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A hungry husband is weighing his marriage against the growing frustrations caused by his wife’s lack of cooking skills. Despite enjoying the kitchen initially, the 28-year-old Reddit user admits that handling all the household meals has become overwhelming, and he’s now contemplating divorce.
In a post on the “Am I The A–hole?” forum, the man shared his predicament: his 31-year-old wife struggles with even the most basic cooking tasks, and he wonders whether she’s purposefully dodging kitchen duties. “Overall, things are great, but one thing that’s been bugging me is that my wife doesn’t know how to cook — at all,” he writes, confessing that her repeated culinary blunders are wearing him down.
At first, he didn’t mind cooking for the two of them, even finding it enjoyable. But now, after long days at work, he comes home to find his wife lounging, leaving him to handle the meal prep on his own. His frustrations have only deepened because, despite his attempts to teach her, she remains “really bad at it.”
He described some of her most cringe-worthy kitchen fails, including trying to cut strawberries with the stems still attached and botching boxed mac and cheese. “She has literally f—ked up mac and cheese, like the box stuff,” he admitted, adding that he hadn’t known about her lack of kitchen skills before they got married.
What makes it worse, according to him, is that she shows no desire to improve. “She refuses to cook and claims there is nothing wrong with not being able to cook,” he writes, noting that her unwillingness to learn has become a “deal breaker.”
The issue escalated when the husband’s mother came over for dinner, only to witness the wife’s ineptitude firsthand. When handed a knife to slice fruit, she couldn’t figure out how to hold it. His mother, visibly frustrated, remarked, “It’s honestly kind of pathetic that you don’t even know how to cut a piece of fruit at your age.”
After the uncomfortable dinner, the wife was furious that her husband hadn’t stepped in to defend her, saying she felt embarrassed by his lack of support. However, the husband didn’t see it that way. “She is literally older than me and can’t hold a knife properly,” he wrote. In his view, the criticism was justified, but his wife remained adamant that the problem wasn’t her fault. “She told me that is not the point and I needed to defend her.”
Reddit users have chimed in, with opinions largely siding with the husband. While a few suggested he could have stood up for his wife, the majority agreed that basic cooking skills are essential. “Every adult should know basic cooking skills in order to feed themselves, such as using a knife safely to cut fruit,” one user wrote. Another added, “It is not hard to boil pasta, heat up sauce, meatballs, etc.”
The husband concluded that this issue might be deeper than just kitchen mishaps, calling it “weaponized incompetence” — a term used to describe someone who intentionally performs a task poorly to avoid doing it in the future. In a final effort to salvage their marriage, he plans to attend marriage counseling and cooking classes with his wife. “If things don’t change, I will be out,” he stated bluntly.
While this may seem like an extreme reason for divorce, a Harvard Business School study backs up the claim. It revealed that 25% of couples cited disagreements about housework as a primary reason for divorce. An expert on the matter, Cat Hoggard Wagley, weighed in on the Reddit post, saying, “Cooking is a life skill, and if your partner refuses to learn, then it isn’t your job to teach them, and it’s okay to leave any relationship you don’t want to be in.”
At the core of this culinary clash lies a fundamental relationship truth: partnerships require teamwork, and when one partner refuses to carry their weight, it can ultimately tip the balance toward separation.
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