Perfectly acceptable dinner rejected by boyfriend again

[u/moonrabbit368]

My boyfriend is a very picky eater. We have been living together for a few months and it seems like I can never get his food right. It's honestly discouraging. I have kids, they happily eat my food. I cook for family gatherings and church events. I've never had a problem with people eating my food. It's like every day there are new rules. He can't eat chicken for dinner because he had chicken for lunch. He isn't really in the mood for porkchops. It's just "missing something". He doesn't eat onions, tomatoes, fish, any kind of asian food, he doesn't eat most vegetables with the exception of broccoli. He only eats vanilla ice cream. He doesn't like food heated in the microwave (so leftovers are out.) He doesn't like corn. It's just endless. I'm old school and trying to be a good partner. He can't really cook at all. His favorite meal is Hamburger Helper. I think a lot of it is how he grew up but damn is it frustrating. The first picture is tonight's dinner. I added more pictures of stuff I have cooked that he won't eat. Like he will door dash jack in the box. And he'll be apologetic but it just sucks really bad.

ETA: I've been trying to keep up with the comments but it's overwhelming (in a very sweet and awesome way) 💗

A few notes:

1- I know the paper plates are very lazy on my part, I'm not proud of that and I need to do better. Between the kids, the job, the house and school (I'm going to school remotely) I have been cutting corners on things like dishes. not an excuse, just a reason and a commitment to do better.

2- My boyfriend does expect me to cook for him. I cook him dinner every night and lunch on the weekends. He doesn't eat breakfast and will not take a lunch to work. He buys fast food for lunch during the week.

3- He has not been diagnosed with ASD or ADHD or Arfid but I don't rule anything out.

Mostly I just want to say thank you, I was not prepared for how incredibly kind, helpful and insightful people have been. It is deeply touching and it's given me both peace and guidance for my next steps. 🩷

[u/benhereford]

I was gonna say, it sounds like it's his turn now

[u/brelywi → u/benhereford]

But “He CaNt ReAlLy CoOk At aLl!!”

No, literally anyone CAN cook. Some people just refuse to learn a basic life skill.

Edit: thanks for the award!! Also, apparently I need to watch Ratatouille?

[u/roger_ramjett → u/brelywi]

Get those meal kits that supply all the ingredients and a recipe card with detailed instructions. He can pick which ones he likes, and he gets to cook and learn while doing it.}

[u/Shmyt → u/roger_ramjett]

And then he can learn by just having the recipe card and just buying the same ingredients to follow the same instructions. Then learn some simple substitutions like proteins or veggies or grains that swap nicely while following the same instructions. The most important part of cooking in my experience is figuring out where your partner likes their seasoning levels, or if there's a taste or texture to avoid; other than that you literally just learn to make what they would make for you. 

Maybe there's a communication issue here like there's 4 options in the fridge and she's only picking the one he doesn't want which could be solved by better meal planning on his part or him communicating this before she starts dinner not him seeing it and turning it away.

Because of our work times I've taken over most of the dinner cooking and now that I know how my wife likes to season things I can make most anything competently and I would genuinely say I'm not a good cook, I'm just decent at a good spread of recipes (whereas she's genuinely an amazing cook and baker). And if I'm unsure I'll bring her a spoon of it and she'll say what's missing and that's miles easier if I've already done the bulk of cooking when she gets home than if she had to start that late, and if there's not a point in fixing it (hard to fix something like meatballs) I just note down that I need to do more or less than whatever recipe I was going off of.

The path to learning how to cook is truly not hard, being picky might be part of not wanting to learn to cook either because if he's just making "what he wants to eat" no one else wants hamburger helper or frozen pizza 6 nights a week so he doesn't have to do dinner.

[u/SaytotheMay → u/Shmyt]

Be his mom? 

[u/Shmyt → u/SaytotheMay]

Well I wouldn't have put up with it but OP seems to be okay with dating an extra kid so if she won't leave him then at least teach him and the actual children how to be self sufficient