'My wife and son had dinner out multiple times w/o telling me while I cooked at home, and she thinks it’s funny. AITA?
"My wife and son had dinner out multiple times w/o telling me while I cooked at home, and she thinks it’s funny. AITA?"
Background: My wife (56F) and I (63M) have 3 kids in high school and college still living at home. A couple of years ago I developed type 2 diabetes, so in an effort to eat better and save money, I started doing all of the grocery shopping and cooking for the family, and in return my wife does the dishes.
I do a lot of stuff from scratch. It’s a lot of work. Everyone says I’m a good cook, and they tell me they like my food. My kids are all picky about food in different ways, so I struggle to come up with dishes everyone likes.
Last week my wife says she and my son want to take us out to dinner for a special treat. The place is a secret. Sounds like fun. Last night is the big night. She drives us to a local food truck that does lobster rolls.
We’ve been there before - great place. But for the last month, to help my worsening diabetes, I’ve tried to cut starches out of my diet - just for myself, not for anyone else.
My wife knows this. The food truck is 90% sandwiches on big bread rolls. Okay, so I have the soup, everyone else gets a lobster roll, and she orders tater tots for the table on top of it all.
When we sit down she finally lets us in on the reason we’re here. When my son was learning to drive several months back, she would take him out driving after work, before dinner.
Turns out they would learn where the food truck was that night, drive there, eat a lobster roll (which cost, like, $20 each) and then come home and pick at the dinner that I had cooked. They did this multiple times.
My wife thought that I would be amused. I was not. I told her she should have told me they were eating out so I didn’t have to cook for them. She says I was cooking for everyone else, so what’s the difference?
I remind her that I struggle with making meals everyone likes, and I could have made different things, or even taken the other kids out myself on those nights. She didn’t say anything after that, and now she’s avoiding me because she knows I’m upset.
She hasn’t apologized. The thing is, she never offers to cook, she doesn’t help with meal planning, she never helps with the groceries, she will often come home late from work without telling me she’ll be late, and in general she doesn’t seem to care at all about how hard I work to feed everyone, or about how I need to control my diet.
I’ve let her know how I feel many times and it hasn’t made a bit of difference. Honestly, this lobster roll thing felt like the last straw. I’m ready to give up on cooking for the family and start cooking just for myself. AITA?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
I’d just say you’re going to cook only for yourself because of everything that’s lead up to this point, which inevitably, has hurt your feelings. Or at the very LEAST, make a group chat and whoever is having dinner at home needs to say they will be.
I can’t eat dairy or gluten. I also have to eat low glycemic. It’s REALLY difficult for me to find anything I can eat without making it myself, so I understand the struggle of having to come up with meals and the work that goes into maintaining a diet for your own health. If others can’t respect that, then they can figure it out for themselves.
Right, OP everybody in your house is old enough to fend for themselves based on what's available. Cook for you primarily, have enough for everybody, or they can figure out an alternative.
Your wife sounds resentful of your diagnosis because it means a change in lifestyle, and I can't imagine why she thought the lobster roll thing would do anything but make you feel bad/embarrassed. Let her sulk, because I think she actually wanted you to sulk.
Don’t cook for her. Make meals that suit your dietary restrictions & if people want to have some, great! If not, high school & college kids can cook for themselves. Seems like everyone is old enough to contribute to helping with meal planning, cooking & grocery shopping.
NTA. I can empathize with this because my family is very critical and picky with their food. I used to own and cook for a coffeehouse; people would drive over for and pay for my food. But nothing I made was right.
I would ask what they wanted before I shopped, I would ask each night "are you willing to eat ___." Nothing was ever good enough. Well, when the child went to college and I just stopped.
I'll tell my husband, "I'm making ___ blank do you want any" and if not, I make it just for myself. The stress of my life has decreased so much. I heartily recommend giving up.
She understands why you’re upset. She doesn’t care. Also, when it comes to cooking your kids are old enough to fend for themselves. Especially if they’re going to be picky.
Make what you want and let them know “I will be making X would you like it as well?” And if you get a “no” then you tell them “ok then you need to make your own dinner. This isn’t a restaurant.” And stop cooking for your wife for a while. She’s being nasty, she doesn’t get the privilege of eating food you cooked for a while.