After a long day at work, the last thing anyone really wants to do is cook.
With this in mind, there's little more comforting or satisfying than coming home to discover our spouse or partner has cooked for us, and dinner is waiting for us on the table.
However, this being an expectation is an antiquated belief, to say the least, as no one should expect this unless they've been told so.
The wife of Redditor NoMarkerMadness once came home after a long day at work.
After arriving home, discovering she would have to cook dinner, the original poster (OP)'s wife confronted him about why this was the case.
After giving his honest response, the OP's wife still wasn't pleased.
Still confused by the whole situation, the OP took to the subReddit "Am I The A**hole" (AITA), where he asked fellow Redditors:
"AITA- My wife came home upset because she was hungry and I didn't have a meal prepared?"
The OP explained why he neglected to have dinner ready on the table for his wife when she came home from work:
"Backstory: I (32 M[ale]) have been married to my wife (31 F[emale]) for 5 years."
"My wife has always made the meals and I have always cleaned up for the most part."
"I have tried to cook for her before, but she just rejects it and tells me she doesn't like it."
"She keeps bringing up that I put cinnamon in scrambled eggs once, which I definitely do not remember doing, but she 100% believes I did that so I am not going to argue with her over it."
"I work one 8 hour shift and two 16 hour shifts on Friday Saturday and Sunday respectively."
"She works a retail job and is there 5x a week with a varying schedule."
"She usually cleans up dishes on the weekend because I am not home to do them and I have gotten upset in the past coming home Monday to a large amount of dishes from over the weekend."
"So what happened tonight was I was off today and relaxing while I waited for her to get off."
"In my head she was going to get home, maybe cook, and we'd hit the gym."
"Instead she called me and asked me to start cutting up steaks for Mongolian beef."
"So I do that and she walks in the door and tells me 'your parked like an a**hole."
"You couldn't leave me any room, I could barely get out'."
"I ask her why she is so upset and she said 'I am so hungry and I have to cook a whole a** meal after working all day'."
"I respond 'You woulda had to do that anyway and I would make it for you, but you hate my cooking and wont eat it anyway'."
"She responds 'You don't even f*cking try'."
"So I went upstairs and started making this post, hoping to just give her some space to calm down."
"She came up crying a little bit ago."
"In my head, it feels like she thinks I am weaponizing incompetence."
"In my own world, that's not it."
"I know how to cook, but I'm not joking."
"Every time I have made something, she didn't want any of it and made her own stuff."
"I know she wants a hot meal after work, but I am just here thinking I was being respectful by listening to her when she says she doesn't want my cooking, when now she wants me to have food prepared."
"I get 5 hours of sleep both mornings that I have to get up for work, Saturday and Sunday, if that, and I feel horrible on those days."
"I get no time to myself on those weekend work days and can never attend any weekend social events."
"By the time Sunday night quitting time rolls around, I am dead."
"I'm responsible for all the housework during the week, minus the cooking."
"I also deliver groceries whenever I run out of things to do at home, but this is on a 'if I feel like it' kind of basis, I drive for Spark."
"She gets to go home after work every night and sleep a full 8-9 hours."
"She doesn't really have to do many chores besides cooking."
"Yes, I do all the chores except cooking."
"Every single one by myself."
"Very few exceptions."
"Her doing her own dishes on the weekend is one."
"When guests are coming or we have a party is the other."
"I'm so confused."
"Am I the a**hole?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You're The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community, for the most part, agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for not cooking dinner for his wife.
Just about everyone felt that since the OP's wife had openly expressed her dislike of his cooking, she shouldn't have expected him to cook, but that her unhappiness likely had little to do with her cooking, there were likely other issues at hand:
"NTA."
"Based on the above, but I have a feeling this is about more than just dinner."
"Gently ask if she's okay in general?"
"Maybe something happened that she hasn't communicated."- IFeelNothingness
"NTA."
"It sounds like she just had a really crappy day and needs a break from cooking for a night, but in the moment didn't say what she needed to say."- Witty-Cat1996
Others, however, were a bit more sympathetic to the OP's wife, even if they still didn't think the OP did anything wrong either.
"NAH."
"I won't discount the intensity of working 40 hours in 3 days, but you then get four days off."
"She's working 5 days a week in retail - if you've never worked retail, you can't imagine the physical, mental, and emotional toll it can take on a person."
"It sounds like she had a bad day and was burnt out, and you did everything right in the moment that you could to support her."
"It also sounds like you need to maybe sit down together on a day neither of you is working to talk through your meal planning, your chores schedule, and maybe scheduling one night a week where you cook together."
"If she doesn't like your cooking and you insist it isn't weaponized incompetence, either she's deeply insecure/reluctant to eat your food for some reason she isn't saying, or you're actually that bad that your food isn't edible."
"Either way, cooking needs to stop being a chore for your wife, and you need to figure out ways to batch prepare bulk meals that you can throw in the oven to have ready for her when she gets home, or recipes she's written down that you can follow very closely."
"Additionally, taking a cooking class together, or finding a new recipe to cook together once a week, will shift the burden of cooking from feeling like a chore into more of an indulgence to enjoy together, and you'll learn from her cooking methods while practicing alongside her."
"She'll gain trust in your cooking abilities, you'll learn new recipes together, and eventually she may feel more comfortable sharing the cooking responsibility."- redlips_rosycheeks
While some had trouble sympathizing with either the OP or his wife, feeling that neither of them treated each other as they deserved to be treated:
"ESH."
"You both talk to each other like real jerks."
"And you'd think that after 5 years of marriage, you would have figured out a couple of things that you can actually cook and she'd be willing to trust you enough to eat what you cook, but both of you seem committed to being passive-aggressive and playing the victim when the other freaks out."
"Do you even like each other?"
"Because you're not treating each other like you do."
"Go to therapy or get a divorce because this nonsense is not going to fix itself."-MoreCleverUserName
"Hard to determine without knowing more."
"If you cook and actually add cinnamon to your eggs, that's def weird."
"She says 'you don't even try', we need to know how true that is."
"What have you cooked, and what does she not like about it?"
"I love my fiancées cooking, but I 100% realize that it's mainly reheating canned food and shit like that."
"I'm leaning ESH or NAH."- evantom34
The OP later returned with an update, sharing how things eventually unfurled with his wife:
"She came upstairs and covered her head, and anytime I tried to ask her if she wanted me to get her anything to eat, she said no and that she would have sleep for dinner."
"I suggested takeout and listed places I knew she liked until she stopped saying no and said 'I don't know'."
"So now I am here at a chicken place picking up her go-to meal."
"At this particular place."
"We talked, she was upset specifically because I ate at 5 pm without her."
"She wanted me to think of her and bring her something and eat with her, even if it was some takeout or snacks."
It somewhat seems that the OP's wife wants it both ways, wanting to be catered to but not wanting the OP's cooking.
Leaving one to agree with others that there is something more going on here that hasn't been addressed.
Hopefully, the discussion the OP had with his wife over chicken could at least begin to address some of the problems.
Woman Asks If It's Wrong To Hold Grudge After Mom Told Her When She 8 Years Old That She Wished She'd Aborted Her
While some people view having and raising children as the greatest blessing, some parents hold their children's existence against them for their entire lives.
And when they feel that way about their children, they're unfortunately typically pretty honest about it, cringed the members of the "Am I Overreacting?" (AIO) subReddit.
Redditor heavelymango knew from the time she was young that her mother did not really like her and significantly favored her sister.
But when her mother told her at the age of eight that she wished she had aborted her, the Original Poster (OP) held on to that grudge for years after the fact.
She asked the sub:
The OP had a grudge against her mother.
"I (22 Female) have been holding onto a grudge due to something my mom told me when I was roughly eight or nine years old."
"Growing up, I was a rebellious kid and always felt as if my mom favored my older sister. My sister would always get whatever she wanted."
"I know she was born with Down syndrome and always needed more attention and care, but if my sister wanted my tablet, for example, she would have it for the whole day while mine was limited to 30 minutes so she could have it."
"As a kid, I lashed out more because of this. She could take all of my things, but I could never use hers."
During a heated moment, the OP's mother said something unforgivable.
"Eventually, this led to an argument with my mom. I don't recall the whole thing, but it was related to my sister and how I felt my mom didn't care about me or give me the same amount of attention."
"The fight got heated, and I probably told my mom that I hated my sister and her."
"I remember she said back, 'I never wanted you from the start. I knew I should've aborted you when I had the chance.'"
" I didn't know what aborted meant at the time, and I remember I looked it up, and it made me cry. I never forgot it, and it lingers in my mind whenever I am home."
The OP's mother pressured her to "let it go" and move on.
"Even growing up, I still brought it up, and she would get mad, saying I need to let it go and how I'm stubborn for not just forgetting what she said."
"There was even a time in high school when she took me to a therapist, and she complained about how I never dropped what she said."
"She says I need to move on from it because it has affected my relationship with her, and she wants to fix it."
"I know I'm older now and it was so long ago, but it still hurts, and I feel like it's made me not want to have her in my life in the future, and I have told this to her."
"How I don't want her in my life once I move out, get married, or have my own kids."
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
Some reassured the OP that this sounded like a core memory more than a grudge.
"The axe forgets. The tree remembers."
"It sounds less like you're holding a grudge and more that this is a formative, core memory for you."
"It won't stop being a core memory (unless maybe with the help of a lot of therapy). Has your mom ever apologized for saying that? Because you don't have to forget to forgive, but if she's not remorseful for saying that terrible thing to her young child (not just remorseful that you remember it), then she probably needs therapy (or is a narcissist/sociopath/similar)."
"You are certainly not obligated to 'get over it.'" - Hot-Can3615
"This is not a 'grudge'; it is pain that is still felt to such a degree. If she said it, then she was thinking it. She'll probably never apologize, but that doesn't mean your pain is or was invalid." - Fast_Register_9480
"NOR. This kind of thing needs a real apology. Like she needs to acknowledge the damage and genuinely care about it. Brushing it off won’t make it go away." - TentacleWolverine
"NOR. Did she really want to fix things? She basically just told you to get over it from the start instead of giving you a sincere apology."
"That isn't working on anything. She wants you to get over it so she can pretend that she never said it, so she doesn't have to feel bad about what she did. It doesn't sound like she cares much about how you feel."
"She just doesn't want to deal with it. For that reason, I would still have issues with what she said." - Chemical-Ad6809
"If your relationship with your mother is being affected by the actions of your mother, your mother is responsible for fixing it."
"You should know you probably aren't ever going to get closure, but you don't have to swallow it down. It helps to be the person you needed when you were younger out loud to yourself, but especially to others."
"For example: My name is Liz, and my mom told me to go ahead and do it already and save us all the heartache when I finally had the courage to tell her about how much I've been struggling with self-harm and suicidal ideation. I'm never going to forgive her for that, and we have never been close as a result of her actions."
"You aren't holding onto a grudge; you have a core memory of your mother distilling her feelings into a world-shattering sentence."
"You did not have a secure attachment before and can't have one now because of the deep trauma. You do not apologize for being stabbed."
"Find another therapist. I mean it. Someone who cares about your well-being wouldn't force you to apologize for being verbally abused as a child. I'm 29 now, and I lived through it. I still struggle with suicidal ideation daily, but once I stopped relying on my mom and unstable sources for support, my life got better immediately."
"You want things for comfort and familiarity. Don't let your mom or your therapist gaslight you into crossing a boundary."
"It might help to ask for a written five-part apology from your mom. 1. Acknowledge what you did 2. Say why it was wrong 3. Promise not to do it again 4. Ask how to make amends. 5. Share your feelings at this time if there's anything you'd like to say."
"My mom can be a good person and a bad mom and role model. Being in your own company is so much better than poor company." - PotLuckyPodcast
Others hoped the OP would go no contact with her mother sooner rather than later.
"NOR. It’s emotional abuse. And you do not owe her closeness after that, especially as she refuses to be accountable for that and try to make it up to you."
"She knows you have her number, and she can’t forgive you for knowing what a colloidal b***h she is."
"It’s unlikely that will change; it will at least be turned back on you with her the victim."
"Stop expecting her to apologize. If she doesn’t pay your bills, ghost her." - SnooCheesecakes2723
"My mom said something similar. My brother and I were adopted, and when I was a teen, in front of a church lady, she said, 'We didn't even really want you, but the people didn't want to split y'all up, so we just took you, too.'"
"Me and the church lady were shook. When I say my falbbers were ghasted. Like huh? She didn't remember saying that when I brought it up years after the fact."
"I also got grounded two times for two separate nine weeks (for C's on my report card) and a three and a half to four months (for smoking at 16 and getting caught because she liked to just pop up out of nowhere), and we just had a talk about that, and she didn't even remember."
"She said, 'No, I didn't. I never grounded you for that long,' and when I gave my rebuttal, she said, 'Well, if I did, it definitely wasn't for no nine weeks or months,' and this started because she was praising me for reading so much and liking books. I said, 'Well, when you were grounded like me, that's all I could do (no TV, no friends outside of school, no music, nothing but my room and books)."
"There's a reason I only call or answer her calls once or twice every few weeks. And I only call to get food, really..." - ManicalMoe
"‘Fine, I'm sorry’ is not an apology."
"Whilst I’m sure it was said in anger, most things said in anger have a grain of truth. There are also some things that no half-decent parent ever says to their children, no matter how angry they are, and this is one of them! It also sounds like she has made repeated similar comments of not wanting you as her child."
"I understand her eldest had a disability, but this is no excuse for neglecting and emotionally abusing her younger child. Lots of families deal with a child with additional needs whilst still managing to prioritise their other kids. Children with Down syndrome are capable of understanding ‘that’s your sister's, not yours; give it back’ !! It sounds like your mum has mental health issues?"
"Do you have a present father or other family you can turn to?"
"Protect your peace. Your mum has hurt you time and time again, honestly, for no real gain other than momentarily satisfying her anger. You owe this woman nothing." - Background_Term9810
"I went through something similar. When I was a little girl, my mother used to make comments that implied she didn't want me, though it was never that explicit. 'I only had you because your brother wanted a sister,' and 'My figure never recovered after you; after your brother, it did.'"
"Each comment stayed with me, but I never addressed it with her. I tried to move on and leave it in the past. She did a lot of horrible things throughout my life, but her behavior was always ignored because that's the precedent my dad set, where she can do essentially whatever she wants."
"A few months ago, she came to see me because I was desperate for help and sick. Instead of helping, she made my life so much worse. I won't go into details. At one point, I could no longer keep it inside, and I told her that she is a narcissist, to which she responded with, 'It would have been better if I had never had you.'"
"In some ways, it felt really good to hear her come out and say it. It felt good to hear the truth I've always known."
"I don't know what you should do, but I've chosen to not forgive."
"Every time I forgave, I just let her know that she can get away with whatever horrible things she had done. Her apologies were never real apologies. She always found ways to blame me or others for whatever she had done."
"And I'm truly just done with it. As sad as it is to not have a mom, it's sadder to pretend that you have one when in reality you don't... quite the opposite, if anything." - Neos_Mom
"So, OP, what will hurt more: keeping her and the grudge in your life or making a break and going low or no contact with her?"
"Frankly, we've no idea of what she might have been dealing with at the time, but regardless, what she said was said only to cause pain and suffering. 'Sorry' doesn't magic that intent away."
"Me, I think spending time alone or with friends or in therapy away from her might be what you need here. You might come to some sort of acceptance, but if this is something that's just going to keep coming between you, then stop trying to have that relationship." - Tal_Tos_72
After the OP received feedback, she shared a few clarifications from her original post.
"I wanted to clear some things up, take accountability where it's due, and provide some much-needed context from many people commenting the same questions."
"I want to be completely honest. We had many arguments, and I was a rebellious kid. I acted out and argued with my mom."
"I don't want to give off the impression that I was an entirely innocent kid who never did anything wrong and my mom just snapped out of nowhere. We both said hateful and hurtful things to each other during our fights."
"Growing up, the only way she would accept an apology was if I got on my knees and begged her for forgiveness. If I ever asked her to apologize to me, she would say, 'I have nothing to apologize for; you should be the one begging for my forgiveness.'"
The OP had a lot of physical memories, too.
"Things also would turn into physical arguments, not just verbal ones."
"There were times when she would get so angry she would get physical. Like yanking me by my hair, twisting my arms, or throwing things at me (like remotes, a bug spray can, or a radio)."
"When she yanked my hair, I would fight back just to get her to let me go, and she would scream that I was trying to kill her and she would get me arrested. When she twisted my arm, and I begged her to stop because it felt like it was going to break, she would say she hoped it did."
"When she threw objects at me, she would say she wished they would hit my face."
"I remember in middle school, during an argument, she said she wished she could break my face and that she hated it because I look like my dad. I won’t lie, whenever she said things like that, I would say nasty comments about how she chose to have him put us in her."
While the OP wasn't financially ready to move out yet, she hoped to as soon as possible.
"Why haven't I moved out yet? The main reason I haven't been able to move out is financial."
"I wasn't making enough to support myself without worrying about whether I’d end up having to crawl back home."
"Thankfully, I have recently found a better-paying job. My plan is to move out between mid-to-late October, or early November at the latest."
"The only reason I can't leave this exact second is because I have a few legal/administrative things to get cleared up so I’m completely untied from my mom, which will take a few weeks."
The OP also had proof that her mother liked her sister better.
"Has my mom ever admitted to favoring my sister? Yes."
"In arguments, she has explicitly told me that she doesn't see me as her legitimate daughter, and that she adored my sister more and forever will. She has also called me a 'monster,' told me there is a certain type of evil inside of me, and said she was afraid I would be just like my dad and try to harm them."
"She would even tell me that she was telling family and friends these things about me, but then later claim she 'just said it in the moment' and wouldn't be crazy enough to actually tell people that."
"Because I was so confused growing up and didn't know if she was lying or telling the truth, I started avoiding our family when they came over."
"Naturally, that just made things worse because she would get mad at me for avoiding them (even now as an adult), completely ignoring the fact that she was the one who lied about what she told them."
Unfortunately, the OP didn't have support from her father.
"What about my dad? My dad is not in my life."
"He was around sporadically, but never as a stable parent. My parents separated before I was born and divorced when I was two or three."
"Growing up, it was just constant back-and-forth toxicity, with him telling me how toxic my mother was, and her telling me the same about him."
"He would mostly only come over to see my sister, and often used me to care for her if he wanted to take her out to eat. Ultimately, my dad didn't care about anyone else other than my sister (and his drugs)."
"I hope this can clear some questions on the original post. I know I didn't provide many details as I originally should have. I honestly didn't want to post something too long, and I honestly did not expect it to be noticed."
"Thank you all for taking time to talk to me and share your thoughts."
The subReddit fully sided with the OP, pointing out that no matter how heated the moment was, it would never excuse the terrible things the OP's mother had said to her.
If the OP's mother really wanted a relationship with her, she'd drop the defensiveness and demands, offer a genuine apology, and work hard to be better for both of her children.
That takes a very rare kind of person to pull off, and it didn't sound like the OP's mother had that in her.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp