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

Hmmm, both you and @Mrsttcno1 might be right. My frustration seems aimed at the cooking, but I think it’s perhaps more that I feel the house would fall apart if I took even 1 day away. The last time I went out alone and left DH alone with our toddler was over a year ago

I cook, my DH barely manages his own breakfast 😂because he absolutely hates it

BUT
he does a hell of a lot more than "bins" - which doesn't even count, how long does it take to bring a bin outside once a week.

He cleans around the cleaner, deals with kids clubs (I deal with school)

That’s probably it!! He’s also quite fussy, isn’t happy with a simple pasta, baked potato , soup etc. has to be ‘proper’

DH does the majority of our cooking, I’m not great at it, don’t enjoy it and I won’t cook meat, only fish or veggie dishes which he would never eat.

We both work mostly from home and we are equal with all else including child related things, just he is the main cook, I do the toilet cleaning as he hates that (but will do it if he has too). Works for us, I would rather clean toilets than have to cook.

He never cooks. He’s terrible and I enjoy it.
I never vacuum though. He does all three floors twice / three times a week and I think it’s a fair trade.

That’s probably also the thing that annoys me too! The huffing and puffing. So the one time a week he does make lunch he huffs and puffs and then I get frustrated about the huffing and puffing 😂

He does all of it unless he’s not here or poorly or we are having a takeaway. He probably cooks 6 nights out of 7 and the other we either have a takeaway or he’s out and I sort out dinner.
I can cook but i definitely don’t put as much love or care into cooking as he does and the taste is obvious. He loves cooking and reading recipes for inspiration and tracking down ingredients and inviting people over and cooking outdoors etc. I gracefully let him 😂
I do do all his washing though so maybe it balances out 🫠

I would ask him to cook 2 days a week ( 1 mid week and 1 weekend), let him choose what he makes - anyone can do pizza, sandwiches etc

Also let him huff and puff

That makes sense. I don’t mind the cleaning so much as once I went away with our daughter to visit my parents, and when I came back he’d done a load of laundry for me but it all smelt like damp and stunk out all of the drawers and cupboard 😱

Another poster commented on the mental load of cooking which is probably why your focusing on this, every other chore can wait but everyone needs to eat and when you have to plan, shop, cook on top of every other chore it’s not surprising your focusing on this.

if he came home and tidied up, emptied the bins, bathed your little one and got them to bed while you could cook at your own pace then sit down to eat in a peaceful room that had been tidied for you, then if you could relax with a cup of tea while he washed up - you’d feel different and that’s what a partner does! X

That's not the point though. He's out of the house all day every day, you're working one day per week. I would expect you to do the vast majority of the home stuff with that split. If he's not getting home til 6 but you're home, it would be crazy for him to cook during the week. There does maybe need to be a little bit more balance at the weekend. Maybe get him to cook on Saturday or Sunday? Buy him a cookbook!

We did gousto meal boxes for a long time, dh was happy to give them a go and it cut down on my planning and prep.

we’ve just stopped and I now do the planning and shopping and then put into our shared calendar the meal planned and recipe with an expectation that he will do half.

we both work full time, have two children and I have chronic illnesses and awaiting potential surgery.

we do have a cleaner as I physically can’t, but other things are fairly well split.

confidence in the kitchen comes with time, I found planning and prep were the bits be struggled with but was happy to follow a clear recipe.

I do all the cooking but I enjoy it and I WFH on less hours than DH. But DH does all the maintenance, all the cars, his fair share of cleaning and being with the kids, so it all balances out really and we play to our strengths.

I think I meant to say that I also struggle to cook because I have a crazy toddler who is intent on getting herself in danger if I take my eye off her for one second. And I have no childcare, so I have to work, cook, clean, and everything else all while looking after a 2 year old

We both work full time. I work office hours and DH does shifts (earlies, lates, nights).

DH does all the cooking when he's not on shift. He doesn't mind cooking, I HATE it! God I love that he does it 😆 I feel very lucky haha

Bloke here.

I do all the cooking - and I'm rather good at baking.
Cleaning - yup!
Gardening - oh yes!
Washing/ironing - got it!
School run/kid's taxi - that's me!

But... I'm retired, and DW is still bringing home the bacon. If she can't have breakfast in bed every day and a clean, organised house in return, that would be a pretty poor show.

I think because he gets in at 6, I'd rather cook during the week and have it ready for when he gets in so you can eat as a family. With a 2 year old, I wouldn't want to start cooking at 6 if there was the option to do it earlier. It does sound like he could take part in the running of the house a bit more though!

I mean you sound great @Oldandcobwebby ! But that could not be me 😂 Fair enough if we didn’t have a toddler, I would do all that no problem, but we do! And it’s physically impossible for me to do all of this whilst also giving my daughter all the love, attention, and education she needs in this very crucial phase of her life. Once she is at school I will be going back to work full time and I can guarantee I will still be the person cooking, cleaning, gardening, fixing furniture, etc!

My DH always wants to cook when he is here as he loves cooking but he works away regularly so in reality he cooks perhaps 3x dinners a week but often elaborate brunch, lunches at the weekend! The downside is that he spends too much on food and tbh uses way more pots, pan, utensils than me, that said, he clears up most of it.

My DH gets home at 8 and cooks.

DH works full time, I work 4 days a week.
He does all the cooking. He enjoys it and he's really good at it, whereas I'm OK but not great and don't enjoy it at all!
He does the food shopping.
We have a dishwasher, which we both load/unload equally. But he always reloads it after I've done it because he's anal about where things go 🤣
I do all the ironing and most of the laundry.
We both clean, but he probably does the kitchen and bathrooms more than I do. I do more general tidying up and change the beds.
He does the bins and all the gardening.
He sorts household bills, car insurance, finances and general life admin.
I do the school admin (2 DC with SEND so there's quite a bit!) and take the kids to most of their medical appointments.
He does most of the driving DC around to their activities.
We take it in turns to take time off work if DC are ill. We make sure we give each other a break at weekends so we both get some 'me time'.

None of this has ever really been discussed or agreed, it's a pattern we've fallen into over the 20 years we've been together. We both do our bit, if one of us is poorly or going through a particularly stressful time at work the other will pick up the slack and it all balances out OK. If it doesn't feel balanced for you and your DH, OP then you need to talk about it (calmly, without getting caught in the 'competitive tiredness trap'!) and come to a compromise. Do it now, before resentment really starts to build up.

DH does all the cooking here, but we both work full time and I do other stuff obviously.

in your shoes, I’d be sitting down to have a chat about division of labour at the weekend. You no longer enjoy cooking, so you should divvy up the meals at the weekend. If he doesn’t know how to make something, he should learn - it has never been so easy to learn to make most family meals. He could buy a cook book or look up instructions online. He can choose what he wants to make each weekend and you can get the ingredients when you do the weekly shop.

if there’s chores or errands that need to be done at the weekend, then they should be split.

i do think general running of the house jobs should fall to you during the week. But in the evenings, things should be split fairly so you both get a bit of downtime before bed. So if you need to work after dinner, he needs to sort out the other stuff without asking for help.

on the batch cooking, when you do a batch, separate out the portions, leave out enough for the meal and freeze the rest quickly!

He gets home too late to realistically cook a family meal during the week, but I’d task him with weekend cooking assuming you are happy to do the cleaning up after.

I do probably 80% of the cooking, but that’s because I prefer it to the tidying up, and am more fussy about food (dh would just eat jacket potatoes every night, but I like proper home cooked meals with vegetables 😂). But definitely if I say, you’re cooking tonight because I can’t be asked, he will do it.

That said, cooking dinner is just feeding everyone decent enough food. It doesn’t have to be a Michelin starred meal. A good ready meal will extra veg and salad will do and it means you have a few days a week when you don’t have to think about food for everyone.

I found we had to come up with a plan (instigated by me) as I couldn’t cope with not knowing in advance who was planning meals/cooking in advance. So I don’t work on Monday and Tuesday but DH does, so I cook on those days. We both work Wednesday and Thursday so I cook Wednesday and he cooks Thursday. He doesn’t work on Friday but I do, so he cooks. Then we split it over the weekend, most often he cooks on Saturday and I do Sunday. It works so much better now that we have a plan!