'AITA for refusing to go to the store when my significant other cooks meals for me?'
"AITA for refusing to go to the store when my significant other cooks meals for me?"
My signifiant other (M38) and I (F35) have lived together for over a year. His mother and our daughter (F13) are also in the home. He is the primary cook in the home as he prefers to cook and is picky about how the food is prepared. He also does the majority of the shopping because he prefers to shop at certain stores. I do also cook occasionally and pay for meals when we order out.
Additionally when I give him money to assist with bills I give extra to help pay for food costs. I do also clean the kitchen after each meal which is not a small task because he doesn't clean as he cooks and typically any thing he touches in the meal prep process is left out. None of this bothers me so much as when he asks me to go to the store for last minute ingredients.
For some reason he never has all the ingredients right before the meal needs to be cooked. For instance tonight, he starts cooking pasta at 6:45pm and right before he cooks he forgot that we did not have noodles. He started planning dinner at 10am. He then expects me to drop anything I am doing to go to the store to get the items.
When I say "no, you could have asked earlier or planned better" he accuses me of being lazy or not helpful. He does this during holidays too. Days before the holiday I asks several times does he need me to go to the store.
Every day leading up to the holiday he says no, then inevitably the day of the holiday he needs a few ingredients. I ask him all the time just to be thoughtful of my time because I could end up having to make trips to the store everyday due to his poor planning. I am starting to feel he does this as a way to make me earn my meal. AITA?
The internet had a lot of strong opinions about the kitchen etiquette.
zuzzyb80 wrote:
What has the set up been before this if you've lived together for a year but have a 13-year-old together? His behavior does sound frustrating but are there some other factors at play?
OP responded:
We lived together for 8 years prior to this with a break in there. Behaviors like this resulted in our break up but we reconneted.
Acotar47 wrote:
You have a 13-year-old daughter with your s/o that you have lived with for over a year? What in the?
OP responded:
It’s real. We lived together for 8 years and broke it off but reconnected. This is our second go at it. Life doesn’t always happen as planned, unfortunately.
invisible-bug wrote:
INFO
Why can't he run out and buy these ingredients himself?
OP responded:
He just think he shouldn’t if he is cooking. Thats what I take from the arguments that happen after each request.
earthenlily wrote:
NTA, I make a meal with ingredients I have in the house. If I forgot something, I make something else instead. No pasta? That sucks I forgot, I’ll make rice instead and get pasta for next time. Having you go out every time is weird and definitely a result of poor planning. I keep staples topped up at home and the rest I’m flexible about. Having to drive to get stuff seems so unnecessary.
kts1207 wrote:
He seems to have some control issues. He cooks because he's picky, not because he enjoys it. He leaves a mess for you to clean,and will only go to certain stores. This should be explored in counseling. You certainly should not be made to be his " emergency " shopper. I would suggest you cook for yourself and daughter, and let Gordon Ramsey fend for himself.
Pittielover1 wrote:
NTA, but I’m left wondering if he does other things that show he doesn’t respect you. Is this the tip of the iceberg?
Reasonable-Ad-3605 wrote:
Ya know, I was ready to go the opposite way here because they're doing most of the mental and physical labor here but who the hell doesn't check if they have pasta before preparing a pasta meal. Plus you're trying to preempt the issue. NTA. He needs to figure out how to shop/ask for materials ahead of time or switch to Blue apron.
freckles-101 wrote:
Right? I have ADHD so sometimes forget to get things when I'm at the shops, but if I don't have a key ingredient for something I decide to make that night, I change to something else. If I have something planned in advance, I make sure I have the stuff for it in.
If I decide what to make and my husband isn't in from work yet and I need something, I'll ask him to pick it up, but if he can't, again, I'll change what I'm making. He can drive, I can't. But we do have shops within easy walking distance so if I still really fancy whatever it was, I can walk to the shops. It's not that hard.
ResearcherNo8377 wrote:
NTA- this seems like a weird power play if it’s happening every day. He’s creating a crisis and making you fix it. Especially for something like planning a pasta dish and then not having noodles. This is not just missing out on a cilantro/parsley garnish. This is the core meal.
The whole thing reads as him being controlling. I’m picky about food and like it to be prepared in fun ways with lots of flavor but I have 2 young kids and they’re not super into my creations so sometimes I take the L and make nuggets.
TheWarmestRobot wrote:
One time I was prepping pizza and I realized I didn’t have tomato sauce. I asked my partner to grab some on the way home from work, cos he was already in transit. Emphasis on one time. This being a regular occurrence is fucked up. If he insists on making this a battleground, just start making your own meals. NTA.