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

A Redditor (30M) shared an update on his situation with his fiancée (29F), who recently discovered a love for cooking. The couple faced issues around the amount of time spent cooking, disrespect in the kitchen, and a shift in their routine that reduced quality time together. After a tough conversation, they’ve agreed on a new meal schedule and are seeking couples’ counseling to work through their challenges. Read the full story below.

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

My original post blew up in a way I totally wasn’t expecting. It seems a lot of people could personally relate to my post in some way so I hope it’s been helpful to others apart from myself. Thanks very much to everyone who commented; I wasn’t able to reply to everyone obviously but I did read as much as I could. There are a few things I’d like to clear up since they kept coming up:

She is not doing this because she wants to spend more time together. Previously, we would spend most of our evenings together watching shows or playing video games. Now that she is spending 8+ hours cooking by herself I don’t see her as much, and she is too tired from cooking sometimes to spend time with me. So that’s something that’s been bugging me about this that I hadn’t even realized.

It is especially bothersome to me because I work 50+ hours a week and she still works full-time as well (though her schedule is much more flexible). So now I feel like my already meager free time AND quality time with her is being cut into, which might be one of the most important aspects of this whole issue.

Her motivation is not to save money or be more healthy. We live in a big city where we are able to order lots of homemade-style ethnic food from mom-n-pop type places that isn’t overly salted or oily to appeal to the masses. It’s at least as healthy as the normal diet of a Mexican, Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, etc. person. Furthermore, we make a very comfortable income and don’t want kids. So money is not an issue.

So I sat her down and talked to her, again, because we were both in a good mood. But when I brought up the topic, she started to become annoyed, simply because this is a point of contention and I guess she didn’t want to talk about it.

I told her that I’m invested in solving this problem and that if we’re unable to do so we can bring it up during couples’ counseling. We had already intended to go before the wedding purely for premarital counseling, but now I feel as if there is an actual problem we have to discuss during the session and if we can get an appointment sooner rather than later I would be open to doing so.

This seemed to make it real for her. She seemed to be truly taken aback that I wanted to go to counseling over this (well, not over this specifically but that I wanted to involve a counselor at all in the cooking issue).

She even became teary-eyed! I felt bad so I asked her if there was anything else bothering her, that was really at the root of this, and she said that she’s overall felt pretty depressed by the pandemic and quarantine and everything. I told her I could relate and let her cry it out a bit. When she’d gotten past that I didn’t want the conversation to lose its steam so I brought up the following things:

* I love that her new hobby is making her happy and I appreciate that she’s making lots of delicious food for us to enjoy.

* These are the problems I have identified which I would like to find solutions for:

* We used to spend a lot more time together. I would like to have more easy meals so we can go back to spending quality time together on TV/video games/etc. like we used to.

* I do not mind helping a little or hanging out while she’s cooking, but the disrespect in the kitchen absolutely has to stop. In future I will be getting up and leaving if she is rude to me in the kitchen.

* The unfeminist comment was a low blow and I would like an apology.

She said she understood these things and apologized for the unfeminist comment. We worked out a meal schedule where I would be responsible for providing meals 2 times a week and she would cook elaborate meals on weekends. One designated night would be for both of us to cook a simpler meal together as a couples’ activity.

I asked her if there was anything about this she wanted to bring up—about how I was behaving or how she feels—and she said no, that she really was just depressed by quarantine and had dived into her new hobby. Hopefully if there is something else she will bring it up later.

That was a night where she was to cook a simpler meal for us. As a show of good faith I decided to help her out and see if she could be more chill and suggested we do all the prep first as some had suggested. It started off fine but she started to become snappish as she juggled frying in two different pans and wanted me to keep handing her prepped ingredients, so I went back to my room.

I felt VERY bad because I was leaving her in a bit of a tough spot but I also felt like I needed to stand by what I said because I did not want to put up with her poor treatment of me.

On top of that I had had a really difficult day at work (my job involves working with people who have very tough lives and I end up heartbroken and emotionally drained quite frequently; this has become exacerbated due to the pandemic) so I really just did not want to deal with my own partner being mean to me.

Ultimately the dinner turned out fine but she was pretty icy to me. I praised the meal a bit more than I usually do but she was sour all night. I have started looking to get a couples’ counseling appointment soon. I wish I had a happier update for you but hopefully things will get better with our new meal schedule as we continue to implement it and as I continue to set boundaries. I will also be keeping an eye on her depression and suggest individual therapy if it seems appropriate.. —

**tl;dr**: We’re going to couples’ counseling and have implemented a new meal schedule.

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

friendlily −  I read and commented on your previous post, but now it’s showing deleted. I’m glad you left the room. If you hadn’t, you’d be telling her that you don’t mean what you say. It’s concerning that she immediately went back to snapping after your conversation though.

You will have to keep working at this and holding her accountable if you want to help solve it, but ultimately only she can fix it. Hopefully you get a good counselor, and she puts in the work.

[Reddit User] −  I learned something when I was building a paint-rack for one of the first apartments me and my now-wife shared – I get very high-strung, very stressed, and very on-edge when I am building things. Just like your Fiancee wants your help in the kitchen, I wanted help with building this paint-rack, because sometimes two hands just felt like not enough!

But as she wasn’t able to read my mind, I got frustrated, and when anything went wrong the irritation and disappointment that was usually reserved for myself began to spill out (unfairly!) to her. She was hurt by me being snippy and snappish, and that was totally fair. She didn’t put up with it, and she was right not to.

So now? I don’t ever ask for her help with building stuff. That’s unfortunate, because it could be something cool to do together, and certainly two pairs of hands can be helpful. But ultimately I am a bad co-builder, and that’s on me, not on her.

I think the same thing may be inevitable with you two. She’s a bad co-chef. Even if she acknowledged that during your talk, she wasn’t able to control that spilling out when cooking again, and she didn’t even apologize for it afterwards – instead blaming you for following through on what you two agreed to! So I think she loses co-cooking privileges. **She’s just not wired for cooking together** (the same way some friends can be awesome friends but terrible roommates!).

[Reddit User] −  It was only the first try, so hopefully you can both settle into this new schedule, or find ways it needs to be tweaked for both your benefit. You mentioned you guys used to watch TV together/play video games a lot.

How into this was she? Have you also considered these are passive activities where you are consuming, whereas cooking is an active activity in which you create? Have you asked her if there is a different creating activity, in addition to cooking, that you both enjoy which you can add to your together time? Just an idea to have more together time but doing something more engaging. Maybe if it’s outside the space of cooking, she’ll be more relaxed.

rejecttheh0 −  Her compromising and recognizing the problem is a great sign! It’ll just take some getting used to, so I wouldn’t read too much into her snappiness. But the sooner you can get an appointment with a counselor the better.

[Reddit User] −  Yah, there’s most definitely something going on here when **immediately** after your discussion she went right back to snapping at you. You did very well with this discussion, you laid it out and told her what you were going to do. You stuck to it.

The fact that she saw it as a non-issue regardless of the fact that you brought it up multiple times before only to be shut down (and acted surprised when you drove that point home) is strange to me. Overall I’m glad you’re going to couples counseling, honestly she needs to develop a lot of introspection and emotional intelligence (at least that’s what I can gather purely from this post.)

glemnar −  It’s at least as healthy as the normal diet of a Mexican, Indian, Thai, Ethiopian, etc. person. Just want to throw this out there – home cooking is _much_ different from food eaten out, in other countries and cultures as well. Usually with much more vegetables and starches and less meat, fats, sugar. Restaurants are tiny snapshots of “rich” foods from a cuisine. Plus, restaurant portions tends to be larger.

outline8668 −  Sorry to hear things didn’t turn out as well as hoped. Your sit down with her sounds reasonable. Your compromise with her and continued willingness to help shows you’re not dismissing her feelings or interests.

It’s unfortunate as soon as the discomfort passed she went back to her usual habit and got upset when you called her out by following through and leaving the kitchen. I commend you for seeking out counseling sooner rather than later. There’s clearly more to this and the root cause needs to be deeper confronted. Hopefully professional guidance will be insightful.

TheMuddestCrab −  Your wife needs cooking lessons. While cooking can be elaborate it sounds like she makes process waaaay too complicated. Head chefs don’t demand their sous chefs bring them prepped ingredients to put in the pan. You’re exercising some great patience, counselling will do wonders, it doesn’t appear that you’re being unreasonable.

Ladyughsalot1 −  So she immediately cooked a challenging meal on the first simple night and snapped at you in the process? Yeah. Counseling. The feelings about the pandemic are her reasons for cooking. Her reasons for treating you poorly and doing whatever she wants are grounded in entitlement.

mrhemisphere −  I don’t know if this was suggested in the previous thread, but consider a meal delivery service. You still get to cook, but the prep is mostly done for you. The recipes give us different ideas than what we usually cook and my wife saves the ones we like if we want to replicate them. We do this like three nights a week and do our own more elaborate cooking on the weekends.

It’s clear that relationships require ongoing communication and compromise. Have you ever faced a similar issue where a new hobby or interest impacted your relationship? How did you handle it? Share your thoughts below!