To not cook separate meals for partner’s diet

[SmithyCakeJun]

My partner has always been insecure about his weight. He used to be a semi-pro MMA fighter but now just does it as a hobby and naturally gained some weight when the intensity of his training decreased. He is borderline overweight but nothing awful, and he’s perfectly fit and did Ben Nevis last week perfectly fine. So he’s not critical that he loses weight.

However, we’re getting married shortly and so the concern about his weight increased and he went on a weird diet where he only ate between 12-4pm. This was a pain in the arse as I work Monday-Friday 9-5 and so the times he was eating I wouldn’t be around to cook, and he refuses to cook himself. he works long days 4 days a week but gets a 90 minute break at lunchtime so comes home.

Due to his eating time requirements, I had to spend the best part of my Sunday’s meal prepping and had a load of rules. It had to be a variety of meals but no cream, only certain types of carbs etc. Bloody nightmare. He’d request chimichurri sauce, garlic mayo etc (which he also wants me to make as apparently supermarket mayo causes insulin resistance)

He’s now announced that he wants to continue the dieting after the wedding and has a goal weight. He wants to eat only meat and veg until he reaches the goal weight but wants it in 4 smaller sized meals a day at very specific times. He got this from some random instagram video which I don’t think he’s bothered to fact check. My own weight is perfectly healthy as I portion my food for my needs, and this means that I don’t need to limit my food and love making pasta, homemade pizza, curries etc. cooking is a hobby for me and I enjoy it, so I want to continue cooking the food I like. I don’t want to join him on his diet.

He has said that it’s not that difficult for me to throw some meat and veg in the oven for him whilst I’m preparing a different meal for myself, and he doesn’t understand why I’m so against it. For me, the problem is the whole extra level of life admin that goes along. Altering the food shop, meal prepping, ensuring I’m available at certain times to ensure he can eat when he “needs to”. Etc etc.

AIBU?

What is the saying.. “start as you mean to go on” otherwise you’re making a rod for your own back.

Teach a man to cook and he can feed himself...

Tell him you'll teach him how to make things but you'll no longer faff around like this anymore. It's far too much work. My DH loves the things I cook for him but is always saying "if you've got time" or "don't go to any trouble" etc. And life means that now he has to do most of the cooking anyway.

YANBU, my husband cooks he's own diet meals, I may help sometimes, but he's very particular with his diet food and how he likes it, so he needs to do it.

Absolutely not... He can cook himself... Driving someone is no where near the same thing as having to do alllllll the cooking

He needs to learn to cook.

most people are able to manage this.

I got as far as you spending Sundays prepping for his meals and I stopped. Let the man baby prep his own meals.

everyday I read or see something that makes me even more glad that I’m single 😂

He seems to have confused "partner" with "personal chef". Time to enlighten him.

Don’t marry anyone who has strict rules around eating and doesn’t cook

Find an adult who is capable willing and able to share chores

Move back out. Seriously

or tell him that you’re going to and make some calls to find somewhere else to live.

tell him wedding is on hold too.

the babysitting thing tells you everything, tell him that it’s made you realise how you don’t want to be parent to a grown arsed man.

if he’s big enough to be a semi pro athlete, he’s big enough to learn how to fuel himself and go through all the training he needs to achieve his goals.

youre not doing this anymore. You’re simply not.

This is him showing you his BEST self? Before the wedding/honeymoon phase?

don’t be a mug.

Don’t marry him!

Urgh gross, he wants you to be his “mummy”

“Knob behaviour” is the most accurate and succinct diagnosis I’ve seen on the thread.

@Mackerelfillets

This post nails it. Why in God's name would anyone marry someone who refuses to cook? That is madness. Raise your standards!

I know you’ve asked if this specific arrangement is unreasonable but I think you have to think wider. There are assumptions and expectations here that go way beyond food and will impact your marriage for as long as it lasts. Think it thought for yourself but I’m seeing

• his needs take priority over yours
• you are solely responsible for domestic / emotional labour
• he can dictate how you spend your time
• what happens if you have children, what are his expeditions then about your role?

this need wider thought…

OMG don't marry this person! Yuck! He refuses to cook and expects you to accommodate HIM by spending your free time literally catering to the special diet he's put himself on?? WTF? RUN. He is in no way marriage material and if you put up with this and still marry him, don't complain when you're nine months pregnant with a screaming toddler on your hip cooking at a hot stove while his pathetic arse demands to know why you haven't finished his laundry and licked his shoes clean for work the next day. RUN

Tell him to make his own fucking food. It’s not you, it’s him.

CANCEL THE WEDDING.

No, seriously, he actually expects you to cook every single meal he eats for the rest of his life?
Would he ever deign to cook for you, if you were ill for example?
What would he do if you went away for a weekend or longer?
(demand that you batch-cook before you go, by the sound of it!)

I love cooking and baking too, and genuinely enjoy making meals and treats for my partner.
I do most of the meal-planning and food-shopping because I'm a control freak, but not all of it. They're perfectly capable of cooking for themselves, and do so if I'm out, or for me when I let them!
However the idea that I would be expected to do all the cooking for ever more is seriously unhinged, unsexy and would make me reconsider even staying in the relationship.
I urge you to seriously rethink the plan to get married, and hope you don't plan to have children with this man-child.

Oh no.
Just realised I'd accidentally added a comment to a zombie thread that started back in April.
I'm now wondering what happened in the end. Did @SmithyCakeJun ditch the guy, or did they get married after all and now she's stuck in a kitchen meal-prepping every week?!

Tell him to take a hike

Haven’t read whole thread, and j’m sure it’s been said before, but he can prepare and cook his own meals.

I only read as far as won’t cook for himself. Wow.

One thing I will never do is even entertain a man who "refuses" to cook.

Why women pick these imbeciles as life partners is beyond me.

I hope you have fun doing EVERYTHING around the house for the rest of your life, as your boyfriend "refuses" to do it.

And you don't even have the benefit of being a stay at home partner lol

How’s marriage OP?

Why does he get to "refuse" to do, you know, what able-bodied adult humans have to do if we want to eat, but you don't? Try it. You learn who people really are when you say no to them. If what you learn isn't good, don't marry him. Why is is "not difficult" for you, but too difficult for him? Come on.

But if you're not going to do that, turn 100% of the planning and shopping - for your food too - over to him. He puts his meal plan on the fridge, and makes sure all the necessary ingredients are in it. So throwing them in the oven really is all you do.