To feel upset over cake?

[Thistledew]

It seems so trivial, I probably am BU.

It's DD's birthday tomorrow. DH likes baking and usually bakes a cake for the DC's birthdays and I do the decorating.

Earlier in the week we had a discussion about what sort of cake to make. DH suggested a chocolate fudge, which I thought would be a bit rich for DD, who will be 2. As she loves colourful things and naming colours, I suggested a rainbow sponge cake - or at least a simplified version with two or three different coloured layers. DH agreed this was a good idea and bought the ingredients, including red, orange and yellow food colouring to do a three layer cake.

Yesterday, he baked the cakes. I thought they looked a bit pale so I asked if he had used the food colouring. He said that forgot that we had talked about a coloured sponge and he had it in mind that we were just going to put colour in the icing.

It seems so trivial, and I known in the grand scheme of things that it doesn't matter and DD will love whatever cake we produce, but this is something that happens often- I will tell DH something, or we will have a discussion, and he will then just 'forget'.

It seems symptomatic of a bigger problem- it used to be that he wouldn't hear me when I tried to talk to him about something. Now he hears me but he forgets.

AIBU to feel that the issue is more about him zoning out and not engaging with me properly? If IABU, how do I raise this with him without it being a big moan about a trivial issue of the colour of a cake?

@GrapesThatThrive

It's not about the fucking cake!

My DH is very like this and I sympathise OP. It's exhausting

Then she shouldn’t have called the thread “being upset about the “fucking” cake”. You can’t expect people to wade through every bloody post. She’s asked about cake she’s getting answers on cake!!

@Woeismethischristmas

Missing the point but when I did a rainbow cake the yellow dye tasted awful and we didn’t eat that layer/ avoided the yellow icing. Was such a shame so maybe it’ll turn out for the best.

Rather than dying it, why not mix lemon zest in? Sponge is yellowish anyway.

Annoying. I have the same.
He’ll offer something and sound excited/ interested.

Nine times out of ten he’ll forget or do something different to what we had planned. Apparently my fault for not giving him specific instructions ( even though he understood at the time).

I don’t want to micro manage him. That’s the point.

My husband is so pedantic about cooking. Every gentle input I made he didn’t really take on board from day one, so I stopped bothering. He does all the cooking.

Is this like that? I can see maybe there’s so proper micromanagement going on here but I don’t know if it’s because you’re controlling or he’s useless or both.

@Ponoka7 Thats really interesting.

My DP still can't hold onto the fact that I've cut red meat from my diet. It's health related. I was telling a friend the other day how annoying it is when he texted about having lamb for dinner. It's been two years!

If hes into making cakes, then surely he gets to use his own artistic license somewhat. Hes not your staff. If he decided to only use colours in the frosting for his kids home made bday cake, then why is that somehow symbolic of a bigger picture?

@RampantIvy

* It won't taste anything like as good as the home made cake. Just do colourful icing.*

How can you sure of that?! You have no idea what kind of baker the dh is

Your DH sounds distracted but at the same time quite amenable and happy to adjust his plans to fit yours (if he remembers). Problem being then he forgets.

Of course the cake isn't really the issue but I wonder if some of your frustration is that your DH puts less importance on things that matter a lot to you. Personally, it wouldn't matter one bit to me what sort of cake a two year old had so I would probably forget the colours too.

Obviously for bigger matters such as pick ups it's important not to forget but I think you have to be more relaxed on the smaller things as they clearly don't matter as much to DH.

Poor fella.

Sounds like you’re doing everything you can to ensure he has no say in his own children.

OP, if your DH had said “look, I know we agreed I’d do the cake like that but I’m going to do it like this because it’s less work”, would that have made a difference?

I may be off-beam but I get the sense it’s the passive-aggression of agreeing with you, then going his own sweet way without any communication that you’ll have to change your expectations about the outcome that’s a big part of the issue?

I’d be annoyed if DH and I agreed he/we would do something in a certain way then he unilaterally changed it without at least letting me know he was changing it, just as I wouldn’t ignore his wishes/input/decisions that I’d agreed to without telling him. To me it’s just courtesy and clear communication. It’s not asking permission or opening another negotiation, just a polite heads-up that you were expecting X but you’re going to get Y, and it acknowledges that the earlier conversation took place.

If he does it about important stuff them address it. If he does it about unimportant stuff like cake then let it go.

I think the question is whether he genuinely forgets, which is fine, or whether he can’t be bothered discussing things with the OP, so does it his own way and then pretends he forgot when she calls him on it. If it’s the latter, the. He needs to grow up!

Gel food colorings generally give very vivid colors but don’t affect the taste, by the way.

[quote RiverSkater]@Ponoka7 Thats really interesting.

My DP still can't hold onto the fact that I've cut red meat from my diet. It's health related. I was telling a friend the other day how annoying it is when he texted about having lamb for dinner. It's been two years!

[/quote]
Have you addressed this with him? The overarching trend, not isolated incidents. If so, what’s his response?

@NarcissasMumintheDoghouse

Forget about the cake.

Forget about those making the mountain/molehill comments, as if this were really just only about a cake.

Start making a diary of the occasions when he does this sort of thing. If it turns out it is a regular occurrence - that you will have a discussion and come to a decision that he then forgets - then you have a problem that needs addressing.

Living with someone who forgets or misremembers things like this all the time can be a proper challenge. Unless your DH is old enough to be in the "senior moment" zone, if it is a regular thing, you need to address it as a pair.

Make the cake incident the first such event on your list.

Also, have a look at "ADHD: an A to Z" by Leanne Maskell.

I think this seems a sensible idea.

In anonymous research men admit that they disregard what's said by women. It used to be the case that police/services did as well. It's been shown that it can take a woman to say something at least three times for us to be taken seriously, but then we are accused of nagging

Wow, that explains why DH has been ignoring me for 40 years. Its fucking infuriating.

@luxxlisbon

I dunno if I baked a cake and forgot to colour the sponge, or decided I couldn’t be bothered when the time came and thought it would be easier to colour the icing and my husband made a big deal about it because we ‘agreed’ on it before hand I would think he could F off and bake the cake himself next time!

You say you had a convo about it and he agreed to do the rainbow cake which you suggested, and the colours you suggested etc but you were the one dictating how he did it in the first place. Perhaps just think about how often this happens? He was doing a nice thing baking the birthday cake but you felt you had to step in and control the flavour and look, perhaps he just felt exhausted that he can’t just decide how his own task is going to go and therefore zoned out.
I’m not saying that reaction is right or mature but it is sort of understandable if it is happening regularly.

This is what i was thinking. You arbitrarily over-ruled his idea, squelching him, but now are having a fit that he didn't carry out your idea to the letter.

Why not just let him bake as he sees fit in the first place instead of controlling? It gets so tiresome to always have one's ideas overruled. People do tend to tune out controllers after a point.

Honestly if you were so keen for the cake to turn out a certain way, you should have made it yourself.

@NarcissasMumintheDoghouse

Forget about the cake.

Forget about those making the mountain/molehill comments, as if this were really just only about a cake.

Start making a diary of the occasions when he does this sort of thing. If it turns out it is a regular occurrence - that you will have a discussion and come to a decision that he then forgets - then you have a problem that needs addressing.

Living with someone who forgets or misremembers things like this all the time can be a proper challenge. Unless your DH is old enough to be in the "senior moment" zone, if it is a regular thing, you need to address it as a pair.

Make the cake incident the first such event on your list.

Also, have a look at "ADHD: an A to Z" by Leanne Maskell.

Oh bloody hell please don’t start making a list of all the times he doesn’t listen to you and makes mistakes. He bought the ingredients and made the cake. Give him a pass on this. Making notes of his misdemeanours is terrible advice. Imagine if a man did that to his wife? Let’s all try to be nice.

@SevenWaystoLeave

Honestly if you were so keen for the cake to turn out a certain way, you should have made it yourself.

It isn't about the cake apparently. It is about the dh's inability to follow his wife's instructions.

Does he work op? Does this problem occur in other areas or just irrelevant domestic stuff that tbh any one of us can get a bit forgetful with.

The cake really sounds like a non event - it’s a cake for a 2 year old, and he’s the one making it.

The rest of the examples don’t sound huge - but if you feel you are taking on too much mental load, I’d talk to him about what more he could take on.

But part of this is accepting that things may not be done to your ‘standards’. It might be that he needs to engage a bit more, and you need to chill a bit more.

In anonymous research men admit that they disregard what's said by women. It used to be the case that police/services did as well. It's been shown that it can take a woman to say something at least three times for us to be taken seriously, but then we are accused of nagging

^ genuinely interested in seeing this research!

Not really an issue but guess it’s irritating more than anything if you had envisioned something different.

But u could turn it into a surprise cake and cut the middle out to put sweets in?

@NarcissasMumintheDoghouse

Forget about the cake.

Forget about those making the mountain/molehill comments, as if this were really just only about a cake.

Start making a diary of the occasions when he does this sort of thing. If it turns out it is a regular occurrence - that you will have a discussion and come to a decision that he then forgets - then you have a problem that needs addressing.

Living with someone who forgets or misremembers things like this all the time can be a proper challenge. Unless your DH is old enough to be in the "senior moment" zone, if it is a regular thing, you need to address it as a pair.

Make the cake incident the first such event on your list.

Also, have a look at "ADHD: an A to Z" by Leanne Maskell.

Can that diary of his forgetfulness also include details of the OP's forgetful occasions or are we following the MN rule that only men ever get it wrong? Amazing what some people choose to get het up about.

You overruled the choice of cake he is making.
You’re not a baker but you think dye goes in the sponge. I’m like your DH - I’d only put it in the icing as dyed cake is weird.

The family calendar is the only annoying example you’ve posted, although personally I’d be able to remember the dates so probably wouldn’t automatically log them either.

I can be quite forgetful, much more so than DH. If I discovered he was writing a list of times I'd messed up to hold against me and prove that I can't function I'd be devastated, and I'm pretty sure MN would tell me that I must LTB immediately in that scenario.