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? 🙁

Wow that is quite shocking you don't eat together as a family. We eat together nearly every evening. Both us parents work (not WFH) so we use the slow cooker a lot or have leftovers from the freezer for quick healthy meals when we get home. We meal plan each week so we pick together what we want something we both like.
My 3 year old sat down for Sunday lunch this afternoon with parents and grandparents, no tablet, everyone ate the same thing. That's because it's all he's ever known. When he was a baby I said to my husband I am not doing two separate meals times for the next 16 years 😂 we eat together.
Your child isn't the main issue though. It's your husband. He can't just claim a whole room to himself that should be a shared space to eat in. If it smells afterwards open a bloody window!!!

You are on the right track and I really hope your DH can get past his issues for the sake of his children. There are lots of studies which prove the huge benefits which come with families eating together regularly. It’s said to affect all sorts of things. Diet and weight being the obvious ones, but also academic abilities, vocabulary and it’s proven to even lead to lower rates of depression and anxiety.

Gosh, wouldn’t it be great if the OP could just be as good as you! Shocking she isn’t, I agree

Start with breakfast in the dining room.
The weekend dinners.

I’m not surprised.

Do you think he’s neurodivergent? Has he always been like this, or is he getting worse? Can you talk to him about it? Would he be open to getting a formal diagnosis and some treatment/coping strategies?

life is going to get very difficult if you all carry on like this.

Are you happy with him?

@Loveisnt- what a smug post!

love isn’t … posting unhelpful replies on MN…

Where do you normally eat? I’d say eating at a dining table is way less messy than anywhere else. Leave DH to sort his own food or if he’s ok with variations of what you make then you could do that (for example when I make anything with a sauce I leave it off for DC/any ingredients that are a no cook them separately and add in for yourself/DC). I wouldn’t limit what DC eat just because an adult in the house doesn’t like something.

Sorry, OP. Family meals are really not too much to ask for, given that you....had a family. IMO they are a key part of family life, and I would hate this. Your DH's behaviour is not acceptable. No advice, just a hug and a reassurance that you are right to expect one of the most fun and basic activities of family life. Eating together is very bonding, which is why pretty much every culture makes it a big deal.

When my kids were small DH worked long hours. I used to do the children’s dinner early but I’d sit down with a cup of tea and a piece of fruit so at least I was eating with them even if not a full meal, then I’d eat with DH at 9. Then at the weekend we all ate together.

Id encourage your husband to get over his various hang ups.

your poor children are going to grow to also be disordered eaters if you don’t solve this issue, tell your DH to stop being such a baby and go sit upstairs if he doesn’t like the smell and eat with your children, don’t worry about cooking for DH he can make and eat something himself. I feel sorry for you OP if you can’t fry anything or cook with garlic just because he says so 😕. Start making proper family meals and enjoy them no matter what your DH says 😁.

Your husband works in the dining room. He needs to accept that the primary purpose of that room is to dine.

Can you set his home office up elsewhere? I have the tiniest desk in the spare bedroom and I love it.

Actually, I do have some advice. I would have family meals with the kids where possible - I know they're still very young - but as they get older, I would make family meals a non-negotiable with the children, and your DH can join in or not. Just leave him to it. When he hears the laughter and conversation, he'll probably feel left out. Point is, you don't need his permission to institute family meals. Oh, I know you want him to be a part of it - of course you do! But he sounds very difficult.

I was also married to a man who was extremely difficult about food. He was always restricting his intake, including taking a week off work and fasting for SEVEN DAYS. He always had a faddy diet going on and was always buying weird food. So I had to eat on my own, and I did. I lived with this for a quite a few years, and I did not cave to his stupid ways. I continued to eat regular, proper meals all throughout those years, and I still do. Just leave him to it, is my advice.

He can eat (and cook!) his own food at the table shared with a family and kids. Thats just a lame excuse

DH doesn't have any sort of diagnosis but yes I do think there's neurodiversity in the mix. He's incredibly inflexible, and dictates almost everything in life because of what he can and can't cope with. I end up over-compensating to just try and give the kids a normal life.

He says to me he's OCD but he hasn't had a diagnosis. I'm not saying he doesn't have OCD, but I hate discussing it because he uses it to shut down all conversations where I want something he doesn't. Something he "can't cope with". Frying food and lingering smells being one of them.

I worry so much that I'm letting my kids down. When I bring up meals he says things like "it really doesn't matter, I don't know why you're making a big deal out this, not all families do that and it doesn't have to be like the fantasy in your head. The kids are just fine."

I've considered leaving him, but then I question whether I really am making a big deal out of nothing. I don't want to split up the family, but it's exhausting operating this way.

Sorry, thread has taken a bit of a turn...

Is DH autistic OP?
I have autistic family members and it does make things more difficult. We also drifted away from eating together for a while because of autism. It’s just all harder.

I think swapping the room he works in sounds like a great idea, though he might take some persuading at first. Good luck with it. You’re not wrong to try to eat together.
ETA sorry cross post. We have OCD in the mix too.

OP, wondering if he has ARFID. Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.

I have an ASD teen, depending on her stress level she is not able to eat with us, it's a mix of sounds (us chewing, use of cutlery, talking) and smell of food.

She will then eat in the living room on her own. The alternative would be no eating and we went through that as well, the weight loss wasn't fun.
So a fussy eater can be actually a lot more than just being fussy.

So, I would tackle your DH first. Explain that the dining room table is for eating. Agree on a time in the late afternoon he is finishing. He then vacates the room and if he can't eat with you, he can eat in the kitchen afterwards.
You can use the table to eat together with your DCs. Put a washable cover underneath the table if you think it's needed.
Air the room after eating.Air the kitchen while you eat.

The same for breakfast, agree on a time you clear the table for him to work.

Ideally arrange for another space for him to work but I think this is not always doable, so come up with a compromise.

The tablet - when you come up with a routine, tackle the tablet. Go small, movies only, no actual usage of the tablet. It's not a lot of difference to people having the TV on.
Engage with your other child. Talk about the day, try to draw your older one into the conversation. Don't offer the tablet, but let him have it when he asks for it. When you feel he is engaging with you, compromise, first food, then tablet with dessert or after dinner for 1/2 hour or what you deem suitable.
Praise him like talking how great it is to talk together about their day, be positiv but don't link the tablet to eating.

Expand the food offerings, start with things which can be separeted on the plate if wet food is a no-go. Offer it, eat it yourself and don't comment on any leftovers. Keep a diary of what you offer and what and when it's eaten.
We often allow adults to not wanting certain food once in a while, we have to accept that children also don't fancy something.

So he is the problem. He’s refusing to compromise.

I've read the OP's posts, and some context around them, so I think this probably hasn't been suggested...

It seems to me that the various sensory issues etc. that make it hard to work around the DH in this case arise from the evening meal being thought of as a hot meal by default.

I come from a cultural background (German) where the evening meal is usually cold, and where the food isn't individually plated up before eating. So supper would be bread, butter, cheeses, ham or other cold cuts, various raw veg like tomatoes or radishes, pickles, fruit, basically anything you like, all placed on the table, and people assemble their own plates from the choices on offer. This has a few advantages: first, there's no pressure. If someone doesn't want something, they just don't take it, and no issue is made of this. Second, it's super quick to prepare and arrange nicely. Third, you don't have to think about cooking something different every day: the variety (or not) is provided by the choices people make from the food on offer.

I wonder if a paradigm shift to something like this might help? It would remove the question of the strong smells, it would take the pressure off the "picky" people to clear a pre-filled plate, it would remove a pile of stress for you, and it would help shift the focus away from the food itself, to being together as a family and chatting about things.

I grew up with this kind of cold supper in a country where hot suppers and cold lunches were more normal, so in many weeks, I had hot "cooked" meals only at the weekend. I really didn't mind, and have very fond memories of very relaxed, conversational suppers in this style.

Yes but… so? He can refuse to compromise if he wants. Simply calling him a problem gets OP nowhere

So not only does she have to parent her children by herself, pretty much, she has to basically parent her DH as well.

What a way to live.

OP, its not uncommon here for the presenting problem to not be the problem. I think you need to make clear to your husband that its not just eating together, its your life together that is getting to be a struggle. I am not going to to the MN ltb thing but do please give some thought about your and your children's lives going forward.

Lol, what help would that be then, after waiting about 5 years for a diagnosis anyway.

Social skills training is what many people with autism need, coping strategies to manage being around other peole and to engage fully with life. He doesnt want to. A diagnosis isnt going to change that.

Your DH sounds like a complete arse.
Fussy eater ? Mess and smells ? I thought you were talking about your 2 year old.

i saw that someone suggested that you should explore different food cultures, and make naan bread and 'curry' but leave out the spices....
i have no idea what they're thinking, or what makes a completely unspiced dish a 'curry', and strongly recommend that -rather than feeding your children bland flavourless mush- you cook with spices, so that they get used to eating (and enjoying) as many different flavours as possible!
Just don't overload the dish with chilli/cayenne, and they'll be fine. Children all over the world get to eat flavoursome food, with all kinds of spices and herbs included, and cope fine.