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.

I actually don't believe the posters saying they would be grateful if their partner did this - as if the reaction would be 'why thank you darling, I am so grateful' and not 'why the fuck have you gone and done this when we did the online shop last night?'.

Feel better now @NameChange215?

@NameChange215

YADNBU. All these posters saying you should be 'grateful' can just fuck off with their 1950s shit. OP takes the entire mental load of the house and asked him to get a few specific bits. She even wrote him a fucking list. And he still thinks he knows best and just causes more work for OP. How fucking low are your standards that you are grateful when he fucks up a perfectly simple task? He's not a child doing chores, he's supposed to be an adult with 50% responsibility. Just because you've resigned yourself to your husbands being utterly shit and not taking on any of the mental load, doesn't mean everyone else should do a little happy dance when their husbands try to 'help' and just make more work.

I’m also completely baffled by the number of people on here defending the DP. And mystified as to why anyone would do another shop when they’d just helped do the first!

Save your angst 👁👁

My mum used to micromanage my dad like this. No wonder he gave up doing stuff.

I find, in an adult relationship, if one or the other decides to do something a bit different to the original instruction, then it is generally with good intentions and can just be moved past very very easily.

@fourminutestosavetheworld

I find, in an adult relationship, if one or the other decides to do something a bit different to the original instruction, then it is generally with good intentions and can just be moved past very very easily.

This. Pasta Salad - get over yourself. £180 shop, with online delivery tomorrow, very annoying, but not the end of the world. But this is MN so.... LTB.

@robotcollision

You can't dictate what pasta salad someone else makes. You make the one you want to make and let him make what he wants.

As to the shopping - annoying but the kind of mistake anyone can make.

What, going out and spending £180 on shopping is a mistake anyone can make? Are you sure?! 🙄

Like a pp I assumed the pasta salad was specific because of food intolerances.

Pasta salad is rank.

I find, in an adult relationship, if one or the other decides to do something a bit different to the original instruction, then it is generally with good intentions and can just be moved past very very easily

I find it's more often a result of having the luxury to not worry about what consequences your behaviour has on anyone else , and the knowledge that someone else will just sort it out.

It may just be a pasta salad but there's every chance if this was me that I'd have planned to keep back a small.pot each for the kids lunch or dinner the next so I didn't have to worry about fitting in cooking a meal when I was working the next day, akd had an hour and a bit between getting back from the school run/or grand parents and taking dd to her swimming lesson. An hour most likely designated to putting the shopping order away.

If I'd been left with a pile of pasta salad the kids wouldn't eat I'd be a bit annoyed I was having to throw something together at 7 o clock when I'd got back from swimming when it was already worked out til someone decided they'd make a point / go rogue.

@Livpool

YABU - I am very laidback but really couldn't be annoyed with this. Just cancel your order- I generally do the online shop for my family and it doesn't take much effort.

And I would hate to have the same meals planned all the time. There must be meals that can be made.

This wouldn't register to me as annoying at all. He is a grown up - he can shop if he wants

Butbutbutbutbut - Op made a list for specific things because she had been asked to make a specific pasta salad, with specific ingredients, and intended to do that, as requested, and the "grown-up" decided to ignore her and make something he fancied would show off his culinary prowess, without wondering why she had been so specific and thus disrespecting her. As to the spending of £180 when they'd placed an order for delivery already - pah. That's not being a grown-up, it's called being a selfish idiot and not using your brain because "wife-work" is beneath you and there can't possibly be a logical reason behind what you have been asked to do because you are a man and you know better and if you happen to get it wrong, oh joy, you won't be asked to do these demeaning tasks again.

"I find it's more often a result of having the luxury to not worry about what consequences your behaviour has on anyone else , and the knowledge that someone else will just sort it out."

Sort what out?

He tells the host 'here is a pasta salad, it's not the specific one you asked for but looks very nice, if you're grumpy about it blame me'.

He then reschedules the big delivery for next week - one less job next week.

"It may just be a pasta salad but there's every chance if this was me that I'd have planned to keep back a small.pot each for the kids lunch or dinner the next so I didn't have to worry about fitting in cooking a meal when I was working the next day, akd had an hour and a bit between getting back from the school run/or grand parents and taking dd to her swimming lesson. An hour most likely designated to putting the shopping order away."

You are making some assumptions here. I think op would have mentioned all of this if it was the case. It must be exhausting looking at every action a person makes and assuming the worst intention. All these pages of angst about such a trivial thing.

"t's called being a selfish idiot and not using your brain because "wife-work" is beneath you and there can't possibly be a logical reason behind what you have been asked to do because you are a man and you know better and if you happen to get it wrong, oh joy, you won't be asked to do these demeaning tasks again."

Or he thought 'friend has asked for the pasta salad we usually take but I saw a great recipe recently, I'll make that and save dw a job when she gets home later.'

Why are we attributing all of these horrible thoughts to him?

They share food shopping and cooking between them. He doesn't sound like someone who considers these things demeaning.

As with so many posts on mn, it would be a different response if a man posted.

'I sent my wife to the shop with specific instructions. She spent more than expected. She made a slightly different pasta salad to the one I intended to make.'

There'd be ten pages of folk telling him to get over himself. No one would be saying she intentionally cocked up so she wasn't asked again.

Let's at least try to keep a bit of perspective.

OP, if you're still reading I hope you enjoyed the barbecue and managed to put the disappointment behind you.

DH is always saying he feels he can't say or do anything without me criticising*

He's right. Take note.

He's an adult; you're treating him like a naughty little boy.

@BasicDad

How's about take stock of what he's bought and see if there's something you can both work out with it between you?

No, he shopped so he must have had an idea of what was on the meal plan for the week.

Why should she have to bail him out?

Or he thought 'friend has asked for the pasta salad we usually take but I saw a great recipe recently, I'll make that and save dw a job when she gets home later

But what's the problem with doing what's been asked of you. Cook the new recipe when its your turn to cook next.

If you text me to say you were feeling ill and can't get to the shop please can you pick me up some milk , bread and a box of tissues , I agreed, then showed up with 2 bottles of strawberry milk shake , a carrot cake insaw I thought looked nice and some dettol anti bac wipes would u think I was being kind and thoughtful and trying to save you a job or would u be wondering what the kids would put in their cereal and how can you make their ham sandwiches for lunch with a carrot cake?

Of course it makes more work for the wife because now she has has make the other pasta salad. Find room for the shopping he knew full well she'd bought and now she probably has to go buy more Pasta

@fourminutestosavetheworld

"t's called being a selfish idiot and not using your brain because "wife-work" is beneath you and there can't possibly be a logical reason behind what you have been asked to do because you are a man and you know better and if you happen to get it wrong, oh joy, you won't be asked to do these demeaning tasks again."

Or he thought 'friend has asked for the pasta salad we usually take but I saw a great recipe recently, I'll make that and save dw a job when she gets home later.'

Why are we attributing all of these horrible thoughts to him?

They share food shopping and cooking between them. He doesn't sound like someone who considers these things demeaning.

RTFT - she did tell him why this specific pasta salad was needed. And he ignored her.

"Of course it makes more work for the wife because now she has has make the other pasta salad. Find room for the shopping he knew full well she'd bought and now she probably has to go buy more Pasta."

Only if she's a martyr who won't (1) take the substitute pasta dish to the barbecue, (2) tell him to reschedule the expected big shop.

And what abkut the host?

What if it was the only meat free/dairy free option which she now doesn't have ?

What if they are now stuck with 5 lots of pasta salad becuase the other guests decided they didn't want to bring what we asked either despite agreeing at the time ?

And why hasn't he already cancelled the order already? See more work fir the wife she has to nag him to cancel it now.

"RTFT - she did tell him why this specific pasta salad was needed. And he ignored her."

I've read it. She said her friend had requested it for the barbecue. She didn't tell him, but knew herself, that this was because the children would eat it.

Why are we imagining a thoughtless, unkind man thinking it's hilarious to make a pasta dish that the kids won't eat, so his wife won't ask him to do it again (when actually she hadn't asked him to make one at all) or whatever motive has been spuriously attributed to him.

Why can't it just be a nice man thinking 'I know the kids like that dish but I bet they'd like this one more.'

Can't it just be a minor, forgivable, not important misunderstanding that he himself can face the consequences of by delivering the heinous pasta with an apology?

"And what abkut the host?"

Has anyone, in the history of the world, ever given any fucks whatsoever if a guest turns up with a pasta dish slightly different to the one requested, to a barbecue?

If it was of national importance - the only vegan option on offer or whatever - op would have told us I'm sure.

I expect op got over it, had a lovely time at the barbecue and the pasta was eaten with enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, a number of mn posters simply cannot accept that there may be any explanation other than malicious intent, blatant disrespect and all round rottenness.

I'm surprised no one has even been in the husbands shoes tbh - fine something they thought was thoughtful, or at least neutral, and ended up inadvertently annoying someone. It happens. It's not that important if you love each other.

Just ask him to do a quick menu plan for the weeks meals, as he knows what he had in mind when he got the ingredients. Let him take the mental load.

Some posters on this thread need to get a grip. Bloke does nothing, lazy and selfish. Bloke does something, malicious and thoughtless. Christ on a bike.