Dear Fuston,
I appreciate the way and manner you respond to people’s questions and that has moved me to bring my own predicament in the home to you.
I can count the number of times I ate outside during my days as a bachelor, cooking for me wasn’t a big deal because I enjoyed doing it. In fact, without sounding loud, I can comfortably say that I am a good cook.
Now, I am married with two children and my kind of job doesn’t allows me time to go to the market, buy things and cook for the family.
My wife is not working, so I make sure that the family has enough for our care, I expect to return home to a well-prepared meal after everyday’s work, but what I get daily are badly-prepared meals by my wife.
This has been causing problem between us nearly everyday. There will be a thing to make me reject her food. If the food is not tasteless, it will be salty. If it is not the vegetables used in the cooking staying differently from the oil, it will be that the food is pepperish and irritable. Something must be wrong with her cooking always.
We are married for three years and this has continued. There are times I blame myself for marrying her, because I blindly went into the marriage without finding out if she knows how to cook throughout the one year we dated.
This situation makes me very unhappy and we often quarrel over it. My friends now make a mockery of me because I virtually have my pot in restaurants and bukas. The only time I can conveniently go home for food is when her younger sister visits and cooks, or when any of my younger ones visit and on few occasions when I had the chance to do the cooking myself.
Do I continue this way? She doesn’t seem to understand the enormity of her shortcoming and that is even the worst.
What do you advise me to do in this situation? I am worried, sometimes I pity my children and in most cases spend more to bridge this gap.
I do not want to take a drastic measure, but I am being compelled to, since I do not seem to notice any improvement after several efforts to correct her.
Uche is my name, I live and work in Eleme, Rivers State.
Dear Uche,
I actually understand your plight. Bad cooking by a wife breeds trouble at home and if not handled properly, may lead to irreparable or more severe situations.
Hardly, can any man be happy when the wife cannot make good and tasty meals.
This is one of the reasons why parents must as a matter of importance teach their children, boys and girls to be domesticated.
Our children should be made to have concern for the home. It will curb the rate of divorce in the society if they adapt to family life, duties and responsibilities of the home. Mothers, should teach the girl-child to devote time to housekeeping, bearing in mind that they will carry on with such whenever they are married. Teaching a child how to cook is one way to keep the home and another way of accomplishing the Biblical injunction which says “Train up a child the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it”
Uche my dear, you should be worried and angry if truly your wife is a bad cook, but let me beg that you do not stretch your anger. I have always suggested patience in this type of situation because I have seen patience work miracles in matters of this nature.
She is your wife and the mother of your children, and as such it will be wrong for me to ask you to divorce her or continue patronizing restaurants because she can’t cook to satisfy you.
I am of the opinion that since you are a better cook, to avoid the friction in the home, devout time to teach her to cook tasty meals.
I must remind you that the home is where the heart belongs and it is not in the interest of the family if work is elevated more than the home.
Don’t ridicule her in the process of this lectures, rather use the learning period to rekindle the love you shared.
Soft words turn away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Have you been gentle in trying to correct her blunder? Your approach I suspect may be her reason for not taking correction. This time approach the matter patiently, gently and ensure you give time for the desired change.
I will not hesitate to point out to you that most men that are good in cooking are hardly satisfied by others’ cooking. Such persons may not consider another as a good cook, if the cooking is not better than theirs. Check very well if you are not in this category of men.
Men love food, including me, but please, don’t love food more than your wife. Take care and have a good good weekend.
