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.

Sometimes the pack lies, which doesn't help. I cooked some last week which fell apart in the water before the allotted cooking time was up, and I ended up with the world's most disappointing soup instead.

Some people have reasons for being bad cooks: they may have co-ordination difficulties, or may have limited taste discrimination themselves. I would not feel obliged always to cook for him (he can make himself sandwiches, fish fingers, etc; he won't starve!), but I would not get angry with him for lack of this or any other specific skill, unless it's just one aspect of his expecting you always to do everything for him, or unless he constantly moans about your cooking.

My OH couldn't cook for toffee when we met. Preparing veg was a dangerous activity. We started to get hello fresh and he would be in the kitchen washing up whilst I cooked, we would talk or listen to music etc. Eventually he started to give the following of recipes a go if I prepared veg and it worked. Fast track 3 years and he can now make a roast from scratch etc and we do mostly 50 50 cooking with a newborn.

It's willingness to learn cause honestly he used to burn beans and I'd get so mad.

Maybe see if you can make it a fun thing to do together

Suggest he cooks once a week, as a start

There are plenty of things that can be bought & put in the oven, to give you a day off cooking

Some people just do not enjoy the process of buying & cooking

Some people just do not enjoy the process of buying & cooking

And some people don't have the luxury of leaving it for others to worry about

Exactly. If I didn't do the things I didn't enjoy, we'd be living in filth, naked and cold.

Same here.

It's about having equal workloads. OP, if he does less then yes, absolutely stop cooking for him. It's not fair that he uses the excuse of not being able to cook to not cook.

There are so many dishes that are easy to make. If he can read a recipe book then he can cook.

There's a lot in between never doing something at all, and devoting huge efforts to developing high-level skills in it.

Few people (assuming adequate resources and no major disabilities) literally can't cook in the sense that they'd starve if no one else fed them. But quite a few are not good at preparing tasty dishes, or at 'cooking from scratch'. They may not have a refined palate, and therefore not be very interested in food, or may even prefer 'beige' food. They may have attentional or co-ordination difficulties that affect their efficiency at co-ordinating the preparation of different ingredients. They may be OK as cooks if they don't have to do anything else at the same time, but find it too much to have to combine cooking with attending to other activities. They may be insecure about their cooking because they've been frequently criticized, and find it safer not even to try too much (just as many people are about maths).

The OP's husband clearly can cook in a basic sense. Just not to a high standard. He can heat up fish fingers and chips. Add some salad, and that's a meal. The OP has the right not to cook for him- and he won't starve as a result. If he's just lazy and wants good food without the trouble of cooking it, then this may push him into learning to do a better job. Or he may just continue to prepare simple 'beige' food for himself -which is up to him.

Well, he can either learn to cook or he can take on all other household jobs - shopping, housework, half the mental load - whatever you feel makes up for his inability to cook...

What a loser.

You do all the cooking and he couldn't concentrate for 20 minutes and do something that basic.

Strategic incompetence that has worked well for him for a long long time.

I would find this really off putting.

My husband can cook but doesn't like it.

He leaves it mostly to me🤨but I can ask him to sort dinner anytime and he will.

The annoyance here is on the ONE occasion you asked him he couldn't be arsed to step up.

That's not a good man.

Thats a selfish lazy arse that doesn't have your back.

You SHOULD be very upset about that.

Get food he can cook effectively and try to suggest he learns to boil water in a pan without being an arse about it.

We all make mistakes sometimes, maybe even when we are trying our best at something others find easy as pie? Getting angry in that situation doesn't seem like it would help anyone.

sorry it's not clear, how long has this been going on, have you spoken to him about it before?

In my house whoever cooks washes up. My reasoning is if I've had a night off from cooking/thinking about what to cook why should I wash up.
That way everyone gets a complete night off.

Sounds very much like strategic incompetence to me.

”If I do it badly enough, she won’t ask again”, type of thing

The thing is most women don't have the luxury of zero common sense.

I don't like doing anything that involves common sense, unless I happen to find it interesting. But unfortunately I have to cook, clean, write shopping list etc because that's part of grown up life.

So sick of this shit from men.

Funny how DHs can't cook het most cooks and chefs are men (from experience)...
www.timeout.com/london/news/this-is-what-women-think-of-the-hospitality-industry-and-how-to-change-it-for-a-better-future-030822#:~:text=Female%20chefs%20are%20not%20uncommon,UK%20are%20held%20by%20women.

Blimey I feel sorry for him, perhaps you should have married a chef hun

We don't way 'hun' here.

There are other places for hunning.

Don’t worry, we’re sick of judgemental sexist shit like this from women too 😆

Even if there was, cooking from scratch daily is relentless and time consuming. He should do most of the cleaning in return.

Looks like OP’s DH has arrived…

It’s because he is smart. Why would you be asked to cook if you are terrible at it. I think you should start cooking meals just like the ones he makes. See how long it takes him to beg you to stop. Or buy him a beginners cook book and make cooking his job from now on. If he wants to make shit like that, then that’s what he eats. I apologise if you get food poisoning if you follow my advice.

I cant cook, sure if I am stuck on a desert island sure but it is not natural to me, I happily do the dishes after dinner

My husband has his jobs and I have mine, it works

I don’t think you overreacted, I’d have totally fallen out of love wiht my Dh if this was him. He couldn’t and didn’t cook when we met and thought ordering takeaway counted as a turn, but I said that’s totally unacceptable from an adult with no learning difficulties and you can’t pull your weight as a parent without being able to make your child a healthy meal, so it won’t work for us as you know I want children. And now he’s super chef dad.

I would be pissed off, OP.

My late DH cooked just about 98% of our meals for 25 years. I made puddings for formal meals. The difference is he loved cooking, it helped him decompress from the day, and I didn't. I was and am perfectly capable of cooking just as well as he, and chipped in as and when, so no resentment. He knew he'd get a good meal if he was late, not up to it.

That's the difference.