Can't be bothered to cook for son

[palmtreesands]

We only have limited fridge and freezer space so him buying his own shopping is not an option.
Dh eats at work and I like to take a massive salad to work among other things and pick so don't eat again in the evening.
Ds comes home from work expecting a home cooked dinner and I find it such a headache, if I haven't cooked or we've eaten I out as we sometimes do he expects their to be ingredients to make himself something to eat.... their often isn't and I am racing up the shop to buy him something to make but as I said food has to be included in his monthly contribution otherwise he'll come back with shopping that we don't have room for.
Aibu to let this stress me out so much, I'm hot and bothered and don't want the headache of feeding him but he pays £400 a month to live here so expects there to be food to eat and I can't be bothered with the hassle of always making sure there's something in when we don't have family meals.

Where's his contribution to electricity, water, council tax, TV subscriptions and rent coming from if he's spending all that money on takeaways.

I feel like MN has been invaded by incels, sometimes.

@MounjaroUser if he's out at work all day and not allowed food therefore not allowed to cook his usage will be very low?

For context, I live at home. We calculated that my daily usage of all utilities etc is probably about 50-60p per day. I don't pay rent but in lieu I do all my own housework, cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. and food shopping. You can't have it both ways and expect rent but also not allow them to live there.

You sound eating disordered TBH. How old is he?

I don’t get why you let them fill the fridge with beer. Do they drink a fridge-ful of beer every night? I presume not, so show them how to do what the vast majority of other people do which is have a stock of cans or bottles (of beer, cider, fizz, water, wine, whatever) in the cupboard, under the stairs, in the garage, and then get out what you fancy that night/the next day and put it in the fridge to chill.

It sounds like you’ve never really cooked or had meals cooked for you when younger. You can still have hot meals in hot weather! Think about Italy - pasta, meat, pizza. You just eat seasonal products with a lighter dessert, eg fish or chicken, pasta, stir fry and rice, Mediterranean veg, etc etc etc. A hot meal doesn’t have to be a steaming plate of stodge.

Kindly, your diet sounds poor, especially if you’re pregnant. Picking at things isn’t a proper meal. You’ll have to cook for your child once they’re weaned. No - not “have to” because it’s not a chore. If you don’t, they’ll grow up with unusual eating habits like you. In a way, you found your culinary match in your DP because you say that he and his son relied on takeaways before he met you, but if you’d met most other people you’d find they’d eat a proper meal too.

Do online shopping. Start to cook a few days a week and then gradually increase that. You don’t have to do all the cooking. Your DP and son could do it some nights. Get something like the Roasting Tin cookbooks because they’re easy and often have the veg cooked in with the meat/carbs.

To answer your question about your son, either cook for him or reduce the money he pays so he can buy his own food and cook for himself. I feel sorry for him with a parent and step-parent who can’t/won’t cook.

But he's their son! Surely you feed your offspring!

I'm not saying it should be placed in front of him when he walks through the door, he certainly needs to help, but for £400 per month he rightly (as the OP says) expects an evening meal.

You don't profit from your children and use their board money as bunce.

You intimate 'where else could he live for that' but by the same token, where else would the OP get £400 cash in hand every month? The additional heat/ light/ water / minimal food falls far short of that.

This thread is a ride.

I don’t have an adult DS but I do have a DS and I can’t imagine knowing he wasn’t eating properly under my roof being okay with it. There are so many solutions here that don’t involve you cooking for everyone every night!

I cannot fathom your day’s menu: yoghurt, fruit, some sandwiches & salad and then… tumbleweeds??? I mean if nothing else, the afternoon into evening is so long and boring if food is removed; can we unpick this a bit? What do you do with your time?

if his £400 includes food and he has to spend all that £400 on takeaways as he isn't allowed to cook his own food or keep food in the house and no one will cook or keep food on his behalf then that sounds like a fair trade. You can't expect him to pay £400 including food but then no food is provided?

is this a reverse advert- for hellofresh?
have a word with yourself op- dont "cant be bothered"re your son.coun t your blessings.take a couple beers out the bloody fridge.

He’s a young lad and they have a big appetite. I hear you as I don’t often eat dinner either, I’m hungrier earlier in the day and by 16yr DD likes to cook her own food. But when DS is home from Uni I always cook for him on hot days I could really do without it. And he will cook his own food, and does at uni. But he’s been on an internship and so I wanted him to come home to a cooked meal, and last year he bought me a lovely handbag for cooking dinner every day when he had a summer job. He’s very grateful, and I guess I like to spoil him. This is his last summer too as he will be moving in with his gf after Uni.

But in your case you don’t want to buy the ingredients either, or store the food. £400 is a fair contribution, so I do think you either charge less and have food not included or you have to pop to the shops every couple of days. Do you have a garage for a beer fridge? I get a delivery once a week, and just buy 5 meals, and I’ve always got something in for a pasta dish (his favourite meal).

You all need to chip in for a bigger fridge freezer and let your DS buy and cook his own meals, ideally your son should move out as it sounds like you don’t want him there at all.

This is bizarre. Either let him store his own ingredients and cook or cook for him. You cannot charge board and leave him with no option for meals.

Buy a beer fridge for the conservatory. Keep the kitchen fridge for food. If that isn’t big enough buy another mini fridge that step-son can keep in his bedroom - then he can do himself a weekly food shop, plan and cook his own meals in the evenings.

YANBU that can't be bothered to cook for him, but YABU to make it impossible for him to cook for himself.

This can't be genuine. So you don't buy things for him to cook and you won't let him buy his own things to cook. If this is real you're a disgrace!!

I was wondering tooo🤣. If you don't cool what is the fridge full of?@palmtreesands

If he's paying £400 rent, you need to give him some space in the fridge. Do you expect him not to eat in the evenings? This is a very strange way to treat your son, adult or not. He is hungry in the evenings, as most people are. Even a tenant renting a room off you would expect shared fridge space. As the mum of a 17 year old, I would not my son to go hungry.

this is fair tbh

Won't you need a fridge when the baby arrives?

Let me get this straight…

You are telling him he can’t buy his own food due to space, ask him to contribute to the food shop monthly and you will get the food for him - but then, choose to eat out and not buy him any food to cook!

You are being so unreasonable! You don’t sound like you eat alot - let you son have some fridge space and don’t stave him when he contributes quite a significant amount for his room.

Buy another fridge freezer! You can buy one for £150.
If he knows how to cook let him shop for himself. If not discuss with him what meals he likes and do a batch cook session with him.
Either way I think you are a bit mean at the moment- it must be grim to to come home from work hungry expecting either cooked food or food to cook and getting nothing.

@palmtreesands You are not being unreasonable to not want to cook a hot meal for a grown adult every day when you're not planning to eat one yourself.

Where you are being unreasonable is that you've told him he can't do his own food shopping because there's no room in the fridge, and your deal is that his rent includes meals, but you don't want to either cook him meals or buy ingredients for him to cook his own meals.

You need to make your mind up. Either his rent includes food, in which case you need to buy ingredients he can use to make his dinner, or it doesn't, in which case he should be paying a bit less and he should have space in the fridge allocated to him so he can do his own food shopping. But if you say you don't want to cook for him or buy ingredients so he can cook for himself and you also don't want him to do his own food shopping because there's not enough room in the fridge, it's not clear what you're expecting him to eat.

If the fridge is full of beer you need to either get a bigger fridge, or get a beer fridge, or tell your husband and son to only chill a small number of beers at a time.

This is a weird thread. Why is the fridge always full of beer? How much of it gets drunk? And what snacks are in there? When do they get eaten? Why doesn’t the OP take some of the beer out of the fridge? And who uses the food that’s in the freezer?

FWIW I have an adult son living at home. There are four of us altogether. I cook an evening meal every night. Anyone who’s in and likes the meal will eat it. If someone’s not in and I know they like it I will leave a portion for them to heat up. Anyone who doesn’t like the meal I cook makes their own, including clearing up after themselves.

I don’t think we’ve ever had more than four cans of beer in the fridge.

I have rarely heard such a mishmash of misogynistic bullshit on here as the answers OP has received.

Oh, why, doesn't she cook this, order that, batch cook the other, force them to take THEIR beer and goodies out of the fridge. She, she, she. Her, her, her. Evil nasty ***. She should be a good little housemaid woman and STFU.

Sexist crap.

There is a woman here ( by all accounts a 34 week pregnant one, who is still working and exhausted).

She has come into a father and son only household where the two men have only ever lived on takeaways. Presumably because dad is a lazy bugger.

Now, most likely because she has a vagina, she is expected to feed this adult son a piping hot, individually prepared, meal that he fancies that night. Man work, grunt, woman shop, grunt, woman feed. What bloody year is this. I would like to think we do know it seeing as batch cooking, freezing and online shopping have been mentioned enough. Are these two men's arms broken or are they dead in the head. Poor men.

On top of that, she is limited in what she can store because the two men are used to being a unit and won't take their fucking booze out of the fridge.

A lot of you see a hard faced controlling meanie who is in charge of the house but who won't cook for a poor starving little boy while stealing all his hard earned wages and spending it on salad for herself.

She is the incomer, the third wheel, the interloper, lowest in the pecking order. If you can't see that, I can't make you. Her fingerprints are not all over that young man's upbringing. His father's are.

Another thing, £400 a month for a man who wants meat and veggies in a hot meal, every night, is not enough money. What about electric, gas, water, internet access, tv, booze, snacks, bog roll, washing powder, shower gel, toothpaste. What supermarket and utility company are you all using because I want some of that low cost living.

How can you not have enough fridge space for three people? Let him cook his own stuff and cut down his rent. You wouldn't treat a lodger like that!