How much do your partners cook? Maybe I’m expecting too kuch

[eynjln]

DH works full time, leaves home 8.30 comes back around 6. I’m either looking after our toddler, working (part time self employed), or cleaning, or cooking, or food shopping.

im pretty exhausted. I’ve asked DH to step up in the cooking department but he says he doesn’t know how to, and also because he doesn’t enjoy it (I used to but now I hate it). For reference, his ‘chores’ are:

• taking the bins out (I often have to remind him/ask)
• the dishes after I’ve cooked

he’ll cook maybe one lunch at the weekend, the same meal every weekend.

i can’t tell if I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill. He’s great and hands on with our toddler for the most part. I just really love to be looked after but I’m started to get irritated with doing the cooking. I also do all the house stuff (putting together furniture, sorting out repairs, insurance, etc). But then again he works full time and is out of the house waaay more than me! I’m wondering if my tiredness is just making me super resentful and I’m picking at things that are NBD

DH cooks regularly (probably more than 50% of the time) because he enjoys it and finds it relaxing, having a beer, or a glass or 3 of wine pottering about in the kitchen, listening to the radio. He uses an enormous number of bowls, pots, pans etc and doesn't do any washing up or clearing up as he goes along. I sometimes think it's as much work to put away ingredients, clear/wash up after him as it would be to cook.(I also wash up/clear up if I cook!)
We both work ft, get in around 6-6.30pm I do probably 80% of other household chores

YABU IMO. You work part time, he works full time.

We take it in turns depending who has the easier day. We both work from home most of the time now so it’s workload dependent. My job is generally more full on and I’m the main breadwinner but I enjoy cooking so always will if I have time but DH does 90% of the shopping, all house admin, all the laundry, most gardening, bins, 45 minute each way school run. Writing that I think I owe him a nice treat!

Do you think the person working part time should do 100% of the household stuff?

Could have written this myself OP. I’m currently pregnant and exhausted while still working and looking after a 4 year. He is fantastic with our 4 year old, I can’t fault him there but anything to do with the house I deal with. It’s the cooking that’s really getting to me at the minute. Last week I didn’t cook for 2 evenings, he kept asking me every 15 minutes ‘what do you fancy for dinner’ I just kept saying I don’t know, or I don’t care in the hope it would spare him on to make a decision himself. He didn’t - ended up with cheese and crackers at 8:30pm one night and tomato soup around 8:30pm the other night. We normally eat around 6 lol.

About 50/50 here. I do on my non work days, he does the weekend main meals, and the rest depends on who’s wfh. I wfh more but he’s the better cook so if we both are he cooks.

oh gosh bless you!!! I couldn’t even imagine this on top of also being pregnant (exhausting first time round, can’t imagine also with another LO)!

I think you hit the nail on the head there with asking about dinner, the mental load of keeping the entire house afloat is just as bad as actually doing everything for me

Except she works part time in addition to full time toddler wrangling and the majority of household chores.

What do you think sounds like a fair balance? What is currently happening or maybe a little more help but only on weekends?

Omg sounds like my house 😦 I feel like I do almost everything! I’d be a bit pissed off to in your shoes.

Prior to the kids when we both worked full time he was home first and probably done more of the cooking than me. Also probably did more about the house than me.

After our first I went part time 3 days a week so I’d always cook on my days off so it started to be a little more me doing cooking and chores still pretty much split, I’d do a bit more obvs being part time.

After second was born and now I wfh still part time, I do them all. I do resent it a little. I know he’s often out the house 8-6pm and has to do 1wkend a month and he does a late night once a week every week so his hours are probably about 45hrs a week and can be as much as 60hrs when he has to do wkends. So his hours are a lot more than they used to be.

I asked if he cld please do dinner every Sunday. That lasted 1 week, it does piss me off. If I ask him to do dinner he huffs and puffs and starts going oh I don’t know how to make that 🙄 Seriously! He’s not a great cook but can do simple meals. He does at least do all the gardening, dishes, some washings and hoovering etc at the wkends so I don’t moan too much.

Yeah he cooks a bit more than I do and shops for the food more often too. My ex didn't cook and the stress of thinking what to cook then having to cook it every night was a big problem.

Depending on shift patterns etc, I don’t think she’s being unreasonable. I work part time 3 days a week, my husband full time. On the 2 days I’m not at work I sort out dinner, on the 3 days I do work as far as I’m concerned it should be split 50/50. I’m doing a full working day just like my husband. I don’t see why I should then also have to come home, cook, clean etc as well. When he can afford to support me so I don’t have to work, then I will do all the cooking, until that point he should do his fair share. - He doesn’t currently, but I’m working towards it lol. Granted if working part time meant 10-2 or 9-3 everyday then yes I probably would do the cooking on those days as well but if the OP is working full days when she is at work, I think it’s fair for them to split it.

If he cannot/does not like to cook dump some other chore on him.
You cannot expect FT employed person to do as much around the house as PT one (and you did not disclose your hours).

Yeah, he definitely needs to pull his weight a bit more. 8.30 to 6 is not an especially long day, and it isn't reasonable that you're doing all the childcare, virtually all the domestic work and then trying to fit in your self-employed work during evenings and weekends - how many hours are you spending on your combined roles compared to him? If he won't/can't cook, at least offload some of the other stuff onto him. Otherwise when your child goes to school and you're trying to get your career back you'll find it really difficult to get him to start doing his fair share (speaking from experience).

Oh no, sorry. Just thinking aloud, could you batch cook the main stuff and just add extras to each meal?

My DH doesn't like to eat the same thing 2 nights in a row so I freeze for week after, rotate and repeat lol 😅

We get a supermarket or real takeaway once every 2 weeks, cook a whole chicken and use that for next day, of that helps? I don't enjoy cooking, I do for special meals, otherwise it's just the chore to eat, clean up. Xx

I don’t think he’s cooking much, no. And it would irritate me too! He doesn’t sound awful though but it does sound like you are taking a lot of the drudgery and mental burden. That will naturally cause you to burn out and feel under valued. Over time it’ll cause unnecessary bickering, resentments etc etc. But all can be sorted by having a good think what you want and than having a calm chat with him explaining first how you do appreciate him, then how you are feeling and then options for how he could help. If he didn’t cook is there something else he could do that would show he cared for you / lesson the drudgery? Set some tasks or days for him to cook etc etc and gently pull him up if he doesn’t follow through.
It is only reasonable for a loving partner to share the burden but that doesn’t always mean 50:50 on everything. But it definitely doesn’t mean 1 partner doing 80% of most things and 100% of others just because one parent does part time hours around childcare. He does need to step up by sounds of it. A lot of men get into a terrible habit of being the ‘provider’ and then almost expecting a full servant/admin/PA at home because of it…

It’s a mix. We both work full time. However it is really not on to opt out of cooking at all.

It’s really is the mental load which is worse. Since I’ve been pregnant this second time he has been offering more help with chores. But he will just say ‘what do you need me to do’, I look around the room that looks like a bomb site because our 4 year olds been playing and my head is just saying ‘bloody pick something up and put it away, how hard is that to grasp’. I say to him all the time, if you have to ask me what you need to do, you aren’t helping me, you are causing me more stress because not only am I thinking about what I’m doing, I’m not also having to give you step by step instructions as well. Drives me insane!

I do all the cooking. DH pulls his weight around the house, but I'm still resentful about the cooking because it's essential and relentless - if you don't fancy ironing or running the hoover for a week, it can wait. But everyone expects to be fed every day. Argh...

I love others cooking for me but I'm a bit of a control freak in the kitchen!

So I tend to be the main cook, through choice.
I think if you feel you want your partner or others in the home to do more then definitely say so. Not in a pressure kind of way, but just organising it a bit more balanced.

Batch cooking something like stew, thick soup or tomato/veg sauce is good, like one of you could do that once a week?

That way either if you could do something really easy like omelette or jacket spuds on the other days or once a week have something fancier or takeaway?

DH doesn't cook at all. Works FT. I work PT and do everything else as well as cook HOWEVER anything I don't want to do he is more than happy for me to sub out as required ie we have a cleaner, someone who irons and tbh I'm a bit of a fusspot when it comes to my kitchen and the mess other people make so would rather he didn't use every pot and pan anyway. If I don't feel like cooking, we go out or get takeaway. I'm happy to cook most nights though.

I mean it depends on what works for you. We both work FT, and my DH does all the cooking. He even cooks for me and dc if he is going out himself. I dislike cooking, and do laundry instead.

If he's that bad at cooking, maybe he could take on another household chore instead?

He cooks his dinner every night that he doesn't fave a takeout. But he's Arfid and doesn't like what I like, so it's that or he had takeout every night. Which he would get sick of I 🤔

This is also what I was going to say, I do most of the cooking because he hates it and I work more hours than him but he does 90% of household stuff through the week, dishes, bins, laundry, ironing, changes the beds, but if I see something I’ll do it - so I’ll chuck a load of washing on or hang it out if I notice a wash has finished etc then on a Saturday I deep clean the whole house for the week ahead.

i don’t think your situation is about the cooking, he needs to step up and do what needs doing when it needs doing without being told - in other words he needs to be a partner and not a dependant!

4 meals in just under 7y. I work double the hours that he wfh