Division of labor in a relationship - my rant

Iā€™m
hearlady said:
Start cooking badly. You can blame it on cognitive decline.
Click to expand...
Good idea but then he has to suffer needlessly and waste food.

My husband often cooks stuff I donā€™t eat. This is what he cooked tonight. Itā€™s haddock, rice, scallops, with red onion, garlic and lemon juice with red pepper flakes.
IMG_4223.jpeg
There are many things I make that he doesnā€™t like so we donā€™t always eat together.

Sometimes we get together and decide to put something together in our slow cooker or instaā€™ pot. Occasionally we will pick a new recipe and make it together.

Turn it into a date. Get some fancy candles, light them and make a dinner together. What great about slow cookers is that you can put all your ingredients in the slow cooker, go out for the day, and come back to a full meal.

Itā€™s nice going out and coming back to a precooked meal is really nice. The great thing is that thereā€™s little to no dishes to do.

Make it interesting. Get creative. Go shopping for the new recipe ingredients and make it fun together.

Tell her that you miss her cooking, her recipe ideas even if you have to exaggerate some.
 
PeppermintPatty said:
Iā€™m

Good idea but then he has to suffer needlessly and waste food.

My husband often cooks stuff I donā€™t eat. This is what he cooked tonight. Itā€™s haddock, rice, scallops, with red onion, garlic and lemon juice with red pepper flakes.
View attachment 311230
There are many things I make that he doesnā€™t like so we donā€™t always eat together.

Sometimes we get together and decide to put something together in our slow cooker or instaā€™ pot. Occasionally we will pick a new recipe and make it together.

Turn it into a date. Get some fancy candles, light them and make a dinner together. What great about slow cookers is that you can put all your ingredients in the slow cooker, go out for the day, and come back to a full meal.

Itā€™s nice going out and coming back to a precooked meal is really nice. The great thing is that thereā€™s little to no dishes to do.

Make it interesting. Get creative. Go shopping for the new recipe ingredients and make it fun together.

Tell her that you miss her cooking, her recipe ideas even if you have to exaggerate some.
Click to expand...
That looks delicious!
 
Pinky said:
Can you pre-cook a casserole or two to freeze?
Click to expand...
Tomato sauce w meatballs, stuffed peppers, and enchiladas are some of our typical freezer fare. Sometimes she has frozen commercial backup dinners, like Indian or whatever - we're starved for ethnic foods except MX. I guess I could make a bigger inventory for the freezer to get us through the "hard times."
 
She made a roast chicken, w roast potatoes and brussel sprouts and a salad. It was much appreciated and I told her so several times. Turns out she bought chicken breasts for chicken cutlets and portabella mushrooms for tomorrow, too. Cutlets we have all the time but portabella mushrooms virtually never. And she spoke like she wanted to cook again tomorrow!!! She hates it though. LOL Once in a while it's great for me.

So as we're eating she gave herself some feedback out loud and asked me what I thought. I gave her some minor pointers about how big to cut the veg, where in the oven to make things brown or not, and why the chicken took 45 mins longer than she expected. I then cleared the table and did the dishes by myself.

Our 25 yo daughter just called and you could tell she was very proud of her effort as she was telling her she was relaxing as I did the dishes. I'm hoping that a few suggestions I picked up here and a little more effort from both of us dinner goes back to being more fun and less of chore. Thanks all!
 
@againstthegrain does your wife respond well to direct communication or do you gotta beat around the bush with her? I would suggest talking to her and telling her point blank your sick of it and would like to sit down a few nights a week and do something else or switch roles a few nights a week. You been together long enough you should be able to talk this out right?
 
MarciKS said:
@againstthegrain does your wife respond well to direct communication or do you gotta beat around the bush with her? I would suggest talking to her and telling her point blank your sick of it and would like to sit down a few nights a week and do something else or switch roles a few nights a week. You been together long enough you should be able to talk this out right?
Click to expand...
She listens, but a quiet convo w a request rarely results in any significant change. I think this is somewhere btwn the 5-10th time we've had the "talk" about dinner.

We just had a nice chat about tonight. She is making a test recipe, stuffed potabellas, to use at Tgiving for our vegan niece and I'm making the rest of tonights dinner. I consider this a MAJOR victory

Perhaps it was the full moon or lunar eclipse on Saturday that has me all whacked out.
 
My wife & I trade off on the cooking. That can be that I cook every other night... but sometimes one of us will cook enough for two nights. Then next, the other one will do the same. That's kind of a welcome change of rhythm. Every so often we just search in the freezer for something bought frozen, so neither of us has to cook!

Division of labor more generally, I plant a large vegetable garden, she plants the kitchen (salad) garden, with a lot of flowers too. She manages our cold-room pantry, organizes closets, does the larger share of the laundry, etc. I do the rototilling, mowing, and handyman stuff, maintain machinery, manage the winter's firewood, etc. We share harvest chores. She grocery shops, I do all the dishes.

One thing we've found: it seems to feel beneficial, within our arrangement around the cooking, that we sometimes cook a meal together. Share the peeling, slicing, chopping & all that sort of thing. Reduces the tedious aspect once in a while.
 
Well we've had a few weeks now and the first week went great, the 2nd we had another blow up. But it's much better than it was, of course, she doesn't want to cook, but she's trying. I've made a few things for the freezer so that's helped on occasion, we've sometimes each done a part and I do wash dishes and clean up after she cooks which is perhaps once a week. She's had a few revelations about exactly how hard it is to time everything.

It was pretty funny hearing her sister-in-laws that still work complaining about doing all the day to day cooking when we were all together over Thanksgiving. I think that hearing the complaint from someone other than me was helpful.
 
I was the primary cook most all of our married life. My husband worked long hours and I had a child to feed. Most often dinner and clean up was over long before he got home. There was always a covered dinner plate and a lunch made for him for the following day.

He was a very good cook. When he had more time, mostly weekends he would cook. One thing we would do is he would be in charge of proteins and I would do the sides. That worked out quite well. I find doing the protein is what takes the wind out of my sails.

He has passed now, the son grown and married. I had my Mom here for a couple of years before she went into care. She was the challenge, thought I was running a diner. Placed her order for the day when she woke up. And yes, there must be dessert. There at the end she wanted desert with breakfast. LOL

Now, just me I have what I want and what I feel up to cooking. I don't understand why she does not want to help. Sounds like you are a very considerate person. She needs to wake up and smell the coffee and do this.
Trust me, she is not going to want to do it the way I had to.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top