lunch

Good News in my house. Neither of us eat the same thing at any time. So, we each do our own thing....this includes lunch/dinner/supper. He is a much better cook than I am so on occasions he will make a stunning Satay dish and he is great at scones! It works well for us as our body clocks are totally opposite, he is a late riser, while I get up at the crack of dawn. My afternoon is his morning so it just wouldn't work if he or I had to cook lunch or any other meal for each other. It all works for us. I can only think if you cook lunch badly enough, he won't ask again!!

Christinefrance. My husband does the same. It's his thing. He likes to prepare food, and does a much better job than I ever did.

Mine makes his own breakfast and lunch he loves Cheese and I'm allergic to cheese so problem solved.
I go to choir every Tuesday and he expected me to cook dinner but now he just sulks a bit and does his own dinner of a Tuesday. Problem solved.

Yes- I get this as he works at home sometimes. Drives me nuts so I try to be out at lunchtimes as much as possible. I rarely have lunch unless I have missed breakfast. He also wants coffee supplied all day- even if he has a half finished one. Strangely he can work the coffee machine when I am out!

When my children were at the age of staying in bed until all hours I told them and my husband that I would cook once a day and the rest they could get themselves. It worked well and is still working now we are retired and the children have left home. It means we can eat what we like, when we like.

We assemble our own breakfasts and have a tray in the fridge of lunch things to eat over the week, we make up our own sandwiches at slightly different times as suits us.

I retired a few years after my DH and he seems to like to make an occasion of every meal! We have breakfast together but both keep quite busy doing different things so I tend to leave him to his own devices at lunchtime. I always get the evening meal ( we are that generation) but if I am out for a meal with girlfriends I leave him something all ready to heat up. Couldn't imagine him doing that for me when he is off on a jaunt!

We don't have breakfast together during the week, but on Saturdays & Sundays we sit down to something eggy/toasty and the newspapers. DH lunches out with friends/ex-colleagues on Tuesdays & Thursdays; if we are both in at lunchtime on the other days I will usually assemble something light as we have our main meal (prepared and cooked by me, very happily) in the evening. Unless we've been somewhere for a "proper" lunch, in which case DH will make us a light supper. If I'm out all day, DH loves to get his hands on the oven - he makes a mean pasty!

Catlover23.We had always had our main meal of an evening so there was never a lunch time as such merely if I was not at home mid day which was frequently then DH fed himself or starvedYou are a wife not a
servant.

Lunch is for wimps.

...it’s is better for our health to eat our dinner at lunchtime.

I'm dreading the day my OH retires. He's always expected to be cooked for & waited on, even when I worked full time and has always expected me to make him a packed lunch every day aswell. I just know he will continue to do nothing to help when he's retires. However I do let him fend for himself at lunchtime when I'm occasionally out for the day or feed himself when I go on holiday with friends, so he's perfectly capable when be has to be. Although there is always a freezer full of home made casseroles etc! I just can't seem to say no....

Your Advice Needed

I have a DS who lives in Portugal with his partner and their young daughter. The relationship has long since run its course but of course there is the DGD to consider.

The partner is Portuguese and was the driving force in making the move there. DS assumed he would be able to commute to the UK to carry on with his IT jobs (he was a project manager). Unfortunately this did not happen and he was dependent on Mum and Dad when his savings ran out.

Obviously he needs to speak Portuguese (the partner is bilingual and does translation work from home). DGD speaks fairly good English but better Portuguese of course.
The partner refuses to help him with the language, to the extent she even refused to come and translate to enable him to sign on with a doctor as one example. She stops him attempting to talk to DGD in Portuguese. He took an evening class and benefitted but obviously he needs conversational skills. It's a catch 22, unless he finds people who can speak English he is stuck. To be fair, many do.

He would very much like to leave her, find somewhere else to live in the same city (and as his father (my husband) has just died there will be funds available to him quite soon) and maintain a relationship with his daughter.

The partner too has funds tucked away which she inherited and refuses to touch, saying it is for the daughter. (I should add that provision has been made for all our grandchildren in my will).

The partner refuses to have a rational discussion about a way forward and seems to expect life to go on as normal with him paying the rent and helping around the house and her doing as little work as possible. He feels he cannot leave his daughter but the rows are of course very bad for her. If he comes back to the UK he risks losing contact with her as he would be dependent on the partner letting him facetime her (which he does when he visits me) or even face-to-face visits being limited at her whim.

He has been attempting to make a life for himself with his
photography but doesn't really earn anything with it. But it gets him out the house while DGD is at school.

Reading this I can see there is very little you can comment on - it is what it is - but if anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful. I am due there on a visit very soon (but staying in a hotel).

I'm appalled at this expectation, and by so many men. I do breakfast for us both and yes I know that is easy but I've always believed in a good breakfast. Lunch is a hit and miss thing that varies on what each us want to do. My wife does dinner but I help as much as I am allowed!

During the day I make coffee and tea as required. So I do the easy things but my wife likes it that way (apparently I make the best coffee but I am no judge). If necessary I can get my own dinner.

Sharing in retirement is surely the fairest way.

I don't see it as a 'badge of honour' to have a Dh who can't or won't cook. Mine would willingly have a go if I insisted, but to be frank I'm happy to cook once a day - as long as he clears up! - plus he's utterly non fussy and always appreciative of whatever I make, whether it's taken a lot of prep. or is just jacket potatoes with beans and cheese.
I really couldn't do with a fussy eater!

Has your husband been retired for long, catlover? Sounds as if he's bored and needs the meals for something to do and break up the day.
I don't think we have ever had 2 full meals a day.
It used to be in the evening, when we were both working, and then after retirement, at lunch time. We each get something light for ourselves in the evening.

I am amused by all these comments and I feel very lucky. At 94 my husband still takes me out to lunch at least once a week. On other days we just have a snack while watching the 1 o'clock news then I cook at night

My OH has always done breakfast and all the years he was working I would make him sandwiches and home made cakes to take to work for his lunch. I have never been a big eater at lunch time and just have a banana and a yoghurt, so nothing time consuming.

Now OH has taken early retirement he still does the breakfast and makes whatever he fancies for lunch and gets me a cup of tea and my banana and yoghurt too.

As I seemed to be doing pretty much everything else in the house apart from that I have been encouraging him to make dinner too as he can't seem to get his head around anything else. He keeps telling all and sundry how he 'cooks everything' despite the fact that his idea of cooking is generally just putting something in the oven or microwave. If it's anything that involves chopping up vegetables and has more than a few ingredients then I will make those meals.

Secret of a long marriage. For better for worse but not for lunch!

My late husband, bless him, never prepared a meal in his life, if there was definitely no hope of a meal being made for him, he`d go to the chippy! I hear women talk about the meals their husbands cook for them, and I wonder what life would have been like if...........?

Mctavish i think you posted on the wrong thread. Dont want you to be ignored so perhaps repost.
Sorry you have these worries.

We are very easy going when it comes to breakfast and lunch we either make our own or for both of us. Most dinners are usually cooked by me although he did very well when I could hardly move with sciatica a few weeks ago. This afternoon I suggested making a quiche for dinner but he said could we have egg and chips instead. He said I could make a quiche so it was in the fridge if we wanted a snack. Fair enough so I settled down have my daily fix of GN and he said he thought I was going to make a quiche. Grr! So 90 minutes later I think I will go and make that quiche and peel some potatoes.

I do not do breakfast of lunch. I have a glass jar full of a mixture of nutty meusli and extra nuts which I top up all the time. That's all I eat for breakfast and if husband is in the kitchen I ask him if he would like a plate too. He was expecting porridge cooked by me, eggs etc. I made sure it was not on offer.

Lunch. I arrange as many meeting with friends for 11.30 am as possible. This means he gets his own lunch. when we are both in I make a sandwich or a baked potato with filling & salad asking him if he wants one too. I do not ask him what he wants. I do not have time to faff round and anyway I am trying to keep my weight down. I buy filling etc. in Aldi or Lidel. If I attend a morning class I often buy a 31 sandwich and say I will be home at 3 pm.

We have an evening meal together. He does one evening I do another.

Mine likes his at 12 noon, I like mine when I am hungry. A few weeks into his retirement I told him to make his own and he has done for the last few years. I make dinner, I don't really want to eat his cooking

Mine hasn't retired yet but expecting lunch when he's off irritates me!
I once left it and at 2 pm he said'
'Are we having any lunch then?.'
To which I replied ' that would be nice, I'll have whatever you're making!'
I have since told him I don't do lunch,just breakfast and dinner.

I’m very lucky, my husband is a fabulous cook. Since I am just okay on a good day and I hate cooking, he does it all and it’s delicious. As for lunch, we don’t rise early since we retired (we are both night owls) so it’s just a small brunch for us, then a snack in the evening.