DH takes over meal planning this week since he did the shopping. The pasta dish issue is annoying but not major by the sound of it.

I don't see this as a problem.

I'd make my pasta salad. And take his. This is good.

I wouldn't cancel the order. Having lots of food is good, it will all be eaten, or any leftovers taken for lunch to work, or frozen in a container for another work lunch.

I would talk to him. About how he doesn't listen / thinks he's being helpful, but it actually isn't.