DH not making dinner when I was out until 6 pm..

[meorhimU]

yesterday I had a sports event to attend that ran from 1 pm until 6ish. My DH knew about it and was at home with our kids, 4 and 6.

the kids ate at around 12-12:30, I made lunch before I left.

when I got back, he’d made no dinner and complained about being hungry and @ what are we going to eat. I hurt myself doing sports and was limping quite badly.

I defrosted some steaks and made dinner, limping around in pain. While he did some admin on his laptop. He then complained I hadn’t take the bins out all week ( not true, they’d just filled up again over the weekend ).

I said, I thought it was really not great that he didn’t even think to make dinner- waited for me to get home and knew I was in pain, limiting, yet still didn’t help me or offer to make dinner. He said he didn’t realise I was in so much pain..

my DD who is 6 perked up and heard me and later called him lazy for not helping mummy when he knew I was in pain. All I wanted to do is just sit down and put my feet up, my body was sore wrecked after all the exercise and the injury. He could see I wasn’t walking well at all.

he was annoyed that my daughter pulled him up on it too and essentially blamed me for telling him off about it. It’s just common decency he should have made dinner and also even if he hadn’t made it yet by the time I got home, he should have taken care of it- seeing I was in pain.

I didn’t tell him to do it because I felt guilty that I left him alone with the kids all afternoon and felt like I had to do it. But I also know if I had asked him to do it, he would have been annoyed.

It sounds like he is trying to control and punish you for not being available to cook, child mind and put out the bins.

Do you meal plan? Whoever normally does the meal planning is responsible for agreeing who’s doing the cooking and what time I would have thought? Meal planning is a chore that is not relinquished if the planner is out for that meal because unlike the actual cooking you don’t need to physically be there at the right time.

if you’re in pain don’t be a martyr . ‘I’ve hurt my leg and need to rest’ should be sufficient to delegate the cooking. You can direct from the sofa in needs be. If you think it’s ‘easier’ to just do it yourself because he’s being incompetent then you’re part of the problem by enabling it. You need to set him up to succeed not fail.

OK, I'll say it again.

They DID discuss it.

Why does it matter if it happened on a phone call on the way home and not a day/week in advance, or if it wasn't written in a calendar? If you called your partner and discussed what was going on for dinner that night, and they said, 'ah yes the steaks/fishcakes/curry,' would you assume that you would get home and find they hadn't started to prep or cook them? Or would you assume that they would have started?

Exactly this.

Massive communication problem.

Surely if YOU knew the only thing you had in were frozen steaks for dinner, you would have taken them out to defrost before you left or communicated between you both that he needed to defrost them and make them for when you get back?

I get the impression DH would have made something if there was something there to make, as you say that is what he usually does.. except this time there was nothing in and he'd forgotten about the steaks? If you normally sort dinner, it's not a massive stretch that at 6pm you would sort something on your way home, you both need to communicate better! Rather than leave each other to fail then complain?

🤣
So OP should plan and prepare everything, then set a reminder? Are you serious? You’re saying she should literally hand it to him on a plate so he doesn’t have to use his brain one bit? 😯

I'm generally the one who cooks so I would probably have said to DH I'm not going to be home til 6 so can you sort dinner.

When he asked what's for dinner and said he was hungry, why didn't you say you were in pain and can he make some dinner? Or just get a takeaway? You didn't have to be a matryr dragging yourself around the kitchen in pain! It's just basic communication between partners - maybe that's what you need to work on!

If their positions were reversed, I wouldn't be accusing the OP of weaponised incompetence, I would see her as someone who'd been at home with the kids all day whilst their partner had been out doing their hobby, and the situation generally as one that could have been avoided if they'd decided who'd do dinner earlier.

If he was hungry why wasn’t that a sign to make food

What would have happened if you hadn’t returned. Would he have starved to death

Did read of a man who did because his wife died

High standards? Not high enough to cook for himself obviously. Jesus what an absolute dick and he's got everyone in tnr house walking on eggshells because if his moods.

Communication needed. If you do the food shop, as is case in my house.
I would of messaged when leaving 'hurt leg, can you put dinner on' and because I am in charge of food, would probably suggest what.
Obviously other houses the dh may not need the suggested menu.

Is this a joke?

I wouldn't assume they were offering to cook from that conversation, no. If we hadn't discussed it already, I would ask them to cook and explain that I had hurt myself. But my point is that this wouldn't happen here because whoever was in the diary to cook would have got whatever needed defrosting out that morning or the night before.

Can you see he's really weird? Accusing you of that is such a strange thing to do.

Weaponised incompetence.

This isn't a healthy environment to grow up in for your kids.

You're tiptoeing around his moods, OP, and he's clearly using them to control you. I think you should read up on emotional abuse and understand that his behaviour is awful. You shouldn't have to live like this.

I wonder if these men just slowly starve to death if they haven't got a wife to communicate to them that dinner needs to happen every single day...

For goodness sake OP you should have just made beans on toast and if that isn’t good enough for him he can always make himself something else @meorhimU

Given the OP sorts dinner and kids out when her husband fucks off out, it seems pretty obvious he should also look after his family in the same way.

OP this is absolutely classic emotional abuse, he sulks and pouts so you tie yourself in knots trying to please him by doing EVERYTHING. God forbid you have any time to yourself.

Even your daughter can see how bad the situation is.

Plan your out because the lazy toad plans on you waiting on him hand, foot and finger till the day you die.

But if OP was due home at 6pm and that's the time the kids usually have dinner, then it's irrelevant whether she has a sore leg or not. It's a red herring (and I don't think herring is highbrow enough for OPs DH). She shouldn't have to ring and remind the other parent (whoever that is) that children need feeding at dinnertime. That is obvious. Regardless of who does a shop, or who does the cooking or whatever. Facts are: dinner is at 6; OP won't be home until 6; ergo, someone else must prepare the dinner. End of.
And I say this as the parent who does most of the shopping, the working and the cooking. I still have afternoons out, sometimes getting home at dinnertime! And yes I have once snipped at DH when getting home in the evening and there being no dinner prepared. I said "oh, you haven't made any dinner!! Aren't the kids hungry??" (Yes we are v hungry they said, DH claimed to not be v hungry at that point, said he hadn't noticed the time etc) "We'll have to get takeaway then" said I, and took the kids out for a meal.
He never did that again

Some of these comments.... OP should have prepared everything before she left? Is her DH not a grown man? Is he incapable of defrosting the steaks himself? Is he incapable of opening the fridge, looking inside it, and from that deciding what to do for dinner?

I would expect any adult man to not require such levels of hand holding. Christ.

If you are the default person who usually does all the cooking then you should have said, "You're in charge of dinner tonight - I'll be back at 6pm'. This part should not really be necessary but we all know that in many cases it is!

Looking after his own children, for one afternoon, should not be 'a chore' to him. Both parents are allowed time to do their hobbies.

😅😅😅

why is the bar so low?

All that was required here could have been saying “remember that I won’t be home until after 6, so I won’t be able to make dinner” as she left the house.

It seems as if the husband also called her and asked what was for dinner - she just said steaks, but didn’t say to take them out of the freezer to defrost, or remind him that he was supposed to be making them.

Of course she shouldn’t need to do this, but in this case, it would have avoided this scenario.

He does sound pretty useless, but if she acts like a martyr and carries on cooking while injured, he’s always going to expect her to do it. Insisting on defrosting steaks and cooking these whilst injured was ridiculous and unnecessary when she should have either insisted he does it, or cooked something much simpler and quicker, which would also have prevented the children from going to bed so late.

This might blow your mind, but not everyone has a diary for the cooking. It's quite possible to function (well, unless one party is determined to be deliberately incompetent for whatever reasons) without one.

If I had a conversation about 'what are we doing about dinner' with my DP and he said, 'ah yes, the steaks,' I would assume he was going to cook said steaks. But then again he's a not a controlling man-baby.

You were only unreasonable for doing dinner when he whined. Your response should have been "I don't know, you tell me what YOU are making for dinner. I'm injured and resting".

The bins, I would have told him it's not my sole responsibility and he's perfectly able to do it himself. If you're not standing up to him and making him acco7 table then that's on you.