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 struggled to do this, but my DP insisted and now we eat all meals together - my DC and I even eat breakfast together. And, yes, absolutely no screens at the table, including phones for adults. Have to role model this behavior especially as the kids get older. But, to be honest, your DP does sound exhausting. Just eat with the kids, and eventually he will join in.

Your husband is the issue, as PP have said.

Agree, I would love more family dinners but ASD ARFID child makes it a challenge and sometimes the tablet saves us because he will eat more with it. However we do now have a couple of non screen time dinners and make sure to have quality time outside of eating as well. Getting back your dining room seems like a good start - is there another space your DP can work?

i’d start with one weekday evening (perhaps Friday so your DH can clear up his work stuff in dining room) and one weekend lunch. Make the same meal every Friday night and Sunday lunch. So only 2 meals for your DH to agree on. Agree no devices for an hour of each meal. In time work towards all weekend meals.

You really are at the sharp end in terms of the kids’ ages. It’s hard. It sounds like your husband is not really helping matters. Any way you could do a weekend cook up to get some batch cooked meals in the freezer that everyone might eat? When my kids were that age I did feed them earlier just themselves tbh. Could you put in different flooring or some kind of floor covering in your dining room? Or discuss with your husband some small changes in terms of what’s important for you right now?

Your Dh is the issue. He can cook his own meals and sort out a new working space. Whack a floor covering under the table for easy cleaning. Eating at the island is fine too. Cook the night before for the next day, so that each day’s dinner is leftovers. Dh sorts himself and eats later if he’s a fusspot.

We have eaten together since dd was probably 18 months or so. Including in a carpeted dining room. Youngest ds has eaten with us as a family his whole life. We tend to eat later, 7pm ish? Now maybe even 8pm. But they are 7 & 12 now. 7pm ish a perfectly fine dinner time for a 2 year old though. They really don’t need to eat at 5pm. If you just adjust how you do things, you’ll all get used to it. If you eat at 7, you have an hour to cook, but I’d still just cook each night for the next day. You can start as you are sitting down to eat that way things cook while you’re around eating and you can keep an eye on it.

DH sounds like another child. I bet he never makes dinners and that needs to change.

Agree . We rarely ate as a family in the week because husband home too late and children in bed by 7. As teenagers they were drifting in at different times so I would cook meal early on and they could reheat.
My children have definitely commented as adults that they appreciated flexibility as teenagers which inc meal times .

When you have a ND family member, your live is about compromises. You either accept it or it's a constant struggle and stress (If the OP's husband is on the spectrum).

If she manages to come up with a compromise, she doesn't have to parent her partner, food is then his responsibility but it may be the only way she can offer her children a shared mealtime.

Since DD is at uni, our lives at home have been a lot less stressful and more spontanous. But I miss her and know that it will go back to careful planning and observation when she is home for the holidays and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Does your husband never eat out in company or at friends' houses?

Agree your children need to be able to sit properly if invited to other houses. Pp mentioned formal hall at Oxbridge colleges, but also weddings , company dinners etc. They need to know how to behave in their adult lives.

Sorry I haven’t read the whole thread but I wasted years of my life in a very similar situation trying to encourage family meals. My partner has issues around food that he won’t elaborate on or admit and in the end I just gave up and I eat with the kids. Similarly they ate around the table with grandparents etc and have pretty good table manners. I wouldn’t allow any devices though - not a great habit to get into. Spare yourself the guilt and torture - your DH sounds like he is not willing to be your partner in this. I hope he is good in other ways.

I don’t think you are letting your children down by the way.

it’s very very common particularly in the week for the children to eat early and the parents to eat later.

there are families who all eat every evening meal together but I suspect they are relatively rare (especially by the time you get into the Freddie’s got orchestra tonight so I’ll take him if you can pick Helen and Maddy up from hockey sort or years).

my kids still fondly remember McDonalds night on Thursdays when I used to pick them up and then we’d get a quick maccies before cadets.

that having been said, never having family meals is also quite rare. You’ve had lots of good advice, and I’d echo that dh doesn’t have to join in for it to be beneficial for your kids.

We have a carpeted dining room and an expensive glass table.
We have bought a huge cheap rug off temu and we have a spongy wipe clean plastic table cloth for the table which is good for spillages. We also bought chair covers off amazon, they are stretchy elasticated covers that go on any chair and can be whipped off and put in the wash, they are 18 quid for 6.
I think 2 year olds are really messy so these things are a must in a daily used nice dining room.
Can your DH get a desk anywhere else in the house? whats the point of a dining room if you don't dine, might as well call it an office and be done with it.
We dont eat together every night but probably 4 dinners and some breakfasts at the dining table.
We don't always eat the same as the kids, quite often cook two meals. Freezer portions are good for this. Always cook double and freeze a portion then whoever doesnt want the thing you are having tonight can have something else from the freezer.

It sounds like you have some options to approach your DH with. I’d be quite concerned about the possibility he is being controlling and blaming it on “issues”. If they are really issues and not just him being controlling, he ought to consider therapy (maybe you could suggest that too). Tell him how much the issues are affecting you.

Both of my DC went through hideously fussy stages, which was a total pain because I love cooking and trying new foods.

We almost always ate together and talked about our days when they were small, and now they're teenagers (one at uni) still do. They're both into cooking and food now, so it's great for both conversation and having a shared interest.

I've fucked tons of other parenting stuff up, but I really love family mealtimes so I'm willing you on, OP! It's worth it IMO.

I have MASSIVE issues with food, similar to the husband. I'm not diagnosed with anything, but probably would be if I looked into it. I've had to throw out whole meals because someone used a spoon that had touched a particular vegetable, for example. Last time I tried to expand my universe with a kids yoghurt, I had a panic attack.

But I have kids, so I try really hard to appear 'normal' to them. We eat together, and I make sure my portion works for me, and if it's something I can't be there for, I leave my husband to it with the excuse (to the kids) that I'm having a bath. They rarely eat fish (aside from the fingered variety) because I struggle so much with the smell, but otherwise we eat together as a family every night.

So frankly I've got little sympathy for him. He chose to have kids knowing his struggles with food, he needs to find a way to manage so it has the minimum impact on them.

Would putting two separate tables in the dining rooms? One for the actual dining an one as his desk on the side?
I would start with eating there on the weekends when he isnt working and there is more time to sit down.

When I read threads like this I sometimes wonder how people in these situations even get together in the first place. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I would have thought a standard part of "courtship" would involve going out for a meal, cooking for each other, taking your intended to visit parents where they presumably share a meal. So how do people end up being married to and having a family with someone who is so monumentally weird about food?

Sorry that probably doesn't sound helpful but maybe it's worth knowing that it's not you it's him. From your latest post it sounds like he is trying to convince you that your desire to have proper meals around the table are fanciful and unrealistic and that these things don't matter. He is wrong and you are right.

Granted he obviously has issues here that he probably can't help but you can only compromise so far. You can't let his issues completely control family life.

Can you TELL him that this is how it is going to be - dining room used for dining, sitting at table without devices, wider range of foods- but offer to help him work out how he can cope with this. For example, swapping his work space as suggested. Sitting at the table to talk but eating his own food later.

Be strong OP. What you want is eminently reasonable.

@Babyboomtastic that reminds me of a time DH and I were sharing a soup once and I rather absentmindedly dipped a bit of bread in there which had some butter on it. He wouldn't eat the soup after that.

@Rockininthefreeworld check out www.arfidawarenessuk.org for loads of info on ARFID - Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.
Theres more and more help out there and your GP will have heard of it.

I would say as an adult, even if there’s no direct adult support in your area, checking out food chaining would be a really good way of belong your DH start to connect with different but really similar foods to his current safe foods.

Please feel free to DM me if you’d like more info on this.

Why is it the OP’s job to do all the mental load of juggling meal plans to the satisfaction of the kids and the DH. As DH is the fussy one - he should be taking the lead on his meals.

We are a ASD household (2 teens and me), we always eat together, we don’t have a dining room or a table so we eat in the living room. Dd1 has ARFID and has a very limited diet, Dd2 eats most things but is lactose intolerant (as am I). We have a few meals that I can adapt slightly to suit everyone, roast being one of them ,DD1 will now eat roast potatoes, carrots, Yorkshire pudding and a sausage rather than roast chicken/beef so I can do a roast, give her the bits she likes and cook her a sausage (no big deal). Dd2 and I will have chicken gyros/wraps, whilst dd1 has a fish finger wrap. There’s rarely a night where we all eat the exact same meal but it’s pretty easy to adapt things.

Maybe write a list of the things your dh will eat and see if they can be adapted slightly to suit everyone?

It took a long time to get my dd2 used to eating out but as she got older it got easier, we often took a tablet or something to keep her busy whilst waiting for food.

Your DH needs to find a way to deal with his anxieties. It will affect your kids. Guess how I know? I was the 16 year old calling my mother at work, from the school office, because I thought I might have forgotten to switch off the toaster at the wall that morning and Dad would do his nut. At least I felt better after she reassured me I'd be home before him, so just do it then and it will be fine. Now that I've got some space from the situation I realise how ridiculous it all was.

I think part of your conversation tomorrow should be you insisting that DH gets proper help for his food issues and general lack of flexibility. Seeing a qualified psychotherapist will be cheaper than getting a divorce. If he refuses to get help or make any changes, you should consider ending the marriage. He is damaging the children and making your life miserable. You shouldn’t have to live like this.

A friend of mine has an autistic son with OCD and food smells are absolutely debilitating for him and have been ever since he was very young. He would stay in his room rather than come into the rest of the house to avoid them.
This is a real thing and it sounds like the OP’s husband has the same issue.