AIBU to give up cooking next Monday?

[NeverFlyCoach]

I don’t have it in me to cook anymore.

I used to love cooking and did a cooking adjacent profession for a few years, but after almost 2 decades of being a short order cook for my family, I’ve had enough.

I’m sick of meal planning and navigating what people want to eat and cleaning up and going shopping and I think I’m just going to quit when my DD goes to uni.

I’ve located a local meal prep service for dinners and will fill the rest of the space with soup, salad and porridge. Maybe toast. Or a pita bread with hummus.

I’ve been told this is an extreme reaction, but it sounds absolutely fucking blissful.

I was a single parent too, and also used to cooking. But my current partner and I take it in turns to cook/host.

Have you shared with how you feel? Perhaps he will take the cooking on, or at least share it

Give up the cooking; theres no exact universe rule saying you can and will never ever cook again in your life. You do you... and do what makes you happy

I haven’t cooked in years. No DC though.

I’m autistic and find the whole process throughly unpleasant to the point that it gives me a migraine and has even made me physically unwell in the past.

Honestly, he’s not great at it and I’m happy for him to just feed himself.

I’ll be very happy with my low effort alternatives. Soup and jacket potato season is looming.

People who don’t cook- what do you eat? No judgement - I just want ideas 😂😂

if it was me I’d just live on coffee and M&S ready meals with a side of those pre prepped green veg that manage to be really delicious ( prob coz marinated in butter).

Have found the frozen Stocked cubes to be quite a good solution for teens who say “there’s no food in this house” or when you really CBA.

Sounds great to me.
after 35 years of cooking, once my son left home I pretty much have reduced it to a few days a week.
Husband retired shortly after son left home and I put him on lunch duty. In recent years he’s taken on most of the thinking about it and shopping for it, as if it was down to me we’d have soup and bread or sardines on toast most days.

To be honest I was doing ok with it all but lockdown finished me - all that having to plan 60 odd portions of food each week for people with allergies and accommodating dislikes (I will eat anything that someone else has cooked for me, I suspect many of us are the same!).
My lovely husband didn’t really get it when he first retired but now he has had a few years of it he understands.
I do still hope I’ll get my cooking mojo back at some point.

I like cooking for guests but that’s largely because it’s food we don’t normally eat so it’s more of a feast.

as others have said, it’s the thinking about it that’s the worst part. I don’t mind shopping for it if I’m given a list. Less keen on cooking it unless it’s something I can do while
listening to a podcast. Actually tonight we had a stir fry. It’s the first time I’ve used the stove since May!

Ah yes, the “I don’t fancy that” remark. I was very good at breathing through it !
(Menopause combined with busy life. Now we are both retired we’re both much easier to be around)

I feel like this. I’ve started buying cook frozen meals and am trying stocked ( frozen blocks) . I am planning to get my husband and kids to eat these .

I can’t wait until I can just have “girl dinners” with pre cooked chicken, fancy breads and maybe some cheese and grapes.
Right now I’m in the middle of 12-year-old boy Hoover who thinks nothing of eating 1/2 a loaf of bread to himself and still asks for sandwiches, and an 8 year old boy who is competing with his brother.

I haven’t cooked since DH died just a little over two years ago. Threw out all pots and pans and associated paraphernalia. Oven now stores the cats food.
it’s bliss and frees up so much time. There are loads of options to cooking and being chained to the sodding oven like an under appreciated skivvy.
Bonus- I lost 70+ kg and my blood pressure and blood work have never been so good!

I don't blame you, thinking of stuff is my bug.

Stocked look good, any recommendations?

This is exactly what I did. I told DH that family meals were over and i would be shopping for my girl dinner ingredients. And would be eating when I was hungry, not waiting for him to get home or I might eat much later 🤷‍♀️

I batch cook meals for myself occasionally but it's mainly all the types of meals and food mentioned in this thread.

Of course your DH is going to think it's an extreme reaction because he's panicking about his own food, but you're not his mother, he should be responsible for feeding himself.

I do sometimes offer my DH some of my meals and once or twice a week we might cook a shared meal, or end up we preparing our individual food together which is nice.

When the dcs come home I might cook for us all but not out of duty, only if I want to, or they cook or we get takeaway.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I swear to god the last thing I’ll hear on my deathbed will be ‘what’s for dinner?’

I stopped when youngest was at uni. Before probably.
It was such a relief. They all just cook what they want when they want it.
I do often at the weekend make batches of dishes for all to help themselves to - but no expectations.

I feel your pain. My son would eat his food, all the leftovers, then still have 4-6 slices of toast before bed - we honestly wondered if he had a tapeworm at one point !
the bad news is that they are still like this until early 20’s at least, sorry!

I’m thrilled that so many people understand.

This week, I am cooking all of my daughter’s favourites before she goes away. I hope my pans know that they have a long rest ahead. There is already a lovely ragu bolognese bubbling away on the stove 🙄

Go for it! I've done similar a few years back. These days it's one week DH dinners and the next mine. In the beginning DH was a terrible cook, but I didn't care, never complained and eat the eatable stuff. He's got a lot better over the years, but still has a lot to learn. On the other hand, my non cooking week is bliss, no food worries, no wird dinner timings, no meal plans & no shopping.

Yanbu. It’s time to retire.
On the odd occasion that you might choose to cook, you might enjoy it.

I'm so sorry you were going through bereavement but I love that you took something so positive and freeing from it.

I really feel this.

I am also sick of it. Also used to love cooking.

Now it is just an ordeal. Minimal help or interest from others - if they’re convinced to contribute it’s always the minimum effort possible.

Ive banned self catering holidays.

Go for it. I'm single and like cooking but I can eat toast for dinner if I can't be arsed. I'm sick of cooking after 3 days of catering 3 meals a day for guests so I can't imagine how you feel after decades. Anyone in the household who doesn't like the new arrangement can find their way to the kitchen and fill the short order cook vacancy.

This is me now.
It has taken almost five years to get to where I’m at now. Life is a combination of poke bowls, salmon dishes for one, salads, jacket potatoes, Greek yogurt, fruit and granola (for whatever meal I want it to be for).
I did 35 years of shopping, planning and cooking and then gradually cut down to every other day, two days a week and now I just sort myself out.
I will still do Christmas dinner but that’s about it and guess what nobody has starved to death or the world didn’t end.

Three teens at home and they rarely eat the same meals or even have dinner at the same time. I would live on soup, sandwiches crackers. DH not picky at all and also cooks but my God I'm sick of food shopping and cooking. Its never ending.

My two Aunts are 62 and 72, never married, no kids and live in the family home, both still work full time and have very active social lives. They cook once a week, a Sunday roast. Apart from that it's ready meals from M&S with veg, sandwiches, jacket potatoes and soup.

But why do so many on this thread do so much of it, when they don’t like it and it sounds like there’s often other capable people in the house?
fine if you’re a single parent to under tens, or disabilities - not a whole load of choice there. But once they’re teenagers, or there’s another adult in the house with arms, it’s been a choice.
great that you’re stopping now, it’ll be lovely.

i think parents of teenagers/ parents in couples need to remove the expectation that they’re the chef. If you do make dinner, great, everyone grateful. If someone else does, likewise. But no one, if they can physically make dinner themselves should ever be expecting it.

I gave up cooking when I split from my husband over 8 years ago, I had cooked all the meals for 19 long years (well maybe he cooked once or twice per year) and I was just done.

I have adult kids at home who have gone to Uni and come back and they cook their own meals.

I will cook the occasional meal, maybe 6 times a year, I cooked sausage, mash, vegetables and onion gravy 2 weeks ago.

I mainly live on omelettes and every three weeks or so I make a large vegetable curry to live on for a week.
For the nights I can't be bothered I have a chocolate bar and a coffee!

I'm hoping my cooking mojo will return at some point but if it doesnt I'm quite happy with the few things I do cook.