To not get up and do DHs dinner when he gets in

[FlamboMango]

Full disclosure, I have a lovely life. I work 2 days but the rest of the time am at home, school aged children, cleaner and dog walker, no financial worries. I earn a pittance and on my working days DH does dinner, school runs, activities whilst trying to WFH. DH earns hundreds of thousands a year and supports our lifestyle 100%, my salary basically buys 2 food shops a month.

Weds and Thurs are DHs client days, so he goes into office then entertains clients after. Often home late those days but always wants to eat dinner. I generally cook and plate his up then he when he gets in I get up, make him a cup of tea, heat his dinner up.

Tonight we had pizza so I had to get off my arse at 21.30 when he got in and cook a pizza. I can’t be bothered. My days are very restful but the afternoons - school
runs, dinner, activities, hustling kids to shower and teeth clean, packed lunches, cleaning kitchen, bed time etc…. By 8pm when I’m sitting down I want to stay sitting down not get up and cook pizza.

AIBU to say if he gets in after 830
he heats up his own tea and I don’t have to move?

Actually a lot of pp have said the money is not the point, but the division of labour is.. the husband spends a lot more hours working long days, and does the child related stuff on the 2 days OP works , whilst also wfh…
so as part of the marital team, she can support him by heating up his dinner when he gets in late.. this seems reasonable, no?

Clearly a reverse.

Why emphasise how much he earns while his wife earns 'barely enough for 2 food shops a month' and how he also contributes to household tasks. She can't even be bothered to chuck a pizza in the oven.

I doubt this is real. Someone trying to wind everyone up.

That seems to be the concensus or a reverse and it always seems suspect when the OP doesn't ever come back to update

Given how much he seems to do for you on your working days I don't think it is too much to ask to heat his dinner up after a long day. You don't sound like you have much else you have to do on your days off so sure you can find the time.

I work a minimum of 42.5hours a week, care for my 2 year old during the day and still manage to do dinner every evening for us all, o and I'm 23 weeks pregnant and feel nauseous and exhausted 90% of the time. Wish I had a cleaner to fill the gaps as my house could do with it, I just about manage the washing some weeks.

For background, my husband works 35hr weeks, we both work from home, he cares for my son early morning and his lunch when I work, he clears up dinner stuff and toys while I put our son to bed.

You honestly could be writing about my life, similar set of circumstances and I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it!

My husband works extremely hard in comparison to myself, yes he rarely gets involved with the day to day children stuff, school runs, clubs, bath, bed but will when able/needed. His hard work enables my life, I know he would much prefer to be spending time with our children but that’s not really an option as I will never be earning his salary to support that. The least I can do is make an evening meal for when he arrives home. Could you not perhaps meal prep in the week for your working days so there’s lasagne or something ready to go or similar. I’m not sure my husband would accept a pizza as a good use of my many hours a week free in comparison to his non existent days off 😂

He's a lucky man isnt he to have such a ....completely lazy arsed wife.

Poor guy needs to upgrade

My lifestyle and set up is similar to yours. On a day like you’re describing I usually make a dinner for me and the kids that can just be left out and he heats up when he’s home? I’ve made the dinner but he doesn’t need me to heat it and plate it up for him? Occasionally he may message saying ‘just getting in a taxi and I’ll be there by 8.30’… I might if I’m up and in the kitchen/feeling nice heat it up - but if I’m sitting watching TV orwhatever it’s no big deal and he does it?!

Long after we split, my ex rethought her attitude in what that posts hint at, which is a general pattern of similar behaviour and therefore not too dissimilar circumstances, and referred to herself as spoilt. It was unexpected and unprompted, during a conversation where she was talking to me about how she's struggling. I'm not a horrible person, I've helped out from time to time, but I can't come close to making up the difference and it wouldn't be appropriate to try.

I hope this is some sort of strange joke, and not a real scenario, part of a pattern of behaviour

I thought that too.

I reckon its more like a 'reverse' but posted by her MIL 😉

Apparently not according to MN. A poster with a good history.

Makes it even more shocking that it could actually be real

blatant troll post.

Wow, you really don't know what hard work is do you?

Well OP, would you rather get up and spend 30 minutes cooking DH a delicious and nutritious meal (I'd not be standing for this pizza malarkey); OR would you rather bestir your pampered derrière out the door to earn several hundred thousand pounds to support yourself in the lifestyle DH currently provides for you; OR would you rather downgrade to the glorious freedom of arse-on-the-sofa pizza-for-dinner minimum wage subsistence living, going it alone in an insalubrious part of town?

I need more detail here. So you had pizza for dinner with the kids. Is your question:

1. "When he walks in the door at impossible-to-predict time, should I jump up to microwave his pizza, or should I let him put it in the micro himself?" I'd say no, let him work away.

Or

2. "When he walks in the door at the time he's told me he'll be home, do I need to have reheated the meal for him already and have it waiting for him?" I'd say yes, would be nice - but not a big deal either way.

OP said she always cooks the meal. The work is done. The question is about reheating, right? Why are people jumping down her throat about a process that would take him 2 minutes either way? I find some of these responses a bit Stepford Wives.

How about you reverse the roles? You go out and earn hundreds of thousands, stay late at work and see if you'd expect him to heat you up dinner after he'd been sat on his arse most of the day!

I call reverse too, but I also think there is more to the wife's side.

Cross post!

I'm curious about the highly paid work that involves entertaining clients in the evening, but without food. So presumably with alcohol, cocaine, women? OP?

In your quiet morning could yo take your time to leaf through a few recipes, knock up something that can cook for hours- lamb and orange or lasagne type thing, then confidently enjoy handling the afternoon rush knowing DH is catered for?
or lots of people get those gusto boxes if you don’t like cooking. But I have to say if I’d been working all day and my DH sat on the sofa and told me to heat up a pizza, well, once in a blue moon it’s ok, but I think I’d get pretty fed up.

He makes dinner on your workdays and there’s nothing wrong with cold pizza. Just cook the pizza when you do yours and leave some salad if you have salad with pizza (we do). This is a bit of a non-issue.

I get it OP. He’s been out ‘entertaining clients’. He basically gets to go out boozing whilst you are doing all the hard work at home, he can definitely sort his own supper when he gets in. You’ve bought it for him from your wages. He’s an adult and you are not his slave. You are his equal.

It used to drive me MAD when my ex got in having been at similar events and I had often kept our baby/toddler up just to catch a glimpse of him! She missed him so much.

I was always told by those enabling his work addiction/alcohol addiction and lack of responsibility to the family work/just ‘being there’ for us on those 5 days a week ‘Poor him he has such a tough job with a commute!’ By everybody! I was getting on to the recruitment firms just saying, ‘Get me a good job in London so I get to drink a latte on the train… I have seven years in University behind me, surely I can do SOMETHING that isn’t stuck inside the house. I loathe it! I love my daughter and I love being there for her and yet I need to use my brain too! What can I DO that is well paid in school hours’.

Fast forward 5 years, Now I am a single mum, I don’t seem to be able to get or manage a well paid job anymore (the jobs I am trained to do appear to require working or things like ‘client entertainment’ in the evenings or travel and I am too shattered after looking after my child (I would call her our child if he did 50% as then I could actually be his equal parent which is obviously what I want) getting her to activities, cooking for us, keeping our home! I go to bed at about 830-9pm! And this is even when I have had the long and lonely school day. What on Earth can I do apart from be a TA which I find hugely demoralising as I used to be a successful teacher.

Although I have attempted numerous jobs, I inevitably fail at them because I cover 85% care. I have been on/off UC for years. I write to my MP. I get no response about the awful misogyny still involved in workplaces and things like ‘client entertainment’ encapsulates that, I’ve given up and accept we are just broke whilst her Dad pays us £500 a month to live on from his £80,000 salary.

I wish I could tell you to leave him and then you’ll be okay but it’s not the case as he’ll unlikely do 50% care then either as he is clearly not doing it now and he’ll get to choose how much he does ‘because he has to work’. 2 days a week he is basically abusing you, expecting you to ‘work’ at your joint home looking after your joint children until 8pm-930pm and then rock up whenever he fancies. I’m sorry! If you are okay with this for your house, cleaner, dog Walker etc then that‘s great but I guess you also have a brain you want to use.

I’m also sorry for the horrible messages you’ve received from other people above, you are not lazy, you’re doing an equal job to him, my guess is you are a TA or work in the charity sector - or do another job that ‘fits around children or having had children’ and only pays for 2 food shops a month… it’s horrendous the inequality in pay and the way women are forced into terribly paid jobs.

Anyway, rant over but I do feel your pain!

x

This has to be a joke. You are supposed to be a team - why wouldn’t you just prepare something that can be reheated for him? It sounds like he takes care of you on your working days - isn’t that what a partnership is about? Looking after each other.

Completely unreasonable. It's not like you're cooking à complicated meal from scratch. Surely you have the energy to put a pizza on the oven shelf and switch it on. It's not like you're tired from working full time or being a SAHM with kids home all day. You don't even have to do all the cleaning and dog walking.