I’ve lived with my girlfriend for 2-3 years. When we started dating I used to live at her place because I lived in different country and I came to her place for periods of 1-3months at a time.
When we started dating she had a really busy internship period while I was working remotely on so naturally I took care of the food side. I made sure we/she always had food ready when she comes home. I went did the groceries paid everything on my own.
Then after graduation she started apllying for full time jobs and this period took over a year. Again I did 95% of the cooking so she can focus on applying in peace. Sometimes she helped me cut some veggies. She barely cooked once a month and if she did it was by her own schedule, meaning it was always the last thing in her schedule. Sometimes I was starving until 8PM but she never even said "hey are you hungry, sorry I’m running late". And in the end we ended up ordering food. She just did it when it fit her. I let it be.
She finally got her job after a year and we finally moved to a new apartment together. Of course now she had a new job and it’s hectic at the beginning so I just continued to take care of the food and groceries yet she has 2-3 remote days a week.
Now for me the past 2-3 weeks was very heavy at work and I’ve been close to burning out but I still cooked every meal during this period so yesterday on weekend she was supposed cook and it was again around 5PM and then she said hey it’s late already should we just order or do you go do the groceries for me so I can cook.
Then I started feeling bad and I told her I feel a bit unfair that I do all the cooking all the time and when it’s your turn I still have to work for it, or then use alot of money to order stuff.
To this comment, she snapped and started saying that she never asked me to cook and we should start cooking our own meals in future because she doesn’t have mental capasity and energy to participate in this work. She also said the she’s not even eating my food since she’s at the office all the time (she’s remote 2-3 days a week) and I eat maybe one meal more than her at home.
After almost 3 years this was the first time I mentioned this and I said it very politely and calmly.
Am I the asshole here ?
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ESH. This should have been a conversation 2-3 years ago. You two have very different habits, schedules, and expectations, so really her suggestion of feeding yourself independently might make the most sense.
My spouse and I just feed ourselves. I like variety in my meals and they just eat oatmeal and either dry ass sandwiches (literally bread, lunch and maybe cheese) or frozen breaded chicken “sandwich”. Yes, they are in fact healthy (they get regular checkups and blood work and it always comes back healthy). Yes, I know their diet is weird, I have given up on changing it and just let them eat what they want, they are a fully grown adult.
Why does he suck? He’s been carrying shit and started a conversation about it and let her know what was bothering him.
I think that nobody is the asshole yet and nobody sucks here yet. They need to communicate this like adults and come to a place where everyone knows what the expectations are and adjust them if necessary. That’s all.
This doesn’t need to be a you suck or they suck, or ww3. Just talk it out.
Not the asshole! Seems like you just need a productive conversation about it. IMO you need to tell her that cooking for each other is important to YOU, and if she doesn’t value that after you make it clear then there’s a problem. Long term couples have issues like these all the time!
But yes you are not the asshole for me 100%, it seems like she is maybe disregarding the effort you’re doing? (she says she never even asked you, she doesn’t even eat it, etc..) But yk maybe she’s stressed or it doesn’t matter to her as much as it does to you. But imo I would feel pretty bad if my SO didn’t appreciate me preparing dinner.
You could try to suggest like if you cook they can clean or etc. so nobody feels like anything is unfair and everybody is happy! 🙂 anyway goodluck OP
I think you should agree to cooking separate meals. I am sure that she will soon prefer that you split this chore equally.
Info: what is the chore split?
Does she always clean and do dishes?
If she does everything else and you do cooking/grocery, this should just be a conversation on how you guys manage when you are busy and not a larger “she needs to cook” unless you are saying all other chores are split.
I participate in all the chores. Only this one seems to be very one sided.
i think cooking your own meals is a good idea here. i get really burned out after long days and if me and my partner tried to eat the same meals, we’d end up in this situation as well. my patner has a lot more energy than me and eats a lot earlier, whereas i can generally only cook at like 8 or 9. the only way for it to be balanced is if we cook our own meals, because there’s no world where i get home and cook right away. i also order a lot but i’d never make my partner pay for that. if your boundary is that you’re not happy to cook all the time but need to eat early, and hers is that she can’t cook until the evening and needs to order a lot, separate meals is the only way to go without one of you having to suffer either by waiting too long or pushing through too much exhaustion.
NAH, you just have different preferences that you’ve been trying to mesh together for too long. i get the frustration but if she hasn’t been making you do this then you’re kind of your own enemy here. doing nice things for people and then getting annoyed with them that you chose to do that isn’t fair on them.
I think NTA for the most part, it’s reasonable to expect her to contribute her share of the meals. BUT, if her choice on her meal days is takeout, and she can afford it, let it go. I think it’s fair to want equal contributions but not to demand that it happen in the exact same way.
It seems like OP was having to contribute financially to the take out though, which they don’t want to do.
ESH. It should have been mentioned earlier and she should not be so defensive. Couples have misunderstandings or disagreements and they talk them out, they don’t sit on them for ages and they don’t lash out.
I will say however that cooking is 1 chore, what about the others? Maybe you should sit down and see who does what.
I think it’s obvious, she doesn’t like cooking. You need to redistribute the household chores. You should have tackled this long ago.
She could have owned up to it too. I’m not sure it’s wholly his fault.