You cooked a roast you didn’t discover gravity

[Rose789]

Dh family came over for New Years dinner.
They were meant to come for Christmas then I ended up having gallbladder surgery on the 21st so they did their own Christmas dinner. Decided at the time that dh would make the New Years dinner for everyone so all 10 of us could be together.

In his version he has single handily fed the four thousand alllllllllll by himself. In PIL version he may as well have hand reared the cow, took it on day trips and catered for its every whim before slaughtering it himself before dawn.

The actual version.
Dh doing an online food order. How many carrots do you think I’ll need? Should I get X or Y. What’s that stuff that you normally make at Christmas? What’s the recipe? What’s that? Where will it be on the asda website? And on and on and on.
Order arrived on Thursday and there were 7 things he had forgotten- including dessert. Because he was at work I ended up walking to the local tesco (still can’t drive) to get the missing stuff.
Yesterday I peeled and chopped all the veg while he had the kids at the park.
Put the wine and drinks in the fridge.
Cleaned the house for guests coming.
Set the table

The kids did not sleep well last night with the fireworks and stuff and between the 2 of them I managed about 3 hours of broken sleep.
I’m still recovering after surgery and I’m just knackered. Made a special New Year breakfast (pancakes) for everyone, cleaned the kitchen and tidied the living room. Got to 10am and I was flagging so me and dd2 went for a nap. Got up at 12 as guests coming at 2.

Dh had used every single utensil and pot and pan. Cupboards and drawers half open everywhere. Flour everywhere- apparently he was going to make yorkshires but the bag fell so he was sticking with good old aunt Bessie’s. So while he sat down and mopped his sweating brown. I mopped the floor, cleaned the benches. Loaded the dishwasher and did a sink full of dishes.
He cooked the joint but I had to check the meat thermometer “just in case” While I was there could I sort the juices out for the gravy. Could I wrap it up to rest. Could I just quickly do this and do that.

Guests arrived. Dh was cooking so I got everyone drinks and all sorted. While PIL exclaimed lovingly how glad they were dh was looking after me and how lovely that I got to sit down and relax with them.
Had dinner and it was lovely to be fair. But Jesus Christ I’ve never seen so much fawning in all of my life. Eeeeh he made it all by himself while tending to his wife’s every need.

They’ve gone home now. They did offer to help clean up to be fair, but dh insisted it was in hand and to sit and relax and have another drink. The kitchen and the dining room are bomb sites. The kids need bathing and putting to bed.
Dh lying on the sofa fast asleep after several drinks to celebrate the new year and the wonder of a man cooking a dinner ‘on his own’.

Sorry to be the grinch of new year

I digress here but this has irritated me so much and reminds me of an old friend of mine. He was a single parent to his one child. Very sadly the child had lost his mother and the absent dad stepped in and took over the parenting of HIS OWN CHILD. Well Jesus Christ did we all have to hear about what a wonderful human he was. What a sacrifice. Why we all had to support him in every way. I was doing the school runs and childcare as needed as were many other women. I was a single parent! Ah I’m sorry op and this isn’t what you’re talking about but I just needed to get it out of my system.

I’m glad you had a good meal. I hope you did enough for leftovers so that you can rest up for a couple of days.

I ticked YABU because you got so involved and then let him take the credit for it. What do you expect when you play the martyr? I hope you're resting.

@waterproofed

This fucks me off no end. The bar is set so low for men, they have to be careful to avoid tripping over it. Meanwhile, women can try and try and so much of what they do is barely acknowledged, much less fawned over.

Same with parenting. Women can be a fucking Mary Poppins and some knob will always find something to criticise them for, meanwhile men only have to breathe in the same room as their own bloody offspring to be declared father of the year.

Every time I travel for work a whole bunch of idiots will be congratulating DH on taking his very own, able bodied, OK behaved kids to school and back and feeding them edible food. No fucker comments on me doing the same every single day.

Spot on 💯👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I mean why did you do all the stuff? Why did you clean up and run round after him? When he asked how many carrots he would need why didn’t you say ‘how many carrots do you think you’ll need?’

I don’t mean to be horrible about it but it’s amazing how many women on here will lie down to be walked on then complain that there’s footprints on their back.

I think it is expectation based. Dh cooks Xmas lunch and has done for at least the last 20 years. I am still incensed when he doesn't get acknowledged/credit for pandering to all the parents and in laws foibles and wishes, just because it is always great, doesn't mean it is no trouble

YANBU.

Go back to bed with a bottle of wine and leave him to clean up. Next time he offers to cook leave him to it and go out for the day. Do not help him with the shopping or running around picking up bits he forgot!

This was so well written I can "see" the whole day!

I have the current perfect husband here, he gets up hoovers, mops, lights candles, does everything, literally everything... this is because my mum is staying. My mum thinks I'm a lazy old thing because my husband is so so perfect and isn't he clever.

He totally plays to "I do everything around here."

And yet all the meals all the plans all the shops all the Christmas gifts, pretty much every single piece of planning the last 2 weeks are all me (because I enjoy it)

But it's so funny how mums generation think it's amazing that he hoovers without me asking and that therefore makes me lazy!!

I didn't move from sofa for at least 2 weeks after gallbladder surgery!!!!!

Kids can smell for tonight. Take them to bed with you. Do NOT clear up.

@Cahu58

I didn't move from sofa for at least 2 weeks after gallbladder surgery!!!!!

I don't blame you.

(But isn't is funny how surgeries that are female-specific such as C-sections and hysterectomies are dismissed on here by some other women as being minor -'Oh I was back at work the next day / up and about hoovering / driving a tank'?)

SpindleSpangle

I'm divorced so not accountable to anyone which I think makes a huge difference!

Yet another useless man on here. And a family who thinks he's amazing because he cooked a little bit.

I do no cooking whatsoever. I rarely even load or unload the dishwasher. I am completely redressing the balance

This really made me smile especially the bir about using every item in the kitchen and the flour. My step dad didn't cook very often but when he did it was usually liver and bacon with dumplings. Every pan and utensil and endless bowls would be used and flour would fly in every direction and me and my mum would tidy up.

I escape this.DP nearly never cooks. Beyond heating up beans and soup or putting ready meals in oven occasionally or making toast he has to the best of my knowledge cooked twice in the 22 years we've been together. However he does all the school runs, brings me tea in bed most mornings and has heightened abilities in his use of deliveroo so its OK.

Don;t be a doomat OP.

These were OHs family coming around for a meal while you were recovering from surgery,
If the roles were reversed- he was poorly, your folks coming around for a meal do you think he would be running around like a blue arsed flea like you did?
I have little sympathy. If he messes up, forgets dessert- then tough- he messes up a meal he cooks for his family. You didnn;t have to do all that stuff. It's not your circus to run- step back.

When my OH has in laws around I may light a candle or two, but I respect myself more than to behave like a dogsbody.
Don;t perpetuate this idea that women have to to this stuff.
So what if the wine is warm- or the placed needs hoovered- no one will die.

I voted YABU because really you should never have done all the things you have done.

Why on Earth did you walk to tesco, prepare all the food whilst the was (relaxing) at the park with the dcs, cleaned the house and then the kitchen??

Stop being a martyr fgs!! And let him struggle and fail. At least he might actually appreciate more the work and efforts you do on a daily basis.

You should have left him to it completely.

Why useless @DillDanding. Because he didnt beat the OP in the race to do everything that needed doing? If she'd sat back and left him to it, I'm sure everybody would have been fed after some fashion, and if she sits on her hands a bit more I expect he'll clear up.

OP sounds like my mother - total housework martyr. Impossible to help, wont sit down, insists on taking over then moans about being overworked and underappreciated. Her favourite line is "if I didnt do it, it wouldnt get done". Truth is, weve never had the chance to find out.

I’m also :( to see that many posters see that account as hilarious.

I didn’t find it funny at all. But sad for the OP, angry at her DH and a bewildered that she wasn’t able to step back when she was the one recovering form surgery.
I’m pretty sure that if roles were reversed, her DH wouldn’t have moved from the bed for the whole two weeks afterwards and would have expected all meals in bed, pillows fluffed and regular cups of tea.

@Porcupineintherough but also why didn’t her DH insist she stopped and he could handle it?
Why did he come repeatidly to ask questions (what do you prepare, what ingredients do you need, where can I find that in the website etc etc etc).
Sureky, he could have avoided all that wo the OP having to tell him it was uin appropriate.

Or is it a case that the OP needs to stop being a martyr (which she was, I agree) whilst her DH still needs to be ‘reminded’ about the OP’s boundaries re recovery because even though he is a grown adult, he still doesn’t seem to know he was supposed to go for it alone this time????

My in-laws are fawners in the extreme, especially if my husband does anything deemed to be ‘woman’s work’. I make a point of giving them the real story (similar to yours, I expect) in a sarcasm-laden account, which is probably my FIL can’t stand me. 😂

total housework martyr. Impossible to help, wont sit down, insists on taking over then moans about being overworked and underappreciated.

TOTALLY AGREE!!

Women holding up the patriarchy. Hapless "poor me" handmaidens.

Get a grip.

I hate the smell of burning martyrs.

Why do you think what you’ve done is clever or even funny?
You’ve been a dick.
Why are you unable to ask for care, or model what you need in terms of support?
What on Earth are you teaching your children?

So you basically did the shopping list, shopping, most of the prep and all the cleaning up after his cooking, but he took all the credit?

@LostForIdeas I cant answer for the OP's husband but in my extended family my FiL triple checks everything with his wife as she is very intolerant of things not being done her way , and no one in my family would waste their breath telling my mum to sit down/rest/take it easy because she just fucking won't and any serious attempt to make her just leads to arguements and upset.

It is also possible that he's a tad lazy and wants to be rescued of course.

There's an extremely low bar set for males, just for doing reasonably simple tasks expected of women as a matter of course. But I give men the credit that's due. This 'endearing' ineptitude, inability to program a wash cycle, 'forgetting' half the shopping list, using every utensil and leaving the kitchen looking as if a tornado just struck, isn't ineptitude at all.

It's deliberate, and would doubtless never have happened had OP been well enough to take on the entirety of the task herself. Creating three times more work just to put right the mess Man has created is a surefire strategy to convince Woman that it's quicker, easier and more convenient to do the task herself.

Why does owning a cock and balls disqualify a human from ramming some stuffing up a turkey's arse, opening an oven door and shoving it in? It ain't rocket science.

At best it's learned helplessness, at worst, deliberate manipulation to give a perfect excuse for being a lazy git who views women as their own personal Kryton.

His family's attitude also explains precisely why he is like this. Give yourself time to recover and on no account should you touch his mess. No wonder you are (rightly) pissed at this, OP. I would be, too.