Dear Lola,
My husband and I have been arguing with increasing frequency over dinner plans. I do all the grocery shopping and most of the cooking because I work from home and have flexible conditions. I decide what dinner I'm cooking based on my mood, ingredients on hand, and amount of work a dish will take. My husband would prefer I plan a set menu for the month and stick to it. I told him I would agree to that if he took over the meal planning and cooking, while I continue to grocery shop for the list he gives me. He rejected this idea. He now grumbles every single night as I cook dinner, making snippy comments that set my teeth on edge. He never offers to cook any more because he "doesn't know what is on the menu" and it is really becoming annoying. I think I would have been more gracious about his idea if he had any reason for doing this other than "that's how his mother did it". Meanwhile, I continue to shop for a week's worth of meals at a time and then make whichever meal is appealing and fits into my schedule that day. Do you have any solutions for this dilemma we have found ourselves in?
Sincerely,
Dinner Dispute
Dear Dinner Dispute,
Thank you for writing in and I really would love to compliment the direct quotes you sent in to me. I could practically hear your husband's voice rolling through my brain. I do have a few ideas that could help this situation come to a peaceful resolution, though my favorite one is easy and will only require household items you already have on hand. First, get your curbside garbage can and roll it into the kitchen. Next, lift up the lid. Ignoring the odor which will soon diminish, call your husband into the kitchen.
Put your husband in the garbage bin and roll it back outside.
Problem solved, problem staying solved. Feel free to continue to plan out your dinners on the spur of the moment, reducing the servings to a single person. Now, in the unlikely event you are looking for a solution that allows you to keep your husband in the immediate vicinity, I have another plan for that. You will need a piece of paper, a pen, and a giant stamp that says DENIED with red ink. Proceed to plan out your month of dinners. Any night you change the plan - because you ran out of time, your belly felt like something else entirely, or you simply wanted to be cheeky, no judgements here - simply stamp that square with DENIED and move along to cooking something else. No time for pot roast? DENIED. Quesadillas will be served instead.
Refer back to plan number 1 if husband grumbles or huffs.
If none of these solutions have tickled you, though how they could not is beyond my comprehension, then you only have one real solution left to deploy. Cook whatever you want for dinner and invite your husband to do the same. He is a grown person and surely knows how to operate a can opener and a microwave, if not the actual stove and oven. He wants to change the method of doing things in your home without any effort on his part and then expects you to hop to his bidding because that is how his mother did it.
If he wants things done his mommy's way he should go home and live with her.
Lola
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