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]

"Why do I need to eat my dinner when daddy doesn't?"

Hmm... good point, FireOverBabylon

LOOK, the rest of you... I'm halfway through a year's worth of mat leave, so I'm basically a sahm. I do not expect my husband to come home from a stressful job at 7pm and do half of the housework. Do other sahm's? At the moment, we have an old fashioned marriage - he goes out to work, I stay home and work. What bothers me is the thrown-away dinners and the lack of interest in the baby. I'm going to try to get him more involved in the cooking. I think if he has more say in what he's eating, he might like it better. He's never known a baby before. Neither of us knew how he was going to react to her. I think she's a gorgeous angel from heaven, the best thing ever. He doesn't find her very interesting. He picks her up, she barfs on him... he puts her down. He's not a natural and he's not prepared to pretend that he's enthralled. I think that as she becomes more communicative, he'll become more interested in her.
I may get flamed for this but, I feel sorry for him. He's a product of a ridiculously indulged childhood which didn't leave him with any adult skills. He lost his job shortly after we married and we had to move 200 miles to a new city to find him work. I got a new job, leaving one that I loved. I'm an outgoing, positive, chatty person. I can make friends anywhere and I've built a little social life for myself, now with new mummies too. He's quiet, shy, a bit weird. His friends are people he went to primary school with and they're far away now. He obviously wasn't like this when I met him. I mean he's always been quiet - I attract people like that - but he dislikes the new job and I think he's a bit depressed. I'm encouraging him to leave it, but he's too scared. I might not stay with him for ever, but I'm not going to let anyone say I didn't try hard enough to make it work.

[Helltotheno]

You're not trying hard though. You might think you are but all you're doing is entrenching the really bad attitudes he's picked up throughout his life and enabling his unwillingness to change.

If you were really trying, you'd leave him to do everything that pertains to him: cooking for himself, clothes, tidying etc.

I still think you're encouraging a really damaging and unhealthy environment for your DD.

Tough love OP, tough love.

[gail734]

OMG - I am not a troll! My mother brought me up with a slight fear of being "left on the shelf", ok? When I was dumped in my late twenties I had a bit of a shelf-related panic and grabbed the next available groom and marched him down the aisle. It was a mistake. I will tell my dd that she can "live in sin" with half the town if she likes. I will let her know it's ok to never get married She will not care if the neighbours think she "can't get a man".

[Helltotheno]

It was a mistake.

Glad you see that at least :)
Why not try the amicable co-parenting living apart thing? Much better scenario than what you have at the moment.

I suppose though you'll be thinking about DC2 soon?

[mcmooncup]

"I may get flamed for this but, I feel sorry for him"

I love it when posters write the "I may get flamed" thing.

Why would you think you would get flamed for this?

Is this because it is ludicrous? Pathetic at best, co-dependent at worst.

I don't understand why people post on here and then ignore all the advice.

You are wasting your time, you will not change him. But good luck trying. And wasting your life in the meantime.

[Helltotheno]

Oh and .. sorry for calling you a troll OP (it was starting to become unbelievable you see :) )

[mcmooncup]

"I suppose though you'll be thinking about DC2 soon? "

ABSOLUTELY - that is in 'the script' too.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

What do you get out of this relationship now?.

I am actually wondering if on some level within you, you saw this man as a project or perhaps someone to rescue and or save. You felt and still feel on some level sorry for him. Your love and caring for him was going to change him into a better person after his dysfunctional childhood. Wrong on all counts there. Also I would state that not all people by any means who have had crap childhoods do as your H does now; this is also about power and control.

Given too a straight choice between you and his mother, he would choose his mother. She has played a huge role in shaping your H into the person he now is.

You have stated yourself that you're a martyr and that you've enabled him. You continue to do so.

You want this to work but what is he doing exactly?. How is he trying to make this work?. He is doing nothing, you're doing all the donkey work here. You cannot keep a faltering marriage going on its own.

He has no respect for you and by turn your DD whatsoever.

Sticking this out for whatever reasons you give or choose to believe in will just teach your DD that it is okay to be treated in such a manner.

[DonkeysDontRideBicycles]

Glad you came back to the thread OP, posters get frustrated when they worry you are digging yourself in a bigger hole, they are perplexed (putting it mildly) as to why a bright articulate person is apparently willing to tolerate so little input from your OH. I am a SAHM myself so no problems on that score for me but a 33 year old man, mummy's boy or not while you are on maternity leave it is not a holiday for you, it should not give him licence to come home and do nothing. Bluntly sounds as if when you are back working, he won't metamorphisize into Mr Helpful-Share-The-Domestic-Chores kind of guy. Lots of parents don't especially find tiny babies or little children that fascinating but they help out with parenting because that's what parents do.

[SolidGoldFrankensteinandmurgh]

I knew there would be some other form of bullying and instilling bad attitudes in your background. You were persuaded that a woman is a failure without a man, and that any man is better than none. THIS IS A LIE. Women are actually more likely to be happy when they are single and the insistence that women need a heterosexual couple relationship is a deliberate lie, because the need that is met by marriage is men's need to have a servant to look after them domestically and be seuxally available to them.

As others have said, if you persist in pandering to this inadequate man, you will raise a DD who will also see no alternative but to accept a man's ownership and mistreatment of her. Is that really what you want for yourself and for her?

[JustFabulous]

I feel sorry for you, OP but much sorrier for your poor baby.

I do 99% of the cooking in the house. I enjoy it and when I don't want too do it DH will always do it. Often asking me what to make the kids as he knows I meal plan and he wouldn't want to mess that up. I used to cook twice a night as the children needed feeding earlier than DH got home. DH and I have been together for 17 years and living together for about 15. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have made something - usually a new recipe - that DH hasn't liked. He always tries it but has then said I am not keen, sorry and then sorts himself out a sandwich or toast.

You are fighting a battle you can never ever win.

[Helltotheno]

I'll raise a to that Solid....

Plus there are other nice people out there who might have a use other than sperm donation and might even be nice people to boot.
Give it go OP :)

[fuzzpig]

I am astounded you put up with this.

You talk about him with contempt (spoilt prince etc) - utterly deserved of course - and yet you still say you can change him? You can't.

I haven't read a single positive thing about him yet?!

BTW although you may tell your DD she doesn't need to settle for this shit, she still will, if she sees you doing it.

[Lueji]

Women are actually more likely to be happy when they are single

And live longer.

[DonkeysDontRideBicycles]

Nobody is saying they all got everything right first time, it's not a contest you get points for. When you were expecting DD, did anyone happen to say when talking about birth plans or pain relief, "You know gail, they don't hand out medals for suffering in silence or enduring pain off the scale?" Well same applies here.

This is your life, no-one else's. Don't battle on because of loss of face, or any clever dick in the background saying, "Well what else did we expect, what a quitter, never walked out in my day". I don't know your cultural heritage or family background but you needn't become a pariah. Living apart from your H doesn't mean he won't be able to access your DD to stay in contact. As she grows up she can still be part of his life. People who know you and care about you won't think less of you.

[HotDAMNlifeisgood]

feeling sorry for him is NOT a good basis for a relationship.

I would re-word your description of the two of you as: he's unskilled and entitled, and you are warm, hard-working and overly self-sacrficing.

You deserve better, gail. You quit a job you loved for this?

Stop worrying so much about his childhood and his depression, and spend a little more time thinking about your wants and needs, your happiness.

his issues = his business to sort out for himself, like a grown man.
your happiness = yours to safeguard, because lord knows no-one else in your marriage is worried about your happiness at the moment. Start giving it some attention, you deserve it.

[Abitwobblynow]

MN, you really shouldn't tell people what to do, and then get angry with them if they don't do it. Can't you see that is coercive and abusive in itself?

We are supposed to be here for women who are struggling with their dilemmas, not add to their sh*t or further undermine their self-esteem.

If changing deep-seated beliefs and attitudes and coping tactics were that easy, we would all change at will. This stuff (learning new ways of thinking, letting go of hope and denial) takes TIME. Women manage with the skills they have at that time. They ARE juggling things and they ARE processing stuff.

OP has invested in this twunt. He doesn't beat her or brand her, it is HARD to face up to low level abuse and admit it for what it is. It is hard for her to let go of her hope that he will change, and it is hard for her to let go of years of investment.

She needs to talk and ruminate and talk and ruminate some more. Shutting her down with sarcasm and rage because she isn't INSTANTLY L-ingTB, is just more devalueing and rendering her invisible.

[Lueji]

Wobbly, who's MN?

Is that the whole of MumsNet????

[Whocansay]

OP, its OK to make a mistake. You don't have to live with it if things aren't working though. Marriage is supposed to be something done by TWO people, not just by one part of a couple. My fella works very hard, but when he comes home he works just as hard as me. Not because I make him at least not always, but because he wants to. He wants to come home and see the children and help with the bedtime routine. This is what he signed up for when we decided to have children. I have no idea why you're making excuses for your 'd'h. From what you've said he's a bad husband and a bad father.

[MyHeadWasInTheSandNowNot]

If you wont listen to Glennz - you wont listen to anyone.

Good luck - you're going to need it :(

However, I have to say one last thing... if you had thought this was an issue about 'picky eating' surely you would have posted in Chat, you posted in Relationships - you might want to think about that.

[mcmooncup]

Yes but Wobbly, you are enabling her to stay. Don't know which is worse.

[KateSMumsnet]

Hi everyone,

Could we please remind you all that troll hunting, no matter how thinly veiled, is still against our talk guidelines.

[Gennz]

Wow gail I think you need counselling, you strike me as a classic boiled frog.

I can perfectly well understand you doing more domestic work if your husband is working FT (though having discussed this with my DH I?ve been adamant that if I take a break from my well paid, interesting job to look after OUR (as yet non-existent) baby, I?d expect him home at 6 and bathing said child so I can have a glass of wine or go for a walk, not putting his feet up with a beer and chucking any dinner I make in the bin) ? however, you as a SAHM doing all the domestic chores does not excuse your husband?s selfish and frankly bizarre behaviour.

Letting the house get into a tip when your wife is in hospital with your newborn child and then ? WORSE ? letting her ?roll her sleeves up? and clean up after you? WTAF? That speaks to me of someone who is so grossly self centred that there is no room to care about anyone else. Plus the way he interacts with your baby sounds absolutely chilling. You can?t fix him.