My (30M) Fiancée (29F) has discovered a new love of cooking and made me her unwilling sous chef

A Reddit user shared their frustration with their fiancée’s growing passion for cooking during quarantine. While they initially agreed on a fair division of household tasks, her cooking hobby has increasingly turned into a demand for more involvement from the user.

The situation has led to tension, as the user feels unfairly burdened by spending hours in the kitchen and sees cooking as a hobby, not a chore. Read the full story to learn how this issue is impacting their relationship.

‘ My (30M) Fiancée (29F) has discovered a new love of cooking and made me her unwilling sous chef ‘

My fiancée and I have been together for a while, and during quarantine, she developed a passion for cooking. Before that, we didn’t cook much, preferring to eat out. I’m not really into cooking and find it more of a chore. However, she started cooking more during quarantine, and I was happy to see her find something she enjoys.

She even got really good at it and started experimenting with baking and more elaborate meals. In return for her cooking, I took on other tasks, like paying for takeout when she didn’t want to cook, doing the dishes, and cleaning up. We agreed that this was a fair compromise.

However, as her cooking became more involved, she started asking me to help more, even when she was making meals that took hours to prepare. It gradually turned into me being her sous chef, and I found myself spending several hours every week in the kitchen, which I didn’t enjoy.

Our relationship hit a bump when I expressed my frustration. I told her I didn’t want to be in the kitchen for hours, especially when it wasn’t my hobby, and I didn’t appreciate her attitude when she was directing me. She got upset, saying it wasn’t fair for me to enjoy the meals without contributing.

I explained that I would be happy to help with simpler meals but didn’t want to spend so much time on complex ones. She felt that my reluctance wasn’t fair, and we couldn’t resolve it. We tried discussing the division of chores, but she wanted to count all the time spent cooking as “chore time,” which led to her spending more hours cooking than I spent doing other chores.

I felt that cooking elaborate meals was more of a hobby for her, and I didn’t think it was fair to count that as part of the household chores. We’re stuck, and I’m unsure if I’m wrong for not fully supporting her new hobby. I want to set boundaries around cooking as a hobby versus a necessity, but she seems to think I’m not being fair.

I love her and want to resolve this, but I don’t know how to balance her passion for cooking with the practical needs of sharing household responsibilities. Any advice would be helpful.

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

[Reddit User] −  I don’t have any actual advice, just, I’ve been there. I like to cook and sometimes very elaborate meals and it took me a long time to realize that my family was actually happier with the simple meals. I’d get so stressed over making some fancy thing,

and then right when we are about to eat there’s some minor disagreement and I felt like dinner was ruined after spending hours on it. I’m not sure what anyone could have said to me to make me realize it sooner though so sorry if this isn’t much help. I make a lot more pizza and hamburgers these days.

Kholzie −  I’ve spent a long time in food service and am good friends with chefs. This has taught me that one of the biggest components of getting food made quickly is prep…something that is literally a full time job. If this is really her passion project, she should do more prep.

That means having things chopped, marinated and sauces and such prepared as much ahead of time as you can. Cooking is an ORDEAL when you don’t prep properly and are doing everything on the fly. One or two days a week devoted to prep would make your lives a lot easier.

Muchado_aboutnothing −  My boyfriend is just like this….it exhausts me. He’s a professor, and when he’s working, he can’t cook as much….now that it’s the summer and he’s not working, he wants to make an elaborate meal every night. I work full time (from home because of COVID), and when I come downstairs after work and he’s been working on a meal all day,

he’ll start acting all pissy, like I should’ve been helping him but didn’t. I want to be like, “I didn’t ask you to do all this, though…?” I actually don’t mind doing the sous-chef thing when it’s a lighter day at work…it can be kind of fun. Honestly, it’s the dishes that kill me.

Every meal he makes produces like 50 different dirty dishes that have to be hand washed (we don’t have a dishwasher, and our kitchen sink is tiny.) It’s because the meals he makes are so complicated. I don’t have the heart to tell him that I would really just rather order a pizza than stay up until 10:30 cooking and doing dishes with him, even when we do it together.

By that point, I just want to watch a movie with him or go to bed. I don’t know what to do to get him to stop cooking…..it’s killing me 😭

[Reddit User] −  I’m actually pretty frustrated with your wife for claiming that you are being antifeminist with this, because, as a feminist, I’m familiar with the fact that there are women all over this planet who genuinely have NO choice but to slave away in a kitchen, while their partners do nothing and express no gratitude.

She is turning this into a Cause, when she has no business doing so. It sounds like she’s not actually enjoying the cooking all that much. If she’s this stressed, if she’s demanding help, if she’s seeing it as a chore, then it’s obviously not a happy hobby to her, and she doesn’t have to be doing it, so *why is she?* The only advice I have is to put it to her this way.

An analogy: You both do an equal portion of the yard work. You mow and she sprays the weeds, and that’s really all your yard needs to be orderly, safe, and up to code. But then you decide that you wanna try out gardening. She’s like “Oh, that’s not something I want to do, but you have fun,” however, she does keep spraying the weeds,

which was the chore the two of you decided was fair in the first place. So you start planting flowers and shrubs, and then you put out a bird bath, and you have to trim the shrubs, and you have to keep the army caterpillars away, etc., etc., so you ask her for help once in a while, when you need an extra pair of hands. And at first, she helps gladly,

but then you get rude and bossy, and then you start saying how much time you spend on the gardening, and it’s not fair that you are doing all this labor that she enjoys but doesn’t assist with… But it’s labor that you CHOSE to do. It’s not necessary. She didn’t ask you for it.

But now you’re acting like your hobby is somehow HER responsibility. Ask her if this situation would be fair on her, because that is exactly the situation that she has put you in.. EDIT: typo

friendlily −  I would have another discussion. I would start out by telling her (or telling her again) how *her behavior* has made *you feel*, and you’d like her help in coming to a resolution that is fair to both of you. Talk about her feelings too. Where is all this intensity coming from? Why does she feel pressured to cook like this?

Then show her a more realistic chore distribution. Research how long on average it takes people to make dinner. Remind her that you didn’t ask her to chain herself in the kitchen for hours. Bring easy recipe ideas. Offer to cook part of the time. Edit: removed “her” from my “her her” sentence.

letsreset −  your explanations make complete sense to me. have you asked your fiance to read your post? maybe you could have her read this post and ask her what she disagrees with. but it seems like she found herself a hobby that also is arguably a chore, and she wants to be appreciated for the work she’s put in as a chore as well as enjoying this new hobby while roping you in. if she can’t recognize that’s she’s being a little unfair…i don’t know.

quirksnglasses −  I would try to remind her also about what purpose the cooking is serving. Validate that it is a lovely hobby for her, but remind her that if its starting to stress her out, it may be leaving hobby territory and entering chore land (hence why she feels upset youre not “pulling weight”). I would remind her that you can always eat out if stressed but that this is just s fun hobby

thiscouldbemassive −  The whole “feminist” argument is m**ipulative, unfair, and untrue. It’s her hobby, her choice. You aren’t forcing her to cook elaborate meals. And if she wants to stop cooking, I presume you would be fine with her stopping.

I think a good compromise would be to say that the first 30 minutes of cooking is a chore, anything after that is a hobby, because it’s absolutely possible to cook a moderately complicated dinner for 2 in less than 30 minutes.

tangnapalm −  You’re not a bad feminist, it sucks your wife is saying stuff like that just to hurt you. It sounds like you think and care a lot about gender equality and feminism. Obviously if you were actually a bad feminist, you wouldn’t be bothered by the accusation because you wouldn’t care about women or being a feminist.

Also, I would take turns being responsible for dinner. One day its hers and you may get suckered into helping a bit, the next day you order take out or make something simple. She doesn’t get to be captain of the kitchen and not do anything else just because she’s decided that’s what she enjoys.

unavoidably_canadian −  There’s not an impasse. She doesn’t want to compromise. I love cooking. I love baking. I would never boss someone around if they were being nice enough to help.
She needs an attitude adjustment. How can she not see that spending two hours an evening cooking isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time even if it results in a nice meal?

Sometimes after cooking for a long time I don’t even want to eat. You guys should try making cooking in a short time a challenge. Thirty minute or less meals are a lot of fun to make. She can do the elaborate cuisine on her time.