To want my partner to cook meals on a schedule?

[hangryhour]

My partner’s job is to cook the meals. We each have jobs. I do the washing up for example, amongst other things. My partner is a very good cook and also more fussy than I am about food, doesn’t like my cooking so does all of the cooking.

Every day I have to ask for meals to be cooked, and my partner will look at me and say, ‘Oh are you hungry? Ok’, and get up and make food. The only meal I don’t have to ask for is breakfast.

I could cook my own food but despite trying I don’t have the flair for it that my partner does. Plus my partner would not like that, as my partner is better at it and it would be waste of energy cooking for one.

This is super weird
He/she sounds controlling. If you're hungry and they aren't cooking then get up and cook yourself. If they would have an issue with this then they need to be more on the ball. Do they have a smaller appetite than you? Can't you make sandwiches or soup or simple lunch things for yourself (and them if they want?)

I was going to say Yabu because I thought that you were my ex who once suggested that we had a predictable menu each week eg bolognese on a Wednesday.

Yanbu to say something like you want to eat dinner about 7pm every day because most people get hungry on a schedule. Doesn’t he feel hungry ?

It's fair enough him cooking the evening meals, but do you sit there while he makes your breakfast and lunch as well? That's odd.

Why don’t you agree once that dinner time is X o’clock?

I'm the main cook in the house and I will ask the others to tell me with a decent timeframe when they want to eat. If they don't say anything, and therefore I start cooking later then tough. It's ready when it's ready.
My dad used to borderline bully my mum to have the weekend lunch on the table at 12.30 sharp. Since he passed away she has never cooked since!
Can't blame her. Don't let anyone pressure you.

Whole situation is totally odd. I cook all the meals except for Sunday breakfast my husband likes to do big cooked breakfasts.

We eat at roughly the same time every night and if I'm not feeling like dinner (sometimes I skip entirely or just have soup) I'll let him know "it's soup tonight but if you want something more then you're seeing to yourself". He happily makes himself a simple pasta or stir fry dinner or pops to the shop for some burgers and buns.

Dinners and life in general don't need to be so complicated OP. You shouldn't be trying to read each other's minds.

Do you live with this current girlfriend or is just when she stays?

Just cook your own rather than get the passive aggressive backlash.

Surely the only cooked meal of the day is dinner?

Can't you help yourself to cereal for breakfast and a sandwich or soup for lunch?

We make overnight oats once a week, and a big batch of soup and that's it apart from an evening meal.

Just make your own then or have an adult conversation and agree dinner time. This strict demarcation of chores is weird.

Pre kids, our arrangement was to start cooking at 6pm. It didn't especially matter to us whether we were having something simple that cooked in 10 minutes or less, or something that took 45 minutes. Just that the process of making the meal began at 6.

It's a bit weird that he makes your breakfast and lunch, but anyway...

The simple thing would be agreeing what time you both want dinner and then he gets it ready by that time?

Maybe you could cook a couple of times a week to give him a break from it too, maybe he doesn't actually enjoy cooking all the meals

So you just want set meal times rather than wait until you are hungry?

Why do you even need them to do anything for breakfast or lunch? Can’t you put cereal in a bowl or make a sandwich?

It’s normal to have a standard dinner time, just agree that, or start making it yourself, cooking is only following a recipe.

This is all so weird it's difficult to advise.

You have an extremely strange, kind of cold, set up; not really how people who love each other interact.

Why wouldn't they like it if you made yourself some toast for example?

Are you both in the house together all day every day for meals? Doesn't he say when he's going to cook dinner?

I'm sorry, because everyone should eat how and what they enjoy, but you make 7 days worth of oats at once? And eat some every day? Doesn't it get solid? And one batch of soup that you eat every day for a week? That does sound very dull and joyless.

Not unreasonable imo. If you take on a job which affects other people then part of that job should involve taking the other people into account. It's my day off on a Tuesday, my job is the laundry. If I only did the laundry when it suited me then we'd be a bit scuppered for shirts and school uniforms on Monday!

My partner is also like this. The kitchen is very much their domain. They would prefer to be solely in charge of the meals and prep so that noone else can inadvertently use an ingredient earmarked for a future recipe. If one of us tries to help in the kitchen then DP stands there getting a bit hot under the collar because we're doing it 'wrong' and they're trying to tell themselves it's unreasonable for everything to be done on their terms and to their standards but that instead means they often can't bear to watch. Feels batshit to me, but it is what it is!! Sometimes I book the kitchen out and have a marvellous time cooking away with noone breathing down my neck at how I'm chopping the onions. However on the occasions I do cook it is often met with a 'oh this is actually rather good!' as though the expectation was cat food! Gotta laugh sometimes.

My nana always had prepared breakfast by 8, lunch at 12 and dinner at 5, even if you were not hungry it was always bang on time. It was like a military regime. My poor granddad.

Make your own breakfast and lunch, you shouldn’t expect your partner to do that for you. If you want dinner at a specific time, tell your partner that. They’re not a bloody mind reader.

Loads of people like routine @GuestFeatu

You don't and that's fine.

That poster does and that's fine.

You get joy from mixing it up, other people get joy from not thinking about it.

I provide all meals and hot drinks in our set-up, from her cup of tea in bed onwards. Breakfast is usually hot, lunch sometimes and dinner always. But if anyone insisted on fixed times they would get A Look. I’m amenable to things like ‘I have to go out at 7, if that makes a difference to when you do tea’, but that’s about it.

“Every day I have to ask for meals to be cooked, and my partner will look at me and say, ‘Oh are you hungry? Ok’, and get up and make food. The only meal I don’t have to ask for is breakfast.”

no you don’t ‘have to ask. You choose to ask. Or you could say. ‘Do you have any dinner plans or shall I start something. Or ‘can I help’. Your partner is giving you a clear message that they’re not happy with the arrangement, you’re just choosing to ignore it

But isn't your partner cooking for both of you? If they're cooking their dinner as well, when would they do that if you didn't ask? Surely within a normal range of dinner time each night, unless they'd otherwise eat at totally random times of day?

In any case surely it's quite easy to ask in advance "when are you planning to cook tonight" or if their cooking times are too random for you, asking if you could have a rough dinner routine eg around 8pm.

You can’t make a sandwich or pour a bowl of cereal?