To think my DH should have eaten the dinner I cooked

[Rosebyanothername19]

I wfh full time and have to juggle picking up DC and taking to after school clubs etc. So don't have a huge amount of time for shopping/cooking delicious home made meals from scratch.

I managed to do a quick weekly shop the other day but was running out of ideas for dinners and grabbed a packet of something on offer that you just chuck all the ingredients in a bag and cook so it's nice and easy to prep and I can leave cooking while I do other stuff. We have had a couple in the past and my DH has said he didn't really like them, but this was was more Italian based which we eat a lot of so hoped it would be OK.

So tonight he sits down to dinner and just pulled a face and said I'm not eating this. I'll just make a sandwich. This caused my DC to say I don't want it either!

I managed to convince my DC to eat it and they enjoyed it, but my DH just sat there with a full plate and a face on.

I've gone to take DC to bed and he has gone to the shop to buy a pizza.

AIBU: I shouldn't have cooked it if there was a chance he wouldn't like it, forcing him to get his own dinner

Or

NBU: He should have eaten it and said maybe don't get that again?

What, do none of you remember the crippling disappointment of being starving for your dinner and your mum presenting you with something grim like cottage pie?

😞

But you would still eat it and say thanks! I love cottage-- pie anyway--

He was rude, and he didn't have to just blurt out his feelings in front of the children like that.

It wouldn't have hurt him to take a bite and maybe push it around on his plate like the child he was being.

More so than being rude about the meal he seems to think you are his personal slave and has created his life where he gets to avoid anything he doesn't like and you are stuck doing all the dirty work and paying for the privilege of doing it!

I've never tried these magi bags. But am I right that the veg and meat go in together for the same amount of time? I can't imagine what the textures of a piece of meat, a carrot and a courgette cooked for the same time would be.

But still OP is NBU- the husband was rude.

I had this -I went on cooking strike and refused to feed anyone for more than a month. I literally yelled at DH that just because I was born with a vagina didn't mean Id come out of DM's able to read a recipe. DC are now appreciative of my food having had to eat their fathers for a month and he is aware of the fact that the fairies don't stock the fridge or meal plan and that creating food he and the DC both like is not as easy as it looks.

I can recommend it.

The thing is, if one person never cooks and the one who does really likes a dish the other doesn't, does the "chef" just never get to have the thing they really like once in a while because the non cook doesn't really like it?

I'm not talking about cooking something the other person really really hates, but it just sounds like it's not one of his favourite meals/not what he fancied.

Not really fair for the non cook to dictate the menu when I'm sure the cook has meals they put on the menu and just go meh, because its the other person's favourite... it should be balanced imo, some nights you win, some nights you were a bit disappointed but your favourite is tomorrow so look forward to that iyswim

I don't have this problem as I live alone, so just curious how the dynamics work.

I’m of the view that we can’t all have our favourite dinner every day, so eat what’s prepared. Otherwise you (yes, you) will end up preparing ‘I don’t feel like that’ backups. It’s a bad example for him to set, getting a pizza after mulishly refusing to eat what you’d prepared. It wouldn’t have killed him to take a few bites and then quietly do something later. A solution is to sit everyone down, make a plan for the week, and that’s the menu.

How horribly ungrateful of him to not even acknowledge all the work you put in to feeding your family and how poor of him to not model trying new food in front of the children. You need to go on strike. Tell him next week it’s all on him.

Why would you sit and eat something you don't like 😂

DH hates cooking, and he struggles with meal planning.

I find it easy and don't mind cooking, plus I have more free time so I do it all.

The trade off is, I cook what I like to eat! DH has never complained, ever, about anything I have cooked.

He's grateful for whatever hot meal he's handed!

I think the back story might make a difference. For instance my oh would make me an omelette and then act offended because I wouldn't eat it but the reality is he knows full well that omelettes make me feel sick and the kids are also well aware of this.

You really have to speak to him about his behaviour. He was teaching his child it is okay to be rude and ungrateful. He doesn't seem to do anything with the children. He's working before dinner and after dinner while you do all the pick ups and put them to bed. I would absolutely be making spaghetti bolognese every night until he learns to be a grown up.

All of you write a meal plan for X amount of weeks and rotate them. Then you don't need to do it every week. Just pick one.

@Rosebyanothername19
Onr of the Maggie, Italian herbs bags, I use to love these but drunk the juice and sickened myself with it so wouldn't try any off the other ones.

I think it is the perfect reaction.

He was rude and ungrateful, and this spilled over to the kids behaviour too. How fucking dare he speak like that to someone who has cooked a meal for him?!

Only a petulant child takes one look at a plate and declare they dont like the meal without actually trying it.

At the very least he should have tried it and said "I am sorry but I really dont like this, I'll get something else later, but thanks for making it" out of ear shot of the kids.

My ex once gave me an earholing for ironing his shirts wrong. Was the last time I ever touched his washing. If he had acted this way about a meal I cooked him it would be the last meal I would cook for him.

Same here. But if I do cook something that DH doesn’t like, he says, ‘it was nice for a change.’ Sounds polite but I know that it is code for ‘never give that to me again’. So I don’t.
I sometimes make him meals that I don’t like, just to be nice, while I have a sandwich or something.

Was it this? https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/305738179

It looks horrible. Why not just roast the chicken breasts wrapped in foil and the veg, in the meantime make a passata by simmering tinned tomatoes with garlic and onion powders and herbs? Just as quick and easy but much nicer.

If you know DH doesn't like bag meals (and I don't blame him) then don't make them.

I had those bags things once . Well I tried too. The sugar was unreal I couldn’t eat it .

I do feel it’s time for dh to start stepping up at home more .
Also watching his respect for you in front of dc

If I don’t like the look of something and I don’t want it, I won’t be eating it. Maybe if I was a guest in someone’s house I’d take a mouthful but in my own home? No way

They are disgusting. Cooking the ingredients all together in that plastic bag thing is gross and changes the whole texture and taste of the food.
So for me this isn’t a perfectly good even meal - it’s a pile of tasteless mush that I couldn’t eat.

I also hate the thought of my food absorbing harmful chemicals from the plastic.

No, I don't think people should be obligated to eat foods they dislike. This is something I've changed my mind on as I've gotten older and gained some perspective on how other people experience food differently than I do and shaken off the scorn for "pickiness" that I picked up in childhood.

But it's perfectly reasonable to take exception to how your husband went about declining, especially in front of the kids. It's fair to ask him to try a bite or two if he can manage, to say "this just isn't what my body's in the mood for tonight," instead of pulling faces, etc.

And I'd absolutely pair that with a conversation about him contributing more to family meal planning, shopping & prep.

YANBU to say that he was rude about it. Without getting in to any other issues about the division of labor, he could have handled the situation much better. That said, he is a grown man and shouldn’t have to eat something he doesn’t like, especially if it is something like this that you just threw together (as opposed to something you put thought into, the fact that he didn’t like it is nothing personal against you or your cooking skills).
He may have acted like a child but he fed himself something else and that should be the end of it. Just because you are married doesn’t mean either partner should be forced to eat something they don’t want to, maybe that is a polite thing to do in the company of others but it shouldn’t apply between married people, you should be free to not like something and let your spouse know that without it becoming a big deal.

This sounds like Mum martyrdom to me. Why are you working full time and then cooking for him every night? What would he do if he lived alone. He needs to get his own bloody dinner, it's not the 1950s.

That's your opinion though.

If everyone thought that they wouldn't be in business anymore.

Do you never discuss what you are having for tea?

I can't imagine juts making a meal and placing it in front of DH, or him me. It's a joint decision so for that YABU anyway.

Then you gave him a variant of something he doesn't really like. I don't know why anyone would do that.

Being a bad role model in front of kids for not even trying food - rude and annoying.

Sulking about it and then not doing the dishes - exceptionally rude and annoying.

Being basically incapable of cooking family meals - totally tragic.

I would be super annoyed about this. He is bang out of order on multiple fronts.