A Seventyish Chef Ponders: I May Not be Able to Change My Beloved Husband of Fifty Years but I Don’t Have to Cook the Same, Either

After 11,000 dinners, I want to change the rules

No one should go into a relationship hoping to change the other person. That has always been my line as a therapist. And I still think it’s mostly true. So, why do I or any of those who read my recent post about cooking think I could change my husband after fifty-one years of marriage?

Now, as a therapist, I bank on the fact that people can change. Sometimes they make the changes because they decide to. Maybe because their therapist or doctor urges them to do it. Other times life forces something on them that rudely jerks them into a change. Change happens all the time but not necessarily in the way you were hoping.

I wrote a story a few days ago about how after fifty years of marriage I am sick of cooking and pondered with the reader what to do about my husband who adores my cooking and has depended upon it for so long. I generated a lot of interest from women and men with this topic. I think part of it was the great photo of the woman in a huge hat with bright red lipstick viewed through her wine glass. Awesome photo and a brilliant opener for that story. But anyway, I received lots of views and claps and comments as if I had hit a nerve with many Medium readers anyway. What was it that made people read beyond the photo, anyway?

Many people talked about how they had split up the chores in their household, how things changed when one or both retired. One very perceptive person noticed that I was doing an awful lot of cooking for someone claiming to be “sick to death” of it.

She was right, of course, I am a life-long cook and cooking is part of me. I think in terms of what do I need to use next, what vegetable is coming into season. I’ll want to remember to make tomato bruschetta when I get a garden tomato. I want to try this green pea Shakshuka I just saw in a magazine when we have the new peas. And I have very high standards for eating and cooking.

Some days I wish I didn’t and could happily heat a few hot dog in a squishy bun with mustard for supper. And occasionally I do that. But mostly I make my homemade high quality but simply cooked foods in as short a time as it takes to get it done without feeling like I’m selling out. Why is this a problem?

My husband is part of the reason. I can’t just serve him any old thing and feel good about it. Why? He deserves better, I guess?

There are many things to like about him. He is kind and cute and silly and funny. He can do almost anything: build, fix, lift, invent fixes when the store doesn’t have the right part. He allows me to feel safe enough to do all sorts of crazy things and know that I can always fall back on him. He is steady and solid and my best friend since I was fourteen or so.

He does many things for me that let me know he values me. He leaves the house for an hour a day so I can practice the piano. He doesn’t complain when I spend money or hours on the computer writing poetry or Medium posts. He is nice in my bed and an interesting person to talk with, especially if you want to know about politics or machines or sports or clamming or fishing -- quite a few things, really.

As for eating, he was raised by a good cook, has been eating what I make for fifty years and has expensive and refined tastes. He is a good eater, as mothers used to say about their babies. He likes to eat and eats almost everything I make without complaint. He has always liked the same foods I do, we both love seafood of any kind and ice cream and coffee and Chinese food and Indian food — he is not averse to risks in the food department. I can and do experiment all that I like.

What he doesn’t like is that I am changing now. I have changed what I eat. I have found this way of eating that works for me and it eliminates a lot of our favorite foods. I no longer bake the many things I used to bake constantly from homemade bread and coffee cakes and biscuits to cookies and cakes. In fact, I try not to eat any sugar if I can help it. I no longer really want to bake all the sweets I became known for baking — I make exceptions for Christmas cookies and some other things. I don’t want it to be too painful, but it is a loss. I don’t keep the cookie jar filled for him anymore. Those days are gone. I try not to think about baked goods. I spent many years bingeing on sugar-filled things. I remember what they taste like and try to be content with that. Don still tortures himself with the thought of cookies in the cookie jar, cakes on my cake plate, fruit pies in summer, blueberry muffins. Yikes, I’m doing it too.

That’s bad enough. But now I am trying to do this intermittent fasting thing and get him to agree to eat our big meal earlier in the day and only have a light supper and no bedtime snacks. He is most suspicious of trendy things like this, despite all the research about them which I point him toward. He thinks he can eat like his parents did — who both lived into their nineties. He might even be right, despite the research. There is some evidence that just being happy and having a routine and things to look forward to can keep people going decades longer.

I keep working away at it but habits are hard to change at this age. Especially in unison. Don laughs about it. He doesn’t want to change. So I have decided to work around him. I do what makes me happy and try to help make him happy but any changing of him is going to have to be done by him.

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