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.

Strategic incompetence.

I heard someone ask the restaurant critic Jay Rayner if he could cook, and he said "Of course I can-I'm an adult."

YANBU. I wouldn’t date a man who can’t cook. I find it really off-putting; there is something pathetic about being a grown-ass adult who can’t prepare nutritious food for themselves/family. How have you managed 9 years with him?!

I'm on your dh's side I'm afraid.

I cannot cook. I have tried for 40 years and I can burn things, undercook things, get things wrong in every way. Since I am feeding myself, believe me, I do not do it on purpose.

I am not useless in other ways. I can grow food, redecorate, earn a good living,.

The result is I loathe cooking. I find it depressing and miserable, and anyone moaning at me about my food I just see as a bully.

Always keep emergency frozen pizza to hand, and ask your ds do different chores instead. Yelling at him will just make him miserable, tense or worse.

I suspect you might be caught in a vicious circle-you've convinced yourself you can't and so it goes wrong because you're tense about it!

Before meeting Dh I couldn't cook. He thought me the basic dishes. Now I mainly cook and Dh sometimes cooks casseroles and roast dinners at the weekends. I am more experimental and try new recipes whereas Dh cooks typical British food.

@CurlewKate 'I suspect you might be caught in a vicious circle-you've convinced yourself you can't and so it goes wrong because you're tense about it!'

Possibly. After 40 years of throwing supper in the bin, wasting money, feeling stressed and frustrated, putting up with ex's derision etc. cooking is as much fun as unblocking drains.

A slow cooker has helped slightly. Supper goes in at lunch time and is ignored until needed. Thank God for WFH. And being single. Never again😊

My DP 'couldn't cook'...

He can now - what he couldn't do was time things, didn't know at what point you can pause various things so would panic and burn stuff rather than pull it off the heat - and his ASD meant he genuinely hasn't a clue, does not register the difference between 'pale and underdone - golden brown and lovely - blackened and fit for the bin'.

He also had very little idea of what flavours work together.

He has learned all this though occasionally needs reminding that he cannot play games on his phone whilst also cooking, multitasking to that level is not his forte.

It wasn't easy as he is also difficult to teach (takes instruction as if its a personal insult, doesn't matter who is instructing nor the subject matter!) so we have had to find ways round that too and its generally been via VERY detailed instructions written down step by step, sometimes I have used flow-charts!

However he DID want to learn as he wanted to eat the nice tasty things I cooked when I could and was frustrated that his efforts were unpleasant.

I doubt we'd still be together nearly 18 years down the line if he really had not cared if he served inedible fucked up shite!

The last time my husband cooked was when I was in labour with our second child 13 years ago. He works all the hours god sends so cooking is my job. But I can understand the frustration if you both work. Cooking is something that can be learnt. Perhaps you can teach him.

of course you're sick of this. he is feeding you all ultra processed cancerous food because he cant be bothered to learn.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/14/fried-rice-omelettes-and-pasta-cooking-skills-to-learn-before-uni

I think it's ok for one partner not to do a chore on two conditions. First, it's agreed between the two of you. Second, there is a compensating different chore they do instead. Otherwise it is unequal.

It sounds like neither condition is met in this case, in which case he needs to grow up and learn to do this.

My dh couldn’t/didn’t cook. We got married and moved in together and a few months later I was close to moving out again. I was about to start step 1 which was just shopping and cooking for myself when he realised he was on very very thin ice, and started trying.I was very clear that shit cooking does not count as cooking in this house and you only learn to cook by starting with recipes. And now he probably does more cooking than I do and is a great cook.

I don’t think that’s ok for something as fundamental as providing food. People should have healthy home cooked meals every or most nights to be healthy. Most especially children. So if something happens to the op meaning they can’t cook would he or would the op just starve or live on ready meals? I can feel the ick from here that you could have an adult partner and if you’re indisposed there’s no meal. Or would he start cooking then? If so he can start now. Especially if there might be children - not cooking is bowing out of making sure your children get healthy meals which is pretty bloody important.

This is one of the things that really pisses me off. Women giggling and sharing stories of their partners' incompetence at basic life skills.

I remember someone asking Jay Rayner whether he could cook. "Of course I can" he said "I'm an adult."

@CurlewKate this is a zombie thread. But I'm amused to see you said the same thing on this thread a few months ago. And I completely agree with you, even while acknowledging that DH isn't much of a cook (I've made my peace with it and it's fine - we have a good split of responsibilities and he can do enough I'm not 100% responsible)

@MsMarch 🤣🤣 At least I'm consistent!

Men are useless. Sorry, I'm having a bad day myself!