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? 🙁

I think it’s interesting that you’re worried that a separation will lead to a “broken home “, I think you are already living in one OP.
He may have “issues “ but this man has decided to control what his family eats to compensate for his issues and seems to have no regard for how you feel.
He needs to seek help, or not be surprised if you decide you also “can’t cope “ with things.

I'd start by keeping it simple. First of all speak to your husband, tell him it's very important to you and that you expect him to have your back (you're not asking alot, and ultimately it will benefit him too!!) Instigate a "Sunday family lunch" in the dining room, and set rules (no tablets/phones etc). Would a roast chicken + vegetables suit all palates? Or something like spaghetti pomodoro? You may start to discuss what you like to eat as a family once you all start eating together, so you can take it from there. Good luck!

Because he works from home and needs the room 35 hours a week compared to the 4-7 hours a week the family spends eating? There is an island in the kitchen that can be used for childrens meals like 100s of 1000s of families in the country do, but it appears there is no spare room/office that he can use? Why create conflict when there is an easy solution - other than moving house to buy a bigger house where he can have a dedicated office?

@Rockininthefreeworld if my DH is indicative any suggestion that I make especially one that involves something he wasn't expecting is met with flat out refusal. You have told him what you want and why it's important, give him a bit of time to come to terms with it, raise it again, and again and again, then do it anyway. By then it won't be such a shock.
In fairness if you suddenly move the kids to a different room with no tablets and new foods it probably won't go well and your DH will be able to say he told you so. So make your changes slowly, decide which thing you want to change first and once that's sorted or at least in place go next.
I suggest no screens, and even if you don't eat with the kids because you are eating once they're in bed or something, be in the kitchen with a cuppa and sit with them whilst they eat, don't talk about their food it will seem weird. Go with school, favourite TV characteristics, that kind of thing.
Then start cooking different foods, if dh doesn't want to eat them that's fine and if he needs to go out because of the smell that's fine too. (It will get very boring in the depths of winter).
It won't be easy but if it matters to you then it's important enough to do it. X

His phone, by the sounds of it.

Frankly, it doesn't matter of he does it on purpose or not. The bottom line is you're unhappy and you worry for your children. I'd see a family lawyer asap and learn about my options. Sorry OP x

You can be autistic and not a controlling, selfish prick though.

I’d work on you and your kids eating together first.

This post nails it I think!

So you’d give him exactly what he wants and pander to his controlling behaviour?

These are awful suggestions.

Get the selfish DH out of the dining room while you and your children eat together.
He can cook & eat whatever, whenever, & wherever.

Don't forget 2 and 6 year olds get older. There's plenty of time to have meals together, and in the meantime if meals together isn't wanted by the rest of the family, or practical, make sure you do something else together as a family instead. After all it isn't great social communication time if you're spending the time telling the children to not eat with their mouths full.

OP has said he can swap with her and have the upstairs office so that’s a nice easy solution. I have a 3 year old and no way would I want her sitting at an island if there is another solution- she would be constantly wiggling on her stall and falling off!

Really? She says he may be ND. These are ways to compromise.

The alternative is to leave him and she doesn’t seem to want to do that. YET. All the PPs here, of course, are gearing straight to that.

Compromise will take the heat out of the situation and enable her to reassess and make rational decisions about how she wants to move forward. The knee jerk reaction on MN is to immediately move to LTB [easy when it is not your life you are blowing up and you are hiding behind a keyboard]. This may be the decision she ultimately needs to make, but RIGHT NOW, on an immediate day to day basis, she needs to dial down what is going on in her house and take the tension out of meal times for her children. If she does that, he may feel less overwhelmed and also be open to compromise. And consider an assessment/support if he is ND.

At the moment she is as unwilling to compromise as he is [eg. she wants them all to eat together, she does NOT want to use the kitchen island, she seems not to consider that he may feel the need to have a designated workspace rather than feel he must camp out in the dining room] and, as is obvious, she is fed up, emotional and using this space to rant because tensions are ramping up … and both parties seem to be becoming more and more entrenched in their positions which makes dialogue and compromise less and less possible.

But I am done here.

It’s only dh objecting

1 out of 4 people

children should be able to sit at a table and enjoy a meal with a parent /adult being able to sit with them and chat about their day

Then that's the problem. You have three people tip-toeing around a control freak. I do appreciate that people are different but I couldn't live like this where one person gets to say what everyone does and what everyone eats. I know he isn't a baby but he sounds like one.

There’s a spare bedroom that op @Rockininthefreeworld works in as her office

she is happy to swap - all dh has is a laptop so can work anywhere

a room upstairs away from smell and noise is perfect

op can then work in the dining room if they can’t share the office space

and then it gets used for many hours

I feel for you - I think you’re at risk of creating problems for your children around food. It’s crazy you have a dining room and table but can’t use it! I think this is a deal breaker with children and hopefully your dh will start to put in an effort for his family. It can’t be all his way, especially on this.

Your husband is a dictator.

My parents fed me crap as a child and I resent them for it. I've had to force myself through tears and gagging to get to a stage where I can eat vegetables now as an adult. It's absolutely miserable. Do not allow him to limit their diet.

SHE’S as unwilling to compromise as he is??

She’s tying herself in knots trying to accommodate him. She’s even considering building work they don’t need to change the kitchen layout so they don’t have to use ‘his’ dining room. (Except he won’t allow the building work.)

Theres a perfectly good spare room he can use as his office, which she has offered him.

She doesn’t light her own wood burner, fry food or even open her own double doors because of him.

And yet SHE has to compromise?

I agree with this ^^

He said that the children don't need variety in what they eat.

Yes, they do. He is projecting his own issues with food and can't see that everyone else is not like him. He needs to understand that his issues are his and he shouldn't make them everyone else's.

I totally get your pain. When my kids were younger I'd eat with them or I'd feed them and then have mine later with DH. Now they're older I eventually stopped doing it.

1. DH is very fussy and likes one pot, spicy, healthy huge veg and carb heavy meals that noone else likes.
2. DD is vegan and likes to cook her own.
3. DS comes home later than everyone else and is fussy, doesn't like lumps etc.
4. I'm on mounjaro.
5. Other DD back from Uni will eat anything but is rarely in at teatime. It became a nightmare so I gave up.

Could you start off with meals in the weekend? So like, a fun relatively easy tea on a Saturday night and a roast dinner on a Sunday? They could get everyone used to the idea of sitting round and eating. You say DH is fussy, how fussy exactly?

@Rockininthefreeworld and as kindly as possible, how did you get from dates with a man who has significant food issues and an aversion to shared mealtimes, to making not one but two babies.

I dated a chap twice and on the second date he told me about his mum's chilli. Mince, gravy and baked beans. I ran, slowed down only by the rolls of red flags.

Yes. I did wonder this as well.

Someone like this would not have gone beyond a couple of dates with me.