I want to start eating meals as a family but there are so many hurdles to overcome

[Rockininthefreeworld]

Please don't judge me. I'm really looking for some advice and just feel so dissatisfied with our whole set-up 😔

I have felt bad about the fact that we never eat as a family. We have two children, age 6 and 2, and they always eat separately to us. This is for a number of reasons...

1. DH is a very fussy eater, and won't eat 90% of the things I make for the children
2. DH and I both work full-time until around 6pm, making eating together quite challenging. Having said that, we both work from home a lot, so it is do-able with some planning (but then, see point 1...)
3. We have a kitchen island but no room for a dining table, which means eating together in the kitchen is just sitting in a row. This makes conversations feel a bit challenging.
4. We have a dining room (although carpeted...) and I'd love us all to eat in there, but DH gets very very funny about mess and smells. I've tried to approach the subject but he just gets annoyed and shuts it down. He uses the dining room to work, which is very annoying to be honest because I feel like that's a whole social room that we've just completely lost out on.

The 2 year old is at nursery full time which does give him "social eating" time, and I think the 6 year old is fine because we do eat out and I often go back to my parents where we sit together at the table. But, he also gets very bored if I'm not constantly entertaining him and he's not a stranger to the tablet at the table. I hate that and feel quite ashamed.

I just don't know how to handle this. I feel so dissatisfied with the whole arrangement, but DH isn't going to support me with it and it feels difficult trying to do it in the kitchen anyway. I just want us to have a nice family meal together, even just at the weekends, but even if we manage that it still has to be in the friggin' kitchen and no-one will talk to me, DS will moan for his tablet and DH will be on his phone. I've tried to implement this before (in the kitchen), and it just felt pointless in the end because I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

Does anyone have any advice? 🙁

You need to be firmer with him and stop pandering to this nonsense.

Say, "DH, I wasn't asking you if we could eat in the dining room, I was telling you that that is what is going to happen. We can swap work spaces if it is that much of a problem for you, but that is the limit to how much I am willing to accommodate your issues. Eating proper meals with decent table manners and making proper conversation with those around you is a basic social skill which I want our children to have. I also don't want to continue restricting what I cook and what the children eat because I don't want them to grow up having the same issues around food that you have. It would be better if we could both work on this together, but I will do it with or without your cooperation."

For me the only way forward would be couple therapy and also therapy for your DH. He needs to understand that his limitations are affecting the family to the point of breakdown.

If he is on the spectrum, there are plenty of therapy types to learn how to live with them DD was 2.5 years in therapy to learn to navigate her ADHD/ASD and we have a lot more stress reduced family life now.

Even highly physically and sexually abusive relationships can often have moments when it’s not awful… Rarely is every moment one of unrelenting horror.

Your husband sounds like a PITA but you’ve married him and had 2 kids by him so presumably at some point you’ve been in love with him and decided he was the one you wanted to build a life with, despite his quirks. Is that still the case? If so, you probably just have to accept he isn’t going to change, and you either accept him as he is or leave.

Other than tablets at the table, which you can ban, I don’t see what’s so bad about your current set up and why there’s all this huge pressure to eat in the dining room. You’re already eating together as a family on a table of sorts, just on the island in the kitchen instead of in the dining room.
I also don’t get why people feel so strongly that everyday meals need to be a social occasion and “family time”, you can talk at any other time and spend time as a family in all kinds of other ways. Personally I dislike having to talk while eating, I just want to focus on my food and be left alone to enjoy it. In my house we sometimes eat at the table with all of us together, sometimes not.
Most of the time DD (age 5) eats at her little table while we’re on the sofa beside her - sometimes DH and I are also eating on our laps (the horror!) other times not because she eats early and might be finishing off leftovers, but there’s not enough for us and we plan to cook a different dinner later on. We don’t have screens while eating and DD is learning table manners just fine.
Growing up I only ever ate meals with my mum at the kitchen table while my dad ate separately in front of the TV (they didn’t get on), then when she left him we ate on the sofa in front of the TV every night, because it’s more comfortable and enjoyable. As an adult now I’m perfectly capable of table manners and have a professional job that has in the past involved lots of formal dinners, and coped perfectly fine with those (I only mention it because someone earlier mentioned formal dinners).
Honestly, it’s nice to have dinner at the table as a family, but not if it’s going to create all this tension and conflict.
Also, fried food isn’t good for you anyway, just get an air fryer, it’s much healthier and there are hardly any smells.

Have you asked him why this partnership you're supposedly in requires you to back him up but not the other way round?

A sinple solution OP may be to have a meal as a family at the weekend rather than during the week. That was DH isn't working in the dining room. It does not matter if everyone is eating different things btw, I think the important part is sitting down together for even a short time. So just try to get 1 day eg Sunday lunch and build slowly from there.
Sometimes the idea of something is worse than the reality so this will help DH to get used to it

Ease them all into it gradually. Start by having a "special" meal in the dining room for - anything really: birthday, Christmas, First Sunday of the month, whatever. Increase it to every Sunday (or Saturday, if you prefer. Then make all weeknd meals in dining room. Serve it "family style" i.e. dishes in centre of table so everyone helps themselves. That way you can offer a variety of dishes to suit (I.m talking two or three here, not a whole-scale buffet). Make sure there is a mat under table that can be easily cleaned.

@Rockininthefreeworld DS has always had food issues - three years ago it spread to not only trying to control what he ate but what others did - food smells etc

We worked on it - he can now eat in a restaurant and at a table with us as a family he still has a list of 4 or 5 things he would rather we don’t eat but his sister is a vegan and he cannot control what she eats it has been a slow process (and we haven’t even begun to look at his eating) but a necessary one because he cannot be in charge he cannot control the environment around him

at his worse he was unable to go to school and showered 4 times a day so it was far far worse than your DH and we have still managed to achieve a lot.

he needs to work through it himself because he cannot control 3 other people he simply can’t especially when 2 are his children

Let him leave then, he's a massive twat!

Is he getting help for his issues? CBT for his OCD? Exposure therapy? (I’m no expert, can you tell!) but I feel that although his issues aren’t his fault they are his responsibility when they impact others, especially his children who cannot choose whether to be around him or not.

So, these issues are his responsibility. This is a HIM issue. How can he be as comfortable as possible with normal things like cooking and eating? He owes it to his children!

Could you have the bifold open when you cook?

I get the point about not having food smells in his workspace. That’s a preference that can be respected. But he needs to compromise In other ways. For example, You could eat a meal on the table in the dining on a Friday then the room can air over the weekend and the smells will be gone by Monday assuming he doesn’t work weekends.

Carpet picnic of cold things, Including things he will eat, Would be really helpful for the DC to see him eating “normally “

Overall, you’re gonna have to reset the whole situation in your house. Regardless of the reason your husband’s issues are ruining your life and shaping your children’s life and attitude to food immensely.
I cannot imagine the situation I wasn’t allowed to make a fairly standard family meal like spaghetti Bolognese.
Even if he had to be out whilst it was cooking or out for the day whilst it’s cooked and eaten by the three of you.

He doesn’t get to dictate that far, surely And expect to remain married?

I’m not discounting his personal issues with all these things. I’m sure it’s deep seated, but he needs help with it as it’s impacting others.

This. You're required to bow down to his every need in order for your kids to not be witness to his tantrums and sulking. I'm assuming it's the same with your "fun" days out. He gets to decide where you go based on his needs? Then and only then can everyone have fun.

That isn't a partnership.

The op has offered him an upstairs room for his workspace. So they can serve food in the dining room like everyone else and it isn’t in his workspace because he is using the perfectly good alternative offered to him that means the dining room can be a dining room.

I feel more and more like I’d have beaten him with a cast iron pan then fried up a nice meal in it and had a lovely family meal with my kids in the dining room.

The biggest Thing that will determine your children’s ability to eat at the table Is the model provided by parents and other adult adults and children? They will struggle to learn without this.

How does your child cope if they go to have tea at a friends house and they eat at the table?

Ah thank you I missed the bit about the alternative workspace upstairs, I’d assumed if he’s working in the dining room that was all that was available.

Yes, I would bet good money that the fun days out are strictly on his terms. Besides, how can you even have a “day out” if you can’t eat together?

What do you eat for Christmas dinner? Where do you eat it?

Do you never have family over for meals? DC doesn’t have friends over?

Having a dining room that is “off limits” for eating is very strange…does your DH understand this? Does he also understand that his “issues” are preventing his DC from developing a healthy relationship with food and trying new flavours? Before you know it, you will have children who only eat XYZ. I know you think that the school meals are offering variety, but most schools are on a fortnightly menu, so it will be the same 10 dishes on repeat. Your DC will not be learning proper table manners in a school environment either. In my opinion, children should be eating with adults who can model the proper use of cutlery, etc—you don’t want your DCs not knowing how to exhibit good table manners when they go out into the world.

Your DH is being very selfish here, and is stunting his own DCs’ growth in this area—he needs to grow up, get a grip, and get himself some CBT.

More than that, pretty much the biggest thing that will determine your children’s whole life will be the family dynamic in which they are brought up.

If their father is allowed to be a controlling arse who gets away with his imposing his will, and passing all the work of cooking and mealtimes onto you, with him making excuses, it’s THAT which will give them a crap basis for their future.

Or he's an autistic man with untreated OCD around cooking smells. It's really common in autistic people, and while I know anecdote does not equal data, my friend's son had exactly the same thing manifesting in exactly the same way and as far as I know still does in his 40s although it's not so severe now he's living on his own in supported accommodation and can control it a bit more. It was an awful way for him to have to live when he was still at home, the poor lad couldn't bear it and spent most of his life shut in his room.

Having read the thread this is a far more likely explanation than the old "he's a man, therefore he must be an arsehole and a bully" trope.

Get a large plastic sheet for the dining room.

aim to eat together at weekends at least and get everyone use to it.
plan meals in advance. I’m autistic and have issues around food, dd has adhd and DS is also asd and dh eats anything but is fussy about seasoning and how it’s cooked. So I’ll do things like jacket potatoes or Mexican (rice, chicken wraps) so everyone can choose toppings etc. or spag bol but dd will add chill powder and have it with rice, dh will add veg and beans. And the rest of us will have it as prepared. Sunday roast and some have mash, some roast, some want pea others have all veg.

But autism or OCD doesn't mean he's allowed to completely dominate one room of the house and not allow anybody else in there. Or that he's allowed to insist that the bi-fold doors are closed on a warm and sunny day even though everyone else wants them open just because he doesn't like it.

There are plenty of options available to him if he can't handle the cooking smells from the kitchen but the rest of it IS arsehole and bullying behaviour.

Imagine how lovely the house atmosphere would be if you left him. Kiss running in and out to the garden. Family sit down meals every night together chatting about their day at school and sharing news. Friends over for tea whenever they like.

op have you told him you have considered leaving him over this because I would. And I mean this in a kind and supportive way x

Have you considered making a list of all your husbands rules. Maybe over the next week as they occur to you?
Then I'd suggest that you sit down with him, run through them and the impact it is having on you as a family and suggest that he is tested for autism, and if it's OCD that he gets some therapy as you can't continue to live like this. There are mitigations - a garden office, or relocating to the spare room that he won't even consider because, he won't flex. AT ALL. So by inference, either he needs therapy or he's an actual selfish arse.

I have a similar family member in the extended family. He was such an absolute arse that without a diagnosis we all [including his mother] armchair diagnosed him as probably Asbergers with a hefty dose of OCD to boot and we managed him accordingly. At some point in conversation with one of the family, they made reference to his Aspergers and to everyone making allowances for him. He took HUGE offence and as if by magic, a large number of his arseholish and bullying behaviours just stopped.......

Have you at least visited the conversation with your DH that he swaps his office with yours which actually resolves the smell issue. He can go sit upstairs on his own safe from them.

I didn't say it was, but let's not just assume he's deliberately being an arsehole because he's a man. He very likely has a disability, at the very least a really unpleasant and difficult mental health condition.