12/04/2025
WIBTA if I ask my husband to stop cooking breakfast?
My (31F) Husband (34M) is a creature of habit and has made himself the same breakfast every single morning for the 10 years that we have been together: a tofu scramble with various veggies made on the cast iron skillet. For years I would barely notice his cooking in the morning, however a couple years ago he started getting distracted while cooking and would walk out of the room to sit down at his computer and start thinking about work for the day. He will claim that the stove is off or on super low, but the result is that almost every single morning the food smells like burnt oil and just awful. I find the smell to be revolting and on a few occasions have had coughing fits from smoke in the air. He usually disagrees and says that there isn't any smoke in the air.
At present, a couple of factors complicate this even more. We recently moved into a very old house with terrible ventilation and the fan for the stove just recirculates air around the kitchen. I am also pregnant and struggling with morning sickness and food aversions, and the smell of his nasty burnt breakfast makes me feel so sick and irritated. I try to stay calm when thinking and talking about it, but internally there is a hormone-fueled rage towards his breakfast. I hate it so much. I despise it.
I've tried talking to him about it a couple times... and he says he will be more careful. He doesn't seem to really understand how irritating the smells are to me. This morning I was in a WFH meeting in my office, when he once again left his food unattended on the stove. The smoke filled my office and I was struggling not to gag and cough.
At this point I want to demand that he either 1) stop cooking breakfast entirely or 2) get a blacktop and cook outside so that I don't have to smell it.
Why I think I'm not the as***le: he has demonstrated unsafe practices with cooking in the morning, and his burnt food makes my morning sickness worse.
Why I might be the as***le: this breakfast has been his daily routine since before we met. It's a ritual at this point. He also doesn't see things the way I do, says that his food isn't burnt and that he doesn't really leave it unattended and that I am being sensitive.
