agonyaunt | (no subject)

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Dear Carolyn: I’m really frustrated with my wife and maybe need a reality check.

My parents are so easy to be around if you know how to handle them. I figured it out a long time ago, and I’ve tried to help my wife handle them, too. My dad loves to give advice about people’s work. He thinks he’s a Warren Buffett type who knows all the ins and outs. My wife’s job is far removed from what my dad does, so none of his advice applies, but all she has to do is humor him.

Recently, she was giving a presentation to the VP, and my dad found out about it and gave her advice that was a little old-fashioned about what to wear and how to behave. All she had to do to make him happy was pretend she took it and it worked, but instead she told him why his advice wouldn’t work, and they ended up arguing, and my dad walked away hurt.

With my mom, it’s the same, but for cooking and household stuff. She doesn’t believe food can be good if you make it ahead, so she always asks. All my wife has to say is the food was made fresh that day, and my mom would be so happy.

Is there any way to convince my wife to humor my parents, or am I going to have to live with this constant bickering?

— Spouse

Spouse: Sounds like the real problem is parents who expect applause for their relentless condescension.

You’ve made peace with them, great. I am all for workable solutions.

But your workable solution is not workable for your wife. Okay? Okay.

So move on. Ask her whether she’s willing to discuss other bicker-prevention strategies, because it’s driving you nuts. Get off to a healthy start by apologizing for your relentless “all you have to do” campaign, which sounds suspiciously like the next-gen version of your parents’ relentless know-it-all-isms.

Humoring people is just fine if that’s what you want to do — but it’s miserable if it doesn’t sit right, and dishonest. And it’s downright infuriating if refusing to suck up to intrusive people is identified as the real problem, not the people who refuse to stop intruding.

But don’t feel too bad, because you married it, too; there’s no bickering without her voluntary entry in the “I know more than you do!!” Olympics. You’re all overdue to try some of the many other ways to disengage politely.

She’s had the option all along, as yet unexercised, to say gently but firmly that she won’t talk with them about X. “I leave my work at work — thanks for understanding,” then gliding away from the subject. Or, “Nope, not discussing my kitchen secrets,” then gliding away from the subject. Or, “Thanks,” smile, disengagement.

And you have the option of saying, “Asked and answered, Mom/Pop,” as you take the radical step of prioritizing your wife’s happiness this time.

Readers’ thoughts:

· To “pretend she took [the advice] and it worked” is asking for so much more than “humoring” your parents. You’re asking her to actively encourage your dad by pretending she doesn’t know how to do her job without him. Examine your own issues with setting boundaries, rather than getting upset that your wife has some.

· A good friend’s mother was very controlling. She needed to tell people what to do, always in long-winded, one-sided conversations that were hostage situations. These parents sound controlling, and you, in turn, are trying to control how your wife behaves. Please see what other ways you do this.

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Dear LW's wife: You don't have an inlaw problem, you have a husband problem. It's not too late to leave him for a better model.

Word.

Very much so. And the "all you have to do is be dishonest and submissive" crap is a wake-up call.

Apart from the general problem (and boy, I would be prepared to 'make it fresh that day' with these pretty mushrooms I found.... ooops) there are actually dishes that are better for being made a day or so in advance, not to mention things like rich fruit cake which can mature for months!

Accidentally poisoning the in-laws with old food is a tragedy. “Accidentally” doing it with mushrooms is a felony.

Better to let them starve. Their son can order them pizza I guess.

Agreed (well, other than the mushrooms...:P...but yes, it'd be tempting)

The columnist is also extremely wrong that it's partly the wife's fault and that contradicting pushy advicemeisters is in any way equivalent to being a know
-it-all!

word

That’s exactly it. Sometimes people actually do know more and it’s not “competing in the know-it-all Olympics” to be definitive on things one actually does understand. When someone is an authority on a topic, correcting ignorant misunderstandings isn’t a competition with the ignorant person, any more than a professional athlete is in competition with a toddler trying to mimic their exercise.

In this situation, I fully trust that the person who actually works at a company, knows the VP, and understands her company culture has a lot more authority on that workplace/person than someone who has either been out of the workforce for some time or works in an outdated work environment (as LW described his dad’s advice as old-fashioned), who worked or works in a very different context, and doesn’t know the wife’s company or the VP in question.

Exactly! The idea that it's officious or smug to correct unsolicited and unwanted ignorant mansplaining about one's OWN JOB is just breathtakingly stupid.

Reading a bit more generously, I think she’s saying that Wife would do better to say “thanks, but we’ll have to agree to disagree” or “if you don’t trust my cooking you’re welcome to get takeout” rather than getting into it with them.

I’d advise Wife to get a hotel room when they visit.

I'd advise Wife to book a hotel room for the in-laws when they visit. Why should she be chased out of her own home by assholes?

If she goes on vacation she doesn't have to deal with them.

Ah. Book a hotel room in Tahiti -- of course! Husband who brought it on by not supporting his wife can fund that or get his parents to.

Unless they live in Tahiti, in which case she can always book a room in London.

Expecting your spouse to lie to your parents is weird. LW needs to take a good long look at their own expectations.

I do have some sympathy for LW's mother. I've gotten food poisoning due to my mom's insistence on serving old food on multiple occasions and I no longer eat anything from her that wasn't made that day because of it.

I think there's a difference between being wary of food that was improperly stored or contaminated at the start and expecting a woman who has a full time job to also cook from scratch every single day.

The letter doesn't actually say why LW's mother doesn't want to eat leftovers. It just says that she always checks before she eats at LW's home.

Yeah, and now you mention it, it is rather odd without more context. But it's hard to envision a situation where just systematic lying would actually be a foolproof and perfect solution.

Lying about food seems like a good way to make everyone angry when the truth comes out.

Oh yeah.

Maybe the mom has histamine or other issues. But maybe she’s just old fashioned enough to think The Woman Of The House Must Cook Every Day. Absent more info I’m not comfortable saying the wife ought to have to cook for her every time she visits let alone every day indeed.

I just don't get The Woman Of The House Must Cook Every Day vibes out of a guest not wanting to eat someone else's leftovers.

It’s not clear to me that these are leftovers rather than Wife taking the common practice of cooking for two or three days at a time - you make extra chicken drumsticks today and tomorrow the extras become the basis of honey chicken, and you freeze half the honey chicken to have in two weeks. You make extra mashed potatoes with dinner today and tomorrow you pull out your frozen shepherds pie filling and top it with the saved potatoes.

Yeah, it makes me blink in surprise to see this kind of practice deemed questionable.

or not even at that level -- I don't make lasagna the day I serve it, I make it the day before. Same with stews. They're not leftovers, they're made ahead because they keep well. Or I'll make a big pot of spaghetti sauce with meatballs when I have time, and only the noodles the day I'm serving.

Is something cooked ahead necessarily leftovers?

One thing I like to do is to take a couple of small pans and fill them with a casserole mix (pasta, stuffing, chicken and rice, etc), bake it enough to be cooked, and put the pans away [in the fridge to be precise] to be reheated and eaten later. If I cook these on Sunday and then on Tuesday I have a friend over and take one of the small casseroles out to reheat (which has not been touched since it was wrapped up after baking) am I feeding a friend leftovers, or does it only count as decent food if I make the casserole from scratch that Tuesday night regardless of if it takes an hour longer to get dinner on the table? Is this exactly the same as pulling out a couple of Tupperware half-full of tumbled dinner remnants which sat out for an hour before being put away?

Is it ethically wrong to cook ahead? I certainly have not found it to be necessarily biologically dangerous if one observes food safety guidelines.

Edited 2024-03-09 00:59 (UTC)

I'm going to bow out of this conversation. I appreciate your example of how you use leftovers (and how your example is similar to how I manage food in my own home), but this thread has gone from "I sympathize with people who avoid leftovers" to "I don't get bad vibes from a guest not wanting to eat leftovers" to "Is it ethically wrong to cook ahead?"

I'm sorry that the thread ended this way and for the offense that I have given. At least we can both agree that the letter writer is a dick.

While there are people who have genuine issues with eg amines that mean that chicken cooked on Monday is fine on Monday, but is a migraine trigger on Tuesday

I figure if that was the issue, the MIL would have been explicit and also be open to low amine options that don't require cooking.

And also the LW would (we hope) have said "my mom needs freshly cooked food for medical reasons" rather than "mom believes food is not good if not cooked freshly"

Who knows. LW is so committed to the "lie and do your own thing" method of parent management that maybe he's never actually listened to his mother's reasons. Which, to be fair, I get - but he's not exactly being any more respectful of them than he is of his wife.

Which raises the secondary question of: hey, LW, if your mother only wants to eat made-fresh-that-day food and your wife does not have the time and energy to accomplish this, do you know what the obvious answer is? It's not "your wife should lie to your mom to keep the peace." It's "if keeping your mom happy is so important to you, you should cook."

Mac & cheese & hot dogs, prepared while they watch, every time they come over!

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