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? 🙁

This is so stressful for you!!

Op have you said anywhere here that your partner is autistic? Your household and mealtime setup sounds typical for an autistic/ adhd family, to the letter, including the kids on tablets etc.
if this is the case maybe your life would be easier if you let go of the concept of how it’s done in households where people don’t have sensory issues or need screens to regulate themselves after a long draining day at school and don’t all like the same food, it might be better in the long run if you’re not trying to force square pegs into round holes .

ps op ‘I’m considering leaving him ‘
i am giving you full permission to do this. You are walking on eggshells with him and not putting your children’s needs first because he won’t let you. If you’re not able to law down the law with him like he does to you and the kids, then they will be better off with you leaving and giving them a great childhood and teaching them social skills. I don’t miss my controlling ex at all.

Op please read or listen to the book stolen focus

You don’t have to aim for perfect - there’s no such thing, but you could start with one night a week. When my kids were little one of their favourite dinners was Lounge Picnic. We’d put the blanket on the floor and just have picnic type food - carrot and cucumber sticks, ham, nice bread or a bowl of plain pasta (my kids loved that!), some cheese, olives, juice boxes, etc. and everyone helped themselves.

I suspect you have bigger problems and the eating together is the tip of the iceberg, but in the short term this is a nice easy and sociable way to eat - also, no cooking!

To me this is the most important... A parent actually modelling what a family meal is....

Your OH is being an idiot... How does he expect the kids to grow up and behave in a pro social way??

Also he's sending message it's OK to be ridiculously fussy!

As they grow up they'll understand their dad isn't interested in spending time eating with them...

Its a crap message

... My dad did this throughout my childhood... Always a battle for my mum... He either ate separately in front of TV.. Or would come to table very late, with bad grace, ignore everyone and sit and read the paper (pre electronics).

We learnt from him that women bought, prepared and served food and entertained people and dad just ate and did what he fancied.

Sorry @Rockininthefreeworld , your husband is the problem

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."

No, the one best thing you can do as a family is eat together. Not everyone has to eat the same meal if there are sensory issues etc, but the act of sitting at a table, leaning how to use a knife and fork, trying different foods, engaging with the family - so hugely important

Getting the kids used to a meal time, when everything is off, when they can come help lay the table - even a 2 year old can carry the cutlery to the table , the sharing of each others day, a time to offload and share.

When my husband's kids started to come to say with us, I insisted on table dinners, we as a couple already did so. The kids were used to grabbing and going at their mums and nans so it was a HUGE fight for me - you sit at the table until we are all finished if you choose to eat or not. Both kids now have done the same with their kids - dinner is at 6pm and you will be home for it, join us at the table, or you go without.

Family life is busy, everyone needs to be somewhere else or doing something different for most of the waking hours. Carving out one hour a day so you are all together , where you make plans, where you talk about each others day can not be beat

If your husbands tics disallow him to participate, you crack on with the kids . That half hour/hour sat at the table is priceless in the quality time you spend with them

Your DH is the problem
Put him to one side and crack on doing what you think is right for you and the children.
Make the food for the 3 of you ,eat it in the dinning room ..you can put plastic sheets on the floor under the 2 year olds chair ..open the window after to remove smells .
Just crack on and do what you need to do ..DH is not going to support you ,sooner you accept that the better

Ditch the island for a big kitchen table. Islands with breakfast bars are a strange fad. Use the table for your prep, all your meals, games, homework, your work. If you can’t, stick to your guns about switching to the dining room for your work and do the same. Could you ditch the carpet in there for laminate? (Knock a wall out to make a bigger kitchen?!)
Whatever, get the kids involved taking turns to set and decorate the table and praise them to the skies for being helpful, thoughtful, careful people while doing the job. Get them to help you choose and cook. Put everything in serving dishes, only rule everyone must have a bit of everything on their plate. Absolutely no phones or gadgets at the table. Have fun! No words to add re dh. I wonder what his childhood was like?

What does dh eat @Rockininthefreeworld

there is no rule that all have to have the same meal

yes good for kids and dh lol to eat same as you /try new stuff

but pick battles

so start off with all sitting down together

eating a meal whatever it is

I don’t always sit with dd 8 - but do a few times a week but may not eat with her as too early for me at 5ish but sit with a cuppa /cuppa soup and chat

hope chat goes well. Swapping to your office could help with smells

pointless to have a dining room and table and kids and not use it

When you met him, did you not go on dinner dates? Has he always been like this? At 6 and 2 I would argue it's pretty essential to lay the foundations and the familial norms. My DC are teens and one is adult, DH works away quite a bit and my eldest often has his dinner at his Girlfriend's so it's not always family meals here every day of the week but it's a bit different at that age as you know how to do it when it does happen, when they are very young, like your DC, we saw it as essential to show them how to sit at a table and socialise. When DH is around he is the one who is keen to have meals at the table as he likes cooking and wants us to try his stuff!

I have similar but less extreme problems to you op. My dh actually communicates with me on it while yours sounds a nightmare.

I recently gave up on this issue. Realised I could spend my mental energy elsewhere. Kid (6) gets fed, usually a snack tea like cheese, crackers, fruit when she gets home from school. At the table except Friday night tv night. I eat dinner for myself. DH sorts his own dinner.

The freedom once I stopped trying to feed everyone a proper meal was wild. Give it a try, he's a grown adult and he can feed himself if he's a fussy eater. Don't try to force this into something it can't be. Find another aspect of family life to enrich. Don't enslave yourself to unachievable domesticity.

Perhaps a unpopular take, but I just don’t understand why people are so
caught up eating together.
I understand the concept in that it’s a way for family time, social interaction etc, but you can do those things not at meal time.
I can’t eat with other people, it’s a sensory nightmare for me and I can’t do it, my kids don’t really enjoy it either. So we don’t.
we do however carve out family time in other ways, we go on long drives and talk and that seems to work well for us (most of us have autism and/or adhd and/or sensory processing disorder so in the car works as we don’t have to be looking at each other. We playgames together, we listen to
music together, there are other ways!

I assume DH is ND?

I’d tell my dh what I thought, very clearly.
dh we need to talk. You know the dining room in our house? There’s a reason it’s universally called dining room in many continents, so if at any point in this discussion you feel like saying no one else does this, please do not open your mouth UNTIL you have rewritten all the language texts, English literature and real estate listings. Not a word until you can show me all those, edited. It’s a dining room for a family or group to dine in, and from now on we will be eating in there as a family with no phones or tablets, if you can’t do that then you may eat elsewhere but I will have our children experience a normal family eating environment and if I can’t do that with you then for our children’s sake I will do it without you, although you should be aware I will also feel a burning resentment of you.

Now, you’ve had a few objections to this in the past due to the smell. I have several times offered for you to work upstairs, so if you feel the smell is a problem then you can take up the perfectly reasonable alternative. First family dinner is Wednesday, any work left on the table at 6pm will be cleared, I plan to get dc to help lay the table and take no responsibility for work left on it. Again, I remind you someone with a perfectly good alternative work space does not make any complaints if he chooses to work in the family dining room.

and if he mentions ocd as a problem I’d say you have mentioned your ocd a lot - if it’s not enough of an issue to get a diagnosis and support then it shouldn’t affect your family. It sounds a lot to me like when you say ‘my ocd’ you mean ‘shut up wife’. I don’t want to hear about it again except to hear about your progress with diagnosis and support. And I l do not mean how we can support you, we’ve been doing that for years with no thanks and it’s not good for the children ; now it’s time for you to proactively work on it for a change.

and if my dh were reading this he’d agree that it sounds exactly like what I’d say!

I used to have a carpeted dining room by the way and I bought an ikea indoor/outdoor rug for under it as it’s scrubbable, and used a piece of oilcloth under the baby chair, wiped it down after meals.

Your husband has a lot of rules, doesn't he? Does he have responsibilities along with all the power?

By your logic I could obstruct whatever I wanted and cause a major problem for another person, refusing to compromise in any way, and yet still not be responsible in any way for that problem, all because I supposedly have the “right” to do whatever I want.

Letting people the right to do what the hell they want, because they have the right to do so, is a recipe for being treated like shit in life.

Based on what you have written, your DH is a controlling man who is unwilling to compromise and who leaves the parenting to you.

Does he have any redeeming qualities?

How did you get together with someone like this? I take it there never any dinner dates!

But you can though can’t you?

that’s the way of life. Unfortunately it would be down to your “victims” to detach from you and get your influence out of their life.

A plastic sheet under the table and tell DH to work elsewhere.

Cook food the three of you will eat and let him sort himself out.

Wtf?

People with autism are still able to sit at a table and can cope without a screen!

It’s really worrying how people treat autism now.

It’s not really relevant though, is it? He still needs to step up and stop being so controlling.

Yes I would eat with the kids at the dining table. DH can sort himself out.

He sounds like a knob.

@Rockininthefreeworld don't let your DH use the open plan as a reason not to cook proper food though. It's okay to sympathise about the food smells and explain that you, obviously, clean up afterwards. Cooking proper healthy food does create a smell but it is important to build good habits now for your children. (I am suggesting that your DH needs reminding of this not that you don't know it) Frying onion is the starting point of nearly everything I cook and the smell really doesn't hang around that long. (But fajitas smell really does, I think it's the smoked paprika)
All the more reason for him to move his office upstairs.
Meal planning can be a chore but meal times never have been iyswim.