Is this split of household tasks fair?

[Foolsonparade]

My fiancé and I both work full time. We have set jobs that we both do that are seen as “our” tasks. So I cook and clean the kitchen and DP does everything else.

I ended up getting a bit fed up of doing the cooking every single night (on the rare occasion that I won’t be back late, he will cook) and then cleaning the kitchen. So I asked if we could split this instead of it being just one persons task. He argued that those are my only two jobs whereas he does literally everything else. I just feel like “everything else” is not as big of a task as cooking and washing the pots.

We don’t have any children, he will clean all other rooms of the house and hoover and do the laundry and clean litter trays. I work hybrid so work from home 2 days a week. This set up has worked nicely tbh because we both know what we are expected to do and just get on with it and are in a routine with it. But would I be unreasonable to think we should take the cooking in turns?

But you probably wouldn’t describe it as relentless, because you’re making the choice to cook time consuming meals every day.

Only on MN is making roast potatoes described in about ten different stages.

And isn't what you described making yorkshire puddings, anyway?

@Poiuytrewqa yep, my parents always cooked from scratch but neither would ever dream of spending hours standing in front of a hob after work.

We had a lot of stir fries, pasta with various fresh sauces and toppings, oven-roasted meat or fish with vegetables, jacket potatoes and the occasional pizza or frozen dinner too.

This is yorkies not roasties surely? Why do roast potatoes need any egg?

Today it was BNS, feta and chickpea salad with tahini dressing.
Was a little over an hour all in including the clean up and wash up.
To be fair that is only every 2-3 days.

Get baby potatoes. Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and thyme. Stick in oven for half an hour. Remove, toss about a bit, add the meat and veg, back in the oven for another half hour. Done. It’s easy.

My point is <sigh> that it’s not ‘just’ ‘two minutes’ ‘pop in the oven’. Now I knock them out quickly but with roast beef I’m also studding the beef with herbs/garlic/anchovy, probably adding a herb butter, it goes in at one temp, gets reduced to another. Has to be rare. And then it needs veg.

I suspect some people are just happy with bland, semi-UPF food. And that’s great. But I hate that kind of food.

You must have a lot of time on your hands

Wonderful! And great for one night. But if all I ate was potatoes, roast meat and roast veg, I’d die of boredom in about a week.

We had this at one point where DH cooked most nights and I did everything else, all the cleaning, laundry, shopping, but also looking after our baby! DH chose this as cooking and washing up is all he'll do but he asked not to cook every day so one of us cooks and one of us does DC bedtime but I still do everything else. Not fair.

I think it's fine if you want to split everything 50/50

But what you describe really doesn't take hours and hours. The biggest part of cooking roast "dinners" is waiting around for things to cook, and having to be in the house to add the next "bit" to the oven. The actual prep isn't complicated.

Ah this is unlocking memories. Yes, the stir fries! Lots of omelettes too. Hated a Wednesday because it was always a chopped salad 😂.

Salmon I'm fine with but not the rest.
Will eat the components in other formats though. Love sausage and chilli pasta/gnocchi. Like chicken curry, like beef shir fry. Just a lump of meat and side of veg is less appealing to me.

My mum loved an omelette - apart from when she was going through her cabbage soup phase 😩😂

You’re making Yorkshire puddings though. You don’t have to. You can spend two minutes putting a healthy meal into the oven if you want to.

You’ve mixed up your Yorkshire puddings and your roast potatoes and are trying to cover it by pretending that turning down a knob on an oven for the beef is some major task. We aren’t in Edwardian England where you’d have had to regulate the temperature with fire and coal. You’re twisting a knob.

No one has mentioned UPFs.

I'll give you that, it is just the 2 of us and I like nice food.

You have a major lack of imagination.

I wouldn’t want to swap the cooking for doing everything else. I cook very well and cook smart - dinners in the week take 20 mins to cook and I clean as I go. Are you cooking from scratch every night?

Beef stir fry also takes minutes. No one needs to be chained to the stove.

Yeah I often do something like that when I really can't be bothered.

These threads are a genuine revelation for me - I honestly had no idea that people spent so long cooking dinner every night.

Sometimes I think I am just genuinely slow.

I agree - or taking an hour to make one lunch (not criticising, just surprised).

OP, how long is it taking you? Can you just make quicker, easier meals?

Cooking takes head space. Planning, shopping, prep, cooking, serving up and cleaning up.

I would consider other jobs much easier.
It is not good that he is so inflexible.

I think long term it is much better if you share the cooking.

Believe me if you have a family together and you somehow end up with full responsibility for everything to do with food, you will regret it.

Responsibility 7 days a week for all food is a dose many women would happily hand over.

Yanbu.

This is a nonsense post from someone at the wind up. No one is stupid enough to think they aren't winning with just cooking.