To not want to cook for my lodger’s friends?

[Itmustbeaproblemwithyourdoodad]

So we’re a household of 6 - me, my husband, our 3 small kids, and our lodger (late 20s, male, family friend we have known for years).

Since lockdown we eat together - I do the food shopping, meal planning and cook most of the meals. Lodger cooks one night a week, DH sometimes cooks at the weekend. Lodger washes up and cleans the kitchen while we’re putting the kids to bed.

I often feel a bit like our lodger is like having an extra child - although it is nice to come down from bedtime to the washing up all done.

This weekend our lodger has friends staying over from abroad and I asked if they were eating out or if he was planning to cook for them. His response surprised me a bit - he asked what I was planning to cook and when I said “probably macaroni cheese” he said “that’s quite easy to bulk up isn’t it?” Making it clear he is expecting, or at least hoping that I will cook for them. He made me feel a bit unreasonable for not wanting to cook for them but I feel like as his guests it is his responsibility to feed them. And that includes food shopping for them instead of just using the food in the cupboard (which he does financially contribute to but he literally never goes food shopping). I just don’t really fancy spending my weekend cooking for 8!

From the OP:

'His response surprised me a bit - he asked what I was planning to cook and when I said “probably macaroni cheese” he said “that’s quite easy to bulk up isn’t it?” Making it clear he is expecting, or at least hoping that I will cook for them. '

He evidently then went quiet, ie he sulked like a man child.

He expected OP to just do it. This IS entitled behaviour. Why didn't he say to the OP 'is it ok if my friends eat with us on Friday, I'll get it all and cook'. Even my DP wouldn't assume like this. Family friend, relative, whatever - doesn't matter - you don't expect, you look to yourself first not assume someone will sort it out. Sorry but this is typical male behaviour.

Quite frankly I’d happily clear up after dinner if someone else did the cooking. Doesn’t take much effort to stack the dishwasher. And wipe down surfaces.

Having had a couple of lodgers I would just say bulk up the macaroni cheese as he sounds like a great lodger as finding one with 3 small children would not be easy. His friends will hopefully be lovely people and you'll have a great evening. Very cheeky of him to ask of course but it's a cheap easy (and delicious!) meal. Although never tried a vegan version to be fair.

I don't think it's just about him being a lodger - if my DH invites friends round that are primarily his friends, I expect him to take the lead and organise the food, sheets, towels etc. Of course I help host but I would be quite annoyed if he expected me to sort out dinner completely with no effort on his part.

Wow thanks everyone for all the responses. Lots to think about and I agree I’ve let resentment build and been awful at communication. I probably need to do some work on myself and being more assertive.

Yes we have a dishwasher, and washing up recently has been more of a joint effort so maybe I’ve felt like lodger is not pulling his weight. When he’s out or away it doesn’t actually feel like much more work, and a massive bonus is we have leftovers for lunch (saving loads of money as DH usually buys lunch otherwise). So we’ve been thinking for a while that maybe it’s time to stop the communal meals, but I agree that blurting it out like I did was not a great way to break the news!

Also we need to have an awkward conversation about raising the rent as we haven’t put it up in the nearly 4 years he’s been here and it includes all bills and is pretty low.

When we started the cooking rota what I envisaged was that on their cooking nights, lodger and DH would plan and shop for their meals ie share the mental load. But what actually happens is lodger looks in the cupboards and if I haven’t specifically bought ingredients and shown him a recipe, he throws a few tins of beans and tomatoes into a pan with some onions and pasta and the result is almost inedible. So I end up planning and shopping for his meal too and to be fair it wouldn’t be much more work to actually cook it myself (and it would taste better).

DH isn’t much better with the meal planning but I guess I feel like we’re more of a team as we share the childcare and other household jobs. Neither of us has much spare time so feels like quite a fair division of labour. Also I’m more comfortable telling him when he’s pissing me off so don’t let the resentment build in the same way!! He’s also the default night parent and that’s something I try not to take for granted.

Anyway, we all had a chat this morning and agreed that lodger will pick up a takeaway for tonight (and we’ll pay our share) and that we will review the communal cooking and either do our own thing after this month OR the men will share the shopping and food planning a bit more.

Sounds like a good resolution OP

We use a website called plan to eat which might be of interest to you - you add or import recipes, put them on a calendar and it generates a shopping list. You can sync to Google calendar (probably iCal too) and then just click on the recipe. You could then just tell your lodger/DH on their days to cook what's in there and/or take it in turns to meal plan

Initially I thought his request was out of order, but then... He's one person out of six and cleans the kitchen every night, plus cooks a night a week so actually in terms of sharing the load at mealtimes I would be very happy with this and think him to be doing more than his share so I'd suck up cooking for the guests and maybe ask him to cook for everyone one of the nights.

Might be biased though as if I had the choice I would always pick cooking a large meal over washing up!

Wondering what your husbands contribution is other than cooking once a week as if anyone isn't pulling their weight it seems to be him.

@Itmustbeaproblemwithyourdoodad

Also we need to have an awkward conversation about raising the rent as we haven’t put it up in the nearly 4 years he’s been here and it includes all bills and is pretty low.

When are you going to have this ^^ conversation OP? Especially with energy, fuel, food etc bills all rising currently. 🌹

I think you cooking for everyone (or at least meal planning/managing the shopping) the whole time clearly doesn't work now you're no longer a SAHM and are working. Either you divide the evenings (your DH cooks 2 nights, you cook 2 nights, lodger cooks 2 nights and takeaway on the final night) or I'd tell both your DH and lodger to fend for themselves and make something simple for you and the kids. I don't think the real problem is the guests, but the overall allocation of responsibilities.

Cooking for adults is so much more work than cooking for children. My DC had some leftover salmon and boiled noodles and carrots yesterday since I didn't feel like eating (pregnancy nausea)... the whole meal took around 4 minutes to make but clearly not something an adult would enjoy eating. I would hate to feel I had to make a proper, homecooked meal every night.

You have more patience than me.
I would have stopped catering for the mens immediately.

I would definitely increase his rent, too.
Hopefully that will push him out and you can find someone who isn't a cocklodger - without the 'cock' part.

Agreed!