How do you split household duties with your S.O.? ****OVERWHELMED**** (wife, how to)
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Oh..cooking is another thing! I've gained 40 pounds since being with him. I know he didn't force the food in my mouth, but I'm naturally prone to being chunky unless I'm on a pretty healthy diet. When I met him, I was. He refuses to try very many new veggies..he basically will only eat lettuce and tomatoes, and not too much of it.
I got fed up and said I'm not cooking for him if he is going to be that picky. His response? "Fine, I don't care, I will just go eat out then and buy myself something." This infuriates me because eating out is expensive and we are trying to save money.
Like I said..don't want to totally badmouth him because I'm sure he puts up with my moodiness and impatience and still loves me..his heart is good..but I wanna SLAP this bossy little attitude out of him sometimes. Another thing is..we both have bossy/dominant personalities, but I'm more dominant, where he is more bossy.
So I'll do domestic duties and then he likes to throw in his two cents on how I could do it, etc. How I can season the meat...how I should use something to scrub something..and I tell him he can do it if that's how he feels and he argues with me and says "You can't even listen to a suggestion"..I've gotten so pissed, before, that I have thrown an entirely perfect pot of spaghetti at his feet on the floor and screamed and him to clean it...I was just literally fuming.
I love my guy to death, but I am SO sick of fighting about household duties and his whole attitude is just so negative that it makes me bitter.
What other things (great and small) about the actual living together weren't discussed?
Intimacy isn't about the sex. That's easy.
Intimacy is about things like sharing the same laundry basket.
The issue here isn't who does the laundry or dishes or pays the bills...
it's about having a way to communicate with each other whatever the topic.
A way that actually suits BOTH of you.
Hah, as evidenced on other threads, cooking/eating is a whole other ballgame, in my household.
SO is VERY, VERY picky and doesn't particularly care for most healthy eating (although he is very fit and active, he eats like garbage, and uses the reality that he is not overweight and a runner to justify that healthy eating is unnecessary). We go 'round and 'round about the fact that I cook with a variety of vegetables and healthful ingredients, whereas he's content to subsist on powdered mac and cheese, pasta, frozen pizza, and convenience store food.
Basically, I'll just serve him whatever I cook for me, knowing fully well that he'll pick out all the offensive vegetables and "weird" (i.e. healthy) ingredients, and probably run to the convenience store afterward to supplement it with Twizzlers and Dr. Pepper. I always cook side dishes of vegetables for me, and just don't make them for him, because it would be wasted.
There's no point in getting into a power struggle over this stuff, but I do cop to being very inwardly irritated by his limited palate.
But if you're always having big blowups (i.e. yelling and throwing pots of spaghetti) over these differences, you do need to figure out a way to effectively communicate about them. Fireworks get old. If he were throwing things and screaming at you, would it be okay?
I tell him he can do it if that's how he feels and he argues with me and says "You can't even listen to a suggestion"..I've gotten so pissed, before, that I have thrown an entirely perfect pot of spaghetti at his feet on the floor and screamed and him to clean it...I was just literally fuming.
Okay... this is maybe not how I would react either. And quite frankly if the way you two communicate is to nit-pick and then to throw spaghetti on the floor, are you sure the relationship is really so healthy after all?
Regarding the dinner menu. You like different things. Don't make two entirely different meals, but substitute something for him with a veggie dish for you. Get frozen veggies in bags so you can make small portions for yourself and some chicken breasts or whatever he likes that he can make the meal more to his tastes. There are things my husband just won't eat. There are things I don't like. We agree on a lot of things, so we try to make more of those, or compromise. Like when you're grilling, you could have grilled veggies and he could have a steak. Easy to do.
Oh..cooking is another thing! I've gained 40 pounds since being with him. I know he didn't force the food in my mouth, but I'm naturally prone to being chunky unless I'm on a pretty healthy diet. When I met him, I was.
I've had to deal with the same issues. We would fight every time we grocery shopped together. If he grocery shops he will come back with bags of unhealthy food. I have stopped nagging him about it because it was fruitless and causing too much tension. I am not his mother. I'm not in charge of him. He has the right to eat whatever he wants. I can control what I eat. I make an effort to grocery shop without him which has helped a lot. And I plan meals for the way I want to eat. Even so, it's still hard.
He ordered a pizza the other night because I was planning for us to eat left overs. Did I eat some of the pizza? Yes, I did.
It is hard, I think...particularly for somebody like me, who does LIKE to cook for others and dine together. It's not very satisfying for me to make a nice whole wheat pasta primavera and glass of wine, and to know that he's going to pick at some of the noodles and then go get some chips and a peanut butter sandwich or hot pocket.
For me, I don't even CARE if he wants to eat unhealthily, and don't nag or begrudge him his junkfood. But much like the kids I work with, who have autism spectrum disorders and the limited palates that go with that often enough, I did, in the beginning, ask if he won't at least consider trying a taste of whatever it is that he's so opposed to eating. I gave up on that, because it was unappealing to watch a neurotypical grown man act like an 8-year old with autism and throw a fit because the mushroom or green bean is so gross that it can't touch the tip of your tounge. :rolleyes"
It is hard, I think...particularly for somebody like me, who does LIKE to cook for others and dine together. It's not very satisfying for me to make a nice whole wheat pasta primavera and glass of wine, and to know that he's going to pick at some of the noodles and then go get some chips and a peanut butter sandwich or hot pocket.
For me, I don't even CARE if he wants to eat unhealthily, and don't nag or begrudge him his junkfood. But much like the kids I work with, who have autism spectrum disorders and the limited palates that go with that often enough, I did, in the beginning, ask if he won't at least consider trying a taste of whatever it is that he's so opposed to eating. I gave up on that, because it was unappealing to watch a neurotypical grown man act like an 8-year old with autism and throw a fit because the mushroom or green bean is so gross that it can't touch the tip of your tounge. :rolleyes"
For a moment there, I was POSITIVE that you were talking about my guy.
Hah. My boyfriend's rationale for not admitting he's a picky eater is thus:
"How can you say I'm picky? I like ALL TYPES of pasta."
Really, though...looking at histories, my boyfriend wasn't catered to in the housekeeping regard, so he did learn to clean up after himself, but, in the grand tradition of Italian families, he's always had his meals lovingly prepared to order, and apparently not particularly imaginatively.
He, like MANY other Latin men, grew up in a household where the men were SPOILED. I don't want to badmouth him because he's an awesome man, but this is his one downfall. He acts like I'm emasculating him by having him do his fair share and in turn, I get very angry. I'm a working woman and I also study full-time. We're both busy, but there is SO much cleaning and cooking to do and errands. He refuses to be seen grocery shopping and doing the laundry.
This is ingrained in this guy and unlikely to change. It's part of the macho 'guys don't do housework' attitude. Good luck with that. He'll teach the same to his sons.
How do we share chores? Whoever is around does them...over time, it has evolved to a natural split...she does the laundry and the garbage and empties the dishwasher...I like floors, general cleaning, fixing things, dusting, polishing...either of us at any time could do one of the chores the other usually prefers to do...just what needs to get done gets done.
I got fed up and said I'm not cooking for him if he is going to be that picky. His response? "Fine, I don't care, I will just go eat out then and buy myself something." This infuriates me because eating out is expensive and we are trying to save money.
.
You got yourself a real mature one there. Tell us again...what about this guy is so great? Because I would have kicked him to the curb about 8 million years ago...the fact that he is so disrespectful to you is appalling.
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