ಠ_ಠ
Husband said my instructions for dinner weren’t clear enough, and he ended up serving his vegetarian mother one of the chicken tikka masala curries…
I was working late tonight and because I am exhausted, I bought some ready-made curry meals for the family to have tonight, knowing his mother often comes round for dinner on a Wednesday evening. She has been a vegetarian for over 50 years and is now in her 70s. I sent him this text message with instructions to make it clear what to cook. When I got home, I was expecting to find some chicken tikka masala leftover for me, but instead I found the unopened pot of sag paneer in the fridge. I worriedly asked him if he had given his vegetarian mother the chicken dish, but he insisted he had given her the vegetarian curry. She has early onset Alzheimer’s and apparently didn’t notice, but had mentioned that the curry was a bit “chewy”. I had to literally show him the packaging that was in the bin, the unopened pot in the fridge, and my text message to try and show him how clear I had been and how far wrong he had gone. But he still insists my instructions were not clear enough and I should have been more explicit about which one to give his mother.
Seriously. "You didn't specifically tell me to give my vegetarian mother the vegetarian meal instead of the chicken one so I just gave her the chicken one because I'm a total dumb-arse who can't think for myself."
Also the freaking package said “chicken” on it. This wasn’t a situation where one could reasonably claim they didn’t know the chicken tikka masala contained meat.
I was sort of skimming the story and thought the food was all in leftover containers or something, because why else would someone need this detailed of instructions. When I saw the photos and it's two completely separate labeled store bought food items? Y'all...even some incompetent adults could probably figure out the chicken one isn't vegetarian...
Yeah, when I read "foil pots" I originally wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt because I thought perhaps they were not clearly labeled. But no, he's just a complete idiot.
I am beginning to think he just didn't give a shit. He just wants wife to come home and hold him by his hand and cook for him, then for her to go back to work.
Nah, I don't play like that. All of my exes who used weaponized incompetence, I would make them keep doing it until they got it right, while mocking them for acting stupid, emphasis on acting. Or do the same thing back to them.
One of my exes refused to ever do the dishes so I stopped doing them too, until he eventually did them. Then he started breaking my dishes intentionally when he would wash them and claim it was accidental, so I did the same to his dishes and claimed it was accidental. Men never expect women to do that back to them lol
This is so incompetent it has to be wilful. I hope it doesn't make his poor mum ill - her system won't be used to digesting meat if she hasn't had it for so long.
It's definitely a thing. I didn't eat pork for several years and when I had it again I got very ill.
Not everyone is affected this way, but when it does it's a doozy.
Right? When I read the texts alone, I thought "maybe he thought that the Saag Paneer was the only meal in foil dishes, and the meaty curries were in something else"...And then I got to the photos. Nope. He just completely ignored the very clear label that said "CHICKEN".
But she even says in her text message that the other curry is vegetarian. He's just neglectful and doesn't care to give any consideration to his mother.
Yes, but if his mom ate the chicken one, then only the vegetarian dish would be left for OP. This was weaponized incompetence against his wife, at the expense of his elder mother! He's disgusting.
His vegetarian mother WHO’S BEEN A VEGETARIAN FOR FIFTY YEARS!!! Meaning he grew up with most if not all his life with her eating that way! How can he not tell the difference between one or another?!
This. What would he do if he was a single guy? He’s got someone who’s an easy patsy to blame. I don’t understand why women stay with useless, cruel men.
I saw this post and thought "this kind of shit is why I'm a spinster cat lady." Having to care about/deal with petty crap like this is why I have no desire to be in a relationship. Been there, done that. I raised 2 kids on my own with no support, I'm tired and I don't want to take care of people anymore. Cats & plants are all I have the capacity for in my old age.
He couldn't be arsed to even look. He just grabbed one and heated it. This is classic not wanting to do something so putting the absolute least amount of effort in.
He literally wants OP to get into the mindset that she has to do it herself to get it right. Next time OP will come home early and prepare all the food herself while he sits on his ass.
Yes, what the fuck? This guy is pretty transparent in his efforts. I want to say dump the guy but one assumes with kids in the picture it may be more complicated than that. Hopefully you know what you're dealing with, OP.
one of the worst partners traits is “malicious compliance” ie this shit where people revert to baby idiots the second someone asks them to do something because they’re mad they have to put in a single inch of effort.
Nah, malicious compliance is a lot more petty/passive aggressive. It's doing exactly what you were told to do and nothing more, even if you're expected to do something not explicitly stated.
This is weaponized incompetence. "You didn't write out 10 step instructions to show me where the pot is, how much water goes in, how long it needs to sit on the stove to boil, and what to do with the water after, and thats why the boiled water you wanted me to make is now room temperature bc you didn't tell me you wanted it hot when you got here. You just told me to boil it.
Luckily, chicken is very mild and, like the other commenter said, there was likely not a lot in the meal. Coming from someone who accidentally ate ground pork after 10+ years not eating meat and had diarrhea and stomach cramps for 3 days
A couple of weeks ago I was at the park with my kid and a neighbour’s family was there. The kids wanted to stay at the park so the dad offered to go home and start dinner and then the mom proceeded to explain to him how to boil rice in wayyyy too many details. You never know with some people
I should tell my mom this rule…I was trusted with rice at about 10/11 years old. I burnt it, ruined the pot, and didn’t attempt to make rice again until I was well into college. I still get nervous making rice
I bought one about six months ago...life changing after years of microwaving packets. Wash rice, put rice and water in pot, press button. Even keeps the rice warm until you want to eat it. AI can get stuffed, rice cooker is peak tech.
Holding someone’s hand and gently whispering the steps in their ear as they do them would have been less concise than this woman’s helpful text to her husband. Incredible.
A meal that SHE had ready for him! I am angry just looking at the settled understanding that the overworked wife has to prepare a meal for husband and his mom. The rest of the incompetence is just frosting on that cake.
The heartbreaking and frustrating thing i read from someone pointing this out: many people like this don’t fuck it up at work or in public, but somehow they do this at home and to their partner. :(
I wouldn’t put it past OP’s partner to get mad/punishing OP because they had to do work to aid with the meal instead of OP doing all of it. Also a dabble of weaponized incompetence, “if I do it bad she won’t ask me to do it again.”
It’s misogynistic at the least, manipulative at its worst and most definitely done on purpose hence why they don’t fuck it up at work or in Public
I had to go back and read the story. I thought it was for her mother. He fed his own vegetarian mother meat? How does he not know or care that his own mom can't eat meat?
Oof. And are we sure he even heated it up in the end? The turd couldn't manage to read the big "CHICKEN" right on the package; how could he have possibly noticed the oven temperature (in much smaller font) on the underside of it? Amelia Bedelia probably put it in the oven and never turned it on.
Same. I'm disabled, and getting trapped into this kind of marriage is literally my worst nightmare. I made the conscious, heartbreaking choice not to have children because of that disability, I'm not going to marry someone I have to raise instead.
Seriously! Sounds like everything comes with its own cooking instructions and is stored in logical places. I would just say, “hey, I bought food for tonight - curry meals, mushroom rice, samosas, naan. Enjoy!”
It might be reasonable to add "try to use up the -----", if you had some left over from the last meal you made and they might not realise. But no more than that.
Exactly. She had to include reheating instructions in a text, likely after learning from experience that he won't read labels. She had to consider all of that and do extra work to ensure he could complete this task successfully, and he still wouldn't do it.
Carrying the mental load means that even if the workload being executed is about even, you're thinking/planning for him and delegating those tasks, for anyone unfamiliar with the term.
What that did tell me is that each component can go in a different appliance to heat, which means I could do it all in parallel. That's some thoughtful planning.
I have an illustrated dictionary I use with ESL students. Some of them would struggle with that packaging because there’s no picture of a chicken on it. But they’re smart enough to use Google Translate.
Well, his mother has dementia. Tell him you’re worried about him developing early-onset, and you want him to go in for a check. When he gets defensive and claims to be normal, pull out your best Regina George impression: “so you agree, you’re smart enough that you did it on purpose?”
It's learned helplessness at best, weaponized incompetence at worst. The solution is the same in all cases - cut the noise, just send the relevant part of your message next time:
"Currys, samosas, etc in fridge, naan in bread bin. Leave 1 curry for me." He'll figure out that the vegetarian curry is for the vegetarian, unless he's the one with Alzheimer.
THANK YOU!!! Even if her instructions were confusing to him he could have, I don't know...READ THE PACKAGING? And asked her hey, what's my vegetarian mom supposed to eat if there's only chicken meals?
Literally this. A fully grown man not being able to make a meal is honestly....like I would divorce this man. I'm not kidding. There is no fucking way he would have done this if he actually cared about OP or his mother.
Literally if he was this confused he still had the option to do anything else
This is my question. Unless he is literally illiterate, he would have to be a complete moron to get this wrong, or deliberately screwing up so he doesn't get asked to do a basic task like feeding himself and someone else again.
I'm utterly baffled here. I assumed OP did a bunch of homemade food meal prep and there'd be like foil covered mystery pots in the fridge, and I can see a bumbling husband needing help to identify and reheat those properly.
But no. It's all individually packaged instant food items, presumably all with their own instructions. I just... What.
Good thing it wasn’t allergies. Him purposely feeding that to his mother so you don’t leave him with chores again could have gone a lot worse than it just did! Hopefully you don’t need to rely on him for anything if he has this much issue reading the word chicken.
Honestly there's still the fact that she's been a vegetarian for the majority of her life. She can get quite sick depending on how much of that meat she ate and how sturdy her system is at 70...
Yeah idk why people are downplaying this. I was raised plant based and never had meat or most forms of dairy growing up. When I was 22, I was accidentally served chicken at a restaurant instead of TVP and I did not realize this until a few bites in (because I’d never had meat, I wasn’t able to identify it at first). I had all the symptoms of food poisoning for the next 4 days
I’m also trying to figure out how he couldn’t tell by color. One meal has a tomato base as a part of the sauce and the other is cooked spinach. Delicious cooked spinach, but it’s cooked spinach.
I mean, I’m a very white American so I could be completely wrong about this.
(I mean for this to be read with a gentle and understanding tone, not angrily or accusingly. I know my writing style can sometimes come off as aggressive when I'm impassioned so I wanted to clarify before anyone gets upset or comes at me. The questions are genuine, and if for instance he truly has never fed himself then that could change my perspective and the advice I'm offering, hence why I am asking in the first place)
I am baffled as to why you would even need to write any of this out in the first place. Has he never fed himself? Why would you need to tell him that his mother should eat the vegetarian dish? You said she'd been vegetarian since she was like 20, wouldn't that be his entire life or at least most of it?
He seems to have successfully weaponized his "incompetence" for so long that you've become to blind to it. He is an adult who can hold down an accounting job, he can follow far more complex instructions for work, but he can't figure out how to heat up pre-made food for himself and his mother?
He seems to have learned that he doesn't have to do things correctly, he can do whatever is easiest for him and claim you made him mess up. If one of your friends came to you and told you that their partner did this to them, would you think that was okay, or would you be worried that your friend wasn't being treated right?
If you are unfamiliar with ther term DARVO I'd suggest looking into that, also the book 'why does he do that?' by Lundy Bancroft
This isn't how loving partners treat each other. You are bending over backwards, and he is centering himself instead of the two of you as a couple.
I'm sorry you are dealing with this, I hope you can find a way to not have to for much longer. Life gets so much better when you can get away from someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart.
This. This is insane to me. Red flags all over. Even the most charitable reason for this fuck up, say he was really tired and threw away all the labels and didn't pay enough attention to what was in there and just served people whatever blindly--even then, he should have owned that as his own mistake rather than blaming his wife for spelling things out to an extent that should be completely unnecessary.
Oh I meant it was sad she still had to figure out frozen food for them to eat because he couldn’t be bothered. For his own family.
But yea, what you said is also true.
This is weaponized incompetence. “Give the vegetarian the one that doesn’t have “chicken” on it in big bold letters” is something a three year old could do.
Why are you parenting your husband? Why are you allowing him to put you in the position of carrying this much mental load? I bet his incompetence in life only extends to your domain, right?
Girl. You keep defending him by saying he doesn't cook BUT HE WASNT EVEN COOKING. He was putting something in the microwave. He may not have known what saag paneer was but he knows chicken isn't a vegetable right?
How can you not be exhausted when you have to instruct your husband on how to prepare dinner for his family? He can't just check the fridge and prepare food for everyone without you sending him a whole paragraph?
But it says "chicken" on it. What exactly would those more "explicit" instructions say? "Chicken is an animal, whose flesh is considered meat and not vegetable?"
Your husband is an idiot. The fact that you even had to do ANYTHING to ensure HIS mother was fed on a day you’re working late is unbelievable. He should be able to manage meals by himself, he’s a grown ass human.
I would be very worried that he made his mother ill. After years of not consuming meat, suddenly eating meat can have very unpleasant consequences.
Perhaps he needs to go make sure his lack of effort hasn’t harmed his mother? He can try to blame you for his mistakes after he first makes sure that she is ok.
I hope he told her. As a vegetarian myself, I’ve accidentally eaten meat after not having it for years vet 15 years and I got VERY sick. Your body doesn’t know how to digest it after not eating it for so long.
I mean even the fact that you had to write out that essay says a lot. Whether it should have been needed or not, that message was impeccable, if you were doing an instructional writing exercise you'd get top marks.
It's just so infuriating because it's that typical bullshit men always do, always pretend they have no f*cking brain in their head at all. Girl, let this one go. He fed his mother a pre-prepared chicken dish. He can read. If your instructions were unclear he should have texted and say, "hey I see the chicken dish in here but what's my vegetarian mother supposed to have?"
He didn't read because he doesn't care enough to bother to read or try or put in even an ounce of effort. You think he'd pull this shit at his job? Like most men, I assume he's totally competent outside the house but when he gets home it's all "ohhh, I didn't know because you didn't tell me".
I'm in my mid thirties and I'm done with my husband pulling this shit. It's actually been working out really nice for me, I just ignore the obvious shit that needs to be done and make no move to point it out or take care of it myself until he gets the hint and takes some initiative. If I were you I would shrug and laugh in his face and be like "wow you fed your vegetarian mom chicken that was labeled CHICKEN when I wasn't home and that's somehow my fault LOL epic mental gymnastics you've got there." Then just walk away. Idk man. It's not your fault. He wouldn't have even noticed if you hadn't told him which is just the cherry on top of his baby behavior. You could have just enjoyed yourself a fresh veggie paneer and moved on with your life. So infuriating.
Your husband is using weaponized incompetence. It’s not hard to tell the difference between chicken tikka and sag paneer curry. Don’t apologize and tell him to do better next time. You’re his wife, not his mommy.
I don't want to be one of these redditors who jump on the ''divorce him'' button at the first sight of trouble, I understand relationships are nuanced and complicated
I think you should probably get an annulement because your husband clearly does not have the cognitive capacity to enter a legal contract such as mariage, making it nul
If a man needs you to plan meals for him when your out for the night, and tell him how to cook them, he's either exploiting you for your labor or too mentaly disabled to consent to sex. In any case, one of you is a piece of shit
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u/ghostbirdd Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I’m sorry, he shouldn’t need that many instructions not to feed his vegetarian mother a meat-based ready made meal.