The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
First, my hub & me have very different ways of cooking. His is more elaborate, full meals. Mine are more simple dishes, & not as much food.
I offer to cook dinner so that it's done @ a decent time. But the hub states he'll do it, he starts it usually too late, then drinks, & leaves the cooking to overcook while he passes out. Sometimes I don't even realize he's passes out, for I'm busy with the kids, or bills, and the food burns. Usually dinner is almost 8pm. This is too late for the kids and me.
If I just continue with his meal, I have to figure out how long it's been cooking, how to cook it, and how much longer. Plus even if I figure this out, the meal because it was started too late would still not be done until 8pm.
At first I stated finishing his meal but it would take too long. Then I started another meal to be able to eat on time. I was cooking & cleaning twice, from 5:30 to 9pm with both meals.
I feel I'm enabling if I have to start another meal to be able to eat on time, and then have to finish his started meal so that it doesn't burn, or go to waste. So lately if he passes out, I start cooking my own meal for me & the kids. I let the food he started go, if it starts to burn, I just shut it off & don't put it away.
My A likes elaborate meals and always has something to say about them. He will give me contradictory messages about fat, quantities, what he likes, the works. I am sorry you have to go through this. I am also glad that you are able to detach. Detaching is such an incredible art. When I do it I do not go into the draining sequence of resentment and then resenting myself and then having to do an inventory afterwards.
What is it with A's and cooking? Mine loves large elaborate meals that make a mess as well! I also find this difficult to deal with. If I don't clean up the mess, it will stay there and bother me. If I clean it up am I enabling him? I have experimented with leaving the mess there and I swear it would be eaten by maggots before he would clean it up.
My best result has simply been to cook dinner and have it cleaned up before he even has a chance to start cooking his dinner. I try to compromise by making something a little more hearty than I like, but not as ornate as his cooking. Now he usually just makes the drunk, ornate, messy dinner on weekends.
Mine likes to cook elaborately as well. He tapes episodes of cooking shows and prints out the recipes on the computer.
The biggest problem with this is he makes a lot of things the kids don't like and won't eat. he also chooses recipes that we do not have the fixins for in the house and then has to do an extra and expensive shopping. My biggest complaint is he uses every pot in the kitchen, then goes into the bedroom to eat and insists it is up to me to clean up since he cooked. (When I cook, I have to clean up as well.)
I have tried leaving the mess, but I can't deal with it. I hate a filthy kitchen, and am alwasy afraid of vermin. (ok so I am a little bit of a clean freak)
The easiest thing I can do is to have something more simple that the kids will eat, scheduled before he can get started. This gets him angry, that he doesn't have a say in the meal planning, but is a lot cheaper and a lot less cleaning for me.
