To think my DH should be able to cook while I have bad pregnancy sickness

[UsernameA1B2]

I'm 15 weeks pregnant with dc 2. I still have bad sickness that's all day. I can't stand alot of food smells, especially cooking smells and it can make me instantly need to run to bathroom to be sick. My diet is terrible. I weigh less now than before I was pregnant with dc 1. At the last scan the baby was smaller than expected so I'm really worried about my diet and if I'm getting enough vitamins/ minerals/ protein etc. I'm also exhausted (no doubt the bad diet isn't helping) and a sahm to dc1 who is 4 (not yet at school) and autistic and a handful. Before my pregnancy sickness I did all the from scratch cooking (fresh meat and vegetables) and cleaning. My husband can't cook anything other than frozen ready meals and the house is a tip at the moment. The living room gets covered with toys and books and gets worse until I tidy it up. AIBU to think it's not that hard to cook and make something like a bolognese and my husband should be cooking some non ready meal foods while I am pregnant and can't stomach alot of cooking smells and I'm exhausted. He is 36 years old and can't cook (other than heating ready meal food in oven), clean (over than something like hoover but he can't clean bathroom, kitchen, windows etc. I had to scrub bathrub at 8 and a half months pregnant. Once I asked him to clean sink and he wiped it down with toilet paper), do DIY (I have to ask my dad for help especially if it requires 2 people) or drive. He has dyspraxia. Yes I'm a sahm but surely at his age he should be able to do these things for occasions when I am unable due to bad pregnancy sickness or illness. Last year I was bed ridden for a week with the worse stomach bug I have ever had. I couldn't keep anything down for 2 days (was dehydrated) and barely ate for a week. I slept and woke up every few hours to use bathroom for a week. My DH and son lived on ready meals and pizza for a week. No fresh vegetables at all. The house was a complete tip as well.

He should be ashamed of himself. Not for lack of skills but for not bothering to learn to share over several years.

Well he can, can't he? He's just choosing not to. Pathetic.

This is why i hate it when adults say they can’t do basic things.

”I can’t clean!” “I can’t cook!”

Right, so if you lived on your own, you’d be starving to death in a rat infested hovel then?

It only seems to be “can’t” when there is someone else to do it for them.

Everybody's brain works differently and for some people it just isn't realistic to expect them to step out of the routine they are used to which seems to be you do everything house and child related

This is a get-out-of-jail-free card for him to wash his hands of any domestic responsibility at all. His "brain works differently"?

Most neurodiverse people are perfectly capable of taking care of basic domestic tasks. Do women with dyspraxia or autism get to wash their hands of cooking and cleaning?

If he is able to hold down a job and throw a frozen ready meal into the oven he can also boil pasta, boil vegetables and then chuck them together in a bowl with some shop-bought sauce. Or chop some raw vegetables and add some tinned tuna and sweetcorn to make a salad. Or cook some fish and rice. This is not cordon bleu cooking its absolutely rudimentary. My 11 year-old daughter could do it.

This thread is full of some of the worst kind of apologists for backward men.

They're not starving though, even though the OP isn't cooking. Husband is cooking actual food, presumably the sort of food that he would be eating if OP wasn't there - just not the sort she wants to eat.

Normally the MN wisdom is that the person who cooks and plans food gets to decide what's eaten, but in this particular circumstance the OP not having the precise food she wants could actually impact her health, so something does need to change.

She could lay down the law and insist that husband overcomes his disability by just trying harder, (because that'll definitely work) but probably preferable for her to contribute her planning ability by giving him detailed instructions and a meal plan or subscribing to a meal kit service.

Choopi · 06/05/2022 09:38

Dyspraxia and autism very often go together. You say you oldest child has autism. Does your husband have that too ?
I was going to say this. Not because I think he is lazy and useless but because in my experience asd in our kids doesn't spring from no where. These things are often far more complicated than the simple 'lazy and useless' that people like to trot out.

My dh has asd and when I was extremely ill he tried but he couldn't spring from me being the main carer of the children to him stepping up and doing doing everything as I could overnight, it just isn't realistic. Simple things like making sure there was plenty of fruit and veg sticks in the fridge to offset the freezer dinners helped. Also breaking things down into small task so he doesn't get overwhelmed helps too. So rather than 'clean the bathroom' break it down into what needs to be done and say there is cloths for x here and sprays for y there.

Everybody's brain works differently and for some people it just isn't realistic to expect them to step out of the routine they are used to which seems to be you do everything house and child related and just be able to step flawlessly into another. When you marry someone ND you have to expect that not everything will flow like it might in an NT/NT marriage.

^This is a good post. Maybe your DH is a lazy arse, if so, not much you can do tbh. But it's worth considering whether other issues are at play because if that is the case, a different approach to tackling this issue may well result in some good teamwork instead of divorce.

(argh, sorry, should have used quote button)

I dont see what is wrong with good quality ready meals for the time being.

@LeeMucklowesCurtains

I have a nearly 18 year old son with ASD and dyspraxia. He is capable of living independently and will do so.

I have tried for years to teach him to tie a shoe lace, he can’t so I’ve stopped as there are other alternatives. Watching him try to peel and chop vegetables is painful, so I’ve stopped. He doesnt find it that easy to follow a recipie. He isnt lazy or spoilt - he does a lot around the house, does his own washing and keeps his room tidy, But there are some things he really struggles with.

He has no real interest in food other than as fuel, half the time he can’t even tell you what he is eating. When he moves out he will not starve, but I fully expect that he will live off pizza, ready meals, panninis, yoghurt, tomatoes, pre prepared salad, apples and blueberries.

For everyone being so dismissive of this man’s dyspraxia, I wonder what you thing happens when children with these sorts of disabilities turn 18. Do you think adulthood magically confers skills and abilities that weren’t there before. Do you think there is an off switch for dyspraxia and conditions like this ? A child with dyspraxia, ASD, ADHD etc will become an adult with that condition. At school they may be perceived as naughty or badly behaved, as adults they appear to be perceived as lazy and pathetic.

I was talking in general about adults who say they can’t do things.

Not about the Ops husband or your son or anyone else with dyspraxia.

It was a general comment about people who use can’t as a get out who have no additional needs, they are just quite lazy.

Maybe save your comments about adults who are NT but lazy for a thread on that subject then Curtains. Or at the very least make it clear that that's what you're talking about, because we're not mind readers.

Echo other PP. This excusing of men because they "can't" cook or clean annoys the shit out of me, of course he can, he just doesn't want to

I think some people might have missed the dispraxia bit. I'd look for options that might make it easier - pre cut veg etc.

You don’t have to be a mind reader, for christ’s sake. Don’t be so snippy. I know when you have a certain experience it seems like everything is aimed at you or that experience. I’ve been there myself.

But most of the time, people are just making off hand comments. Don’t take everything so personally. It was clear my comment was in response to someone else about lazy adults, not those with additional needs.

I think your husband could be being kinder and doing more of the domestic load however there is nothing wrong with having easy ready meals or frozen food during this time.
You might find that preparing cold food is less nausea inducing so that might be something to try. Also pacing yourself can help so doing small amounts of prep at the times of the day when you feel most well.
Can you get some childcare for your son to help give you some rest?

To those posters saying that he is lazy I wonder if you would say the same thing to the O if he became unwell and was unable to work. Would we immediately expect the SAHP to get a job and provide the same level of income?

@Hobbitfeet32

I'm sorry and I don't want to be unkind or bigoted about neurodiversity but I think this is being overemphasised here.

The OP is the one here who is unwell, not the husband. There's no indication from her post that he's struggling with other areas of his life. He has a job and is apparently capable of feeding himself and his family, albeit with junk food.

He doesn't even need to cook really to deliver healthy food. I really struggle to believe that while on the one hand he can manage a ready meal, he's incapable of buying a pack of pre-cut veg from Sainsburys to bung into a stir-fry or or a salad.

I had this issue so completely sympathise but my DP can cook and clean well just couldn’t understand how much it took out of me and why I wasn’t doing my fair share!

I don’t think most of the responses have considered that he has dyspraxia which significantly impacts a persons ability to complete activities of daily living so cooking and cleaning through in to adulthood. It won’t be simple for him to do tasks he hasn’t already mastered or to just step up and suddenly start cooking from scratch, however if you say he can do microwave meals etc he should be able to do more of this and make sure you’re all eating.

Dyspraxia doesn’t mean he can’t learn to do new things but he will most likely need a complete break down of any new tasks, demonstration and repetition and even then may not be to most people’s standard/time. I can imagine at 36 he’s possibly embarrassed to ask for this and support for dyspraxia was not great 25 years ago so maybe he was never given strategies to help manage it? I’m not at all surprised cleaning the sink involved him just wiping it with paper if it’s not something he has done before considering his diagnosis.

If he didn’t have dyspraxia I’d have given you a different answer, I had to tell my DH straight and eventually he got it but I don’t think that’ll work here.

My husband likes cooking but cannot chop onions without it causing his eyes to really water. So we keep frozen chopped onion in freezer for when he is cooking if I am not available to chop his onions (not a euphemism!)

Most neurodiverse people are perfectly capable of taking care of basic domestic tasks. Do women with dyspraxia or autism get to wash their hands of cooking and cleaning?

Of course some women with asd or dyspraxia struggle with these things too, why would you think that they wouldnt?You don't have to look far on mumsnet to see ND women struggling with daily life and daily chores that rely hugely on their OHs. And yes I would be understanding if they were struggling if their other half suddenly became incapacitated and they had to do their OHs routine as well as their own. I certainly wouldn't call them lazy and useless.

The man has a wife who is poorly and 4 year old to look after. I presume he has a full time job too? Cleaning is probably low down on his priorities and if he's providing a meal you can eat, I wouldn't be worried about it was. Worrying about clean windows at a time like this is frankly ridiculous. If you're too ill to cook, you need to let him get on with it. When we were in this situation I was happy to have super noodles and crisps delivered to me in the windows I was able to stomach food. You can get vitamins in liquid form if you're unable to keep down pills.

The dyspraxia makes it harder but not impossible.

A really easy meal he can do tonight.

Get a packet of chopped frozen onion
get a packet of frozen mixed veg
get some frozen individually portioned rice
get a tin of curry sauce

Put some of the onion and half the packet of mixed veg in a pan, open the tin and pour over , switch on the gas and heat for 10 mins. Set a timer.

Put what is not being used back into the freezer.

When the timer goes microwave the rice.

Do you?

You are assuming it is his dyspraxia only that stops him from being able to do anything. But as others have pointed out, there are ways around this. And it's not like dyspraxia would stop him tiding up toys. He can do bits of the cleaning, more complex things may be difficult for him, but the basics can be done. Op says he can wipe a toilet with a tissue, no different using a sponge and bleach is there? He is doing it badly deliberately.

Unless you've had really bad pregnancy sickness it's hard to imagine how just the thought of cooking makes you nauseous, never mind the smell, the taste or effort. Your DH should pull his weight given you're growing a human being which is a 24/7 job. And he should care enough about the growth of his child and the wellbeing of his wife to do some cooking.

The housework I would just let go. Don't do it but if he doesn't do it it doesn't get done. It'll take months before it's a public health hazard and hopefully he'll clean before then.

@sashh

what you have described isnt that different from a ready meal is it?

@Thepeopleversuswork

yes the brain does work differently - thats the whole point of neurodiversity.

I cannot explain to you why my son can do some incredibly complex things, yet struggles with the simplest of tasks.
And yes I do know a number of young adult women who struggle with cooking and cleaning.

And by the way, I clean my loo with loo paper - a tip I got from mumnet, no issues with throwing away cleaning cloths or how to wash them, clean and flush, job done

Of course he can and should be. But this is what happens when you have children with a man child who thinks cooking and cleaning is your job.