I can't cook in my own home

[Bambambino1]

I am sympathetic to my DH here but, this is getting ridiculous. I'm just keen to hear what others think about this and how you'd handle it.

Bit of background, my DH hates all food smells. Is stresses him out just thinking about it. I think more so than normal people (you know what I mean). On that basis, we pretty much only have oven cooked meals and pretty much the same thing most nights. He likes to eat a lot of fruit and veg separately to his main meals, but I'm not personally very good at that (so I'm almost certainly not getting the nutrients I need!)

We've been together 11 years. So for 11 years now I've pretty much not been able to do anything at all that involves frying food or cooking anything that smells bad. I've suggested an air fryer but apparently that makes the house smell. Slow cooker definitely a no-go on that basis. I can put a pizza in the oven, but not really make anything from scratch! He's basically in charge in the kitchen.

To clarify, this isn't a control thing on his part. He's just insistent that food smells will give him a mental breakdown, and he says this is linked to his mental health. I don't believe it's as bad as he says (maybe that's unreasonable of me), I just think he's almost convinced himself of it. We've argued today because I want to cook something tomorrow when he's in the office. He got very worked up about this because of how the house will smell. I said he can open windows, use the extractor fan, burn incense...I don't care what we do, I just want to cook something!!

Just, I don't want to go though my whole life not using my kitchen and cooking anything ever?!

I was just planning on cooking tomorrow when he was out anyway, and see how he copes when he gets home. Is that wrong?

Sorry, I do appreciate how this sounds but it's a genuine problem!

*But some posters do not understand the physical implications of his sensory issues.

It’s not about control and its not something that can be cured by just cooking and telling him to get on with it.*

But @ShowUs , it is not clear it is a sensory processing issue. It could be that. It could be an anxiety disorder relating to smells (not unheard of) and his need for control is a way to try and manage this. Or he could just be someone who likes getting his own way and has built this into a MH problem to excuse it. Whatever the reason, it is restricting other people in his house and since eating is not negotiable, it is unreasonable. This is why he really needs to get MH help. The fact that he is so dismissive of this is a major red flag.

Are there any smells at all he could tolerate? I mean things like cooking apples or pears, or veg like carrots or broccoli or sweetcorn that don't have much of a smell? Maybe you could start with those and work upwards?

Have you ever cooked broccoli???

I do not believe some people realise how hard it is to seek help when having mental health issues. Mental health issues often involve huge lack of self esteem alongside huge fear. Seeking help needs confidence and courage. You cannot simply say someone is selfish etc because they are not seeking help.

I'm literally eating it right now. Doesn't have much of a cooking smell if you steam it and don't overcook.

Yes this. Just cool OP. It may force the issue. Sending sympathy for you - it's nerve wracking to think what effect it might have. But you have every right to have a healthy diet, and you are letting this man take this away from you.

I am sure it’s extremely hard. But it’s still selfish to avoid changing a damaging behaviour because it’s hard. Nobody gets a feee pass on trying their best for others.

You can say someone has prioritized their own comfort zone over the right of the person they live with to lead a normal life.

Would it be OK for this man to insist his wife and child poo in the back garden because the smell or the thought of someone else's poo in the loo would cause him a mental breakdown?

Cooking your own food and eating it in your own house is as basic a human activity and as basic a human right as using the loo indoors.

There is a point where you have to realise the effect your problem is having on others. I would say that point comes the first time your loved one tells you how badly it's affecting her. After that, in this case, the H has made a choice despite knowing how much his choice was impacting the OP, and moreover, he has doubled down on his choice with manipulative statements about the likelihood of a 'mental breakdown'.

One of those nose clips that nerds wear for swimming?
And a face mask/bag over his head

Interesting that pizza in the oven is ok for him- I find that has a strong smell that I am aware of from 2 flights of stairs away!
If he can handle that, then I suspect what he means is he doesn't want to eat anything he isn't familiar with.
Some foods cooking do have strong smells - eg a teenager frying a burger at midnight can wake me up , but there are not many things that smell as strongly as that and I have a fairly extreme sense of smell!
It's not reasonable for him to refuse to allow you to cook, if he really can't bear it then the compromise would be for him to go out a few evenings a week to allow you to cook in peace! You could use all the methods you have listed already to minimise the smells, but it is not fair for all the compromise to be on your part.

You said there isn't a door on the kitchen - is this something that could be changed? By fitting either a hinged door, or a sliding one, across the doorway? If there isn't a doorway as such, a partition wall shouldn't be that difficult to create, even in an open-plan space.
Obviously harder if it's a rented place rather than somewhere you own, but your landlord might be amenable if you've been reliable long-term tenants.

Then you could just close the door and use the extractor fan when you wanted to cook, and he could stay out of the room while you did so (and for whatever length of time afterwards he chooses).

I don't understand what his parents did when he was growing up?

I have mental heath issues. They began affecting my work and my family. So I sought treatment. Because that's what one does.

I wonder if he just doesn't like your cooking, OP...

@Bambambino1 My DH is a snorer. We’re talking can’t hear the tv over the top of him kind of snoring. He hated that I was sleeping on the couch and refusing to come to bed, and I hated that I was crying tired all the fucking time. Both of his parents have CPAP machines and he didn’t want one because he wouldn’t feel sexy. No pointing out how sexy his snoring wasn’t, or how sexy the lack of sleep made me, or just how much I wanted to fucking strangle him for his selfishness instead of jump his bones after 17 years of this shit. Then throw in the health ramifications. He was tired all the time, he drives long hours for work and I was worried he’d fall asleep at the wheel and leave me a widow and our three kids fatherless. His parents both have lifestyle-related diseases associated with sleep apnoea and his grandfather died of a sudden aortic aneurism at 54. But despite me telling him that he sounded like he is trying to suck a tennis ball through a hose at frequent intervals through the night, he would insist that he couldn’t possibly have sleep apnoea because he works in the sporting industry and is fit. It took me leaving to get him into marriage counselling and me playing a recording of him snoring, the decibel levels and equivalent sounds - which included a sound-proofed church which was repeatedly fined for playing antisocial Christian rock music and banned Fisher-Price toys, as well as the United Nations Treatise on Sleep Deprivation as a form of Torture before he would accept that his reasons for not having a sleep study were entirely selfish.
Guess who was utterly surprised to discover that he had an average of 62 episodes of sleep apnoea per hour? Well, it wasn’t me. He has a cpap machine and it’s not perfect, but soooo much better. He’s also not fucking tired all day and and is evangelical about how it’s the best thing he’s ever done (like it was voluntary… 🤦🏼‍♀️) But at least we’re back together and I’m not on the couch. I still remind him that he needs to make choices based on what is best for us, and include me in the process - and that involves ASKING me what I want, not assuming, but he is gradually getting there.
If you can get the guy into marriage counselling perhaps that would be a start. Maybe then he could start to see that his food issues are HIS choice to live with or take control of, and what he chooses to do will affect whether you continue with the relationship or not.

It is an odd one as food cooking smells are everywhere. You smell them from cafes and restaurants in the street, from bakeries in supermarkets, from BBQs and open widows in residential areas in the summer.

He needs to sort this out.

@DelphiniumBlue you're right about pizza, he wouldn't eat it himself but I do occasionally put a pizza in the often when he's out for the night and even though he comes home and repeatedly tells me how much it smells, he does survive and move on just fine. He'll do sausages in the oven but only chicken sausages because apparently they smell less? No idea. Boiling things like broccoli is fine. The thing is, I do think he has serious issues, but his problems with smells can't be as bad as he says if I can get a takeaway or cook a pizza and he doesn't have a breakdown over it?! It's other smells too though that's he very sensitive to, like certain washing powders, or the slightest smell of smoke. But, I see it more as a strong dislike for it rather than it being particularly triggering in any way?!

He's very particular about what he eats, there's a very small list of foods he likes. So if I deviated from his list, I'd be eating alone each night. Which at this point I'm perfectly fine with!

It's generally frying anything. So, if I can boil it or put it in the oven, he can probably survive it without a massive argument. But, I really want a spag bol. Or a lasagne. He cannot stand even the sight of mince let alone smell it.

I don't really know what I can make for myself. Unless I just ignore him and go for it...which is tempting....I did buy one of those chef's candles and he is in the office today...

I had a housemate with similar issues at uni he was like a bloody dictator and it did my head in. So I started cooking normal things in our kitchen and told him to go live in a tent if he didn't like it. Sensory problems or not he needs to back off. Couldn't live like that.

Id be worried about your DC developing a strange relationship with food if this continues.
With regards to the excuse of his mental health
Mental health is a very broad term, what does he say the mental health problem is?

Absolutely!. Speaking from experience, I did a 12 day fast while still going to work everyday.
If he dosn't eat, he will be very hungry, and will eat anything you cook and serve up. He won't die!

He needs to find therapy for that. He may not have set out to be controlling or manipulative, but forbidding your spouse from cooking in their own kitchen for over a decade and threatening a breakdown if they do is just that. It is just not a fair solution for you all to live with and there needs to be a compromise.

I would cook the bolognaise op. It’s your house too, you have every right to cook a bolognaise.

Has he ever tried to get help for this? It sounds as though you're being forced to live a small and isolated life in order to accommodate some kind of phobia or issue he has? I think you'll need to get tough on this one and tell him you refuse to live like this any more. He needs to acknowledge that it's not fair on you to live this way and then he needs to see his GP.

I'd hate to have a house devoid of lovely cooking smells!

He needs to get help, you need to get a door for the kitchen and you need to cook.

If he really can’t handle the smell he can go out while you cook a couple of nights a week. There’s no compromise here, everything is his way. That’s not on

Mental health issues aren’t his fault, but they’re 100% his responsibility. Instead, he’s bullying you into catering to them, and refusing to do anything at all to manage.

And it IS bullying, imo. When you’re afraid of his tantrums when you don’t do as ordered, that’s bullying.

So you have a child who never gets cooked food because your DH doesn't like the smell and refuses to get any help for it?

I would have some sympathy if he was willing to at least try address it. But refusing and just insisting everyone has to follow what he wants with no compromise would not be ok with me. Especially when you say it means you are not eating a nutritionally balanced diet and you have a child who never has cooked food. That's not normal. Or ok.

Cooking brocoli absolutely stinks, so he is clearly very selective in his sensitivities.