My (25f) boyfriend (28m) pretended to like my cooking for over a year and I don't know how to get over it

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Mizz_Introvert

My (25f) boyfriend (28m) pretended to like my cooking for over a year and I don't know how to get over it

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

Original Post - rareddit Jan 31, 2020

So all of this started in January of 2019 on New Year's day. My boyfriend and I had been together for a little over a year at that point. The new year had caught us snuggled in bed listening to nearby fireworks. I remember asking him if he had any new year's resolutions and him replying that he didn't really have any but that he wanted to get more serious about his health and start eating more home cooked meals. After he said that I immediately came up with the idea of cooking for him. Before then we would normally eat out or order in when we were together. Because of our schedules cooking dinner wasn't an option so I decided to making him lunch during the week. He usually drops me off at work in the mornings so that morning when we were both heading back to work I surprised him with lunch and coffee because he is not really a breakfast person. He seemed genuinely surprised and happy and seeing him happy made me happy. That same night when I was over at his house he went out of his way (before I even asked) to thank me and let me know how much he enjoyed his lunch.

From then on I've been preparing lunch for him every week day and sometimes on weekends. I would ensure that I stopped by the grocery store or farmers market often to get fresh produce, I would meal prep every night no matter gow tired I was, I would make healthy versions of his favorite meals, I avoided the foods he hated or was allergic to, I made sure to make meals that wouldn't get soggy or inedible in any way by noon, I made a wide variety of dishes, and I even put them in some cute disposable environmentally friendly containers for him. I would always cooks for him when I got the chance to and I would stock his fridge with food he could reheat when he was on his own because he absolutely hated cooking. All of this wasn't a burden at all. I loved doing it for him. For me it was a display of affection and genuine interest in his health. He is not overweight or suffering from any illnesses but his father suffered a heart attack in 2018 so I kinda wanted to steer him from that path. I also benefited from this too. My culinary skills improved and I was getting healtheir too. And through out all of this he constantly showed his appreciation. He showered me with praises for most meals and thanked me often. He even went as far as praising my cooking infront of family, friends and strangers and I'm not going to lie, I loved it.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago. He takes me to a company party where I officially got to meet some of his coworkers though I was already familiar with some of them. I ended up bumping into my cousin's bestfriend whose husband also worked at the company. After catching up for awhile she sneakily pulled me outside and told me that my boyfriend has allowed me to become the laughing stock of his work place. She told me that her husband told her that he came to work one morning and announced to everyone that he hated his girlfriend's cooking then he proceeded to throw his lunch into the fridge and tell his coworkers that they had free dibs on it, and that is how the whole joke started. Apparently, my boyfriend would just abandon his lunch in the fridge everyday and any of his coworkers who didn't have lunch or couldn't be bothered to go out and get any would brave it and eat his lunch instead. They also had a rule that who ever decided to eat his lunch that day would not only have to announce it to everyone but they would have to eat by themselves that day. She said it was a huge thing and even her husband and their BOSS ended up having his lunch at some point. She said her husband tried my Korean beef bowl (I'm assuming it was that one based on what she decsribed was in it) and he really liked it and sometimes the other coworkers liked my meals too but not all the time.

I don't think I need to mention how shocked, hurt, and embarassed I was. Here I was at his company party laughing and rubbing shoulders with the same people who are in on the joke. I thanked her and promised her that I wouldn't snitch on her then I called a cab home and sent him a text saying that something came up and I had to leave. The next day I went over to his house and confronted him and after asking repeatedly who told me all of this (with no answer) he came clean and confessed that everything I heard was true but that it was just harmless fun. He said that it's not my cooking he hates, he just doesn't like eating healthy and he didn't know how to tell me to stop without hurtung my feelings because he knows how happy it makes me to cook for him. He apologized a million times that night and told me that it wouldn't happen again and I gave in because, well, I love him and I thought it was something I could eventually get over. But then a few days later I snuck into his phone and looked at one of the group chats he has with some of his friends from work and what I found in it was horrible. They were cracking jokes and sharing memes about my cooking. At one point in the chat history a friend asked him why he was staying with me cause it sure wasn't the cooking and he responded by saying "Well, the sex is great ;)" He even sent messages in the group the same night I confronted him telling everyone how he got "busted" but he "smoothed things over" and they responding with "freedom at last!" and "check under her pillow at night for knives". But I am not done yet. The nail in the coffin was seeing that he also talked about me in his family group chat and now everyone thinks/knows I'm a bad cook. I even saw a message from his dad saying "I accidentally lost her cassereole in our fridge after you warned me. Thanks for the heads up son."

I broke up with him that same night. I've never been so humiliated and crushed in my entire life and I don't think I can ever trust him again. I don't understand how he he could have kept this up for over a year. He would tell me how much he loves my cooking and even go as far as telling me exactly what he loved about each meal. The only hints I ever really got that something was kinda off was when he would always try to get us to eat out on weekends claiming that I needed a break and there was even this one time were I found a week's worth of meals I had prepared for him dumped in his garbage and him saying that he had to dump everything from his fridge because it stopped working for awhile and everything spoiled. Lies on top of lies.

Now he's telling me that I am taking this way too seriously and that I need to put my pride aside and accept that he didn't mean to hurt me. He says he can't believe I'm willing to throw away our relationship for something as petty as this. He says he wants to marry me. He even called my dad who then called me and told me that I should let it go and try to improve my cooking. I told him that I'll think about it some more but at this point I really don't know. Your advice would be appreciated.

TL;DR: Boyfriend pretended to like my cooking for over a year. Found out that his friends, coworkers, and family were in on the joke too. Boyfriend wants me to get over it but I can't.

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