A stay-at-home mom has taken to Reddit to ask if she’s in the wrong for refusing to change the family’s dinner time because her husband wants ‘a fresh dinner’.
She explained the situation
The Redditor wrote that her family’s evening routine has been unexpectedly thrown off after her husband, whom she described as ‘kick a** in all aspects’, recently switched from night to day shifts.
“Up until last month, my husband worked overnights,” she wrote. “He would leave at 2 p.m., get home at 2 a.m.–4 a.m., heat up the food I prepared for him, sleep — rinse, wash, repeat.”
But now things are different
Now that her husband works daytime hours, the family’s evening routine of having dinner by 5 p.m. became a problem.
The mother of four said that for the past eight years, she would cook dinner at 4 p.m. to give her kids time to eat, complete their evening routines, and be in bed by 7–9 p.m.
Her husband wants to change the time
She explained that now, her husband wants her to ‘start preparing and making dinner at 5 p.m. and have it on the table when he gets home so he can ‘enjoy a fresh dinner, not heated up.’”
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He didn’t just want to shift dinnertime
But the request wasn’t just about shifting dinner an hour later.
“He has asked that I watch his location and see when he arrives back at the shop and that should determine when I START making dinner,” she wrote.
He doesn’t always come home at the same hour
The woman noted that it takes her husband an hour to get home from work, but his return time is unpredictable.
Such coordination would mean dinner is at a different hour each day, which wouldn’t be good for the kids’ routines.
She’s worried about her kids’ quality of sleep
“That would mean the two younger kids only have an hour for their stomachs to settle,” she said of her children who go to bed at 7 p.m.
“I was a pediatric nutritionalist prior to this so I know this isn’t a healthy pattern and it bothers me a great deal.”
The wife tried to compromise
Trying to compromise, she wrote, “I have offered to cook him separate food when I see him leaving work, but he wasn’t okay with that.”
She claimed that her husband told her she already has a lot on her plate and he doesn’t want to add to it.
But then she added a detail
In an edit to her post, the mother revealed a detail that made users rethink the whole thing. She admitted, “Okay, found one flaw in my husband.”
“He does not eat with the family. Not once in 12 years has he ever eaten dinner with us.”
He prefers to eat alone ‘in silence’
She said that her husband prefers to eat in his office ‘in silence’ and away from the noise of their four kids.
“He eats in his office and comes out after dinner to hang out,” she wrote. “I don’t mind. The kids don’t mind. They aren’t big talkers during dinner either.”
Commenters didn’t like this situation
Users under the post told the mother she’s not in the wrong, pointing out that the husband seems absent from his family.
One person wrote, “You say mostly he gets home at 7 p.m. but that’s when the little ones go to bed. The older ones go to bed 1–2 hours after that but your husband likes his alone time to relax… so when does he parent?”