AIBU to not leave the kitchen spotless once I have finished prepping dinner?

[ablastfromthepast]

Settle an argument.

When you have finished prepping and serving dinner (ie, dinner is on the table ready to eat) is it normal to still have bits and pieces to clear up in the kitchen, or would you expect the kitchen to be left as you found it (pots in dishwasher, surfaces wiped down, all items used in meal preparation away?)

I am the cook, all meal preparation with rare exception falls to me. I will call DH and DC when dinner is on the table. We have a few different dietary needs in the house so I am often making 2-3 different meals or variations, and I am not a naturally tidy chef, so in the process of trying to get dinner on the table for everyone at the same time, there’s usually a bit of tidying up to be done after dinner.

DH will often come down after I call him for dinner and huff about the mess and start tidying up rather than sitting down to eat, He thinks that it should be possible to tidy-up-as-you-go and by the time dinner is served, the kitchen is basically as you found it.

I think this unreasonable and it is to be expected that there will be some clearing up to do after dinner. Who is right?

YABU - you should be able to tidy-as-you-go and leave a neat kitchen
YANBU - clearing up after dinner is to be expected

YANBU at all. Have you invited him to cook, if he thinks he’s got it nailed?

Yanbu!

Tell him to get off his arse and cook then, if he wants things spotless!

Dh does most of our cooking and I clear up after dinner or sometimes the next morning if there is more than 1 dishwasher load 😱

I tend to tidy / load the dishwasher as i go but there’s always somethings left from plating up to
be tidied away or washed and the surfaces to wipe down.

Of course YANBU. I wash as I go re some prep stuff, but obviously there are the last minute bits left.

If he wants a cold dinner, then sure, wash it up.

Also, in my house, bar the aforementioned wash as you go, the chef does not do the rest of the washing up. So DP cooked today, I tidied up afterwards, and he'll do the tidying tomorrow.

I clean as I go….it makes life so much easier.

Yanbu and surely the clearing up is his job as you did all the prep, so expecting you to do it as you go along is doing his job for him.

FFS another woman doing all the cooking and meal preparation??

Honestly, Mumsnet seems to be going back in time to the 1950s instead of forward.

Tell the lazy bastard as soon as he does his share of the cooking and meal prep, he can have an opinion on how the kitchen is left.

Of course it's normal to have tidying and cleaning up to do after dinner. Why is he moaning? As in if he wants it all tidy he can do it, so why is he having a go at you?

I would have stopped cooking for him if he didn’t learn after the first time of this batshit behaviour.

There are some cultures where clearing and cleaning everything before you eat is the norm.

If he's bitching about it, he should be cleaning up how he likes it or shut his yap.

Actually why are you putting up with this behaviour?

We have this discussion though just get on with it our own ways now and cooking is more shared. DP can actually cook and clean everything on the go though it takes ages whereas I prefer to get the meal ready faster, eat it while hot and finish cleaning after as I have to load dishwasher etc anyway. If you are the chef all the time then I think you do it your way - why does it actually bother him? Is it looking at the mess when eating? Is it that he has to do it after or that he wants you to do something else afterwards but you can't because of cleaning up?

Call him down earlier, so he can tidy while you finish cooking. Prob solved 😊

Yanbu- this is a huge bugbear of mine! Dmil will let food go cold to tidy after she cooks, and we can either be polite and not eat as she dithers this way or we be rude and start before she’s sat. At the end of the day- food goes cold. The dishes don’t. One has a time dependent factor ,therefore that should be prioritised .

As the cook if I were told to let my own meal suffer whilst I tidy up my response would be a short sharp fuck off and do it yourself.

I'm a tidy cook because I can't bear the thought of a massive clean up after eating and I think it's considerate to do what you can as you go along if someone else is cleaning the kitchen after dinner but no kitchen is pristine when you've finished cooking no matter how hard you try. Your husband sounds like a highly critical, ungrateful arse. I would start sharing the cooking responsibilities to give yourself a break.

You are both wrong. Everyone I’ve seen in the kitchen will tidy as they go so I think it is very odd not to. However, it isn’t ever perfect and there’s always a bit left to do at the end.

What an asshole to complain you're not servanting right.

But what does this have to do with anything?

Are you asking the OP if this is her husband's culture?

We had a roast tonight and it seemed to involve multiple baking trays and pans. Theres no way I was going to wash them before eating as the food would be stone cold by the time I'd dealt with them. Dh cooked and I tidied up afterwards

I tidy as I go - but I don't do all of the cooking. My DH does. It does stress me out when I come into the kitchen and it looks like a bomb has gone off... I find it hard to relax and eat in that environment.

Sometimes I sneak around and tidy up while he is cooking - but he doesn't like it when I get in his way.

I tend to come and collect my dinner and let him go into the other room first - then I tidy up the worst of it (my DH won't do ANYTHING while he is cooking, including putting packets in the bin)... just so it doesn't look so bad....

,,,, but at the end of the day - if I don't like it I could do the cooking every night couldn't I?

YANBU

Sometimes I can clean as I go, other times I can't - it depends what I'm cooking. I don't see what the big deal is either way, as long as the kitchen gets cleaned at some point, who cares? Your DH can do the cooking himself if he's so particular.

Perhaps he needs to show you how it’s done?

Yeah, which is why I said there’s always stuff to do afterwards. But surely you clean the chopping board, wipe sides etc while the food is actually cooking? And, tbf, I think a roast is probably the worst for having loads of clean up. Delicious tho!