AIBU calling DH atrocious for not wanting to 'cook' anything more than frozen oven food.

[BeingHappy]

I'm 20 weeks pregnant, feeling nauseous throughout the day and the smells of raw meat/the fridge/cooking smells eg onions frying, veg being steamed really sets me off.

Anyway an argument with DH really spiralled tonight. I asked him to help me out after he gets home from work (he is usually home by 6.30pm, not a.stressful job) he said yes he would and what would I like help with. I was in the wrong when I replied with 'use your initiative' to which he said that was rude.. which made me cry and I sort of spiralled. Anyway, eventually said I needed him to step up and do the cooking but it needs to be something more than frozen fish and chips. And he said that's all he knows how to cook, he doesn't know how to cook anything else. And I called him atrocious.. he said he would never say anything like that to me. AIBU for calling him atrocious?

By the way, his cooking is generally awful and the most he's ever usually managed to 'cook' is sticking frozen stuff in the oven.

YANBU to want him to learn to cook.

YABVVU to call him atrocious and send him to the other room. How does that help anything?

Mine is similar with the cooking @BeingHappy but he has learned a lot over the years. Something I’ll do if I’m batch cooking is get him involved - he’s fine if I explain what to do and is keen to learn how to make more than just warmed up stuff. Yes he could learn himself but I don’t see any harm in showing him how easy it is while I’m actually doing it.

MIL can cook but she was a SAHM who liked to do everything look after her husband and sons and very much saw cooking and cleaning as ‘women’s work’ 🙄Therefore DH has learned over the years since leaving home how to look after himself.

So the consensus on this thread is pretty much that the OP is responsible for feeding a man/her child for every meal that doesn't come out of a packet for the next 40 years, then? And he can't possibly be expected to feed his own child at any time? Or learn off his own bat/think for himself because it's far too much for his tired brain to comprehend?

Okay....

Apart from that maybe he just doesn’t want to cook. I am sure I can watch YouTube videos of various gardening techniques, but I don’t like gardening and I don’t want to learn.

Gardening doesn't actually need to be done. You can live in a house without a garden, or dig up your lawn and concrete over it, or pay a gardener to come and take care of it once a month, or just let it grow wild.

Cooking does actually need to be done. Funny how all of these supposed adults who don't cook because they don't enjoy it will quite happily allow the other adult in their household to cook food every day and put it in front of them.

I think you are not a bit unreasonable like others said you knew he couldn’t cook and can’t expect him to magically change overnight.

My partner can’t cook from scratch, however he can feed us and did feed us and our other kids when I was ill during pregnancy. Some examples, all of which I think are totally fine and no one is going to die because he’s not made his own curry paste/pasta sauce

• jackets (ready bought frozen or homemade) with variety of toppings cheese beans coleslaw
• chicken curry (jar sauce) packet rice
• spaghetti and meatballs - bought meatballs jar sauce
• nice ready meals eg Charlie bigham
• chicken Kiev’s new potatoes salad
• enchiladas/fajitas (box kits)
• noodles
• things on toast eggs/beans/spaghetti
• Cooked breakfast

maybe speak to him, lower your expectations a bit, don’t expect him to suddenly open a recipe book but cooking the above will feed you all relatively happy and healthily.

I'm someone who got to their 30s without being able to cook and God, I hated all the "just follow a recipe", "it's basic adulting" stuff you got told.

Cooking is hard! Especially when you actually want it to taste nice for someone else (ie, nicer than a fancy ready meal and worth the effort).

To follow a recipe you need the right ingredients, which requires advance notice and a shopping trip. You then need the right equipment, and it has to be in good nick (eg a sharp knife) and the right size (how many recipes have I tried that have gone off the rails at the point where I realised my pot was too big/small). You then need to have the confidence and knowledge base to rescue the meal if something goes wrong, or if the recipe says something unhelpfully vague like "it's done when it's golden brown", about an ingredient that was brown to start with.

Actually a surprising amount of recipes can be vague or miss out steps - good recipe-writing is a real skill. I once tried to make ajo blanco and it turned out like cement because the recipe gave the wrong quantity of water (and being inexperienced, I didn't want to deviate from the recipe at all).

Recipes also always lie about prep time (chopping onions and a ton of veg is not going to be a 5-minute job for an inexperienced cook with no knife skills).

Of course a lot of people can whip up delicious meals from whatever's lying around in the store cupboard, but you actually need to be a good cook with good instincts in the first place to do that. I can just about follow a recipe to make some impressive-sounding stuff now, but if I just open the cupboard I have no idea where to start.

My own improvement basically came down to hanging around DP (who is a great cook) and learning as I went along - something I never had as a child. Even now I'm pretty shit and my meals come out fairly bland and messy, so he does 99% of it (and I do the washing up).

I would never, ever have been able to come home after work and whip up anything home-cooked with no warning. Probably still couldn't. I'd be really upset if DP snapped at me because of that.

Long-term plan for the OP should be to get her husband in the kitchen with her as she cooks and make him be her sous-chef. Short-term plan should be to apologise for her own atrocious behaviour.

I’m never not shocked by how many women on here set the bar for men somewhere around their ankle, and are total apologists for utterly pathetic male behaviour.

Exactly @NeverDropYourMooncup it’s so sad some people have such a low bar for men. Are these same posters only teaching their daughters to cook because it it isn’t a necessary life skill for their sons, as there will be a woman for them to do it when they are older and only in extreme circumstances they may have to ‘help’ this woman in the kitchen

This is spot on.

Supermarkets have a massive variety of ready meals, sides etc. Mix a few in with simple low prep meals. I remember very well how smells made me horribly nauseous during pregnancy so I am not surprised you lost your temper...just apologise for being a bit snappy, he can apologise for being unwilling to cook. When all is calm, talk it through and plan the next week's meals together.

i hate cooking and when I lived alone I would eat a plate of veg and sauce most days, others a bag of nachos and garlic mayo, was the slimmest I have ever been ! 😆

now I have children I have to cook but if I could afford a full time chef I definitely would have them in the house

i bought Jamie oliver’s 5 ingredients recipe book on the basis that it can’t be too complicated if it only has 5 ingredients! I absolutely have to follow a recipe and wouldn’t really know what would work as a replacement for something, it’s just one of the many things you have to do once DC turn up

unfortunately for him he needs to learn some basics like eggs, jacket potatoes and a plate of pasta, veg and jar of sauce

please dont do what someone else suggested and buy him a cook buy or one pot for Christmas. That would piss me off if someone bought that for me when I have no interest in cooking really, shit gift

Your DH needs to learn how to cook at least a few basic meals. However, 6:30 on a weeknight with no advance warning is not the time for that.

A grown man should automatically be mucking in. He should also know how to cook a meal that doesn't revolve around junk food.

He can learn to cook over time and you can have a proper conversation about it. But to expect him to suddenly change then and there in the moment is ridiculous. Why haven’t you addressed this before? And if he doesn’t cook, he should be doing something else like doing all the laundry. It’s fine for each of you to not like doing certain domestic chores but that can be sorted out in the heat of the moment.

So everyone posting on here is absolutely brilliant at every single household task? There is really nothing that you can't do well ,or even OK? Because I know I don't do some things. I don't do anything electrical, not even changing a plug, because I get into a muddle, I get a.n other to do that. I don't do anything to my car, it goes to the garage for that, I can do lots of other things, but there are some basic tasks that I don't do. Yes, it would be great if everyone could cook and whip up lovely meals, but some are just useless. If you want him to cook, just give him a few ideas, don't expect miracles and give a bit of encouragement. And I know we don't live in the 1950s, but we do live in an era where there are still useless cooks and cooking skills aren't taught at school. My kids never got regular lessons, and that was OK because I taught them both. Some parents don't teach kids to cook.

You need to apologise to him when he wakes up not go cuddle him in the middle of the night (assuming you're in the UK).
You could get healthy organic ready made oven meals or find some meals that you can tolerate cooking. You knew he can't cook it's unfair you expect him to do something he doesn't know after a day's work. You'll be in for a rude awakening if that's your expectations.

YABU and have treated him appallingly! If my DP spoke to me like that I wouldn't be best impressed. So what if the poor guy doesn't know how to cook?! Some people don't! He can do enough to keep you from starvation and he isn't going to learn in one night because you demand he is better. I think you need to apologise.

I am hoping this is a wind up or he should ltb......

You don't just get on with someone not doing something and then one day throw a hissy fit a kick them out kf the bedroom because they are still not doing it....
Rude and wanted an argument which is very clear by the "use your initiative" at the begining of conversation.

Oh fgs. He doesn't have an inability to cook - he CAN cook. He just can't cook the food OP would prefer! I know I far prefer fresh, decent meals and not freezer fodder but I know a fuck ton of people live on it and are perfectly fine.

The bigger issue is that you are about to have a baby and you know how much you are going to have to step up and are ready to do so. He likely has not given it much thought. It was ever thus. So many couples go through this. You either come together over this or you come apart. I say play to your strengths, split roles differently, agree to praise and support each other and agree to ask clearly for what you need but also for the other person to think and share the mental load. Get a whiteboard if you need to 😂. But speak to each other clearly and nicely. And remember that just because you are doing much more it doesn't always mean they are not, its a huge change for both of you. And don't expect to be immune from the sex differences and cultural gender stereotypes that entrench inequality. Make it work for your family.

My husband wouldn’t be able to cook anything from scratch, I couldn’t care less to be honest. It’s just not a massive issue to me, I can cook, he does the DIY which I can’t do 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Agreed. Some people on this thread seems to think pregnancy is an excuse though, which is not a good look. Hormones is a thing, but it does not mean you can act however you like and it should just be accepted.

OP, sending you much sympathy. It’s hormones. I once burst into tears and told DH he obviously didn’t love me or even want this baby because he bought the wrong ice cream. I was off my bloody head.

Wanting him to make dinner - YANBU
”Use your initiative” - snarky and unhelpful
“Atrocious” - YABU
”Sleep in the other room because you’re harming the baby’s health by upsetting me” - off your trolley hormonal craziness.

Remember how melodramatic and stroppy we all were in puberty? You’re that x100. Things that (perfectly reasonably) irk
or upset you can go to DEFCON1 sometimes.

Hang in there.

Some people need clear instructions as to what needs to be done, OP. My DP who's wonderful would still be perplexed if I said 'use your initiative!' He would be genuinely confused. He would want a list!

Also, if he doesn't know how to cook, he's not going to learn overnight! You need to be a little more reasonable.

I don't particularly enjoy cooking, and would happily eat chicken salad for dinner every day.

But I've two kids, so I had to make the effort to learn to cook a range of healthy, wholesome, varied foods. Does your husband not feel any responsibility to feed his future child?

You are not unreasonable to want help but the way you dealt with this was.

On a good point you have his Christmas present sorted. Basic cooking course 😁