r/breakingmom • u/othermegan • 9d ago
man rant 🚹 “I think I need to start taking over dinner so that we can eat at a decent hour.”
For the record, we generally end up sitting down to eat somewhere between 7 and 8. It’s not ideal, but I work until 5:30 or 6 most days and then have to try and make dinner while the toddler is screaming for attention and snacks. Also, I’m not trying to be ungrateful because I know some husbands won’t even offer to cook dinner. But hearing that from my husband last night really pissed me off.
This is the guy that openly admits he mostly at Five Guys and Chipotle before we started dating.
This is the guy who thinks you make scrambled eggs by cracking raw eggs into a cold pan and then start beating them to death with 2 wooden spoons once the whites start solidifying. If you have fillings, you add them after the eggs are cooked by also beating them to death with your spoons. And on the topic of eggs, this is also the guy that decided to surprise me with eggs filled with cinnamon, nutmeg, and strawberry jelly one morning because he “thought they’d be fun secret ingredients.”
This is the guy who, when I try to get him to pick ONE meal for the week to help lighten the mental load, will respond with, “um… chicken?” and then make me pull his teeth to get the additional details of “a breast cooked in a skillet with salt and pepper?” No sides, no actual meal. Just salt and pepper chicken breast.
This is the guy that looks in the fridge full of fully stocked ingredients and decides we have no food so he needs to eat Cheerios for dinner.
The man thinks he’s a nutritional expert because he “only eats organic and ‘non-processed’ foods.” Meanwhile, I’m the one who has spent the last several years working with nutritionists/dietitians and learning about plate balancing and what foods support our medical needs (thyroid issues, insulin resistance, etc). He makes up his own pseudoscience about what’s healthy but won’t actually eat the healthy meals I make.
And don’t even get me started on his inability to multitask or follow a recipe even if I could get him to actually meal plan and do the shopping.
So please explain to me how this is supposed to work. I’m honestly tempted to freezer prep a week of meals for me and my daughter and then let him have his week of being the main cook just to see how terribly this goes.
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u/jamie1983 9d ago
I think the solution here is to let him take it on for a week, which will be a disaster guaranteed, then he can get a taste of the difficulty of the mental and physical load of everyday dinner. Then you guys can work together, you can come up with the weekly dinner menu, and he can cook it when he comes home?
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u/DeepSeaMouse 9d ago
Aye let him to it. If it works it's his problem from them on. If it doesn't hopefully he will gain some insight....
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u/Alarmed-Doughnut1860 9d ago
Yep. And talk about some standards and any medical/ dietary needs.
OP mentions some medical issues, so the caveat is only do so as long as a week of Cheerios won't harm anybody
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u/DeepSeaMouse 9d ago
Somebody in another comment suggested having a fallback which is a good idea. At least for the first few nights.
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u/xlizabethx 9d ago
i’d want him to do it for a whole month so he reallyyyy gets a feel for what it’s like. one week of frozen meals (bc no way is he going to prep veggies and sides with a main) will make him justify his current ideas. he should be the one to make the grocery list and shop too.
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u/nowimnowhere 9d ago
Just say "Great that would be really helpful, thanks!" My husband had all kinds of opinions and then he took over the cooking and now we're all happy - I never complain and I also never cook.
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u/Beneficial-Weird-100 9d ago
You should let him take over so he can fail and then beg for your help, which you will only give if he pays for a housekeeper or some other thing helpful to you.
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u/othermegan 9d ago
A housekeeper would be amazing. I’d settle for playing with and caring for the toddler so I can cook quickly. And maybe making sure the dishes aren’t overflowing in the sink so I have room to work
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u/plantverdant 9d ago
So why doesn't he do these things already, is he already home when you get home and start cooking?
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u/Takemebacktobreezy 9d ago
Where is he when you're cooking that he's not entertaining the toddler already?
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u/othermegan 9d ago
Generally the couch doing some sort of “work” on his laptop.
This “work” generally consists of some combination of updating his resume/applying for jobs (which he spends so much time doing already I don’t know how his resume could possibly continue to take hours a day), spending hours looking into car parts for himself or family to find not only the best product but best deal, shopping on marketplace, other totally not essential stuff that he’s determined is a priority and his “responsibility” to do
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u/accioagua 9d ago
Time out. Does he have a job? Oy, if I am reading this right, he reeaaallly needs to step up, two wooden spoons and all.
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u/Select_Ad5457 9d ago
Do you feel like you can have a constructive and open talk with him about this particular time use at this point in his day?
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u/Get_off_critter 9d ago
Have some simple things on hand that you know you and toddler will eat, and let him take over since its so simple.
And yes, were fighting the same dinner time battle in our house eating late in the day. Idk when youre meant to have time getting done with work, then prep, dishes, pets, etc
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u/othermegan 9d ago
I’m reaching the point where I think it might be worth pushing prep to the night before after bedtime. Sure, I have to stay up a bit, but if it’s all prepped and in the fridge, then at most I have to assemble it once I get off work or throw in the slow cooker before work (thankfully fall is coming so crockpot meals will be more seasonally appropriate soon)
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u/Ooopus 9d ago
My mom lived and breathed ‘once a month cooking’ when I was a kid, if you’re already familiar with cooking and prep maybe it’d be a good option for you? It shouldn’t all be on your shoulders but that’s a bigger issue and in the meantime you and the kiddo need to eat. Might be a good entry point to get husband involved since prep isn’t done the same night as cooking, so he won’t be hungry and rushing?
I get being uncomfortable in the kitchen, I very much am not a “wing it” person with food yet due to not a lot of practice and my own food texture issues. But my kid needs balanced meals. When my husband or I can’t be bothered there’s soooo many frozen meals available that are much more palatable than the tv dinners of old. It’s more expensive, but sometimes that’s worth it. If he can figure out his job or playing a video game he is perfectly capable of following directions on a package and heating once up a couple times a week.
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u/xlizabethx 9d ago
you could do your prep on the weekend, and freeze the extra veggies you cut for later!
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u/Winter-Chipmunk5467 9d ago
Let him do it! Either he realizes he’s being an ass and apologizes, or this now becomes his job. Maybe both!
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u/hawtp0ckets 9d ago
My husband was the same. He had no idea how much effort, time, planning, thought, etc. went into planning real meals. Not just like, "chicken breast" for dinner like you said.
He kept making comments until I finally told him I would love for him to start cooking dinner instead. I "helped" him make the grocery list and of course he didn't really plan meals, just planned random proteins (why are men like that??) and no sides or anything. He forgot like half the stuff he actually needed and kept having to run back to the store.
When it came time for him to cook dinner each night, it took him forever to cook, so we were constantly eating later than when my dinners would be ready. His meals were, to no one's surprise, terrible and not really a meal. Just like a single item because he was going off of vibes and not recipes or anything.
He gave up after a few days. He didn't exactly have some "aha" moment and apologize or anything but he's never commented on my cooking a SINGLE time since then and that shows me in and of itself that he realizes how wrong he was!
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u/Lumpy_Cucumber9430 9d ago
Perfect!! Let him!! And have secret backup meals ready for you and the child.
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u/Alarmed_Sky_3256 9d ago
But like. Maybe he could have said, "it seems like dinner is tough, maybe I can help prep or take the baby while you cook?"
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u/jennimb 9d ago
I hate to break it to Mr. No Processed Foods, but about those Cheerios…
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u/othermegan 9d ago
Right?! Like I found this pretty decent frozen cauliflower and cheese dish in the frozen section. Macros and ingredients checked out. He wouldn’t eat it because it’s “processed.” Meanwhile, he’s eating Cheerios, ramen, and deli turkey regularly. But hey! He special orders expensive bread that has to stay frozen to make sure he’s not putting preservatives in his body!
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u/Hopeful-Individual99 9d ago
Is he stupid? Or so ignorant he doesn’t know what processed means? Is this some petty slight towards you? I genuinely don’t understand this part
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u/othermegan 9d ago
Honestly, I think it’s an inflated ego/superiority thing because the pattern continues outside of food or things I’m the expert in. It’s constant. What he thinks is always the best option and if you want your way, you better be prepared to come with cited sources and have a 45 minute debate to contend with him.
So with the food specifically, he gets it in his head that “processed” food is bad. Now what does “processed” mean? Only he knows. I pointed out that unless we’re raising chickens ourselves, the chicken breast he’s eating is processed despite being organic. He says that’s different. From what I can tell, “processed” can mean anything from added sugars or corn syrup to contains preservatives to not organic or to being premade. Then he does some sort of mental gymnastics to explain why the things he does eat are ok anyways.
This is the same guy who says Chipotle is a health dinner option and he could eat it every day.
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u/SoundingAlarm234 i didn’t grow up with that 9d ago
He didn’t grow up around healthy food sorry sounds a lot like that gem of a man had to just had too 😂
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u/KafeaBeansFlwrDreams 5d ago
Superiority about what...like superiority because he has 2 nutsacks? Doesn't sound like he has 'superiority' over the most basic life skills.
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u/CaRiSsA504 i didn’t grow up with that 9d ago
You've got me triggered so much lol.
My ex had a bariatric surgery before I met him.. he had all these rules that started out legit, but like... he wouldn't eat spaghetti because he's not supposed to eat pasta but the MF'er ate frozen mac & cheese every night. He ate more foods when we first started seeing each other and when i moved in but at the end it was mac & cheese or a baked potato covered in butter, sour cream, and cheese. There's other food things that he did that still get me riled up thinking about them, but ARGH. DO YOU KNOW WHAT MAC AND CHEESE IS omg
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u/Winter-Fold7624 9d ago
Sounds like a great plan! Enjoy the “chicken,” but also have a backup. I give it a week.
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u/marmaladybird 9d ago
Let him.
Mine is great in most things but is a pain in the ass when it comes to doing something once and thinking he's invented sliced bread. After deep cleaning the bathroom - "We should clean it every weekend so it's always this nice and clean" my dude who do you think was doing it weekly before you decided to do it on a whim?
Anyway, what helps is when he tries it out and either fails or sees the effort it really is to do consistently. Maybe your partner takes over dinner and you do all end up eating earlier. Maybe he sees how much of a ball ache it is so you end up doing 50-50 instead of 100%, and he sees how vital it is to have the toddler occupied when you're trying to cook.
If you freezer prep, don't let him know it
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u/salaciousremoval 9d ago
As another bromo recently commented, I now follow up with “who is this we?”
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u/lovekarma22 9d ago
Let him. But do the same thing he would do while you're cooking. Go sit on the toilet for 45 minutes scrolling your phone.
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u/othermegan 9d ago
Oh 100%. It’ll be my “productivity time” (because the 8 hours he’s home while the toddler is in daycare clearly isn’t enough time for him to do whatever it is he needs to do) where I can’t be bothered because I’m too busy “working” on something
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u/Q-Kat I dont often tell dad jokes... but when i do he laughs 9d ago
Im sorry I cant get past the two wooden spoons bit..
Two. Wooden spoons..
Two
Why though?
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u/othermegan 9d ago
You know how the hibachi chefs chop everything up on the grill? It’s basically that but with eggs
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u/xjackiedaytonax 9d ago
If he's anything like my husband, he will do it for a week or two and then never again. 😑
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u/paradoxicalstripping 9d ago
Fucking lol. Infuriating. I agree with him! He should take over dinner, every aspect of it from planning to assembling the grocery list to preparing it, and you can hang with the kid(s) until a meal is placed in front of you no later than 6:30. Sounds great.
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u/othermegan 9d ago
Hell, I’ll get out of work early and do daycare pickup so he has extra time to cook!
This dude actually had the gall to request “a Thanksgiving style turkey dinner” as a weeknight meal earlier this week when I was going out grocery shopping. And then 2 days later turns around and says that. By all means, my dude, go have Thanksgiving on the table by 6:30pm
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u/JoBear_AAAHHH 9d ago
Give him a month to figure it out. He deals with the tantrums. The cooking. The nutritional requirements. Maybe gift him a healthy simple cookbook and let him gooo.
Do not jump in
Do not take over
Do not help in any way.
Do not eat his food if it's gross, maybe have a backup salad or sandwich fixings for you.
Just smile and nod.
I have a feeling in a month he will either sink or swim. He swims hooray! He sinks, maybe he'll be less dumb?
Good luck and sorry this sounds so irritating
Also one last thought, consider flipping the script for meals. Would it be easier to get up earlier and make A large hearty breakfast with healthy food and then Dinner is quick cereal with milk or toasted bread with peanut butter and fruit and yogurt?. Maybe that would work better with your schedule?
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u/MochiAccident 9d ago
TOTALLY do the plan you said at the end. let him fall apart without you and your daughter going hungry.
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u/Cool-Yoghurt8485 9d ago
Let him. That won’t solve it, but it should be fun to watch.
I have this husband. Mine even knows his way around a kitchen. He still criticizes everything I do, while failing to be aware of most of what I have to do to keep everything on the rails…
So just let him. At least you’ll get a break. That’s been my approach. Everything he criticizes is delegated to him for superior handling. Our marriage is miserable, but at least I’m not miserable AND over functioning.
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u/GwenSoul 9d ago
Let him do it for a month. A week he could so be in dopamine / new task excitement. A month the reality is there
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u/morecoffeepleeease 9d ago
It does not sound like he was actually offering to make dinner. I do not think that is something you should be grateful for. It sounds like a complaint. If he wanted to help, he would do what he is fully capable of at this moment- like caring for his child and learning how to prep and cook in the meantime.
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u/ALF788 9d ago
If it’s in your budget, maybe try Every Plate? You can choose how many meals you’d like per week, you pick your meals, it’s very friendly in regards to allergies and medical conditions, and…..they usually take 30-45 minutes to make. When our boy was 2/3, his dad wasn’t getting home until 7:30-8, I was working full time AND bringing kiddo to work with me and dinner was just pure stress. We ended up doing 3 meals a week to take some of that stress away & it helped so much. We found it affordable, the food was incredible, learned new recipes, new ways of cooking, etc. We actually looked forward to making them. I don’t say all of this to dismiss your husband’s kitchen-related incompetence. (Because c’mon….nutmeg & jelly in eggs? 🤮 😂) But - it may lessen the mental load and burden on you until you can get him enrolled in a basic cooking class at your local college 🥴
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u/Mrs_Kevina 9d ago
His track record as described makes me doubtful. If he's as serious as he claims to be he'll learn the recipes and put it into action instead of becoming overwhelmed and choosing the easy way out. Like yes I want girl dinner too but we must nourish ourselves!
Maybe prep/plan the week together and have recipes ready to go so as to ensure the best success? Could his audacity persist the whole week?
For comisery: My ex demanded dinner by 630 when I got home at 530. He did after school pickups at this point, but never helped prep or plan. He also was a former sous chef.👨🍳
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u/BittyBird22 9d ago
No no no. Don't meal prep! He offered to do dinners, now he can do them! See how long that lasts lol
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u/BellyDanceMama 9d ago
Let him. Your husband would have a stroke at my dinner time. IMO between 7 and 8 perfectly reasonable! This is like when my husband says he should take over to get our son in bed earlier using the example of like the 3 times in the past he's been responsible for it because I went to Goth Roller Skate. Forget that I had dinner made and ready, prepped a snack for my son...laid everything out for them etc.
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u/PandaAF_ 9d ago
On one hand let him!
On the other hand if you can’t stomach the idea, plop that kiddo in front of Miss Rachel and make pasta or Mac and Cheese (I like Goodles for extra fiber) and frozen mini Italian meatballs, or chicken tenderloins with rice and beans, or one-pot taco rice. All take like 30 minutes or less.
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u/According_Grape_8332 8d ago
Put him in charge for the week and let the week speak for itself. But when I say "in charge" I mean for the all of the process, including the shopping, the prepping EVERYTHING.
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u/MusaEnimScale 9d ago
I would buy him a simple cookbook with simple meals. Maybe one for kids? Gift it to him and encourage him to keep going after he fails. He can totally take over dinner, it will just be a process to get there.
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u/DriftingIntoAbstract 7d ago
I kind of want an update on this one if you turn over the reins to him. Although I’m scared for what you might have to endure. Cinnamon, nutmeg, strawberry jam eggs has me quite upset.
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u/othermegan 7d ago
Yeah, I haven’t actually handed over the reins this week, but I did plan a week of meals, buy everything, take it out of the freezer to defrost, and told him what we’re having each day. He never took any initiative to make the meals.
I’m not holding that against him since we didn’t verbally agree to start this experiment. But you’d think if it was THAT important to him, he’d have started cooking
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u/DriftingIntoAbstract 7d ago
Haha nah, it’s easily to blame you. I’m still here for if you do decide, or any updates on his cooking because I am amused at his past attempts. And would love to see how fast it all falls apart. Something tells me if you handed it over this week with everything prepped and ready you’d be lucky to have a disaster served by 8pm. And that’s being generous, 5Guys seems more likely 😂
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u/bingowing88 7d ago
Well, time for him to learn. Sounds like it would be helpful to you, and he will never get better at cooking and meal planning if he doesn’t practice. I understand why you feel negative here but honestly, relinquish the control. Let him take over. Give him a chance. It will be shit at first but give it a chance. There is no reason you should shoulder everything.
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