‘AITA for telling my wife to stop asking me to help with dinner?’

A 35-year-old man turned to the internet and revealed how fed up he is with his wife’s constant request for help while cooking.

Taking to Reddit's popular 'Am I The A*****e' (AITA) forum, the Original Poster (OP), under the username aita-dinner, titled his post, "AITA for requesting that my wife stop asking me to help with dinner?"

He began by writing, “My wife, ‘Glenda’, is 34f. We do not have children.”

Man says his wife is not 'big' on cooking

The OP shared that he works from home, “so I am usually on dinner duty. It just makes logical sense because I can defrost/prep while she comes home, and we can eat early so we can sleep early.”

The OP said that he worked during his college days and his job required him to cook “twice a day, so i’m a pretty good short order cook. My dinners are not usually elaborate but they feed us healthily.”

Regarding his wife, he said that she’s not into cooking much and he’s no issue with that. “She’s good at other things,” he stated.

But then he mentioned, “Here’s the conflict: when she does cook, she constantly asks me questions. She’ll shout from the other room that she needs my help, and it’s a question about how much salt to use or whether x or y is done yet. So I'm just never ‘off duty’ for cooking, I can never take a mental break.”

OP thinks he deserves a mental break

The OP also shared in his post that his wife’s points are “(1) cooking makes her anxious and also (2) that I'm just better at cooking, so I really do know better.”

“But I just want a mental break some nights. This emphatic and direct discussion happened last night and she is mad. I don’t want her to be mad but I also don’t want to be Dinner Guy until we die. AITA?” he added.

People in the comment section understood his point.

Reddit users say OP’s wife’s ‘arguments are not good’

One Redditor commented, “NTA. A 34 year old woman can learn how to cook. If she wants to know how much salt to use, she should add the amount she feels is appropriate, and if it comes out bad, she'll have an idea of which way to adjust it for the next time. Most cooking is learned through trial and error.”

Another Redditor said, “NTA. She's a grown-up. She can follow a recipe or a YouTube video. I only ask hubby meat related questions because he was raised by a professional meat wrapper, and they raised animals, including cows. When I'm getting conflicting answers, I ask him. Now he's doing some cooking and used to ask for more hand-holding but then realized it was tied to attachment trauma response. He's now trying to be more independent. What would she do if she was single?”

One individual shared, “NTA. You cook most nights, so wanting a break is fair. She can follow a recipe instead of using you as a live hotline. She’ll get over it. PS my Filipino wife is actually Glenda….”

“NTA. Her arguments are not good. Cooking makes a 34 year old adult anxious? Seriously? Perhaps sign up for cooking classes. There are tons of different levels and styles. It's something you can do together, and it will help her get the basic skills she needs to be more confident cooking,” a person noted.

Another person added, “NTA. She can figure it out for herself. Even if she has to watch DIY videos off Youtube.”

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