Husband Refuses to Cook Dinner Unless His Wife Makes Him Breakfast

Parenting and marriage should be a partnership divided between two people. Unfortunately it’s not always that simple. Effort is hard to measure, especially when each person in a relationship excels in different areas. Of course, no one wants to scrub the toilet, but for some, taking out the trash can be worse. If couples can agree on what they see as a fair share, that’s what really matters.

Fifty-fifty only sounds good in theory, and as one guy on Reddit noticed, it’s much more complicated in practice. He had some discussion with his wife about the division of cooking labor and learned that contributing to a family isn’t as simple as “If I cook dinner, you make breakfast.”

The husband refused to cook dinner unless his wife prepared him breakfast.

“My wife and I have two children who go to nursery,” he said. He explained in a Reddit post. “My wife will take over the morning shift, including getting the kids up, making breakfast, and going to daycare.”

His wife brings the kids to daycare at 8:00 in the morning and is often in a hurry because The commute to work takes an hour.. He usually comes home around 6:30-7:00pm, just half an hour before the kids’ bedtime.

In contrast, she works from home from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., handling “overnight shifts that consist of picking up the kids from daycare, making dinner, and getting them ready for bed.”

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His wife hasn’t been making him breakfast lately.

“The problem is with breakfast,” he wrote. “We agreed that every evening I would cook dinner and he would have breakfast. “She’s already making meals for the kids, so this literally means making another one of the ones she’s already making.”

Unfortunately, this plan didn’t work as well as he expected.

“For the last month he either won’t make it for me at all (or) won’t tell me it’s over,” she said, adding that she constantly changes the schedule so breakfast is at a different time each day. “One day they eat at 7am and then they get dressed, other days he gives them toast before they get in the car.”

He tried his best to fix this but nothing worked.

“I spoke to him multiple times and told him this was not thoughtful,” he said. “We started arguing and he told me I was at home so I would cook my own food. I explained I may be at home but I’m doing my job.”

Stock oven | Shutterstock

“He couldn’t do anything yesterday and I had enough,” he continued. “He came home and I didn’t make him anything for dinner. When asked, I told her she was at home and could cook her own food. This started a huge argument and he called me an asshole.

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While parenting responsibilities should be shared, that doesn’t mean they should be split completely down the middle.

Dividing responsibilities in the family and around the home so that each party has an equal share of 50% is not always practical or fair.

Advisor Dr. Wendy Whinnery told Baby Chick:“One parent may have to travel further for work than the other and have less flexibility to leave to meet the needs of the family. “This can place additional stress on the opposing parent, who may have to take on many of these tasks during the workweek.”

That’s what Reddit commenters reminded this dad. As one person wrote, “You are home. You can easily eat a bowl of cereal while working in the morning. She gets the kids ready and heads out the door. Dinner is very different.”

Another commenter noted that “there was a deadline in the morning.”

“He needs to get to work on time… so speed will be his priority in the morning,” they said. “At night it’s different because if you don’t put the kids to bed on time you won’t get fired.”

It’s not really about the number of hours spent or the amount of tasks completed. It’s about making sure your family is cared for. This man’s wife also has her share of this. He could stand to make himself breakfast.

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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a BA in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle and human interest topics.