I LOVE how H always finds a way to belittle my cooking!

[Mapper71]

So I’ll start off by saying I’m not a good cook. I never had to cook growing up because my mom was a stay-at-home mom and home all the time and she never even really wanted me to cook. Plus, I was always happy with salads and pasta so when I moved out on my own, that’s pretty much what I ate. So H is the cook in our house. I’ll make tuna casserole, scrambled eggs, hummus, macaroni salad, grilled cheese and that’s about my limit. Well Sunday he asked me to make breakfast and he asked me to make bacon scrambled eggs and English muffin. I have never cooked bacon before but figured it can’t be hard. Well I was wrong. I put it on medium/medium low and it started getting really brown and then the smoke alarm went off and then it was black. I wasn’t blasting it with heat and it still burned. He didn’t say a word to me even though later he goes “Well I knew you had it on too high, I could smell it but I don’t want to tell you how to do something because you get mad”. Yes I get mad when you tell me to make something for you and then come in every 5 minutes and tell me I should be doing something differently when I’m not doing anything wrong, just not your way. Just give me directions and then leave me to it. But if something is burning then say something! Well I heard about the bacon incident ALL day and was fed up with him.

 

Then 2 days ago, on his day off, he sent me this recipe on Facebook that looked really good. He said that he’d pick up the few ingredients for it on his way home the next night and make it. Well last night he had to stop at the grocery store to deposit his check (because his company apparently is the last company on earth who doesn’t do direct deposit) but didn’t bother to get any of the items he said he was. He was right there in the store and couldn’t do it! He gets home and says “I’m tired” (which he says practically every night) and then says he didn’t feel like grabbing any of the items and that I can do it on my Friday grocery run. Gee thanks. Then he says “Do you want to make a salad and some grilled cheese?” I say sure. I make the salad and put that aside, then I make the grilled cheese. I put it on low because otherwise it starts to burn. I go in the other room and he comes out and says “It’s burning” and I know it’s not because I just looked at it and it wasn’t even brown. Then 10 minutes later he comes out again and says “It’s burning” and once again it’s not, it’s just finally got brown on one side. I say to him I have it on low so it won’t burn and he goes, well low isn’t always best. You need to put it at the correct heat so it gets done on time. No matter if I have it on high or low it’s never right. Finally I say to him “The grilled cheese is perfectly brown and now we can eat”. I set up everything on the table and he comes out and sits down and goes “What, no soup”? I slammed my fork down and go “You asked me to make a salad and grilled cheese and said nothing about soup”. He goes “Well I mean come on….if we’re having grilled cheese we always have soup”. The two times you came out to check on the grilled cheese, did you see any soup on the stove??! I say “I can make some soup, it will only take 5 minutes”. He sighs and goes “No I’ll just get by with this….but soup would have been nice.”

 

I am so fed up of trying to make him dinner the best I can, because he says he’s tired and asks me to do it, and then all I ever seem to get is him upset because it isn’t cooked right or he feels the need to come out every 5 minutes to check on it. If that’s the case, why doesn’t he just cook it?! I don’t need to be belittled every time I cook.

[Ronni_W]

Hi Mapper71.

 

I'm also not a good cook - one time I turned an ordinary frozen meat patty into a charcoal briquette in the microwave oven. . I still get ribbed about that, 10+ years later, but it's good-natured...which doesn't sound like what's going on between you and your husband.

 

It sounds like a big power-struggle. I don't see the problem that he decided to wait until later in the week before you both got to try the dish for whatever recipe he sent on FaceBook.

 

At the same time, my cooking skills are not as bad as you make yours out to be. In both my marriages, my husband was the main chef and I the happy dishwasher and cleaner-upper. BUT I did take it upon myself to learn how to also put a decent meal on the table...and even 3 or 4 fancy dessert recipes that I mastered. .

 

If it's something that you want to improve upon - for your own self much more so than just to please your husband - then there are ways...from taking some basic-cooking classes to just watching a few of these ubiquitous cooking shows on TV or YouTube or live-streaming. (Which, I personally really enjoy these shows. Not so much to improve my cooking skills, but one can also acquire all sorts of cooking knowledge and how-to tips.)

 

If this is the only point of power struggle and conflict in your marriage, then it would seem that there is a relatively easy fix. Your husband, of course, also needs to up his own game and stop being snarky and critical of your efforts.

 

Wishing you both the best.

[aileD]

Tell him women don't like to have sex with their fathers.

[SJS]

Serve him cereal for dinner.

[mikeylo]

Your marriage has run its course.

[NTV]

Feels good to get all this out doesn't it?

 

My wife used to do that kinda stuff to me. So what I started doing is finding stuff to cook that I liked and wanted to try to make for myself. Easy stuff like soups first. And then. .. well you don't need the history of my cooking lol.

 

I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe you should try to expand you cooking ability for you on the thin you like. I'm sure you like more foods than what you know how to make. I think most folks fit in that category. So why not try to learn more? But for you not him.

 

Crock pots are a good place to start and if you prep them the day before don't take much work at all.

 

As far as belittling you. .. I don't know that it sounds intentional at all. How are you with taking constructive criticism?

[Mapper71]

Hi Mapper71.

 

I'm also not a good cook - one time I turned an ordinary frozen meat patty into a charcoal briquette in the microwave oven. . I still get ribbed about that, 10+ years later, but it's good-natured...which doesn't sound like what's going on between you and your husband.

 

It sounds like a big power-struggle. I don't see the problem that he decided to wait until later in the week before you both got to try the dish for whatever recipe he sent on FaceBook.

 

At the same time, my cooking skills are not as bad as you make yours out to be. In both my marriages, my husband was the main chef and I the happy dishwasher and cleaner-upper. BUT I did take it upon myself to learn how to also put a decent meal on the table...and even 3 or 4 fancy dessert recipes that I mastered. .

 

If it's something that you want to improve upon - for your own self much more so than just to please your husband - then there are ways...from taking some basic-cooking classes to just watching a few of these ubiquitous cooking shows on TV or YouTube or live-streaming. (Which, I personally really enjoy these shows. Not so much to improve my cooking skills, but one can also acquire all sorts of cooking knowledge and how-to tips.)

 

If this is the only point of power struggle and conflict in your marriage, then it would seem that there is a relatively easy fix. Your husband, of course, also needs to up his own game and stop being snarky and critical of your efforts.

 

Wishing you both the best.

 

Oh and I will clean the HELL out of everything. I'm a neatnik and he could care less. I tell him I have no problem cleaning up after dinner, but I'm just not a good cook and I just get anxious when I have to cook. I come home from work tired at times too, but after getting home I have vacuumed (we have cats so constant fur everywhere), scrubbed the kitchen floor, cleaned the bathrooms, put laundry in, emptied the dishwasher before he gets home 1 1/2 later. And once a week I'll mow the yard. He always says "Well if you'd let the grass grow a bit I'd mow it". No you won't. I let the yard go two weeks once and it was so long but he always had an excuse as to why he couldn't do it. I ended up doing it. He has never cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed, scrubbed the floor or mowed the yard. Yet I don't get all uppity at him because he doesn't do any those things, but it seems like when he gets home and sees me sitting on the couch he gets all snarky that he has to cook on top of just getting home. Well I just spent an hour cleaning the house. Or even better was when he got home on a Friday and I had spent an hour cleaning the house and then had just finished mowing the yard as he pulled in the driveway. I'm covered in grass and dirt and sweat and he goes "What's for dinner? Are you cooking?" Dude I have been going nonstop since I got home and just because you get home 2 hours later than me (I go in 2 hours earlier than him so we work the same amount and have the same commute give or take 10 minutes) you apparently think that you have worked way harder than I have and you deserve to sit in front of your computer to unwind. Hell, I STILL haven't unwound from being home 3 hours, but I"m expected to make dinner as well.

[d0nnivain]

I'm a lousy cook too but you can learn. If he's willing to teach you perhaps this is something you can do together to enrich your marriage.

 

 

If you can't handle being taught by him, look on You Tube. Seriously there are food prep videos that are so helpful. It's how DH & I learned to carve a chicken / turkey. Neither of us knew how. So we got the bird & the lap top & followed along. Now it's easy.

[Gemma1]

I was a horrible cook at first too. I grew up living with my grandmother and she and my mom were excellent cooks but never taught me to cook. I guess I never showed an interest, so I don't blame them. I thought I was the only woman in the world to not know how to cook bacon by the time she started a family, guess I was wrong. I literally did the exact same thing you did, it completely baffled me how it went from perfectly okay-looking to burnt to bits in about 0.75 seconds

 

Anyway...I gotta ask, is this cooking issue the ONLY issue in your marriage? Because I have to be honest, it sounds like this is a symptom of a bigger problem. It sounds like your husband has no respect for you and maybe you have little for him also.

 

If it's JUST about cooking, then I'll tell you my secret. Follow those simple "Tasty" recipes on Facebook (there are quite a few pages devoted to those types of recipes). There are a ton of really easy, great dishes on there. It's how I learned to cook and now I can do some pretty cool stuff in the kitchen. If it helped me, it can help anyone. And it was pretty fun to learn, too.

[amaysngrace]

He sounds awful. Why doesn't he take care of the cooking if he knows so much more about it than you do?

 

Do you even have an appetite after all that?

[d0nnivain]

Since you both work, perhaps you could consider getting a housekeeper to give yourselves a break. Also look into those meal delivery services; they make cooking really easy.

[GunslingerRoland]

He sounds like kinda a jerk, he doesn't need to be so condescending and he can find more ways to help out around the house.

 

However I will say, it's really inconvenient when the person who is home earlier can't cook at all. That is my situation right now, and it's frustrating on busy days trying to rush home and quickly cook.

 

I guess bottom line, is make him do some cleaning and at the same time learn the basics of cooking. (If the only way you know to not burn something is putting the stove on low, you'd better start at the very beginning)

[basil67]

Apparently you do LOVE his behaviour - because you're still there with him after all these threads grumbling about him. If he was truly as bad as you write, you'd be gone by now.

 

My mother was also a stay at home mum and I didn't need to cook. But I learned how to cook when I left home at age 17. And I'm an excellent cook now - I can't remember the last time we had to order emergency pizza. It was all learned through trial and error.

 

If you don't want to learn to cook, that's your prerogative. But cooking is a basic life skill. Don't blame your lack of interest on your upbringing.

Edited April 26, 2017 by basil67

[SoulCat]

There's no excuse for not being able to put together a few basic meals together so you don't have to constantly rely on someone else to cook or stick to the very small handful of things you can make.

Many tasty, nutritious meals don't require any high levels of culinary skills.

 

As another poster pointed out, there are tonnes of step-by-step tutorials on YouTube, or Tasty on Buzzfeed and Facebook.

You can read, so therefore you can follow a recipe from a foodie site or indeed from a nice 'old-fashioned' cookbook.

 

I think this whole cooking business is just another reason for you and your husband to snipe and complain to each other about.

Just another avenue to take potshots at one another.

 

 

Cooking, gardening, travel, going out, work, hobbies, finances.

Where does it end? You two can't seem to be on the same page on just about anything.

 

In fact, you don't actually seem to like or respect each other very much at all.

[Blanco]

Why did you two get married? Did you ever love each other? Sounds like you've disliked/loathed each other for a long time, and if I recall, you haven't been married that long.

[Blanco]

If you don't want to learn to cook, that's your prerogative. But cooking is a basic life skill. Don't blame your lack of interest on your upbringing.

 

I grew up in a home where almost no cooking took place. I was probably almost 20 before I knew how to do even basic things around a stove.

 

I would not say I'm a great cook, but I know a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to preparing stuff that looks and tastes good. As someone who cares about his physical appearance, I find myself cooking something at least once a day. In fact, I just finished dinner, which was a pretty dang good chicken dish that was the culmination of overnight brining followed by marinating before meat met the grill.

 

Not only are the results good, but I find the prep process a bit calming. Cleanup, on the other hand, is the bane of my existence, and really the only reason I don't cook even more.

 

This is my long-winded way of saying that I agree with you about upbringing not being an excuse. If anything, it made me more determined to educate myself about cooking, because I didn't wanna be the guy in his mid-40s eating Totinos pizzas and Hot Pockets.

[Birdies]

He sucks. I'm not a great cook either, and my exH loved/was very good at it. When I did cook, he was so encouraging and enthusiastic. Your guy sounds like kind of a whiny man child.

 

I would sit him down and tell hm how much his criticism / judgement hurts you.

Edited April 28, 2017 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
language~T

[Mapper71]

There's no excuse for not being able to put together a few basic meals together so you don't have to constantly rely on someone else to cook or stick to the very small handful of things you can make.

Many tasty, nutritious meals don't require any high levels of culinary skills.

 

As another poster pointed out, there are tonnes of step-by-step tutorials on YouTube, or Tasty on Buzzfeed and Facebook.

You can read, so therefore you can follow a recipe from a foodie site or indeed from a nice 'old-fashioned' cookbook.

 

I think this whole cooking business is just another reason for you and your husband to snipe and complain to each other about.

Just another avenue to take potshots at one another.

 

 

Cooking, gardening, travel, going out, work, hobbies, finances.

Where does it end? You two can't seem to be on the same page on just about anything.

 

In fact, you don't actually seem to like or respect each other very much at all.

 

I don't NEED him to cook for me at all! I'm perfectly happy having salad or pasta or soup on a daily basis and prefer going meat free. However he isn't, so I sit there until he feels like making something because if I start making myself a salad he'll bitch that I'm not making him anything, but he doesn't want a salad he wants a 3 course dinner which of course I'll **** up royally! So I can try and make it because he's "too tired" (but of course he doesn't think I am even though I spent an hour cleaning the house!) but then he'll come out every 5 minutes checking on things, turning down the stove, telling me to cut the carrots horizontally and not vertically, remaking the meat patties because they aren't up to his standards. But remember, he was too tired to cook dinner, but he's not too tired to come out and nitpick and redo everything I'm doing. So why does he insist I do this but then come out and redo everything "his" way?! Or else he'll stay out of the kitchen and I'll cook something and he'll barely touch it because it's not cooked right or it's cold.

[SoulCat]

You say you get in an hour and a half before him, so how about you make a simple casserole, stew or pasta bake. Stick it in the oven or on the stove and (while keeping an eye on it) you go about all that cleaning and scrubbing you do.

 

Then when your husband gets home from work, dinner is either ready or way too far into the cooking process for him to do anything about how you put it together.

 

If he then decides he doesn't like it or doesn't want to eat it, he can go and make his own dinner.

 

 

Bonus for you, no need to cook the next evening because you can have his left-over portion from the night before.

Edited April 28, 2017 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
topical content retained ~T

[SoleMate]

Your H does sound rather a PITA. It might be good for you to contemplate the reasons that led you to marry him to see if those are still there and you can take comfort or joy from them. At this point it seems hopeless to control or change HIM, so assuming you don't want to leave, the thing to do is to change your marriage by changing yourself.

 

Any interest in that?

[Mapper71]

You say you get in an hour and a half before him, so how about you make a simple casserole, stew or pasta bake. Stick it in the oven or on the stove and (while keeping an eye on it) you go about all that cleaning and scrubbing you do.

 

Then when your husband gets home from work, dinner is either ready or way too far into the cooking process for him to do anything about how you put it together.

 

If he then decides he doesn't like it or doesn't want to eat it, he can go and make his own dinner.

 

 

Bonus for you, no need to cook the next evening because you can have his left-over portion from the night before.

 

I can make a good tuna casserole, although last time I made it he complained he didn't feel well afterwards so I haven't made it since. And also the problem is I never know if he's even hungry when he gets home. Half the time he'll tell me he isn't really hungry for whatever reason and may not even want dinner so I'm not going to have something waiting for him if he's not going to eat it and then I have no desire to eat if I spent time making something for him only to have him tell me he's not hungry. Other times he'll be ravishing. Yet other times if I do have something ready he'll go "Yeah I went out for lunch and had something like that and am not really feeling like that tonight, sorry. Let's order out." Well why should I bother then if you're either not hungry or poo-poo what I made because it's similar to your lunch?

Edited April 28, 2017 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[mercy]

I can make a good tuna casserole, although last time I made it he complained he didn't feel well afterwards so I haven't made it since. And also the problem is I never know if he's even hungry when he gets home. Half the time he'll tell me he isn't really hungry for whatever reason and may not even want dinner so I'm not going to have something waiting for him if he's not going to eat it and then I have no desire to eat if I spent time making something for him only to have him tell me he's not hungry. Other times he'll be ravishing. Yet other times if I do have something ready he'll go "Yeah I went out for lunch and had something like that and am not really feeling like that tonight, sorry. Let's order out." Well why should I bother then if you're either not hungry or poo-poo what I made because it's similar to your lunch?

 

Sit down together on Sunday and make out a weekly menu.

[NTV]

So what do you want from us?

[basil67]

I can make a good tuna casserole, although last time I made it he complained he didn't feel well afterwards so I haven't made it since.

 

This is a very bizarre reaction from you. Mostly food sits well, but sometimes it doesn't. It's silly to quit making a meal because once it didn't sit well.

[Gemma1]

Have you ever thought about...I dunno...calling/texting him before he leaves work and asking him his hunger level and what he thinks about x,y,or z for dinner?

 

This isn't rocket science. Just ask him what time he would like dinner to be ready on any given day and what his preference is.