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?

“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”

Hold it right there - YOU have to spend your Sunday meal prepping? I like cooking and I do a lot of cooking, but I wouldn’t be doing that, unless I had visitors. His eating requirements, his cooking. OP, you are marrying this man - do you want to spend the next 30 years with every Sunday taken up with meal prep? And what if you have DC? Just how many meals are you going to be cooking?

As for “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”, tell him to “throw” whatever meat and veg into the oven he likes - if you’re cooking, you make what you want. If he were, say, vegetarian, I’d get that he wouldn’t want meat, but you’re not his chief cook and bottlewasher, so stop this right now. If he wants some faddy diet, fine - he cooks for himself, particularly if he’s going to be so particular about when he eats. Normal people eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Times may vary, but not to the extent of only eating between 12 and 4. He sounds to me as though he has a real problem over food - this sort of restrictive eating is how anorexia starts. But he is being VVV unreasonable to expect you to fit in with his schedule - if you’re out 9 - 5 and he refuses to cook for himself, he’ll just have to go hungry.

I voted YABU to have pandered to him thus far.

“He refuses to cook for himself”? That would give me the ick. I would not want to sleep with a man who treats me as his mother.

And “I had to spend Sunday…”? No, you DIDN’T have to.

Are you sure you want to marry this manbaby? It only gets worse when the kids arrive.

Based on him refusing to cook and wanting you to spend your time preparing meals don’t marry him. This is a type of controlling behaviour.

If he wants to be so particular, he can sort himself out
Are you sure you really want to marry the attitude

Wow. He thinks you are his staff.
Tell him to get lost and do his own stupid meals. I despair, I really do.

My partner can't or won't cook. It's pathetic and lazy and entitled, thinking someone is going to cook your every meal. So now I cook exactly what I want to eat. If he wants some great, if he doesn't he can eat toast. Sorry OP to rant on your thread 🙂 but it drives me round the bend. And yes, we have discussed the likely longevity of our relationship.

@Harrysmummy246 - please don't quote the op all over again! Imagine how long the thread would be if everyone did it ...

Sorry but this is ridiculous. He can meal prep like all the other gym bros out there, especially as you work full time anyway.

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

Won’t be that difficult for him to throw some meat and veg in the oven then will it 🤨🙄

Seriously, what do you see in this man child?! I absolutely would not be pandering to this, he wants specific diet (and I am not talking because of dietary needs/allergies obviously) and times, he can flipping well do it himself…

I dunno… does him going out of his way to give you lifts for you even out you going you out of your way to cook for him? @SmithyCakeJun

Hun, sorry, what? He ‘refuses to cook himself’?

The 1950s called, they want your fiancé back.

What else is he going to refuse to do in the future? Changing a child’s nappies? Cleaning the bathroom? Buying his own clothing?

The purpose of your existence is not to do jobs for him, unless he does equivalent jobs for you?

So what is he doing when you are spending Sundays in the kitchen cooking for him? Tell him that from now on he'll be cooking his own meals on Sundays as he'll have all day to do it and whilst he's there he can cook yours as well.

Why are you even with this wanker? Fuck him off whilst you can.

He refuses to cook for himself?

What the fuck did he eat before he got himself a domestic appliance partner to do it for him?

I would begrudge the not cooking in this day and age! He can reheat the dinner you make after 5pm and have it the next day. No way to batch cooking only if he lets you teach him and he starts cooking. Plus there are plenty of online food prep boxes that will have healthy meals with instructions he can follow! Or some are microwaveable. He sounds lazy if he wants you to do half the work for him.

Why can’t he spend his Sunday prepping his silly food? His diet and eating schedule is ridiculous and there’s no way you should be putting yourself out to this extent to accommodate this idiocy.

Many years ago my then partner decided for similar reasons he was going to do the Atkins diet. I said that was great, you just sort yourself out then.

More than 20 years down the line we are happily married and still only eat the same things at weekends. You get to decide what you have to do, not him. He can make it or Buy it, he certainly won't starve.

If you marry him you’ll regret it

I just couldn’t be in a relationship with such a twat. Life is far too short …….

First post nailed it.
If it's that easy, he can do it.

But oh wait: he refuses to cook himself. he works long days 4 days a week but gets a 90 minute break at lunchtime so comes home.

I would die on that non-cooking hill. What a twat. Do you really think he's starve if there wasn't a woman around with a vagina to cook for him? Hint: he wouldn't.

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.

No you don’t! You don’t have to spend your Sunday doing that you are choosing to, you could tell him to sort his own meals out whilst you’re at work or that he can meal prep on a Sunday. YANBU to not want to do this but I actually voted YABU because you are doing it instead of telling him to cook for himself!

This is one of those posts where you will come back in five years married and with a three year old and a baby and your husband won't lift a finger but tells you the reason you haven't lost weight is because you aren't willing to make sacrifices and don't have enough willpower. Men like this judge everyone based on their own experiences. He gets therapy and cooks for himself or please find someone else.

Just reading about this level of entitled thinking/behaviour has me swearing out loud. Of course you are not BU!

Could be an eating disorder or could be he's using food as a way of controlling the OP and will become a million times worse once they're married. This has so many red flags for turning into a full-on abuse situation. Do not marry him.

It's not just "he's useless and will be a shit parent and life partner" it's also "he thinks my disability means I owe him". He sounds like a nasty bastard and I would be very worried where this will go once he thinks you're trapped.

You will never respect yourself again if you head down this road @SmithyCakeJun

If he doesn't want the burden of managing his own diet, he goes online and books a food prep deal. As an ex athlete I am sure he has heard of this. If he needs to get a small fridge to store his meal portions, well he can do that too.

Cancel the wedding before you get dragged down by this piss taker.