Anyone have a DP who's a really picky eater? (Long)

[gail734]

When I got married, I couldn't really cook. I was still living like a student and I was always on a diet. I'd never cooked for more than myself, so you don't exactly learn how to roast a chicken or bake a cake, do you? I was keen to learn though. Four years of rejected dinners later, I have to work really hard to reassure myself that I'm not a bad cook. My DH is an infuriatingly picky eater. Night after night, his dinner goes in the bin. Sometimes I'm sitting eating the same meal thinking, "This is nice." He'll push it around, eat maybe a third of it, then give up. He knows better than to say, "This isn't like my mum's", but that's part of it. Incidentally, I've had his mum's cooking and it really is awful. He's a 33 year old man and I once, when I'd identified a meal that he would eat, gave it to him every night for a week! (It was chicken, new potatoes and salad.) He ate it happily, night after night, then eventually he requested a change. I'm so sick of this and it causes arguments. He never cooks. I think it's disrespectful, if someone has gone to the bother of cooking for you, to refuse to eat it. I grew up in a kind of "clear your plate" home, whereas he would have been allowed to leave whatever he wanted. He'll cover his food in salt and pepper before tasting it, and also go directly from his abandoned dinner to get a packet of crisps, which I find outrageously insulting. When he comes home and asks, "What's for dinner?" I don't want to answer him because whatever I say, he'll pull a face. I have gone on strike, once. I didn't cook for a week. He lived on takeaways before apologising and meekly asking me to start cooking again. Anyone ever had anything similar?

[gail734]

TisILeclerk - he's the same when we go out! In fact, we haven't been in a restaurant for six months because I eventually decided it wasn't worth it any more. I've actually given him a piece of paper and asked him to suggest a week's worth of dinners, just to give me a clue. He struggled with that. He always says he wants "something plain". He can't eat anything spicy, cheesy, oily or processed. He has an idea that he'd like to be healthy, but in reality can't deal with a vegetarian meal.

[sausagesandwich34]

my ex was a very picky eater

the list of things he wouldn't eat included

all veg except carrots
onions
pork
fish
turkey
pasta
rice that wasn't plain long grain rice
fruit -all fruit
soup other than tinned oxtail
cereals that weren't kelloggs
bread -would only eat warburtons white toastie loaf
crisps other than walkers
yoghhurts


he would classify food as brown or orange (stew/shepherds pie/roast dinner/frozen chicken breasts with chips was pretty much all he would eat)

I had to sieve jars of cooking sauces to make sure there wasn't even a trace of onion
if he found even the tiniest trace of anything in his food that he suspected was on the banned list then the meal would be rejected

I cooked for him for 12 years and was constantly told I was a terrible cook, I poisioned him, I couldn't look after him etc etc

I put up with it because it was a EA relationship and I believed him

I didn't drink coffee for 10 years because he didn't like the smell!

he's an ex for a very good reason

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

This goes way beyond cooking. This is a selfish, lazy, immature man who sees women - modelled on his indulgent mother, no doubt - as domestic servants. He has no respect for the OP and that goes much deeper than dinners.

[Notmadeofrib]

You need to talk to HRH and start discussing how you can become a partnership and work like a team. He may not want the house as clean as you (for example), but you can compromise on standards and agree how you will live together. This sounds like a more fundamental issue than wasted dinners.

.. does he know you wish you never married him? Would him having to pull his weight mean he'd want to leave? I think you could do with counselling myself, but for me this behaviour would be a total deal breaker and I'd be carefully considering my future.

[Sunnywithshowers]

That's hideous behaviour OP. He sounds like an entitled, spoiled little baby.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Do you have any children OP?

[BerthaTheBogCleaner]

To answer the title, yes, I do. He has quite a long list of stuff he won't or can't eat. I have stuff I don't like, too. We both cook. Mostly we cook stuff everyone likes (3 dcs all with different tastes too!). So sometimes we'll cook variations - we all have curry but we do a hot one (him) and a mild one (me). When I do chicken casserole I put chicken breasts (him) and thighs (me) in and we each pick out the bits we like. Sometimes we both cook ourselves something we really like but the other one can't stand. Sometimes I cook something I think will be ok and he can't manage to eat it - he'll politely tell me it was lovely and get himself a sandwich later.

I do more of the housework because he works longer hours but he still does stuff, and tells me how much he appreciates what I do, and doesn't moan if I don't do it.

Your problem with your dp is not actually about him having fussy eating habits, is it?

[ivykaty44]

He likes chicken potato and sald

so cook that

if he says he wants a change

then change the plates or the knives and forks - you can always borrow some - but keep cooking the same thing at least that way it will not end up in the bin.

Yourself though cook what you like each night

[Lueji]

I think the only way is to let him cook his own meals. You cook what you like and he does something else if he doesn't like it.

Could you cook with him, so that he starts by helping you and learns how to cook in the process?
At some point he'd do meals by himself.

On plain things, he could have grilled meat or fish (or boiled fish) and plain rice or boiled potatos, or pasta. Always have salad, then, which is healthy and you should too.

Will he ever, say, vaccuum clean, if you tell him to do it while you do something else? Or clean the bathroom while you do the laundry, for example?

At some point you will have to tell him that he starts pulling his weight, or you'll stop catering for him (food, clothes).

[PeppermintPasty]

Gordon bennett what a pain in the arse he sounds.

What's stopping you from going back to no cooking (for him) that you did for a week. Make it permanent. Let him cook his own stuff.

You're a long time dead, it's such a waste of your time and energy.

[GetOrf]

You will never fix this man. So why bother trying? He sounds monumentally selfish. Don't make the mistake of putting up with this shite - in a minute you will be middles aged and would have spent 20 years putting up with a miserable, entitled wanker of a husband.

The problem with men like this is that they think they are fundamentally more important than you, and that your time is less valuable as theirs. Does he leave laundry all over the floor? Refuse to clean the bath? Leave teaspoons and cups and other detritus around the house for muggings (you) to clean up? If he is like this as 25, he will be the same at 35, 45, 55 and 65. He will NOT change. He can modify his behaviour, but the reasons which caused the behaviour will remain intact.

[AnyFucker]

OP, I suggest you get over the "emotional abuse" long running support thread in Relationships

those ladies know what you are talking about, and what you are living with

I hope you decide sooner rather than later than being single is infinitely better than being with a jumped up Hitler Wannabe who thinks he is Lord and Master in his own house

[PeppermintPasty]

And sausage -you had to sieve sauces???

Wow. I'm boggling at that one, what a prize tw*t he was!!

[gail734]

Wow, a lot of what you've said has really hit home. I do come from a family that will not tolerate marriage breakdown. It has crossed my mind that this is an EA relationship. Even so, I will admit that it's partly my fault. The continued, dogged determination to keep cooking is pure stubborness. But for all of you saying let him cook his own dinner... he does no housework. I will ask him to sometimes, he'll even mildly reply that yes, he'll do the dishes etc... then he simply doesn't. He has cooked maybe half a dozen times in four years. I heaped praise on his efforts, then retreated to the kitchen to clean up the absolute chaos that he had created. I do have a child with this child. If I left him, he'd presumably get one-to-one access to her every weekend, which he doesn't get just now.

[PeppermintPasty]

You're welcome

[GetOrf]

So because your family do not tolerate marriage breakdown, you have to tolerate this life of misery?

What would your family do if you left him? Do they think that you should have a life of drudgery?

[NettleTea]

yes. my EA ex husband did this. he did it in restaurants too, and still does. I stopped cooking for him. just cooked for myself. luckily he worked in catering so he ate where he worked.
he was an arse though in all areas, and sounds like yours is too.

[AnyFucker]

if you left him, you would get time for yourself to build a better life without this manchild in it

he would simply take your dc to mummy's anyway wouldn't he, and outsource his parenting to her

unless you think dc would not be safe in his care that is a good thing, IMO

if dc are not safe in his care, then you have a very different problem (and even more of a reason to end your marriage)

[Lueji]

If he is that picky with food, he'll have to sort out his own food, FGS.

If he can't, then let him leave to his mum, or let her come and do all the housework while you rest with your feet up.

I bet he's more trouble than your own child.

[gail734]

God, I'm so used to it, I don't regard it as a life of misery. It is a bit lonely, though. I'm afraid to admit that's why I had dd. (Storing up trouble for the future, I know.) I'm ashamed to admit that I've made a mistake, so I'm trying to make the best of it. He's no company, no help, no fun. Oh dear, I will go over to the EA thread, but I'm just going to get loads of "LTB".