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Both spouses knowing how to cook is highly preferable to only one, this doesn't just apply to women or young women
My girlfriend isn't a terrible cook, but she's very frustrating at times. She doesn't have a very good ability to envision which things go together. She gets these ridiculous recipes off of Pinterest and I can tell within about 3 seconds that they're awful recipes and I tell her that, but she insists on making them anyway. Like a dish with cod, corn, cinnamon, curry powder, rice, and apple cider and other stuff. The recipe made no sense at all. She made it anyway, it was terrible and inedible as expected. This sense can improve to some degree but I'm not sure how much.
She also insists on following every recipe to the letter and measuring everything out which drives me nuts. No serious cook measures out 1 tbs of black pepper, that's just silly.
She'll have me try something and I'll tell her it needs more salt and she'll say "I put in a tsp that's what the recipe said." I tell her who cares what the recipe says, it needs more salt, you have to taste and season. Recipes are not gospel handed down from God. They're just estimations, often bad estimations, and you're never using the exact same ingredients as they are. My apples might have higher sugar content and lower acid than another person's apples. My can of tomatoes might have twice as much sodium as the one used in the recipe. My sea salt has a different amount of sodium by volume than another person's coarse Kosher salt. On so on and so forth.
It's a constant struggle to try to get her to use her senses of sight, smell, taste, and touch when she cooks, and to get her to develop her intuition. You can never become a good cook if you don't learn to use your senses and develop a feel for things.
She looks at dates on everything to try to tell if something is still good. I tell her to look at it and smell it, the milk doesn't magically go bad at the stroke of midnight on the use-by date. The pizza does not magically reach it's optimal level of doneness. You can't tell if an apple has gone bad by looking at a chart on the internet.
At least she's willing to try and she's not a picky eater. I try not to be too hard on her for fear of discouraging her. I just wish she would listen more. She's young though, it's a work in progress.
You could be right about projecting insecurities, but it's also possibly a developed radar for critical men ..
Your post had dozens of criticisms & frustrations. I underlined them.
Doesn't matter..
If you were slightly critical or controlling or OCD you wouldn't be able to see it
& even if you are maybe it works for you 2.
If my sweet late hubby had pulled that stuff , he would have been the only cook in the house..
My kitchen is my domaine, and I decide what we're having, and I decide when we're having it. Any woman who is not capable of preparing meals to nurture her family is defective to me.
My Dh is willing to pitch in when I want him to, but I keep some easy, quick meal ideas on the back burner for times when I don't feel like much effort.
When DH retires, I can see that he will be willing to take over some dinners and this will be fine.
This was a source of aggravation in my marriage...
I did most of the cooking , and put a lot of effort into doing it healthy & on a budget.
But when I wasn't home all afternoon because of a kids dr appt or sports game and
my husband couldn't stop by the store and prepare a dinner it was a pain.
I also asked once if he would handle one meal a week..Anything..rottiserie chicken and frozen veggetables would have been fine..Never did win that one...
I would say men are the best cooks ever. I've seen a lot of men chefs everywhere in restaurants and even celebrity chefs, my father also is a great cook. I, struggling to cook good food always ask my father to teach me but it always ended up that I can't find time to even have a cooking lesson with him. Funny it is(laughs).
Both of my sons, 21 and 23, can cook. Growing up, the younger one always wanted to watch, learn and help. The older one always wanted to come in and take over the kitchen, question me on everything, and show me a "better way" to do things. (He's in law school now, no surprise there!).
Once they were both in college, living in their own apartments, they decided that they just couldn't live on takeout and frozen meals. The younger one calls me all the time asking cooking questions and then sending me photos of his meals. They look delicious. He searches for recipes online and finds some really good ones. He will make all these meals for himself. Once I asked him if he was having friends over to share this food with. He told me no, that it was just for him, but just because he was alone, he didn't have to eat poorly.
The older one figured out while in undergrad that Mom might have known what she was doing after all, so he would call me occasionally and ask questions and to ask for several of my recipes. However, he really learned how to cook while he was working as a house boy in a sorority house. He actually paid attention to the cook (a young guy) and learned how to do things. He has also shared some of the recipes with me. Now days, he rarely has time to cook and the people working in the prepared food section of his local Publix know him by name. He did however, make his own Thanksgiving dinner this year. He didn't get to come home and was all alone, so he went and bought a turkey breast and all the stuff for sides and made it for himself.
As for the hubby, um, not so much. He can get by in a pinch okay, but he has a tendency to ruin everything my making it too spicy. To him, if a recipe calls for 1 jalapeno, then 3 would be better. If it calls for none, then it needs at least one. I can't count how many good dishes prepared by me or himself that he has ruined. If it's not spicy, he doesn't even want to eat it.
While I think your points are well-taken (i.e. more people should definitely want to cook), I also find them a bit unreasonable (i.e. not everyone is going to be a good cook). I think it's fine to encourage people to learn how to cook, however—in the cases of many of your spouses—I also think people are who they are, and it's unrealistic to expect them to change—especially if the desire or incentive isn't there; or the precedent has been set.
Yes, your spouses have faults in not being able too cook. But there also needs to be a point of acceptance. Hopefully, your spouses are great at other things, even if cooking isn't one of them. If not, well that advice is reserved for another thread...or even beyond this forum (i.e. counselors/therapists).
I think most of us with non cooking spouses would never ask them to be GOOD COOKS. ...just get your ass in the kitchen and fix something edible for the family once in awhile is my request.
I think it is an excuse to say "People are who they are and it is unreasonable to expect them to change". Excuse me but we all have to change to make a family function. I will have to learn how to change the oil or change a tire because DH will not always be available. he should be able to bake a piece of chicken and zap a pouch of frozen veggies once in awhile.
I don't have the "desire or incentive" to fill the cars with gas and check the oil but I do it because it must be done.
Of course our spouses are good at other things. Everybody is usually good at something but if it isn't directly related to nurturing and maintaining your family in a hands on way...well it shows a deficiency. I guess it is my own fault cause I let him get away with not helping in the kitchen for so long. Actually he will and does clean up and I'm grateful for that but actually preparing the food for the family to eat is a very important skill EVERYBODY should develop---incentive or not.
I think most of us with non cooking spouses would never ask them to be GOOD COOKS. ...just get your ass in the kitchen and fix something edible for the family once in awhile is my request.
I think it is an excuse to say "People are who they are and it is unreasonable to expect them to change". Excuse me but we all have to change to make a family function. I will have to learn how to change the oil or change a tire because DH will not always be available. he should be able to bake a piece of chicken and zap a pouch of frozen veggies once in awhile.
I don't have the "desire or incentive" to fill the cars with gas and check the oil but I do it because it must be done.
Of course our spouses are good at other things. Everybody is usually good at something but if it isn't directly related to nurturing and maintaining your family in a hands on way...well it shows a deficiency. I guess it is my own fault cause I let him get away with not helping in the kitchen for so long. Actually he will and does clean up and I'm grateful for that but actually preparing the food for the family to eat is a very important skill EVERYBODY should develop---incentive or not.
Have you sought professional help?
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