'AITA for deciding to cook for myself and not my husband?' 'I also pay all the bills.'

"AITA for deciding to cook for myself and not my husband?"

I (42F) have been married to my husband (48F) for 12 years, together for 15. We both work full time, no kids. My husband is ND and extremely successful in his career, but struggles with day-to-day functioning.

He has a lot of dietary restrictions and over the years I was happy to work around those--mostly we now eat homemade salad and baked chicken, in various forms. Unfortunately, this resulted in a situation where I do ALL the cooking. Any attempts to cook for me have lasted about one night before he is overwhelmed and frazzled and so I just go back to cooking as it's what I have always done.

I also pay all the bills, manage the household, take care of the dogs, do the laundry, clean the house, and work my own jobs. I am an academic and work at two schools. Over the last five years, my husband has been sick with various ailments, starting with atypical chronic illness, and then this year accelerating into an allergy to wood dust, intolerance to edibles, allergy to a paint I used on the kitchen cabinets...

...a reaction to our gas stove, and now (and this is the problem) an inability to tolerate chicken being baked in a tiny electric toaster oven as I'm not allowed to use gas anymore. He will not eat other meats or pasta.

I cannot use the stovetop as causes oil to splatter and it bothers him. He has pursued no medical solution aside from an inhaler from his PCP. His symptoms are mysterious and variable. He has not seen an allergist or rheumatologist in spite of my pleading.

In the middle of all of this, I was the primary caretaker for my father, who died slowly and brutally. He died in my arms on 12/21/24 after 10 months of illness, during which time I became his medical and financial power of attorney. He died hardly more than two weeks ago. For those of you that know, you know. For those of you that do not know, I don't want you to know. I am now the primary caretaker for my mother.

Since the death, my husband's health issues about me cooking have arisen and have become the focal point of a tremendous amount of friction in our marriage and home life.

I know I am not helping; I am exhausted, I am traumatized by the death, I am lost, I am angry at not being able to cook in my own home unless I break my work day to do so, so that the chicken off-gassing has passed by the time he returns home from work.

And even then it causes so much stress, which compounds my desperate sadness. It seems silly to grieve the loss of the ability to cook as I did, but I do. This morning, finally, I realized that perhaps I needed to remove myself from this whole emotional food-centered loop and told my husband he can cook and shop for himself and I will cook and shop for myself and the dogs. He was not happy about this at all.

I feel like a miserable failure of a wife. But I am drowning. I had to put some sort of boundary down so that I could protect and nourish myself in this hard time. AITA for longer wanting to cook in this impossible environment?

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

prevknamy said:

NTA. Are you saying your husband has decided that he has all of those bizarre allergies (wood dust, gas stove, etc) on his own without meeting with an allergist? He is putting an insane burden on you and doing nothing to help.

I’ll be honest - he’s mean and selfish for expecting you to sacrifice your quality of life for all of his whatnot. I would for sure stop cooking for him. I would cook my own food however I want to. I would tell him if he doesn’t go to multiple doctors to assess all this then the marriage is over.

Aware_Welcome_8866 said:

Stop. Just stop the madness. In addition to cooking your own meals, use the gas stove until he sees a medical provider and assign him some chores. Is he going to like it? Probably not.

But listen to yourself: you are exhausted, traumatized, lost and angry. If anyone needs self care it’s you. If your hubs doesn’t have the skills to care for you, then you are just in caring for yourself. That does not make you a failure. NTA.

AnitaTacoTwo said:

NTA. Your husband is an adult. He needs to help himself, and if he won't do it by seeing doctors to figure out his problem, then HE needs to deal with his problem his way and not drag you down with him.

I am so sorry that you are going through ALL of this. It's not fair of your husband to put this on you. Tell him you will start cooking and shopping for him again AFTER he sees a specialist! That's a compromise. I wish you all the luck, OP!

Somuchallthetime said:

NTA. That’s not a husband, that’s a leech and you’re a servant. I hope you get yourself out of this. Life can be hard but it shouldn’t be this miserable.

Kukka63 said:

NTA, you have been carrying an incredible burden and managed so many responsibilities. Your husband, instead of being mardy, should support you and the least he can do is cook his own food. You have not failed in anything, however you have not recognized your own value and the support you so richly deserve.

Expensive_Excuse_597 said:

NTA. You need to put aside one of your burdens. Your husband is a grown man and he can cook for himself. You are not a failure as a wife, your husband is a failure as a husband and a person. He needs to take his own health into his own hands. I also am wondering if a lot of this is psychosomatic on his part. Does your mother have health problems? If not, why can she not take care of herself?