Upset husband

[Questionmarkone]

Hi all, I want some unbiased advice as I don’t know if I’m in the wrong. I have name changed for this post. My husband works a manual job and gets up at 5am. Got in at 7pm today and has a long commute to/from work. I am SAHM to three children. I do all the housework/child responsibilities etc and he helps with cooking/cleaning when home at weekends. Today i was very busy, school drop off, dog walk, collecting Christmas tree from garden centre, taking outside lights down from attic and online Christmas shopping. I had my child’s Christmas Nativity at 2pm -3pm and my older daughter’s school parents evening which first appointment at 3.40pm. I got home from Nativity at 3.30pm, put some chicken in the oven and rushed out to parents evening. I got home at 5.10pm and spoke on phone with husband. He was upset I had not made dinner, said I should be thinking about him as he does not get to eat well in day duty to work. I was planning to have a chicken supper with children, chicken, salad, pitta bread but husband does not think this is dinner. He was very upset about dinner and made a big deal out of it and sent a long text berating me. I offered to put some potatoes on for him but he said no and has come in with fish and chips and said it’s my fault he is eating badly. Am I in the wrong? He also questioned what I have been doing all day and said making dinner should be my priority

That sounds perfect - you can make it in advance if necessary and just do rice or pasta at the last moment.

THIS
100%

What on earth is a ‘spud dinner’?
I am a stay at home parent (all school aged but one disabled on a reduced timetable), my husband works long hours. He happily eats whatever he’s given when he gets home… what’s wrong with chicken, salad and pitta as a meal?! If I gave my husband meat and veg every night I think he’d be quietly wondering when he was going to get some variety!

I can never get my head around how easily men have children, and then think they just raise themselves! When my dearest friend got divorced her husband said ‘what did you do, why do you get any money?’ It never occurred to him that while he was advancing his career she was raising his family (and sacrificing her own career.)
Op talk to your husband more when you are both in a better place. It might be that as he works a physical job he wants to see more substantial food on his plate. But he needs to communicate it. Maybe you can make him up a bigger plate of food for him to heat up in the microwave when he gets in. But he needs to stop with the tantrums.

Bad advice.

Potatoes, meat and veg

This is good advice

Surely most people wouldn’t want to eat that every night though?

we have a variety of different food, curry, pasta, spuds. I think it just represents a “proper” dinner. This is definitely unique to each family.

"sent a long text berating me"

I would have a VERY SERIOUS problem with this. He is very welcome to express that he would prefer a more substantial meal and I would be very happy to accommodate him.

However, I will not be berated EVER! My husband and I are a team of equals and he would never ever tell me off!!

I don't think either of you are being unreasonable. You had a busy day and not much time to cook. He had a busy day and no time to cook. But I don't think chicken with salad in a pita is much of a dinner for anyone, that's something I'd have for a light lunch snack.

The two of you just need to communicate with each other better. Perhaps at the weekends you can batch cook some meals together then there will always be something available no matter who is busy on the day.

Husband whose out all day doing a manual job to support his family.
Important that they both appreciate each other and as posters have said, he was likely to have been hungry and exhausted and said things in the heat of the moment. OP is doing an equally important, exhausting job.
Let it go and enjoy your family xmas

Sounds like he was having a bad day and just grumpy. But he could be a bit more understanding that timings wise you couldn't cook and be at parents evening.
On future days when you know you are going to be very busy I would put somthing in the slow cooker so it doesn't matter what time he gets in.

But you did cook dinner? What do you mean when you say chicken? A chicken, portions of an actual bird? Or like nuggets? As if it's anything of the former then he csn feck off. Meat, salad and bread is a perfectly reasonable meal, and I grew up with a dad that thinks any meal that isn't roast meat, 3 veg and potatoes isn't really dinner. Incidentally, my father is a ungrateful dick and I would (and probably will) rather die alone and be eaten by cats than be married to someone like him.

You know I think that is what annoyed me the most. Also I make dinner 99% of nights - only reason I didn’t today was as it was a manic day and weekend (his mum was staying) and I’m trying to sort Christmas. Some understanding from him would be nice. I’m busy too - not as bad as him though to be fair.

It seems that this particular man doesn't fancy chicken and salad after a long day of manual labour. I wouldn't either, actually, even in large quantities. We'll probably have to agree to differ about this, but I don't have a problem with him asking, politely and in advance, for the kind of meal he does fancy. Sulking about it is obviously not OK.
OP is a SAHM and they've agreed that she will cook on weekdays. It's not as if they are both working long hours and she is doing all the housework while he complains about the food not being 'manly' enough.

My dad was a farmer. He’d leave before light in the mornings and in the summer didn’t get home until 11pm.
He’d carve out an hour for dinner and come home.
He’d never complain.
It was meat and potatoes every single night.
But I remember there were times when we’d have pancakes for dinner or bacon & eggs. Those were a real treat.
As a grownup, it dawned on me we had those things because my parents didn’t have any money for anything else.
Perhaps you should remind your husband that just because you don’t earn a paycheck, you work hard all day too — and that if he disapproves of your cooking, he’s more than welcome to take over the kitchen duties.

I cooked oyster chicken seasoned with herbs and salt and pepper in the oven in a cast iron casserole dish.

If it’s truly the ‘heat of the moment’ then I’m sure he will apologise, for both the utter rudeness and for not offering to get anyone else chips. Of course, there’s a chance that he genuinely expects the op to provide a full ‘man meal’ to his standard every working day, whatever is going on in hers. If that’s the case, it needs to be talked about now, because how the op’s husband has spoken to her is unacceptable. It is important they appreciate each other, which from the snapshot of the op doesn’t seem to be mutually the case.

Yes, that was definitely not his finest hour. Visitors are exhausting, let alone Christmas.

So he could have had boiled potatoes with his chicken and veg instead of salad/bread...

And instead of simply saying 'i'd rather have something a bit more filling, could you put some potatoes on for me, I'll be home at 7' he berates you via lengthy text?

He's a twatman.

He is expecting you to predict what he will want to eat AND when he will want to eat it, on top of everything else you do all day.

Only you know if you have the time to meet his expectations and whether you think they're reasonable or not, we don't live your life.

But he sounds like a complete bell-end to me.

Ask him to fill out a menu card at teh start of each week and provide the times he will be home.

Oh and if he is eating crap food at work, whose fault is that? He could take healthy stuff with him surely.

I’m sorry OP but I could do what you did and go to work and then make tea still. I think MN overeggs the SAHM role. A manual job all day all week obviously is harder.

He's being quite fussy, but my dh would've wanted rice or pasta with that. I always keep a pack of uncle bens savoury rice or tortellini in the fridge to bulk up a meal if I'm in a hurry.

How did his mum staying get arranged? perhaps you should say in the future you need to check with me as times when there is a lot on, I can’t always handle something extra, we can’t not get a tree, you’re not offering to get the dc Christmas presents, and there’s no flex in your expectations of a meal, the housework all has to get done; so I just can’t manage anything else: I’m human too you know.

people are being very understanding but I don’t care that he’s hangry, he needs to think I don’t message my wife like that.

its really interesting seeing all the responses and how polarising they are. I think that I will take from this that he was being a twat but that I need to make sure I have the freezer stocked for days like today. Keep us both happy