AIBU to be a bit peeved that dh doesn’t take any food likes and dislikes in to account when cooking for the family?

[Borageandchips]

Dh is generally a good husband and father. Works hard, reliable, supportive etc.

We both work ft and have two teen dds.

His main household task is food shopping, planning, cooking and serving during the week Mon - Thurs. He also does his own laundry and walks the dog, does the garden, and anything car-related. And bills.

I do all cleaning, organising and decluttering, and do rest of laundry and everything else in the house. Plus all communication with schools, extra curricular stuff, birthdays, holidays and other celebrations, my part of garden, all DIY such as painting and decorating.

But I also cook sometimes during weekends. Or share the cooking if dh wants to do a roast on Sunday. Now the dc are older, I always help him clear up after meals.

Anyway, AIBU to get a bit frustrated when he generally cooks all the things he likes, eg very heavy on red meat and carbs, and doesn’t take in to account the food preferences of me and our daughters who like lots of veg and lighter healthier meals?

For the past three days he has cooked:

L ready prepared sausage rolls
D quite oily pesto pasta with mushrooms and bacon

L pate on toast
D toad in the hole (no veg so I zapped some frozen peas in microwave)

L sausage sandwich
D steak and air fryer chips

He cooks lunch for us both bc we often work from home nowadays.

For full disclosure he did make a leek and potato soup a week or so ago.

I tried to tell him as tactfully as I could tonight that we would appreciate more vegetables for dinner and some chicken and fish sometimes. But he got really upset and said I was ungrateful.

So what do you think?

IABU= = I’m ungrateful and if someone food shops and cooks for me I should not complain and if I want something else I should cook it myself.

IANBU = It’s normal nowadays to want to eat a more balanced diet with lots of vegetables and to ask the cook of the house to accommodate that

Genuinely interested to know what everyone thinks as I feel guilty now for bringing the subject up but I want to try and lose some weight before Christmas and we can’t afford to eat separate meals every night. Nor do I have the time to prepare them.

Also thinking you could maybe either swap jobs or mix it up a bit so you do some more of the cooking and he takes somethings that you currently do.

I agree I’d want a lot more veg and some lighter meals in there. But I’m pescatarian so obviously I wouldn’t want all that meat.

Idk I might be swayed by the fact he’s got the jobs I quite like - food shopping and cooking - whilst you’ve got all the ones I don’t like.

I have spoken to him about health and vegetable content before by the way and he’ll change for a day or two and then go back to the old meat and carb repertoire.

Part of the problem is that he doesn’t do planning and the evening meal often comes around as a bit of a surprise to him
even though he gets back from work earlier than I do as he has a 5 minute commute whereas my journey home is just under an hour.

So the issue is more that he does a shit job at all household tasks, forcing you to take over more chores?

What about him doing all the laundry?

What about getting a gusto box or similar? (that he is in charge of ordering and cooking).
Then he’ll know what his options to cook are, and they can involve some veg.

Have you thought about using one of the meal boxes (hello fresh etc). They can be expensive, but just use them for a few months. This would help open his eyes to a wider repertoire ( you could choose some veg heavy options!). It would also be a great way to involve your children, in choosing the menus and also preparing them.

I agree. But part of being a family is taking on board each other opinions and preferences and try to make it happen without getting upset or offended.

I don't think the answer should always be 'cook for yourself if you don't like it'. The person cooking should consider others too. Thats also what being part of a family is.

I would just take in turns to cook and he can pick up some of the other things you do instead.

Don't you think he just wants you to just take over and get it 'right'?

I think that’s a bit unfair. He does produce tasty meals that are cooked really well. He’s very proud of them and he puts effort in to it. It’s just he has a different rather old-fashioned idea of what constitutes a good diet.

Thanks for the suggestion of gusto or hello fresh boxes. I might look in to that as it might solve a number of issues all at once.

Do they work out very expensive?

I genuinely don’t think he’s being strategically incompetent. In his mind, he honestly thinks that he is doing a good job.

I do all the cooking in our house (I like it, DH hates it and does lots of the household jobs that I don't like). I take everyone's preferences into account when cooking and do a range of things so while some meals are more to my taste or more to DD's or DH's on different days, we all get things we are at least fairly happy to eat all the time. It's not impossible, though it does take a bit of planning and thought!

I think he is being a bit unreasonable. And serving a meal with no veg is definitely not OK! Even if he isn't bothered, he is presumably aware that it is a good idea to eat it frequently.

We all cook out own meals but do a together shop. No lunch tho. Tonight he had steak and chips I had pasta and pesto. Tomorrow he is having Katsu chicken and rice I am having cheese and crackers. We are all adults and can choose for ourselves.

I think you have a few options but they all involve taking charge - you need to talk to Dh and say I really am not so into these heavy meals, I’m trying to be healthier and I wish you were supportive in this as does dd. So things have to change, your choice how. Dd has spoken to me too. Option 1 is from next week i can cook for everyone and you can clean , to a high standard, I will cook vegetarian all week with perhaps meat once every 3 weeks and you can decide if you still think it’s rude and ungrateful to say anything about a meal someone else has cooked for you even if you have not taken their food preferences or health goals into account in any way. Obviously you have to clean as well as I do or I won’t be happy.
or, dd & I shop and cook for ourselves, as we just do not want to eat your meat and carb dishes. I will be angry at you for just caring about yourself in your meal choices and you will have to take on some cleaning.
or, you could alternate so half the evening meals suit half the people in this house, like most people do. We are happy to provide suggestions and recipes. And we can all live together happily.

either way I am now adding veg to the shopping list and making my own lunch. Please don’t bother. You certainly weren’t bothering to make anything I wanted.

let me know by tomorrow please which choice you make and whether it’s one that’s choosing your family.

it is not your responsibility to protect his sensitive emotions from the truth.don’t help him wiht the fallout from this.

Oh get to fuck 🙄 if it was a mother on here posting is this a reasonable menu for my family, she’d get fucking torn to shreds

dh loves cooking and although it’s not what I would choose to eat he is enthusiastic about it, and he hates cleaning and does it really badly.

But he's barely cooking - most of what you describe is ready made or very minmal input - and doing that realy badly. Six meals in a row without a single vegetable apart from the 1 meal you added something to is appalling. If he cleaned really badly instead of cooking really badly, would that really be worse (and it sounds like he needs the practice)?

Exactly. If a woman posted that she would only cook food she liked, her husband and kids be damned, she would get slaughtered on here. As she should.

The lack of veg would annoy me, keep veg in the freezer in case he hasn't planned it dven if it's the basic microwave veg bags.

DH is main cook, always has been, his meals aren't always what I'd like (he loves liver, kidney and other offal) but I do eat it as there's nothing wrong with it just now what I'd choose. The upside is the girls were raised eating a wide variety of meals and lots of different veg so no real food issues (not even sprouts).

dh loves cooking

Well that's good, can you maybe suggest he tries some brand new recipes? We try to do one new meal a week. If he loves cooking that should be enjoyable.

he doesn’t do planning and the evening meal often comes around as a bit of a surprise to him

I'd change this if possible. You'll save money planning as well. We have a little magnetic white board on the fridge where we write the meals for the week as we do the online shop so we know what we're ordering and that it will get eaten. Obviously we don't stick rigidly to it if something comes up, but it helps day to day to know what we're having and to know we've got the ingredients.
Combine a meal plan with new recipes and the fact he loves cooking and hopefully you'll get some good meals.
If your DDs are going to do some cooking it will also help to plan. They might be less able to just open the fridge and put something together - if they choose what they want to cook and have a set night, and you and DH make sure you have the ingredients, then it will be much easier for them.

My dh loves cooking but honestly his pretty poor at it. I humour him with it sometimes but his just soooo out there. But that’s how his parents are so how he was raised I’m guessing the same for your dh.

Maybe get an online shop or veg/fruit box delivery for fresh bits once a week or again delegate to the teenagers a tenner or twenty to go get salad and fruit once a week for the house.

I disagree that if it was the OP picking meals only she liked she would be torn to shreds. Most of the time when these threads come up the advice is cook chooses and anyone over the age of approx 12 can bloody well cook for themselves if they don't like what is on offer.

He's loves a sausage or 3 😂

Sit down together and plan a menu

Or do shopping online so can add salad and veg

We often do frozen veg as buy fresh and don't always eat

Where frozen is all chopped and literally Bung in water /microwave

Carrots green beans sweet corn brocolli or veg mixed veg

If both work out of the house why is he doing heavy lunches

What's wrong with soup/Sarnie

If he's rushing try a slow cooker, prep the evening before, shove it in the slow cooker in the morning with a cook in sauce. How I do curries when its me cooking.

I'd just tell him straight. When you've been married for long enough to have teenagers, can't you just say to him to sort it out? I've been with my DH for 20 years, it always surprises me when spouses beat around the bush with each other. Just tell him.
I sit and do our weekly menu before I do the shopping and ask DH if he has any meal ideas. Then we discuss and agree. I love salmon, he hates it. He loves red meat, I'm not a fan. So a couple of nights a week, we eat different meals. It's not a big deal.

Could there be a different approach especially as your girls are getting older e.g. each family member putting in meal cards (with ingredients and recipe) in a jar and these are picked out at random, so he doesn't have to plan you get more variety and he still is doing the shopping and cooking.

Also we did mindful chef boxes, great quality food very healthy but we found the prep could take longer than expected. Recently heard about the lollipop app from sainsburys again I think it provides you with recipes which by selecting auto populates a shopping list for you.

To be honest I probably eat more like your husband but like to try new stuff but when I'm doing all the planning, prep and cooking I just want it simple and easy and what I know so microwave peas for people 🤣