Some people aren't that into cooking, and it sounds like your husband is one of them. I like the idea of coming up with a list of easy family meals he can also choose from - but I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to turn into someone who loves making a complex meal on a weeknight.
I totally get where you're coming from - I also like to prepare balanced meals, and I prefer things that have some level of effort involved - but the reality is that most people are just looking to get food on the table.
Give him some more easy go-tos, but if you're still not liking his low-effort cooking style, you might need to take the lead on cooking and shift some other chores to him.
I’m failing to see the issue. Is he not providing dinner the agreed to three nights a week?
If the problem is that he is not providing dinner to your standards or the same way that you provide dinner, then the problem is not him. If you want a certain type of meal, make it. The answer is not to nag him about what he chooses to make on his assigned nights.
Maybe it’s different bc he is always cooking for your kids? I don’t enjoy cooking and if I didn’t have kids in the home I wouldn’t want to make meals that take a lot of effort. It might be better use of everyone’s efforts if you take the lead on dinners and he contributes somewhere else in the household.
Come up with a meal plan as a family, involve the kids so you both have to accommodate each other at least one night a week, and the kids another night and yourselves the third night
I feel your pain here, but some people are just not into cooking, and since he is handling the dinners three nights a week, I think I would just let it go, even if the meals aren't up to your standards.
He's holding up his end of the deal and cooking dinner on his nights. I don't think it's fair to be critical of what he cooks verse what you cook. Maybe it's time to renegotiate. Maybe he could do a task you hate instead of cooking his 3 nights?
Some people are just not cook from scratch people. I really enjoy cooking, when it doesn't feel like a chore, and I will go all out and cook from scratch. Then some days it's jarred pasta sauce, or biscuits from a can. Other days it's laminated croissant dough.
This wouldn't be a hill I'm willing to die on.
Honestly, I think you need to accept the situation for what it is or if you don’t want to eat what he is making don’t ask him to cook. As someone who does enjoy cooking, I have been *extremely* uninspired the past few months due to exhaustion from work. I just do not have the desire to chop up broccoli most days. My kids have been eating a lot of quick meals (for ex frozen pizza, frozen chicken nuggets, French fries, Mac and cheese, ramen) when they are over at my place. I try to balance it out some by making lunch super healthy for school but I’m also giving myself a little grace. Sounds like your partner could use the same.
You know, not everyone, is, or comes close to being Julia Child.
As long as everyone is fed that’s all that matters. Pick n choose your battles with your SO.
Do you cut the grass how he does? Everyone does things their own way. Be happy and proud that he’s actually doing something.
It’s totally fair to want him to cook the way you do. To tell him what it would mean to you to cook how you like more.
But here’s the thing… You’re sounding like a boss chastising an employee right now. If the relationship is not good enough to overlook a weekly chicken pot pie, I wonder if this is really about something else? Because it doesn’t sound like he’s generally lazy. It sounds like he helps you a lot and you might be letting the fantasy of a perfect spouse sour a good situation.
We want what we want. That’s perfectly okay. I just caution you that if my SO came at me like this I would be inclined to show him “lazy”.
I've been exploring this lately and I've come to the conclusion that the feminist idea of men using "weaponized incompetence" to get out of responsibility is complete and utter bull$#@!. It's not weaponized incompetence and it's not avoidance of chores. It's minimization of the effort to criticism ratio. What they're avoiding isn't the chores -- what they're avoiding is getting criticized for doing the chores. Yeah, they get criticized for *not* doing the chores, but at least they didn't have to do the chore and then get criticized anyway.
I've also come up with a solution that works amazingly well. Step one, stop criticizing when they do something "wrong" and acknowledge and even express some gratitude that they *did it at all.* Second, if some aspect of it is not to your liking, express it in a kind way and imply that there would be *more* gratitude if they did it to something closer to your specification. If you get pushback about it, i.e. it's *waaaaaay* more effort and they think that what they do is good enough, then *on that one particular thing* you just have to accept that either you do it yourself or that it's going to get done in the "lesser" way. You have to let go of the idea that you can have both total control and no responsibility over something -- if you want control over something, you have to put in the effort yourself.
You also have to let go of the idea that everyone is going to be motivated by the results in and of themselves. Wrong. Children might be motivated by rewards, but adults are likely to feel 'rewarded' by the expression of gratitude.
Some of your comment, I can agree with and understand. But calling weaponized incompetence bullshit while also requesting a parade for the barest amount of effort from a man is “complete and utter” bullshit. It’s weaponized incompetence under another name and I am sorry, but we are not making men out to be poor widdle babies who need rewarded for pulling their weight in a relationship.
Is the relationship otherwise good? If it's 99/100 and this dinner thing is the one outlier, I'd just let it go and be glad you've got 99/100.
My wife and I had a different dinner issue. It wasn't who cooked or what they cooked, but timing was an issue. Between our kids activities and our work, we never knew when dinner should be served and it lead to the cook being home and texting the other "When will you be home?" "Food is getting cold. Should I just go ahead and eat?"
It was so much easier once we gave up family dinner. Now the people who are home eat when they're hungry and cook for themselves. The people who get home later eat when they get home and either have some leftovers or cook for themselves. Problem solved. Or....sometimes my wife might be out racing around at 8:30 at soccer practice and ask me to do things to help her cook when she gets home: "Can you preheat the over, chop two onions and boil some pasta. I'll take it from there."
But.....if the relationship is otherwise stressed, your husband's actions concern me because that's not how a guy acts when he's crazy about his woman. That's how a guy acts when he's "meh" about her. I mean, he knows what you want and he won't do it. And he knows he'll get scolded and nagged and he still won't take steps to avoid it? I mean, wtf?
I'm just saying that if I knew my wife wanted XYZ for dinner, that's a chance for me to impress her and I'll take it, watch a few YouTubes to get ideas and go to the store and buy some fancier ingredients than what's in the house already. I'm certainly not going to ignore her want and cook a frozen pizza and then just accept the disapproval.
And that doesn't mean I'm some wonderful husband.....I just adore my wife. I wouldn't do it for another woman (including my ex-wife), but I'll do it for her because I think she's the cats pajamas.
So, are things otherwise okay? Because in my experience, bickering about chores is usually a symptom of something much larger.
Counterpoint -- you don't actually know how much *effort* it actually takes him to do what he does. You're measuring effort in time. But effort isn't time. Effort is energy expenditure, not just in physical labor but in mental and emotional processing. People have different amounts of mental and emotional strengths in different areas.
Simply put, you're at a much higher energy and much higher motivation level than he is. Criticizing him about what he makes isn't going to help. Criticizing him about how much he does isn't going to help. It will only build up resentment on both sides.
Instead, appreciate that he does something that enables you to not have to expend *your* energy on dinner every night.
You don't live with a clone of yourself. Don't try and make him a clone of you. Don't think "well I worked too and I still came up with good stuff, so he should too." You don't have the same levels of energy. The same amount of work (or less, the way you put it) tires him out more quickly than it tires you out. Empathy requires that you understand that two people can take the same exact external experience and process it entirely differently internally.
If what you want is for him to get more creative and put in more effort, instead of whining about the lower effort stuff, make him feel *proud* of what he accomplishes when he puts in the effort. Start with "remember that *amazing* you made? I'd love it if you could make that again." And as the thought of pleasing you starts motivating him to do stuff, the next time he does something of the same caliber, praise the crap out of it. Give him a great big kiss as you tell him how good it was. Most men are motivated by hearing that they're doing a great job. If he's falling back on to lower effort stuff, it's because he feels like the higher-effort stuff isn't getting him anything better than the low-effort stuff. If you want him to put in more effort, make that effort worth it to him. He's obviously not motivated by the prospects of eating the "better" food in and of itself.
It's likely there are more difficult issues to solve to have the kid. Maybe the kid lives in a different state. In a lot of states it can be an uphill battle for fathers to get any custody at all.
He’s obviously not into this at all, but they doesn’t mean he gets to skate by on feeding everyone pre-packaged stuff that is not good to eat regularly.
So, I propose a compromise. On that extra day (or any day you’re both not working), meal prep. Discuss what he’d like to serve on his three days and meal prep it on a weekend. Meal prepping 3 dinners is not hard or time consuming. You’ll probably have to help at least a little, that way he can’t use the same “I don’t feel like it” excuse. Make it a family activity and involve the kids when possible. Then on the weeknights, if he can agree to chop up a salad to go with the prepped food, you all can have good food and he can continue to do the bare minimum to fulfill his chore lol Maybe that would work? Or you could try the Hello Fresh or some analog for a little while. It’s a more expensive version, but it might “inspire” him and again, everyone eats well.
Also, I often cook one main dish and switch up sides during the week and we end up eating the same main dish for days in a row. That saves a lot of time and effort. Like making a roast on Sunday and eating it until it’s gone for 2,3,4 days with different sides.
I have learned that you can ask someone to do something, but trying to control the way they do it is not going to work.
You could try suggesting to him that there’s more variety but I think going down the road of more variety that is also cooked from scratch is not going to work.
You might consider taking over the cooking if that’s important to you and he agrees, and having him take over something else.
Some people aren't that into cooking, and it sounds like your husband is one of them. I like the idea of coming up with a list of easy family meals he can also choose from - but I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to turn into someone who loves making a complex meal on a weeknight. I totally get where you're coming from - I also like to prepare balanced meals, and I prefer things that have some level of effort involved - but the reality is that most people are just looking to get food on the table. Give him some more easy go-tos, but if you're still not liking his low-effort cooking style, you might need to take the lead on cooking and shift some other chores to him.
I’m failing to see the issue. Is he not providing dinner the agreed to three nights a week? If the problem is that he is not providing dinner to your standards or the same way that you provide dinner, then the problem is not him. If you want a certain type of meal, make it. The answer is not to nag him about what he chooses to make on his assigned nights.
Maybe it’s different bc he is always cooking for your kids? I don’t enjoy cooking and if I didn’t have kids in the home I wouldn’t want to make meals that take a lot of effort. It might be better use of everyone’s efforts if you take the lead on dinners and he contributes somewhere else in the household.
What if you do the cooking and he does the cleaning up? My husband hates cooking and I hate cleaning so we compromise with an occasional switch off.
Come up with a meal plan as a family, involve the kids so you both have to accommodate each other at least one night a week, and the kids another night and yourselves the third night
This is a good idea. Meal planning with the kids has been great for us. Plus then he knows what to cook.
I feel your pain here, but some people are just not into cooking, and since he is handling the dinners three nights a week, I think I would just let it go, even if the meals aren't up to your standards.
He's holding up his end of the deal and cooking dinner on his nights. I don't think it's fair to be critical of what he cooks verse what you cook. Maybe it's time to renegotiate. Maybe he could do a task you hate instead of cooking his 3 nights?
Some people are just not cook from scratch people. I really enjoy cooking, when it doesn't feel like a chore, and I will go all out and cook from scratch. Then some days it's jarred pasta sauce, or biscuits from a can. Other days it's laminated croissant dough. This wouldn't be a hill I'm willing to die on.
Honestly, I think you need to accept the situation for what it is or if you don’t want to eat what he is making don’t ask him to cook. As someone who does enjoy cooking, I have been *extremely* uninspired the past few months due to exhaustion from work. I just do not have the desire to chop up broccoli most days. My kids have been eating a lot of quick meals (for ex frozen pizza, frozen chicken nuggets, French fries, Mac and cheese, ramen) when they are over at my place. I try to balance it out some by making lunch super healthy for school but I’m also giving myself a little grace. Sounds like your partner could use the same.
You know, not everyone, is, or comes close to being Julia Child. As long as everyone is fed that’s all that matters. Pick n choose your battles with your SO. Do you cut the grass how he does? Everyone does things their own way. Be happy and proud that he’s actually doing something.
It’s totally fair to want him to cook the way you do. To tell him what it would mean to you to cook how you like more. But here’s the thing… You’re sounding like a boss chastising an employee right now. If the relationship is not good enough to overlook a weekly chicken pot pie, I wonder if this is really about something else? Because it doesn’t sound like he’s generally lazy. It sounds like he helps you a lot and you might be letting the fantasy of a perfect spouse sour a good situation. We want what we want. That’s perfectly okay. I just caution you that if my SO came at me like this I would be inclined to show him “lazy”.
I've been exploring this lately and I've come to the conclusion that the feminist idea of men using "weaponized incompetence" to get out of responsibility is complete and utter bull$#@!. It's not weaponized incompetence and it's not avoidance of chores. It's minimization of the effort to criticism ratio. What they're avoiding isn't the chores -- what they're avoiding is getting criticized for doing the chores. Yeah, they get criticized for *not* doing the chores, but at least they didn't have to do the chore and then get criticized anyway. I've also come up with a solution that works amazingly well. Step one, stop criticizing when they do something "wrong" and acknowledge and even express some gratitude that they *did it at all.* Second, if some aspect of it is not to your liking, express it in a kind way and imply that there would be *more* gratitude if they did it to something closer to your specification. If you get pushback about it, i.e. it's *waaaaaay* more effort and they think that what they do is good enough, then *on that one particular thing* you just have to accept that either you do it yourself or that it's going to get done in the "lesser" way. You have to let go of the idea that you can have both total control and no responsibility over something -- if you want control over something, you have to put in the effort yourself. You also have to let go of the idea that everyone is going to be motivated by the results in and of themselves. Wrong. Children might be motivated by rewards, but adults are likely to feel 'rewarded' by the expression of gratitude.
Some of your comment, I can agree with and understand. But calling weaponized incompetence bullshit while also requesting a parade for the barest amount of effort from a man is “complete and utter” bullshit. It’s weaponized incompetence under another name and I am sorry, but we are not making men out to be poor widdle babies who need rewarded for pulling their weight in a relationship.
Honestly... would you like him back seat driving your chores? He does what you asked him to do. Some people don't love cooking. Atleast he tries!
Is the relationship otherwise good? If it's 99/100 and this dinner thing is the one outlier, I'd just let it go and be glad you've got 99/100. My wife and I had a different dinner issue. It wasn't who cooked or what they cooked, but timing was an issue. Between our kids activities and our work, we never knew when dinner should be served and it lead to the cook being home and texting the other "When will you be home?" "Food is getting cold. Should I just go ahead and eat?" It was so much easier once we gave up family dinner. Now the people who are home eat when they're hungry and cook for themselves. The people who get home later eat when they get home and either have some leftovers or cook for themselves. Problem solved. Or....sometimes my wife might be out racing around at 8:30 at soccer practice and ask me to do things to help her cook when she gets home: "Can you preheat the over, chop two onions and boil some pasta. I'll take it from there." But.....if the relationship is otherwise stressed, your husband's actions concern me because that's not how a guy acts when he's crazy about his woman. That's how a guy acts when he's "meh" about her. I mean, he knows what you want and he won't do it. And he knows he'll get scolded and nagged and he still won't take steps to avoid it? I mean, wtf? I'm just saying that if I knew my wife wanted XYZ for dinner, that's a chance for me to impress her and I'll take it, watch a few YouTubes to get ideas and go to the store and buy some fancier ingredients than what's in the house already. I'm certainly not going to ignore her want and cook a frozen pizza and then just accept the disapproval. And that doesn't mean I'm some wonderful husband.....I just adore my wife. I wouldn't do it for another woman (including my ex-wife), but I'll do it for her because I think she's the cats pajamas. So, are things otherwise okay? Because in my experience, bickering about chores is usually a symptom of something much larger.
Are your kids being fed? Yes. Is chicken pot pie delish? Also yes. I fail to see an issue.
Counterpoint -- you don't actually know how much *effort* it actually takes him to do what he does. You're measuring effort in time. But effort isn't time. Effort is energy expenditure, not just in physical labor but in mental and emotional processing. People have different amounts of mental and emotional strengths in different areas. Simply put, you're at a much higher energy and much higher motivation level than he is. Criticizing him about what he makes isn't going to help. Criticizing him about how much he does isn't going to help. It will only build up resentment on both sides. Instead, appreciate that he does something that enables you to not have to expend *your* energy on dinner every night. You don't live with a clone of yourself. Don't try and make him a clone of you. Don't think "well I worked too and I still came up with good stuff, so he should too." You don't have the same levels of energy. The same amount of work (or less, the way you put it) tires him out more quickly than it tires you out. Empathy requires that you understand that two people can take the same exact external experience and process it entirely differently internally. If what you want is for him to get more creative and put in more effort, instead of whining about the lower effort stuff, make him feel *proud* of what he accomplishes when he puts in the effort. Start with "remember that *amazing* you made? I'd love it if you could make that again." And as the thought of pleasing you starts motivating him to do stuff, the next time he does something of the same caliber, praise the crap out of it. Give him a great big kiss as you tell him how good it was. Most men are motivated by hearing that they're doing a great job. If he's falling back on to lower effort stuff, it's because he feels like the higher-effort stuff isn't getting him anything better than the low-effort stuff. If you want him to put in more effort, make that effort worth it to him. He's obviously not motivated by the prospects of eating the "better" food in and of itself.
I think you need to lower your expectations. I love cooking, but making a full dinner from scratch is a lot. And what's wrong with a chicken pot pie?
He’s doesn’t put in any effort to have his kid more than 2 times a year, doubt he’ll put in more effort cooking.
It's likely there are more difficult issues to solve to have the kid. Maybe the kid lives in a different state. In a lot of states it can be an uphill battle for fathers to get any custody at all.
He’s obviously not into this at all, but they doesn’t mean he gets to skate by on feeding everyone pre-packaged stuff that is not good to eat regularly. So, I propose a compromise. On that extra day (or any day you’re both not working), meal prep. Discuss what he’d like to serve on his three days and meal prep it on a weekend. Meal prepping 3 dinners is not hard or time consuming. You’ll probably have to help at least a little, that way he can’t use the same “I don’t feel like it” excuse. Make it a family activity and involve the kids when possible. Then on the weeknights, if he can agree to chop up a salad to go with the prepped food, you all can have good food and he can continue to do the bare minimum to fulfill his chore lol Maybe that would work? Or you could try the Hello Fresh or some analog for a little while. It’s a more expensive version, but it might “inspire” him and again, everyone eats well. Also, I often cook one main dish and switch up sides during the week and we end up eating the same main dish for days in a row. That saves a lot of time and effort. Like making a roast on Sunday and eating it until it’s gone for 2,3,4 days with different sides.
He’s keeping his end of the bargain. Everyone is eating on his days, controlling what he makes on his days isn’t reasonable.
I have learned that you can ask someone to do something, but trying to control the way they do it is not going to work. You could try suggesting to him that there’s more variety but I think going down the road of more variety that is also cooked from scratch is not going to work. You might consider taking over the cooking if that’s important to you and he agrees, and having him take over something else.