Husbands food preferences driving me crazy!

[Jessa85]

Sorry this got long! I'm struggling with my husband and the family meals I make.

He is incredibly fussy or particular... I don't know the best way to describe it so I'll list out what he won't eat -

• no creamy dishes - things like 'marry me' chicken or honey mustard chicken are a no no.
• no sour cream or mayonnaise - would simply refuse something like beef stroganoff
• no chunky vegetable dishes, no salads
• refuses to eat meals with pie or pastries
• won't eat fish
• no stews or soups - hates stews and soups are 'not a meal' apparently
• jacket potatoes will only eat with beans and must have meat on the side
• hates egg dishes so meals like quiche or omelette are out of the question

None of these preferences are allergy related.

We eat the same meals on repeat every week - some pasta variation, some curry variation, some meat and veg variation and I'm at my wits end, It's been 10 years and I'm bored of the same food. I'm craving something different but every time he will say - does it have XYZ in it? why is the veg all chunky? you know I don't like this sort of thing and so on. If he had it his way, we would BBQ meat every night and eat it with the same veg and some form of side dish.

I am a mum and work full-time, I am responsible for most of the housework and all the cooking. I really do not want to be cooking two separate meals everyday, I don't have the time or the energy for that.

I thought about asking him to cook his own meal but then I have the issue of our kids seeing us eating two different things and say well if daddy can have something different why can't I! Which will stress me out even more, I want them to eat a variety of food and not become so regimented like their father.

I really don't know what to do, I've spoken to him about it many times and he said 'I like what I like'... my reply was 'well what about what I like?' he told me I can always cook myself something different. Any advice appreciated, thank you.

UPDATE FROM OP ADDED BY MNHQ: Thank you for all the replies and for all the advice on food. The situation has escalated and I'll add updates on my relationship when possible for those interested in following along with me

We do have a joint account, we pay enough into it to cover the bills etc... we then keep remaining salaries in our personal accounts but yes I'm going to have a chat with him about all of this

His choice. He’s an adult and can cook for himself. Simple.

Oh my 😥 what a complete knob and twat he is.

STOP now, not only the cooking for him but the food shop too. Just look after yourself and DC.

Why are you paying 50% of everything when your salaries do not match?

Are you doing his washing and ironing too?

I feel so sad for you.

he made himself some toast

Despite him earning more than me, I still contribute 50% on all our bills with the exception of holidays.

nip that in the bud. Really, when you have the talk you need to make it clear to him that he will be contributing proportionately to what he earns. and that you will each have an amount of discretionary spending (in your shoes mine would be going into my escape fund) And that instead of measuring either of your "value" through earnings, you measure it through available hours to relax.

And that you both must have equal hours to relax so he needs to take care of 50% of housework (or whatever you calculate). He is of course welcome to use his discretionary spending money to hire a cleaner/cook/housekeeper/gardener to take over his part. But that will make him look like a lazy cunt to his children.

ETA: cross posted to see you have your own accounts. Then he needs to up his contributions to the joint account. Win-win for you there, if you can pull it off

Please stop pandering to him. This was my household as a child thanks to my dad. I never had pasta til I was 21, my exs mum made it for me and I struggled to eat it because it contained things like mushrooms and a sauce which id also never had before. I didn't have a curry or a Chinese until my mid 20s and even now my Chinese order consists of chips, egg fried rice and vegetable spring rolls so all very bland. There are so many foods I struggle to eat. I'm early 30s now and I'm trying really hard to try new things still but I really struggle. We go out for food and I'm sat there picking bits of onion and pepper out of my dinner or scraping the bbq sauce off my chicken. I have a huge issue with texture of foods. Don't let your kids grow up thinking his restrictions are normal, feed you and the kids some nice food and let him fend for himself!

we then keep remaining salaries in our personal accounts but yes I'm going to have a chat with him about all of this

This simply isn't fair op. All income in to one account. Bills and dc out of it. Remainder split 50:50 for personal accounts.

He irons his clothes, I refused to do them for the last year since he complained about them not being to his liking. He's paid for our home improvements and holidays but I still contribute what I can.

Jeez I really am a trad wife who doesn't want to be a trad wife. This wasn't what I signed up for.

OP, I know you're there already but simplistically, there is no way to reconcile your desire to have the best for your children when you want them to have broad tastes and to have a family meal together eating the same meal. As this is irreconcilable then try not to feel bad about an impossible position. You don't want your children to have a restricted diet and they want to eat new food so a compromise would be to cook them new food and either let your DP cook for himself, buy ready meals that suit his choices or I would have said batch cook for him but I have read the remainder of your posts so struggle to type that recommendation. BTW, you mentioned he earns more than you but as you've said 'I still contribute 50% on all our bills with the exception of holidays' then how is that relevant to you doing all the cooking and housework?

Good luck.

Yes it's going to form part of my chat with him, I don't have many friends I can talk to about this sort of stuff and well coming on here has got my eyes opened and I admit, I'm overwhelmed.

I really appreciate all the comments

My 14yo ds makes himself pasta and cheese if he doesn't like the main family meal (similar preferences to your dh). Making the whole family eat to one person's preferences is ridiculous, and unfair to everyone.

Yes I agree with you I know what I have to do. Another poster (I cannot find the post now) mentioned to quietly get my ducks in a row with finances etc... and I'm at the point where that is what I am going to do. I cannot continue like this, there is no equality in my life. I am the housewife and child raiser that works full time and contributes so much of my wages to our joint account... and he does nothing and I pander to it simply for a 'peaceful' life, so that my poor girls don't have the upbringing that I had... and yet I've realised that they already do.

This, brilliant suggestion.
I am male, my wife does 95% of the cooking because thats how it has worked over the past 30 years. My offerings are very basic or ready meals.
I have never once complained about anything she has cooked ever because I can't cook so can't complain. He sounds ruddy hard work.

OP, you keep saying you'll "have a chat" with him.

IMO it's gone too far for that. I'd be simply telling him my POV.

1. The equal amounts into the joint account mean he has much more $ than you, yet you're doing all the unpaid work as well as working full time. This is grossly unfair. He needs to contribute proportional to his income.
2. He needs to treat you as an equal valued partner, not a domestic service animal.
3. He needs to apologise to you for treating you so badly for so long!

He has a choice. Meet these 3 requirements or the marriage is over. Yeah, it's an ultimatum because that's where his horrible behaviour has gotten him over the years. This is on him for being lazy and financially unfair.

Until those 3 requirements are met, you do NOTHING more for him. No cooking. No laundry. No sleeping with him. Nothing. Treat him like a flatmate.

Match his energy.

Get ducks in a row. Leave as soon as you can.

Yes he is hard work and unfortunately he does complain. I've had enough.

Stop doing his washing too.

Just unsign yourself - it really is that simple. If he doesn't like it then he can go elsewhere. He should be ashamed of himself.

Yes sorry when I say I'll have a 'chat' what you've posted is what I mean... its an ultimatum. I see it all now, I'm done.

I couldn't be with someone like that.

We eat the same meals each week, but we both like them.

Let him cook his own and start making real dishes for you and your kids. If you don't, they too will grow up with this childish attitude to food too. Yeah ARFID is a thing but this doesn't sound like it. Silly childish eating habits are often created early by someone else. My own daughter (now at Uni) spent most of her childhood refusing two basics. Onions and carrots. She ate them happily until as a two and a half year old, my MIL said "Ew! You don't eat yucky onions do you?! Bleurgh!" She said similar with carrots. The second it was said, my daughter's onion aversion began. I had to start cutting them into tiny pieces to go in our meals so she wouldn't know they were there (yet clearly we could taste them, she just didn't know she was liking something she believed she hated)
Now as a grown up she does eat both onions and carrots but it took a long time.

My husband is 45 and he is only just in the last few years starting to eat things like yoghurts, honey, mustard, sweetcorn, garlic and all sorts willingly. I've always been cooking with things he^ dislikes^ and what he could pick out, he did, but he hated to admit that he liked my honey mustard dishes. He's say he enjoys it, "but it doesn't need mustard in!" (Of course, it does. The dish would be completely different) And he actually really does loves them.
It's always been stuff his mum and dad wouldn't touch. A woman who once shuddered and said to me, "Peppers? Oh no, we don't eat all that foreign fancy rubbish!"
Yep. Bell peppers.

I saw a comment about him feeling more important than me because he earns more... that's 100% the case, in fact he has said those exact words to my face when I begged him for a lie in one weekend when I was on mat leave with our second child. Despite him earning more than me, I still contribute 50% on all our bills with the exception of holidays.

Ooh that's nasty.

Oh thats awful your MIL did that, it really has such an influence on little ones doesn't it. Thankfully both girls will eat what I give them, I've sometimes cooked them meals at lunchtime (when husband is at work) and I WFH, anything they've requested... and they get variety at school. Thanking my lucky stars that aside from the shared dinners we have, we eat variety as a 3... a few dislikes of course but nothing like their father. We love loaded tacos at lunchtime during half term and of course honey mustard chicken would be nothing without the mustard haha!

There's a lot of ASD in my family and I had to work hard about food. I now have pretty good, varied eaters who behave well when faced with something that doesn't suit them.

I introduced things slowly, sauces were in pots or a teaspoonful on the side of the plate for people to try as and when they were ready.
I mashed and blended and gradually allowed pieces to get bigger.
Everyone was expected to taste everything, no one had to finish everything. If they wanted extra of one thing they needed to finish most of what was on their plate- but I always started with small servings.

When an adult says 'I don't like that/can't eat that.', the answer is, 'ok'.
For a child, the safe food was available- peanut butter sandwich or whatever. They pretty quickly moved away from the safe food in favour of eating what everyone else had.

DH still gets a sliver of beef to eat along with whatever alternative was convenient on roast days.

This isn't your responsibility, but this is how I managed with ASD husband, kids and foster kids.

OP my husband whenI met him had a very restricted diet, never had freshly cooked vegetables! never had fruit cKe as he wouldn‘t like it?! never had fresh fish or any fruit more exotic than apple pear banana. He was 27 and lived alone in the same town as a wonderful fresh produce market which he never visited.
His mother had the condition whereby nothing on her plate could touch, no stews, casseroles, sauces, her Christmas dinner the first year was memorable indeed 😱
So all this neurotic relationship with food became his norm.

It was an uphill struggle.
I needed my children to be properly fed with good nutrition, as I wanted him to be,
to his deep abiding resentment.

it was a huge relief to move, for quiet appreciative mealtimes, not pandering to the vagaries of a petulant, wilful grown man, bliss.

OP in your instance, your husband also rules the roost. Just imagine how he would fare in hospital/prison/Morocco/rice bowl retreat/vegan commune/desert island/Japan/the Tundra, I’m convinced he wouldn’t starve.
Had he been married to my Mum, or Nan, he would have! ha ha ha

This would really give me the ick tbh OP

Another woman who’s miserable and putting up with a shitty husband but won’t leave because they’re not willing to change their situation. I’d rather live in a flat or a “worse” area than stay in a miserable marriage. Just give up the house and adjust your life to your new income.

Hes not a good person and doesn’t have a heart of gold. If he did he wouldn’t be treating you like a live in slave. You work full time, it doesn’t matter that he earns more than you, your time is the same. Tell him to cook his own fucking meals and do is share with everything else in life.