Wife is just unimaginative with food and prefers to eat crap...at my wits’ end

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t you cook a damn meal and have it prepared and ready to just be heated up? McDonald’s every now and then is fine so on her days, let them have it but on your days throughout the week when you make dinner, be it or home or not, you make the meal

Because he works the night shift while his wife sits on her FAT ASS retired with her thumb up her butt.

I'm also a SAHM and it is my JOB to nourish my family with healthy meals foe growing bodies while my DH works to put a roof over our heads.

Do you people have no work ethic? Does this man have to wipe her fat ass too?

Wow. You are horrible. Hope you don’t have daughters. Scary!

[Anonymous]

Men this contemptuous are usually screwing around on the side/bad parents. Maybe your wife is depressed b/c you are a jerk? Involve her in the shopping. Make joint decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jesus Christ people this woman seems to be suffering from massive depression. OP, try encouraging her to make an appointment with a mental health professional. You may even have to do it for her.

+1000

It sounds OP like you are kind of mean to her, which is probably contributing to the depression. So you have this cycle where she is depressed and doesn’t make an effort, then you criticize her for not making an effort, then the depression gets worse, so she makes even less of an effort.

Change has to start somewhere. You can’t force your wife, so if you want change badly enough, it needs to start with you. Take it or leave it.

[Anonymous]

Hungry root is super easy and fast and has vegetables. So you could try that or another one that’s more upscale like blue apron.

I don’t like to cook much and the reason why is that I’m not very good and it feels like a lot of effort for food that tastes just so-so. Maybe your wife feels the same and a cookbook won’t solve it.

[Anonymous]

Has OP come back to report on having tried any of these suggestions?

I haven't read every post, but someone must have suggested:

On your days off, together cook up in advance healthy meals (chili, soups, grill chicken breasts ahead of time, etc), and then you do the marketing on your way home from work. Buy stuff that is already ready to eat - like grapes or blueberries or bagged baby carrots. Maybe it's the prep of fresh food that is exhausting (I get it!).

Good luck, OP. But also don't judge her too much - it's hard to be home with little kids, and fast food feels like a treat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Some of you ask what I have for dinner. I fix something for myself at home before going to work. It can be tuna salad or a roast chicken sandwich but my wife won't eat the same foods. We can have half a rotisserie chicken in the fridge but she'll still get nuggets at McDonald's. It defies logic and she's also a very picky eater. For example, she won't eat fish or avocado even though these are healthy food items. We have two fridges in our house and a lot of food gets wasted because she won't cook them. I do the grocery shopping but it doesn't seem to be helping because she's not actually making anything with the groceries I buy.

Can you fix your children a portion of whatever you're making, that way they have a healthier option? Also fish and avocado are healthy but they are foods that many people have an aversion to, due to texture and smell, it's not that strange not to like them, especially if you don't grow up with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Some of you ask what I have for dinner. I fix something for myself at home before going to work. It can be tuna salad or a roast chicken sandwich but my wife won't eat the same foods. We can have half a rotisserie chicken in the fridge but she'll still get nuggets at McDonald's. It defies logic and she's also a very picky eater. For example, she won't eat fish or avocado even though these are healthy food items. We have two fridges in our house and a lot of food gets wasted because she won't cook them. I do the grocery shopping but it doesn't seem to be helping because she's not actually making anything with the groceries I buy.

Can you fix your children a portion of whatever you're making, that way they have a healthier option? Also fish and avocado are healthy but they are foods that many people have an aversion to, due to texture and smell, it's not that strange not to like them, especially if you don't grow up with them.

Ridiculous much? Learn to like them. Learn to like eating healthy. What’s the point of eating crappy food day in day out? The wife needs to realize you are what you eat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has OP come back to report on having tried any of these suggestions?

I haven't read every post, but someone must have suggested:

On your days off, together cook up in advance healthy meals (chili, soups, grill chicken breasts ahead of time, etc), and then you do the marketing on your way home from work. Buy stuff that is already ready to eat - like grapes or blueberries or bagged baby carrots. Maybe it's the prep of fresh food that is exhausting (I get it!).

Good luck, OP. But also don't judge her too much - it's hard to be home with little kids, and fast food feels like a treat.

How is it a treat when she’s doing this daily?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jesus Christ people this woman seems to be suffering from massive depression. OP, try encouraging her to make an appointment with a mental health professional. You may even have to do it for her.

I'd be depressed too if I were fat and lazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus Christ people this woman seems to be suffering from massive depression. OP, try encouraging her to make an appointment with a mental health professional. You may even have to do it for her.

I'd be depressed too if I were fat and lazy.

Your point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Some of you ask what I have for dinner. I fix something for myself at home before going to work. It can be tuna salad or a roast chicken sandwich but my wife won't eat the same foods. We can have half a rotisserie chicken in the fridge but she'll still get nuggets at McDonald's. It defies logic and she's also a very picky eater. For example, she won't eat fish or avocado even though these are healthy food items. We have two fridges in our house and a lot of food gets wasted because she won't cook them. I do the grocery shopping but it doesn't seem to be helping because she's not actually making anything with the groceries I buy.

Just curious, why do you have two fridges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Losing a career for a man and losing a career for a woman is a big loss of identity. Plus, we’re living through almost a year of lockdown. I make our toddler amazing meals - but we have full-time childcare and a cleaning lady twice a month. Let’s stop mommy shaming and wife shaming. Start cooking on Sundays - crockpot stews; pots of rice or quinoa; baked sweet potatoes; veggie patties. Freeze half. Stock the fridge with pickles, olives, carrot sticks, celery sticks, yogurt, cottage cheese, prepackaged cheeses. Then all she has to do is heat up or make a quick omelet. Feeding your kids is a JOINT task.

She is home all day. This is her job now. So he should work full time AND do all of the cooking for the entire week on Sunday? That is bananas.

She can put some chicken breasts in the oven and roast some broccoli. Cooking doesn't need to be hard, but it does take some planning and effort.

Yikes. So much misogyny here. You are nutty bananas. She’s home all day with small children. She IS working. She’s likely exhausted by the end of the day. Cooking can be a shared task.

OMG cry me a river. Boo hoo. You want to know exhausted?? Try shift work. Try working nights. Try trying to sleep in broad daylight with kids screaming running all over the house. Try bring nocturnal against your very biology.

This SAHM would not only be cooking a nice meal, but she should be packing this guys lunch.

Not sure though how retired military ended up so fat and lazy. That part of the story is a mystery to me.

There are a lot of overweight people in the military. As a woman in the air force, at 5’5” you can weight up to 165. Plenty are at max weight at the time of weight- in. Which likely means their normal is 5-10 lbs more but they fasted/ dieted the prior weeks leading up to weight in. Repeat every 6 months. When these people get out, they aLways pack on even more weight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus Christ people this woman seems to be suffering from massive depression. OP, try encouraging her to make an appointment with a mental health professional. You may even have to do it for her.

I'd be depressed too if I were fat and lazy.

Lordy, take your lithium. Seek help.

[Anonymous]

PP here who shared about DH and his ex. OP, seriously - you are writing what I have witnessed in real life.

Some PP are saying she's depressed because of the retirement (and, I'm curious - did she retire after 20 or 30 years, or was she enlisted for four years?) and having kids, and that she needs therapy.

Having seen the end result of a situation like this that ended in divorce, and the terrible effect the mom's unfettered and unhealthy habits had on now nearly adult children, I stand by my suggestion: get both of you into marriage counseling, and both of you into individual therapy. She needs to work through her stuff, you need to work through your stuff/expectations, and you both need to work through what it means to be a family, and whether you can ever get on the same path.

Good luck, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jesus Christ people this woman seems to be suffering from massive depression. OP, try encouraging her to make an appointment with a mental health professional. You may even have to do it for her.

Actually there are a lot of fat and lazy people out there. Why would you assume she is in some massive depression? OP says this is how she normally is/eats, it is just a bigger problem no that she has kids and is staying home with them full time and supposed to be responsible for feeding them-probably before she retired daycare/nanny did it