Was my request reasonable or was he right to storm off?

Is animal cruelty an activity now?

I’m rather surprised that the parent of a three year old - we all know how mucky kids can get - didn’t have a pack of baby wipes to hand and offer one to DH to wipes the traces of cured bacon fat off his fingers.

We've all established that only an idiot would go to.waah their hands before the completion of the activity.

Why do you think she spoke to him like a child? She prompted him to do something he should have done automatically

Were you at the sea side already? I mean yeah it's a little controlling but his reaction is immature

You saying “there are lots of moments like this”, I am guessing he’d say the same thing about you. Bacon ca be eaten raw, there isn’t anything you can get ill from. He is missing part of the experience because you have an issue. You’d have to touch any crabs and the nets after. Washing hands at the end fair enough but not after that.

Do you have health anxiety or emetophobia?

I wouldn’t have thought there will be a next time.

You don’t tell another person to wash their hands as if they are a toddler.

If I were him, I wouldn’t be going again.

Washing the hands is only part of it. It’s the OP speaking to her husband like he is 3 that a lot of people have issue with.

This! And thanks to Tartyflette for saying it waaay more politely than I might have.

But, she is over the top and crazy

I think both of you are the issue and clearly have an unhealthy dynamic. He doesn't think "I've touched raw meat, what will I do about this, especially with a small child here" and you treat him like another child "time to wash your hands!"
I'd not boss my dh around like that, it wouldn't cross my mind to tell him what to do.
Hygiene wise, tbh if you've got your hands in British rivers you're likely touching raw sewage so probably the bacon is least of your worries. However, I'd probably have rinsed or wiped them. If dh didn't I might say"do you reckon our hands are ok" but it's not my job to manage his personal hygiene. I also don't suggest when he goes to the loo, or what time he gets up, or whether he should clean up after himself (because he already does) or how he parents - because he's a grown adult who makes grown adult decisions for the benefit of our family and if we disagree we discuss it as equals. It sounds like your dh doesn't make those grown adult decisions, you then take the place of default "adult" and he takes the role of "child" which comes out as a grumpy teenager, huffing at you. That dynamic is not the route to a happy marriage, he'll take less and less responsibility, you'll take on more, he'll react more grumpily to being told what to do etc etc. Work out how you can both sit in your adult, sometimes that'll mean he makes a choice you don't agree with, that's for him to make and for him to deal with.

And if it was just adults, who are responsible for themselves I may agree but he is fishing with his 3yr old, so best to minimise issues by washing his hands now. Because...guess what, he can wash them again later after he has finished crabbing.

@LittleMyLabyrinth but then they will get dirty when you are crabbing. How often do you have to wash your hands. And if the pub was not nearby, how far do you have to walk?

If they are going crabbing they have accepted that they are going to be touching crabs and seawater (which could or could not be perfectly clean depending on where they were, but we don't know). People might agree or disagree but there's no need to add raw meat on top of that.

"Breaking the fun" sounds like treating him like a child -- crabbing takes ages! It would have taken five minutes to go across the road, wash his hands, buy a packet of crisps and come back (i do think they should have had wipes with them instead but there you go).
I'm an adult and I wouldn't get offended if I had mucky hands and my partner reminded me to wash them 🤷‍♀️

Surely you had wet wipes or hand sanitizer? Ordering him to the pub is a bit OTT and pointless if you are doing a dirty activity like crabbing.

It wasn’t a very mature response from him but then you didn’t treat him like an adult so what do you expect?

Amazing how we’ve cured (see what I did there - "cured" as in cured bacon) so many diseases, yet somehow raw pork still isn’t a recommended hand moisturiser.

Modern farming has improved a lot, but parasites and bacteria in pork have NOT been eliminated. The sea hasn’t improved, its gone downhill mainly due to us!

So the idea that “modern farming solved it” is… optimistic.

Did he have to go and wash his hands every single time ? Anyone who has crabbed knows you spend the whole time adding the bacon when it falls off or adjusting it when you get a crab. Just all try to not lick your hands and when the activity is over all go to the pub wash your hands and have a drink. I think the issue is expecting him to do it at the beginning and on own.

I wouldn't have eaten anything before washing my hands, but I probably would have waited until I'd finished the activity to wash them (to wash off the sea/estuary/net/crab/residual bacon in the empty net bugs.
So I do think you were a bit U to expect him to interrupt the crabbing to go and wash his hands. The pub landlord might also have thought it a bit U for non-customers to come in to use the facilities - better to go in at the end, wash hands and buy a drink.

We have something called the sheep wash its a stream /river people go to and its surrounded by sheep with sheep in the water hence the name toddlers babies adults and everything beyond and between . You would have a fit .

@shuggles

I said 'largely eliminated', not completely.
I also said I wouldn't encourage eating raw pork. There have been no cases of trichinosis from pork in the UK in over 40 years.
And no farmers do not use routine preventive antibiotics. It is no longer permitted in UK.

I suspect this is one of many incidents where you've completely ruined a family moment.
You knew you had raw bacon why not take sanitiser and hand-wash to wash in the water .

I'm immunocompromised and a bit neurotic about this stuff, but I wouldn't have done that in the way I'm picturing the situation. The raw bacon isn't any dirtier than the crabs, the water, the general surrounding coastline that he'd be touching where birds poo etc. And going into pubs to rinse your hands is awkward unless you're right next to it.

So it makes more sense to either:

1. give them a quick rinse in the sea if it's accessible and carry on
2. for him to just try to not get his hands utterly covered in bacon and just wipe them on something
3. use some sort of utensil or stick or whatever to avoid getting all bacon handsy

If you couldn't get to the sea, didn't have any hand sanitiser or anything to wipe hands on, or a bottle of water, and he's standing there with a significant amount of actual bacon slime/bits on his hands, I get it.

Next time I'm sure the crabs would be just as happy with cooked ham.

Whether he's being a dick or not depends entirely on how you said it (rudely or in a friendly 'do you want me to hold that while you wash your hands' kind of way).

Nah, I wouldn't want him touching anything after he'd handled raw bacon to be honest! YANBU!

Indeed, thank you. Also worth noting that it's not just the antimicrobial resistance, but also, other aspects of modern farming that make raw milk unsafe.

Kind of sad how raw milk used to be a lot safer to consume, but now can't be consumed because modern farming has made milk so unsafe without pasteurisation.