Woman Complains That Husband Expects Dinner When He Gets Home — But He Might Have a Point

Have you ever been part of a conversation where you know the person talking expects you to take their side and trash talk the person they're complaining about, but you kind of see the other person's point? This is exactly that experience, except in a post from Reddit's "Am I the A-hole?"

This woman explains that she has been laid off but that her husband is still working during the quarantine, doing "essential construction." Before the pandemic, this couple ate takeout "99 percent of the time." But now, because of the current situation, she writes, "we've decided that I would start cooking all dinners since I'm home all day and we need to save money."

Let me just repeat that: They decided, together, that she would start cooking their meals. Now, her husband is complaining that there's no dinner ready when he gets home from work every day around 6 p.m. 

When he gets home, she wants to spend "at least 30 / 45 minutes talking about our days since I get no social interaction until he's home, and then I'll get up and start making dinner."

She hates that her husband comes home and nags her to make dinner right away "because he's been at work all day and he's starving." She wants to "relax and talk to him." 

But...if he gets home at 6 p.m., they talk for 45 minutes, and then she starts making dinner, they aren't eating until 8 p.m. at the earliest. That's late for dinner! I get that she wants to talk to her husband, but she's home all day without a job. Why can't she simply make dinner earlier? 

It's gotten to the point where he tries to go to the kitchen when he gets home to make his own food, and he tries to bypass having a conversation with her. "I don't know why I waste my time and energy planning and making meals for someone who is just going to be ungrateful and demanding," she writes. 

But he doesn't seem to be demanding... He seems to come home from a long day of work during a pandemic needing to eat and wanting to get some food in him. Is that such a crime? 

She writes, "He said he comes home from work hungry every day and just wants to be fed right away, while I believe that beggars can’t be choosers and he should be happy that he’s getting a home cooked meal at all. When I grew up I wouldn’t ever dare ask my parents to cook dinner on my schedule and I don’t know how he was raised to be so entitled."

Oy. He's not entitled though. He's hungry. And he's your husband, not your child. And if you agreed that you would cook dinners, wouldn't you do what made sense for both of you? There's literally no downside to having dinner ready when he comes home or to already be cooking when he walks through the door. You can still chat and eat or cook at the same time. 

But she doesn't seem to understand that. It's her plan or none at all. Listen, I've read a ton of Reddit posts about awful sexist husbands demanding that their wives act subservient and make them meals, but this really doesn't seem to be the case. 

This woman is crying sexism, but in reality, she's trying to justify her controlling behavior instead of doing what's best for them as a couple. Commenters tried hard to get her to see this. 

"He comes home from working out in public (on a job site) and would like to eat, which is reasonable. How pleasant can talking to a very hungry person be?" one person writes. "If you had the meal ready at 6 when he got home, you could converse over the meal.

"You have the nerve to call him entitled for wanting to eat when he gets home from work on his schedule? He's not entitled. At all. You agreed to do this."

"Why don’t you just have dinner ready for him when he gets home, and then you two can immediately socialize over a nice meal, thus fulfilling both of your desires?" another person asked. "This seems simple. Am I missing something?"

No, I don't think this person is. I think this woman came to Reddit to get people to agree that her husband is being sexist and didn't realize that she's the one in the wrong here. And her reactions prove that point. 

In an edit to her original post, she writes, "Stop telling me to cook before he gets home, he sometimes works late so he would just get a cold dinner. And talking WHILE I cook doesn’t really work because it’s hard to have a conversation while I’m working and moving around a kitchen."

Um, on the days he's late, he can just...heat up dinner when he gets home? And how hard is it to talk while you're cooking dinner? Or wait until it's done and chat over your meal, which is, in my opinion, one of life's great pleasures? 

It really seems like this woman was looking for a fight, and she was not happy when everyone else was unamused by her complaints. Relationships are a two-way street, girl! The sooner you figure that out, the better.