DP eats his food too quickly

[rangelina]

DP eats his food like it's about snatched away from him.

He can eat a full plate of food maybe twice as fast as me. I'm not a slow eater. He will always finish his plate before anyone else on the table.

He shovels the food down and doesn't pause between eating.

If we're eating at home then fine it's not a big issue. But I do find it really annoying when we go out for a nice meal and he's scoffing his food down in a really uncouth manner and then will say things like "I win". Then I'm sat eating my food and feeling like I am slow.

Inevitably a nice dinner out lasts less than an hour because he eats so quickly!

I've tried being nice and joking that no one is going to take his food away, there is no rush or he can order another course if he's hungry. He wasn't raised with any siblings and wasn't raised poor, with both parents having good table manners.

Has anyone else experienced this?

My husband eats really slowly, and my mum used to as well. I am a fairly fast eater. I remember once being in a cafe with them both, we all had a similar lunch of sandwich with crisps, salad etc. I was really trying to eat as slowly as possible to avoid being sat there for ages while they finished.

I was using a knife and fork for the sandwich, leaving gaps between taking food, chewing really slowly, taking sips of my drink between mouthfuls - despite my best efforts I still finished about 10 minutes before DH and 15 minutes before my mum.

It's really hard to change your natural eating pace!

If you're in a relationship that you care about and someone tells you that a specific behaviour troubles them and asks you to amend it, you would.

If eating fast and saying 'I win' at the end of the meal is more important to him than the comfort of his partner then he's not a good catch,m and she should throw him back.

Communicating clearly with a partner and having them listen and respond is not controlling, it's the bedrock of a good relationship.

My stepfather was like this, and insisted that everyone else must do it as well, we all hated meals with him. He was brought up to believe that speaking at the dinner table was bad manners, so he would say “ let’s have a bit less talk and a bit more eat”, shovel down his food like a starving hog and then bully everyone else to hurry up. I couldn’t live with a man like that.

If you're in a relationship that you care about and someone tells you that a specific behaviour troubles them and asks you to amend it, you would.
I did this for decades and it was a trap because my partner started with control over minor things like this in how I dressed, ate, what scent of soap i could use, behaved in public etc but over time his comfort trumped everything.

Communicating clearly with a partner and having them listen and respond is not controlling, it's the bedrock of a good relationship.
Communicating your orders with a dash of good oldfashioned shaming that they aren’t decent and threats to end the relationship if they do not obey?

If eating fast and saying 'I win' at the end of the meal is more important to him than the comfort of his partner then he's not a good catch,m and she should throw him back.

If you care about me, then you would or would not do x because it makes me uncomfortable…with no analysis as to whether the person claiming discomfort is being reasonable.

i eat too fast sometimes but it’s also because my company just won’t stop talking so whilst I’m eating they’re just yapping on and on and it makes me look craven

You should definitely analyse whether what the other person is asking of you is reasonable!! I thought that was obvious!

That's the other side of the good relationship.

One person clearly communicates their need.

The other person thinks about it and responds.

If it doesn't work for either party the relationship ends and they move on.

In a good, healthy relationship the requests are reasonable and the behaviours altered.

If the requests are too numerous and/or unreasonable, this is not a good relationship. Leave.

If you can't talk to your partner about things that are bothering you for fear of being accused of being 'controlling' or your partner is completely inflexible to any requests this is not a good relationship. Leave.

Edited to add: this obviously goes both ways, both partners should be able to communicate clearly and be flexible with behaviour. Not one person always telling the other what to do! I assume this is obvious, but from your response I fear not!

Exactly this. Came to write the same thing and ask if he had been at either boarding school or in the forces.

Eating slower is healthier regardless of any social aspects and those who eat slower (on average) have lower BMI than those who bolt their food. The mechanisms are not fully understood, but it is about the signals getting from stomach and intestines to the brain to indicate quantity and quality of food ingested so that you recognise you are full before getting to overeating point

My husband does too. He has the next forkful ready near his mouth when he is chewing the current one. He won't answer any questions or make conversation because it delays eating time. When I have challenged him about the speed he eats he says he likes his food scolding hot. In fact he does and often stands up mid meal at home and warms his meal in the microwave to the temperature of lava

Buy a little trophy and write i ate like a pig on it then next time he inhales his food then says I won, produce the trophy.

This 100%. It's the height of bad manners.

How do you not say to him that his way of eating is like an animal in a barnyard and makes you want to slap him. He sounds like a labrador.

My cousins husband eats like an absolute pig. The rest of us are eating properly and chatting and his mouth and hands are flying and there's food everywhere. He talks with his mouth full too. Hideous and cousin is embarrassed as hell about him.

Eating too slow is also bad manners. Picking at your food like a fussy toddler. Monopolising the dinner table conversation means no time to eat because then someone would get a word in edgewise. Or knocking back glasses of wine or beer or cider and letting your food go cold while everyone else is wishing for dessert.

Only child and have never been in prison, I still eat pretty fast. Or maybe everyone else eats too slowly?

I eat faster than average too. One of 6 siblings and was in the armed forces as well.

I think we should just live and let live when it comes to speed of eating. It is an incredibly minor behavioural quirk.

I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until the I win.

You need to be more blunt with him that you don't like it. I've never even been convinced by the light-hearted making it a joke with kids, definitely doesn't work on adults.

Did ge have enough to eat when he was a child OP?

his way of eating is like an animal in a barnyard

All ways of eating have a matching farm animal. Cows take a few hours, pigs take twenty minutes, horses eat slowly by nibbling all day, etc.

I grew up in a poor, overcrowded household with five siblings and often not very much food, and as an adult, I absolutely adore being able not to bolt my food for fear someone else will spear it!

He is like a Gannet and the I win comment as a pp said is like a toddlers comment.
I wonder how they don’t get indigestion

I remember seeing a documentary about the Marines in training, as they had to eat thousands of calories a day they said had to eat so fast to get the calories down in between training sessions.

The 'I win' is what tips it over - as well as if he rushes you once he's finished (ex used to do that - I'd have half my drink left, and he'd be getting up to leave, and I'd have to point out that I hadn't finished yet)

My eldest DS eats at a pace that shocks me - but it's not noticeable - he's not shovelling it in in a rude manner, I'll just look over and he'll be already finished where his brother and I have barely started. I think he just takes bigger bites (he is 16..), and I would give him short shrift if he couldn't sit and be polite while the rest of us finish. He certainly doesn't see a meal as a race.

I do find it really annoying when we go out for a nice meal and he's scoffing his food down in a really uncouth manner and then will say things like "I win".

I really hope for your sake that this is satire and he hasn't actually done this!! Even once would have had my vagina upping stakes and moving to Point Nemo in a fake moustache.

I don't really mind fast eating but sloppy, messy, loud and bad mannered eating is horrible.
If the person does eat fast then they must wait for the others to finish rather than rushing them.

I think some people who grew up either in poverty, big families or boarding school often eat fast as a kind of hangover from 'needing' to in childhood. If you didn't eat it someone would take it. Or if you ate fast you might get seconds. Or you were just bloody starving.

I’d suggest you slow down. Eat so slowly he starts to get impatient and annoyed. Then say that if he had eaten more slowly then he wouldn’t be sat there with nothing to do.

My husband eats really fast and i’mnot that slow but he actually doesn’t chew (ends up with hiccups a lot). He was an only child so not sure why he does this. The worst part is he finishes his meal then starts trying to take my chips etc…or he did till I stabbed his hand with my fork. It’s unfair and rude to take food from someone still eating.

I know this guy. I forget until we go out for a meal then I'm astounded by the speed he eats plus the lack of interaction until he's done then watched me eat.

Since it's your do I think you can say it's rude, or at least that you'd like conversation whilst you eat.

The I win comments are odd, a hang over from childhood maybe?

I do eat fast, as do my parents and siblings. We did no conversation just sat down, got the food over with so we could get on with other things. It took me a while to realise this wasn't normal/expected. Are his parents the same?