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? 🙁

People who can't cope with something as normal and natural and pleasant as the odour of a meal being cooked have no business getting married and having children, it's not fair on anyone involved. And how does one even do normal cooking without sometimes frying an onion?

Really?
Do you realise you’ve just said that autistic people shouldn’t be allowed get married?

Loads of people can't have onion! I have at least 3 colleagues that can't eat it in any form.

OP, in the long term it isn't going to be sustainable for you and the kids to live like this, with all these rules and control. It will affect them, and you.

Can you start to sketch out in your mind what leaving might look like? When it might be possible? What will happen financially?

It's something you can gradually start working towards.

Has the idea of leaving been discussed previously in this thread?

OP he is being completely dominating and you and your DC can’t use the dining room, which is impacting all of you.

He needs to go and get professional help, it’s absolutely not okay his issues are having such an effect on a whole family, especially one with young DC.

If he suspects he has OCD, he should seek a diagnosis and support with it.

I would be putting my foot down. If he can’t operate in a family - which your PP suggests he can’t - he shouldn’t have had one, but he did, so now needs to step up.

Obviously the gentle conversations aren’t working. It isn’t going to be pleasant OP but it’s time to put your foot down, he’s being extremely selfish and controlling as well as unsupportive and irresponsible, especially as a parent of young DC, in not seeking diagnosis and treatment, if that’s what’s needed.

@Rockininthefreeworld While a small win, that sounds like a good start to what you were hoping for. Repetition and frequency will get you there in the end.

Three small things I'd recommend.
Kids love laying down the law. No tablets for your DC1, no phones at the table either. Unless your husband wants to encourage a screaming tantrum at the table he will apply the same rule to himself to show there are no exceptions.
When DC1 is a bit older, if funds allow I recommend moving to an iPad rather than a kindle device. Unless they have changed how they work, you can't pause a game or a program. It made them an absolute battle ground for us for the simplest of things. An alternative is to save them only for times when you know you can draw a halt in a civilised way like a car journey.
Eating out. Doesn't have to be every week or anything fancy but you can use restaurants and cafes, even picnic tables as a build on your kitchen island. The main thing is that you are all eating together without devices and your children are learning how to stay seated long enough to engage and eat a meal. It's also a neutral space - your husband can have something plain, the rest of you can have gravy on roast veggies or whatever. Some colouring pencils and paper and simple games will keep people occupied a bit. 2 and 6 will be a bit challenging though for a while.

I have no advice OP because the whole situation just sounds incredibly bonkers and stressful to me, but I also just want to say that your children aren’t the only ones that eat at a different time from their parents so please don’t feel bad. It seems to be the common set up in my workplace, so surely a lot of parents are doing it.

I commend you for being inventive enough that you can cook without onions or garlic because I’m pretty sure it goes in 90% of my food, I can’t imagine cooking without them.

Kids adjust to a new normal very quickly. My 7 year old loves setting the table and the fact that this is a time we pay a lot of attention to what she's done in the day. She is also pretty picky, as I think most kids are, and generally that means I make one thing for her and one for us, or give her a blander version anyway. But she likes to help cook and that's amazing time too. So I guess I'm saying it's well worth the effort. But it sounds like your DH needs to get on board. Tell him he's undervaluing what it would mean to you and it's not an option and if he doesn't commit it will be noted. Up to you how you manage him ; ) But he can't expect an actual dining room not be used for dining. That's not on.

I still want to know what dh manages to eat

is it a meal all 4 of you can eat @Rockininthefreeworld

Did you suggest swapping home offices, @Rockininthefreeworld? If so, what was his reaction?

Remember that you are important in this too. What would it feel like not to be walking on eggshells in your own home, to be able to open the windows when you want, to eat together without worrying about it? To live without feeling exhausted all the time? You deserve that.

This is so prejudiced.

Autistic people are just as able to manage the things they find hard and accommodate others as the rest of the world. Why are you infantilising them?

Honestly having read the thread and all responses I'd just get rid of the husband, he sounds like an absolute ballbag.

Your DH is a selfish clown. Tell him to pack his office in your dining room away each day after work. Then get the scoundrel to set the table. Remember it's both your responsibility to look after the children. He sounds like a nightmare. Unbelievable selfish.

The more I think about this, the more it makes me angry. Just because he's a fussy eater doesn't mean he can't cook for you and the children. Teach him how to batch cook at the weekend and get a menu plan. He's just making excuses. I cooked for my family, but my wife washed and ironed. It was equitable. Two of the family members were vegetarian, but I still (obviously) cooked for them.
Tell him that after he finishes work, he should pack away his office paraphernalia from the dining room and set the table. In our house, the carpets did get messy, but guess what, we ate together and it was one of the most enjoyable times of the day. And then we cleaned the carpets, but we sat together and chatted and ate good food. Your DH needs to up his game.

She did, he didn’t want to

Listening to music together while eating together perhaps or watching TV.

I’m not. I’m calling out the person who did

No - the PP said if people can’t cope with cooking smells then they shouldn’t get married and have kids.

You said that would mean autistic people couldn’t get married, as if all autistic people can’t cope with cooking smells and/or have sensory issues they can’t manage.

That’s what was prejudiced.

This is all pretty sad, @Rockininthefreeworld (though I’m glad you were able to enjoy one meal together). I know I and my sibling look back on shared family meals around the dining table as probably the most formative element of our childhoods. It’s where we learned about our parents’ histories and got to know them as people, not just parents. It’s where we told stories and began to understand the world. It’s where we argued over politics and science and religion and school and music and everything. And learned about food. Your children have already missed out …

The thing is, this restriction on natural family life will have, and probably already is having, a deleterious effect on your children’s social lives and development. You sound ‘educated’ - but if this carries on your children will struggle to interact successfully if invited to other children’s homes, and what happens for the next 16 years when they want to invite their friends round? How’s that going to go with your outstandingly miserable partner blocking any fun at all? No fry ups? And no running in and out of the house all summer?

There are so many threads here where parents who perhaps didn’t have the best education themselves are looking for ways to prevent their children applying to decent universities - because they know they haven’t equipped them with basic social skills. Reminiscences from adults who’d never sat around a dining table or been to a restaurant until they fought their way out of a restrictive home life. This cannot be what you wanted for your children when you decided to have them?

Your husband thinks he’s turned out all right. He hasn’t - and it would be a dereliction of duty for you to allow him to warp his children’s childhoods any further.

No I did not. I asked the PP if she realised that that’s what she had said in her post, because her post was so prejudiced. She said that adults who couldn’t cope with smells had no business being in a relationship. Almost the entire thread is about an obviously autistic man who can’t cope with cooking smells.

Learn to bloody read, or at least learn to bloody read with context. and kindly do not ascribe ableist intent to me when I did not make it.

And impossible to ban if DH is on his phone at the table. No screens for anyone is likely to be hardest.

My DH likes to watch TV at mealtimes and not talk, this is tricky to field with small children.
I eat earlier with DC and at our evening meal we still give a little food to DC but he can watch a screen. Not ideal but you have to survive somehow.

You’re failing to understand my point.

You’ve assumed a) that the DH is autistic b) that there’s nothing he can do about his aversion to cooking smells and c) that all other autistic people will be the same.

Oh for god’s sake. Don’t be so bloody ridiculous. I shall respond to this comment just so everyone understands that you are wrong and how silly you are making yourself look.

I am a disabled autistic person myself, which is why I pulled the PP up on her comment. How dare you accuse me of ableism? You don’t even know the meaning of the word. You also need to learn to read, dear. Or at least to comprehend, because you’re clearly not very bright and your skills could do with some work.

READ.

It isn't his office. It is the dining room and he uses it as an office. He's going to have to share. He's meant to be and adult