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.

Oh and meal planning doesn't mean all the cooking. Ask DH to plan the week and share the cooking based on schedules etc.

As a complete aside 180 is a LOT of money for a weeks worth of food...

I don't understand why susiebobs comment was deleted. It's not that bad.

It’s mad seeing so many comments like ‘you’re so lucky your husband did the bare minimum and still managed to fuck it up 😍 be grateful’
Imagine having such low standards🤣

@KurtWilde

Christ talk about first world problems

Quite. It appears the world will stop turning if little George has to go without pasta salad because the fussy little bugger has all his foibles indulged @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g.

Whereas in my world little George would be told that there’s pasta salad, you can eat that or you can have something else.

@Oblomov21

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.

How do you know it will all be eaten? I don't have a huge amount of space in my freezer so a sudden influx of extra fresh food would mostly have to be eaten in the next few days or be wasted - and I'm pretty relaxed about use by/best before dates.

"I don't have a huge amount of space in my freezer". Gasp that's your choice. I have quite a bit of space.

George won't starve, of course, but it's possibly a minor disappointment for his parents on a day when they have guests coming and thought one job was off the list That's all.

That's great for you, Oblomov, but most of us don't have room for a chest freezer.

I’d have to say that I’d be grateful…..just change the date of the other food shop to a weeks time and no harm done 👍

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

George won't starve, of course, but it's possibly a minor disappointment for his parents on a day when they have guests coming and thought one job was off the list That's all.

If George is to be indulged in his faddiness perhaps his parents should take the responsibility for it and not outsource it to someone else.

You sound like a hen pecker!! Sounds like the poor. bloke can never do anything right and you’re always criticising him.

I don't have a chest freezer.

When I was growing up in the 1960s my brother and I would eat anything. Our Mum was a good plain cook. So were my aunts. We would eat anything they put in front of us too. However, one cousin on each side was very picky. Same kind of food as us, other siblings ate it. Baffling. It caused a lot of stress in those families and taking a strict approach did no good. I hate stressful mealtimes. So when my son turned out to be a picky eater, as his dad had been when young, we decided not to make a big deal about it. He ate enough and his diet was just about varied enough that he was healthy. We just worked around it. Gradually it got better. At 27 now he eats anything and has done for years. 6', slim, active etc. I'm glad we took a low key approach.

Not as susceptible to special offers as I am then, Oblomov! That's what fills my freezer up.

@PinkiOcelot

You sound like a hen pecker!! Sounds like the poor. bloke can never do anything right and you’re always criticising him.

See, this is the type of comment that makes me think it’s all a big piss-take.

Big shop when you had already organised one. Fair enough, that is annoying. YANBU
Pasta salad that he made to his recipe, he is an adult, you asked him to make pasta salad. YABVVU. Cook it yourself next time, and have the good grace to thank him for the effort. If the children don't eat it, that is their opinion of his food.

@NowEvenBetter

It’s mad seeing so many comments like ‘you’re so lucky your husband did the bare minimum and still managed to fuck it up 😍 be grateful’ Imagine having such low standards🤣

Forget endless articles on feminism mental load blah blah the proof of a woman’s burden is this thread….

2021 and posters are falling over themselves to make excuses for man who can't execute a simple task related to food and shopping.

He isn't "trying" and the OP has nothing to be grateful for. He knew the host asked for a specific dish and decided he didn't care, would do his own thing. He knew the OP had organised shopping for their food next week and again, does his own thing.

I simply do not see what the OP is supposed to be grateful for here. He either doesn't care or is being strategically incompetent.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

It all depends. OP's husband might have gone to the supermarket and spent £180 on sensible stuff that will all get used up and can be put together to make full meals of a type that all the family will eat. Or he might have wandered around in a dream putting any old thing in the trolley because he thought it might be nice, with little thought about what it would go with.

E.g. 1: he bought mince with a specific plan of making chilli, so also bought red kidney beans, onions, tinned tomatoes etc, and also bought a good selection of basics - maybe not specifically what OP asked for, but all basics are now there for the next few days.

E.g. 2: he bought lots and lots of crisps, biscuits, booze and soft drinks, a box of quail's eggs to see what they're like, 3l of milk in case you're running low (when you actually have 9l in already) and no cereal, teabags, bread, fruit or vegetables, which you actually needed.

1 is helpful and OP needs to learn to let go a bit.

2 is not helpful in the slightest and OP is right.

Only she knows which is which.

This.

If the pasta salad will still be eaten (I think it's fine for a BBQ it goes with other food and not everyone wants to eat a huge pile of meat and little else) and the date the booked shop can be pushed back for a week or two with little effort, it's not the end of the world but it all depends what's in this £180 shop, how long it will last and is it within their budget.

If they normally spend £60 a week and he's bought a load of random luxuries that won't feed them for the next 3 weeks until their normal spend is covered, then the OP is not being unreasonable.

If he's bought a larger amount of their normal shopping because he's stocked up on special offers and it will make the meals they normally eat, or at least everything for meals that they will eat, then maybe the OP should just let it go.

But it's still a totally random thing to do when they sat together the day before to do the online shop and he knew they only needed a few bits to bridge the gap. And it still doesn't make it OK even if it hasn't totally derailed their budget.

It's not 'well at least he's done a shop, so that's good' there's doing a shop and there's doing it in accordance with their circumstances. Keeping to a budget, buying a decent variety of healthy food, not wasting things, buying all the ingredients for the things you are going to make, not missing things out and having to go shopping again, keeping in with the time available to cook, accounting for likes, dislikes, allergies etc. It's a lot more work than just wandering around a supermarket picking up what looks nice until the trolley's full.

[elbow bumps Barbara]

As he usually has input to cooking and shopping anyway I doubt the big shop is full of ludicrous items- but definitely say its up to him to meal plan and ideally do more than his share of the cooking for the week.

If the requested pasta salad is just for a few children, make a small portion (no extra effort as you were going to anyway), and take the other one as well; or have the other one for another meal.

It sounds annoying, but similarly I couldn't get too worked up about it, maybe enjoy sharing some more of the mental load as he appears so keen.

Also hate the word handmaiden along with cool girls, eurgh.

Do you honestly think that if this was a budgetary issue the OP would have failed to mention it @BarbaraofSeville? The basis of her complaint is that he didn’t do as he was told. Because she’s obviously the boss.

The word ‘grateful’ implies that the recipient has received something above and beyond. Like a gift. Not basic courtesy. The idea that a woman should feel ‘grateful’ when her husband does basic life admin is very worrying.

Especially if the net result is more work

@Shakespeare79

The word ‘grateful’ implies that the recipient has received something above and beyond. Like a gift. Not basic courtesy. The idea that a woman should feel ‘grateful’ when her husband does basic life admin is very worrying.

Yes! It seems oddly robotic the idea of following my DH around thanking him every time he lifts a finger

I would be grateful if, say, I said I'm just popping to the shops and when I get back I'm going to do the ironing and when I got back he had done it as he had some free time - as that is helpful and thoughtful. None of what OPs DH did was either!