Doubts about a relationship with my partner because he doesn’t cook

[Rengirl]

Hello
Thanks for reading. I’ve spent months going through threads about similar topics, reassuring myself that I’m not going insane. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. In short my partner is IGNORANT about about life and survival. We have been together for 9 years since college and I just know he hasn’t grown or changed where I have. I should of seen the signs from day 1 where I spent our college years driving 30mins from my home town at ungodly hours to visit him only to drive back to my home town for work the next day. He didn’t have his license for some of this time but in the 3 years I lived and worked out there he drove out and stayed at my Dads with me about 2 times. The remaining times I drove in. It was at THIS POINT I should of realised he is somewhat selfish? Anyway track on 5+years he remains just as unambishious to excel as a person, he is the type of man which waits for opportunities to fall in his lap rather than work for them. I am the complete opposite to him in this respect and my outlook on life compared to him is completely different and it is toxic to our relationship. I have always been the person who plans in the relationship. Anyway a big toxic part of our relationship is that he doesn’t cook. Never has, never thinks to, just thinks food appears on the table with no planning, logistics or though process. I’ve been asking him for years to cook, to make him realised meals don’t just fall out of my a**. Anyway yesterday I reached my whitz end. That morning I had asked him to help me cook dinner tonight, these were his responses:

1. Awww I wanted to come home and play mine craft (he is 27 years old btw)
2. You cook stuff that’s to fancy (there is more to this)
3. You like cooking where I don’t

Don’t get me wrong I’ve heard these ‘excuses’ from him many times over the year. He claims that my meals are to fancy and that he can’t compete with that. For the record my go to meals are curried sausages, roast w gravy, lagsanga sooooo not fancy! Anyway he claimed he could just eat steak with tomato sauce for dinner and the fact I go to the effort of cooking ‘fancy’ food is not nessacary. Anyway I proceeded to spend the day getting ingredients so he could help me with dinner (lagsagna). I had left the ingredients on the bench for an hour, ready for him to offer or think to start prepping. HA what a joke how wrong was I. About an hour later he asked ‘what’s for dinner?’ As obvious lagsagna boxes stared at him. I said ‘Lagsagna you were meant to help me cook it tonight, if you don’t want ‘fancy’ lagsagna there is a steak with tomato sauce you can cook’ I know it wasn’t a very mature response but it was my response to him not thinking like an adult. It’s my response to living with clueless, ignorant male for the past 9 years! I could honestly go on and on about his ignorance but I won’t bore you. Anyway we ended up having quite the biff about cooking/groceries last night. I told him multiple times “I’m out, I’m done” which was clearly some wake up for him. I told him how whilst I enjoy cooking it is ‘a chore’ a chore I have done nearly every night for years! Something I go out of my way to plan, gather and prepare for where he must just think it appears out of thin air. Anyway he has offered to start cooking saying he wants to do Hellofresh to start. I told him to do whatever it takes to get him in the kitchen but I want no part of the planning or prepping. This is 100% his job for now. I really worry he won’t Persue this, he hasn’t persued anything in his life so how can I trust him to do this?

He’s behaving like a child. This isn’t just about cooking. If his only fault was a lack of interest in cooking, that might be surmountable. Generally, I think it’s fine if one partner isn’t particularly interested in food but is happy to put together a salad or throw some meat and vegetables in the oven on “their cooking days.” But this guy doesn’t want to pitch in with key elements of adulthood. I don’t cook, but I don’t expect anyone else to cook for me. (Besides, I can plumb, time, wire electrics and fix cars, which has always been my domestic contribution to my relationships.)

He just sounds emotionally stunted and incredibly unattractive in many ways. I’d ditch him, he isn’t going to change after years of you complaint about the same behaviour.

Why on earth have you cooked him meals for FIVE YEARS of your life?

STOP. Do not cook one single thing more for him. You already told him you're done, so be done.

STOP doing his laundry. Stop organising his life for him. Stop remembering his family's birthdays. Stop giving him lifts anywhere.

He is never going to become an adult whilst you are there to pick up the slack. Why should he? He's got it cushty! Chef, housemaid and PA he also gets to fuck and doesn't even have to pay for!

Do you make him a lunchbox for work or do you give him lunch money?

You don't seem to like him much.

'Whitz end'

OP you haven't got a good word to say about him so what is the point anyway? I'm genuinely baffled as to why you'd want to attempt anything other than breaking up.

my Dp can cook, but doesn’t enjoy it, and also says he can’t compete with me (fair enough as I’m a chef 😂) but he also appreciates that I don’t want to do all the cooking, so he compromises by buying a takeaway, or taking me out for dinner. This works for us.

However, your post is full of gripes that make me think you have simply outgrown each other. Or more accurately you have grown up and he hasn’t.

Reach a compromise or split up would be my advice.

Sounds like you want him to make an effort for you in generally. He can watch food vids on YouTube and search for food he likes to cook. Where I live, companies offer cookery courses so this might be an option? I think Waitrose do food demonstrations as well? Give him the chance and do not step in and help him even if it's driving you mad! Just buy some sneaky food stuff just in case he lets you down or messes it up!

Honestly, get out while you can and find an adult to have a relationship with.

9 years!!! The mind boggles. I lasted 6 weeks with my dh (during which he cooked once) before I tore strips off him and he started cooking if he wanted to stay. I honestly think give it a week and if he hasn’t made an effort and cooked every night then take a break, move out or he does. If he doesn’t cook one night you do one jacket potato, one salmon steak and one serve of veggies and you eat it all.
It does sound like you will find life without him very freeing.

It doesn't sound like you're happy with him anyway and he's acting like a child. Ltb

No offense but you have put up with this for five years, you could have whipped him into shape lot sooner or ended it.

You sound incompatible in the way you both view and live your life.

Walk away in fact run away you are not compatible. Find someone worthy of you

He's a man child and sorry to say this but you've enabled him.

If your outlooks a d dispositions are so different then it will only continue to breed resentment on your part.

Whatever decision you make, stick with it because after being told you're done multiple times, you've come back each time and he hasn't had to change.

That spelling of lasagna...

Anyway, OP why are you wasting your time with this man?

You have to look at your own self in all this too; why did you take on this "fixer upper" of a man and enable him as you have done?. What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?.

You have got something out of this so called relationship to date otherwise you would have walked away long before now. What is it that has kept you with him at all?.

A person can never act as either a rescuer or saviour in a relationship. Your mistake here too was to see him in the first place as your potential project or "fixer upper" to improve. He was never yours to rescue and or save and all he has done is drag you down with him.

My DH couldn't cook at all when we met, and he knew I was a real foodie who loved cooking. So did he just expect me to do it all? No, he's a considerate adult so he got his flatmate to teach him to cook a few simple dishes so that he could cook for me. He still finds it hard but does his share and even if I am cooking, will offer to help chop stuff, grate cheese etc.

You're with a man child who doesn't want to change as he has it so easy.

At 27 he is unlikely to grow into the man you want.Alot of relationships run their course and you need to move on. It will feel painful at the time and cause upheaval but is the best for you longterm. You will resent him more than you do now and that kills love.

What is stopping you leaving?

I've cooked for DH for 20+ years. I occasionally moan & now I just tell him to do tea & left him to it. Similar excuses, too complicated, blah, blah, blah. I was away for 5 weeks & he nuked my oven cooking sausages every day.

However, he preps veg, brings me tea in bed every day, etc. Overall, love him dearly.

This won't change much, if you're already fed up, change the situation.

You're not his mother. Let's hope he gets the message and actually makes an effort to grow up! If not, I'd give him an ultimatum/leave him.

Right yes he is behaving like an absolute child but I don’t think you are going about it the right way. Instead of issuing ultimatums get him in the kitchen with you and donit together.

I love cooking with my partner and he’s a really good cook but he also is more fond of meals just appearing lol. When he starts to stray I tell him I nicely ask him to give me a hand doing a small thing like cutting the onions, throwing the stuff in etc. Can you pass me that because I can’t stop stirring this right now.

In essence get him in there helping you with small tasks rather than overwhelming the poor baby by telling him he has to cook the whole dinner. Then ask for more small bits of help keeping him there until you’ve stealth trained him to cook.

Men aren’t too dissimilar to puppies. You just need to break it down into little bits, give positive encouragement and make it fun 😜

Sunk cost fallacy:

The Misconception: You make rational decisions based on the future value of objects, investments and experiences. The Truth: Your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate, and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it.

What is the point of him?
What do you get out of this relationship?
Honestly... you've grown, he hasn't.
Sometimes we outgrow each other and it's time to move on.
Seems to me you've been flogging this dead horse for years.
WHY?
Time for YOU now.

That’s if you want to actually stay with the guy and get him cooking that is lol. He sounds like hard work to me!

You are clearly not compatiable- it has nothing to do with cooking. Move on, otherwise you will waste your best years on him.
Don’t be that person! And I am rarely the person that says LTB-but in this case, you don’t want the same things.

Why have you wasted so much time on this man, honestly I cannot believe you have stayed with him for nine years - ditch him, get out of this worthless relationship, have some self esteem and enjoy your life.

I know I sound harsh, but I despair of women who put up with such awful relationships, surely it is better to be on your own than being with someone who has so little respect for you?