To be sick of DH inability to cook

[Friarclose]

DH have been together 9 years. He cannot cook. He is the sort of person who will heat up some fish fingers and chips and tell everyone he cooked. I do 90% of the dinners here and his dinners are always just beige stuff with chips.

I am by no means Nigella but I'm an OK cook, have a small repertoire of dishes, mainly bog standard stuff the dc will always eat - spaghetti bol, roasts, shepherd's pie, sweet and sour, soups, that kind of thing. I've taught myself to do this over the years as in my twenties cooking was dumping a bit of salad cream over the top of pasta!

Tonight I asked DH if he could do dinner. Tortellini and jar sauce. Really can't get easier, 2 mins in the water. He's just served up what looks like soggy paper, all filling fallen out, mushy and horrible, inedible. Oh i got distracted when it was boiling"

I am so. Sick. Of. This.

He's 40, not a student. I have lost my shit slightly, now he's walking around like a sad child. AIBU to stop cooking for him?! He has no problem eating and enjoying everything I make but has zero interest in learning even basic cooking skills and I have really had it.

Get him a hello fresh box, they are usually on special offer for new customers (or Gousto but I found some of their recipes require a little more skill) the step by step instructions will allow him to gain confidence.

My exh couldn't cook at all, after we split and he was fed up with ready meals (he was still coming around for dinner at least a couple of days a week seeing the dog!) I gave him a voucher for a free hello fresh box, he managed to cook it and from that he now can actually cook following a recipe (still can't go off piste!) He has since apologised for not cooking for 27 years and all his other behaviour. Honestly they need to get confidence, then get a suitably manly cookbook eg exh had Nigel slater's for Christmas last year from dd.

Hello fresh and Gousto boxes did not work at all for my DH. He finds them faffy and complicated and they just put him off trying even more. They're no good for an absolute beginner.

Gordon Ramsay on YT? He swears and runs marathons - nobody would ever accuse him of being insufficiently manly, but I bet he'd have something to say about screwing up....PASTA

YANBU. Baby men are so unattractive too.

My OH does most of the cooking and we use Hello Fresh & Gousto depending on what recipes we like.

I feel like these kind of arguments become unnecessarily antogonistic and could do with more pragmatism. If your DH is generally a lazy arse who deliberately does a cra job of everything to get out of making an effort then yes you have a problem and a right to be fucked off.

If the problem is isolated to cooking then it's probably not that he's fucking up on purpose. Cooking requires a bit of practise to build up confidence. If every time he messes up you have a go at him he's going to feel like shit and not try that hard. I'm shit at parking the car so tend to avoid being the one to drive our car. This means I never practise and never improve and DH ends up doing all the driving. I have made an effort to drive more to give myself more practise but it means I often fuck up the parking and spend 10 minutes getting stressed out trying to fit the car into a perfectly adaquate space. I feel fairly self conscious about it so if DH had a go at me for fucking up I'd probably refuse to drive much more often.

Your choices are basically to just be the family cook and have your DH do other jobs to even the balance or if it's important to you that you don't always have to be the cook then just have a night a week where DH cooks. Get a hello fresh box or some easy recipe for him to try (baked salmon, stir fry, spanish omlette etc) and just accept he won't get it right 100% of the time.

They have prep in 5 or 10 minutes ones now. Only a moron could cock it up.

It’s not even cooking really, just heating up sauce and boiling pasta - it’s basic

If you really want it to change then you should give him days when he’s responsible for it every week and expect him to follow a basic instruction

My dh wouldn’t say he was a cook but he can follow a guosto box or make chicken and sauce (his speciality 🤣)

My DH does all the cooking in this house as he enjoys it and he sees it as a hobby.

Unless your DH and all those others who claim not to be able to cook have learning difficulties (and I say this with a DS17 who has SLD) they absolutely can if they want to.

Bottom line is, they don't.

We got Gousto and after years of not cooking it made a massive difference. DH now cooks virtually every weeknight meal. They always work if you just follow the steps.
He was an absolute beginner @FancyFelix but you do need to want to do it or there will always be an excuse

So you don’t do any?

tjats fine by the way, horses for courses, but many posters think that anyone (male) not cooking is a waste of space…

Well I try but he insists!

Of course if it is just DS and I I will do it but when the 3 of us are all in together, yes he does it all.

As the full time carer of our DS17 who cannot talk, feed, dress, bathe himself and is doubly incontinent I am loving your inference that I am "a waste of space"😂

Oh I’m sorry if that’s how it landed, I wasn’t at all

i was having a dig at the posters who slate a man who doesn’t cook but would never sake the same to a woman because “reasons”

I hate cooking! I'm crap at it, I get flustered and stressed with anything complicated. I can't do a roast dinner or a fry up, too many different things to keep on top of. I usually burn or undercook something. I find no joy in cooking whatsoever, I just hate it. Believe me I have tried. I come from a family of foodies that love cooking. I was taught to cook from young age. My dh works 2 or 3 evenings a week and we have young dc's so I have to feed them, there is no one else to cook when he's at work.

I like beige or ready-made food. It tastes good, the dc's like it and I can make it without getting stressed or fucking it up (most of the time). I can microwave frozen veg or boil some broccoli to accompany the beige food. I would have no issue with eating beige or ready-made food every day. Dh does not like beige or ready-made food, so when he's at home for dinner he cooks. If he was willing to eat beige food then I would cook, but he's not, so he cooks. Simple.

I do all the washing. If dh told me that he was no longer going to cook but, rather than eating what I am happy to cook, expected me to make meals that are stressful for me, then he would no longer have any clean clothes. Simple.

I would have no issue with eating beige or ready-made food every day.

Regardless of the fact that it would be bad for your and your children's health?

Dusted fish fillets, microwave wholegrain rice and brocoli isn't going to clog our arteries. Not all convenience food has to be super unhealthy.

Not that I dont enjoy chicken dippers, chips and peas from time to time.

Of course I think the same applies to women. People aren’t born with cooking as an insure skill. It’s learned through practice. Anyone can (and should) be able to feed themselves. Christ.

Innate* not insure

Actually that's a good point. I think that some would have this idea of families who only eat "beige convenience food" and don't cook as being very unhealthy, just shoving pizzas in the oven or getting takeaways every night.

We are a pretty healthy family overall. Very much into exercise and keeping active, all of us are slim. We eat a fairly balanced diet, certainly not perfect but on the grand scale of things it's not too bad. I know people that proudly tell me how they cook from scratch every night who have far more unhealthy lifestyles than mine. I have gotten very good over the years at making low calorie, balanced meals that require as little cooking as humanly possible.

He's doing it on purpose. My ex husband never cooked. Ever.

Now his new wife won't stand for the laziness so he cooks all sorts including roast dinners!

If he wanted to he would!

YABVU to lose your shit over that.

It's frustrating, and something that should be worked on and improved. However, it's not the end of the world-and since you've been together for 9 years and this isn't a new development, you can't really be shocked that the dynamic has not just magically changed.

Does he contribute in other ways? I'm sure there's things he does that you'd be absolutely shit at and if you tried and made a hash of it-you wouldn't want or expect him to lose his shit at you for it.

Deliberate incompetence.

My dad was brilliant at this. Didn't ever mow the grass because he'd "do it wrong I'm sure." And his idea of cooking was throwing something in the microwave. In his later years he could just about put something pre-made, like a pizza, in the oven, if given comprehensive instructions.

Further examples include never learning how to use a mobile phone, and VERY begrudgingly learnt how to use a cash machine.

He was so woeful at just living an adult life. But was brilliant in the work place. He was a teacher, and got all sorts of awards and recognition for that. He was Chair of Governors in a school and got them from failing to outstanding in 3 years... But couldn't work a cash machine....!

Tonight I asked DH if he could do dinner. Tortellini and jar sauce. Really can't get easier, 2 mins in the water. He's just served up what looks like soggy paper, all filling fallen out, mushy and horrible, inedible. Oh i got distracted when it was boiling"

Jesus. So he has to be as good as you ? Cooking doesn't come that easily to some people. I bet there are things he does more naturally, better than you.

All my father can do is cook an egg and toast. It's the only "meal" he's ever made me my whole life.
It's all too much for him. Hes brilliant at other things.

My mum just cannot decorate. She cant wallpaper or paint very well, she's tried many times. It ends up a total mess and has to be redone. My father does it all.

I dont think my mother's doing it to be deliberately incompetent...

Don't you have to make mistakes in order to learn?

I mean, he'll know now to keep an eye on it... as opposed to dry pasta where the timing is less critical

Well that is a point. I remember almost disbelieving the cooking time on a pack of tortellini, when I first cooked it, because it's so short compared to dry pasta and I found it hard to believe it would be properly cooked.

That's a reaction based on some existing cooking knowledge though. If I was clueless, I'd follow the instructions to the letter.

Presumably OP's DH has now learnt about tortellini and won't make that particular mistake again.