It has become increasingly apparent over the last year that my husband will only cook foods that I don’t like. I am not a picky eater at all so there aren’t that many foods that I won’t eat, I’ll even usually eat foods that I don’t like. I was attributing his cooking choices to him just having the urge to eat foods that I don’t cook but I think it’s deeper than that.
Three days ago I metioned that I didn’t really like anything with tomato saice and chicken. I’ve made things with tomato sauce and chicken before and I’ll eat it. He’s not really crazy about the combination either and he’s never cooked it before unless that’s all we have. To us it’s just food. He acted surprised that I didn’t like it but we didn’t discuss it at length. He just came home from the store with ingredients to make chicken in tomato sauce.
The main other thing I don’t like is a lot of curry all the time. I like a little curry or curry once in a while but for the last year he’s been cooking only things with curry in increasing amounts until the last recipe had so much curry that even he wouldn’t eat it. Spicy spaghetti saice makes my stomach hurt so if he cooks spaghetti he always uses spicy sauce. Meanwhile I cannot put onions in anything because they make his stomach hurt and he refuses to eat sloppy joes on the rare occasion that I have a craving for them even though he’ll inhale them at a party.
I never say anything about it so I won’t now. I just think it’s interesting.
I cook all the time and I never ask him to cook. He just came home two hours early from work with ingredients to cook this recipe and started cooking right away. I was going to cook in an hour. Other times he cooks are if I work late enough that I can’t start something or if I won’t be home to eat. If I won’t be home to eat he doesn’t make curry anything or use spicy sauce.
It’s not like he’s cooking all the time and I’m whining that he never makes anything I like and I never cook. I try to cook things everyone likes and I normally only cook things he doesn’t like when I know he won’t be home. If I do put onions in the food he will compain all night and the next day about his stomach.
Have you asked him why he’s choosing to make foods you’ve specifically said you don’t like? Because that’s just weird. Is your marriage otherwise good?
He’s a pretty nice guy usually but occasionally he’ll just start doing an assholish thing. If I mention it he will just escalate the one issue so I don’t bother unless it’s important.
If I asked him he would deny it and argue that he doesn’t make things I don’t like all the time or that he didn’t know I don’t like something. From over 25 years of experience I know it’s not worth mentioning the small stuff that will just stop eventually.
If something gets out of hand I will just say “do you really think this makes me like you more?” and he’ll stop. I don’t say that very often though because I want it to work.
Why don’t you ask him about it? Or if you’re too shy to do so, gently remind him when you see the ingredients that you don’t like x, but he’s certainly welcome to cook x for himself while you cook yourself what you were planning to cook in the first place.
This sounds like a passive-aggressive attempt to piss you off. Do you guys have trouble in bed? Do you want sex more often than he does? Maybe he is thinking if dinner makes you feel under the weather, you’ll be too tired/weak/shittin’ kittens to feel sexy.
If nothing else, I really think that eating stuff that makes you feel icky just to make him happy is a bad idea. You should probably stop doing that. How you communicate that is up to you. Maybe keep the tomato sauce and the pasta separate, and just add cheese or vegetables and butter to yours? There’s a better option than just eating it and saying nothing.
AClockworkMelon HAHAHA I will definitely say something before I kill someone.
Rachelellogram I’m not shy about saying something, it’s just not worth the trouble for this. I can pick the chicken out of the tomato sauce and eat my spaghetti plain. I definitely am not eating things just to make him happy. I agree that it’s some passive aggresive message from him because that’s how he works. My own passive aggresive response is to ignore it because that will annoy him.
Yep, not the best way to deal with everything but for the small stuff it works for us. We can resolve large issues just fine with adult conversation.
Could you maybe sit down once a week and plan out your meals together? That way you can both have a say in what you’re eating. I do all the cooking in our house (garius does the washing up and cleans the flat) and i find it makes the shopping much easier if I plan the weeks meals a week in advance. It also cuts down on food wastage if you know when/how you’re going to use what you buy.
Why is he being passive aggressive to begin with? And why is it that if you say something bothers you, he’ll go out of his way to do it? That seems kind of creepy.
Maybe he got confused at some point, around the time you got married, and now he thinks that every day is Opposite Day. Was he hypnotized at a magic show, maybe?
Could the two of you collaborate on a weekly menu, and see how that works out? You have to be on the same page as a couple, and right now you’re not even in the same cookbook, so to speak.
We don’t usually plan specific meals, we’ll have the meat planned then there are always basic ingredients in the house. Whoever cooks can make whatever they want with whatever we have. He only cooks about 2 or 3 time a month so it’s not a big deal, it’s just something that I just noticed the extent of when the chicken/ tomato sauce conversation took place so recently.
It is creepy that he will escalate something that bothers me. I can only imagine it’s something along the lines of “she can’t tell me what to do” and I never tell him what to do unless it’s something important that only he can take care of or something important to the children (in case you wonder if I’m too bossy).
Is there a pattern to the days he suddenly decides to cook something he knows (or should know) you won’t like? Are they soon after a disagreement or a situation he might feel like you’ve ‘won?’
If you don’t want to bring it up directly, why not just start casually telling him you’ve never really liked foods you actually love?
That way he can be as passive-aggressive as he wants and you can enjoy a nice meal. Win-win.
If there’s little point bringing it up, have single-serve portions of stuff you like in the freezer. When he cooks some passive-aggressive pasta, or cheese-you-off curry, say nothing. Just freeze your portion for him to enjoy later, and have one of your pre-prepared ones.
Or smack him with the wooden spoon. Whichever is easier.
The odd thing is that if I said I did like something and had a craving for it he would go out of his way to cook it.
Maybe I’m reading more into it than there is but past behaviors make me suspicious. He could just really like curry and crave it all the time and tonight’s dish is just a coincidence.
So either he is just incredibly oblivious, and highly suggestible like me- sometimes just the mention of a dish that I’m very fond of will set off a craving that won’t be silenced until I have it, or he’s incredibly and shockingly passive-aggressive. Do you have an opinion of which one it is? You couldn’t just state the situation, give him the choice of what is going on, and see what he says?