To think I shouldn't have to eat everything at once to ensure getting something???

[TheyDidntKillKenny]

This happens all the time in our house. We buy something and within a day or so it's all gone. DH is the main culprit. He can't just leave something there, if he knows it's there he has to eat or drink it. An example - orange juice. I like fresh orange juice in a morning. DH drinks it constantly. We used to buy one big carton but DH would drink the lot before I had chance to have any. So after coming downstairs many times to an empty carton I told DH I'd buy my own just so I knew I could have some with my breakfast. He agreed. But then what happened was, he'd drink mine too. His excuse was "well I didn't think you wanted it, it's been there 3 days". My reasoning "yes but I DID want it, just not all at once" so he'd say "well if you want it, you should have drunk it". In the end I just stopped buying orange juice because I never got any anyway. But this happens with everything. If we buy a multipack of crisps, DH will eat them. Same with biscuits etc. A few weeks ago I picked up a pack of bounty cake things, there was 5 in the packet and I was really looking forward to trying one. I went to grab one the next day only to find the empty wrapper in the cupboard. DH said "I didn't think you wanted them." So it kind of erupted into an argument last night. Last week I bought 2 multipacks of muller light yogurts. By thursday there were only 2 left. DH said "I've saved us some of these before the kids eat them, which one do you want, toffee or cheesecake flavour?" I said "Toffee, it's the only flavour I like". So he eats the other one. Last night I remembered about the toffee yogurt, went to get it and needless to say, it had gone. DH said "well you should make sure you get in there before anyone else!". I shouldn't have to!!!! I said "I'm getting sick of this, if you don't scoff everything at once in this house you don't bloody get anything". He just went really quiet. I said "sod it, I'll have a snowball instead". Needless to say, they'd all gone too. I never got chance to try them either.

I know it sounds petty (hence the name-change, as I have another 'sensitive' thread going on that I don't want mixing with this one) but AIBU to think I deserve a bit more respect here?? Is it right that if you're part of a family it's a free-for-all with the food and that if you don't eat it instantly it's tough shit that you never get anything? Half the time I feel like hiding stuff I buy but I shouldn't have to!

Sounds like compulsive eating to me. DP is a little bit like this, but we don't have much snacking stuff in. But I'm am PG and had a thing for Daim bars & brought a bag from IKEA and he pretty much polished them off where they would have lasted me a month. He promised to leave my valentines chocolates alone but has failed there too.

In your situation I'd stop buying this stuff. Buy your own snacks/treats as you go and stock up on apples & carrots!

The thing that would enrage me is when he eats the biscuits and leaves the wrapper in the cupboard - that is really sticking a finger up to you isn't it?

oh & I don't think you are being petty - I think that this is potentially relationship ruining behaviour if it becomes a long term thing, not to mention dreadful for his health.

It's hard-going with the true compulsive eaters, though. My sister and her friend shared a flat at uni with a girl who would eat real butter, mashed up with sugar, if either of them bought some and left it in the fridge. There were a few other types of food too, but the butter is the one that I remember. The girl would always replace the item with a full packet and a note apologising, but it was so weird that they gradually gave up buying butter or anything else she might go for. The girl was slim (and really pretty), but she told them that she had been fat and had had a huge struggle with her weight and eating habits until she lost weight, and she coped herself by not buying anything she would gobble, but when she saw their food in the fridge she just couldn't help herself.

I agree with others on here, your DH is seriously mean. Meanness is absolutely the worst trait in a person. My DH and I are both food junkies but rarely have more than our share, and are very apologetic if we accidentally do.

I'd also like to add...you mention another thread that is more sensitive than this one...obviously I don't know what it is, but it rings alarm bells for me. I'm not asking you to do it, but ask yourself this...if you linked to the other thread, would we all immediately say "Well of course he's an arsehole, your other thread shows us that!" Sorry if I'm way off the mark there.

God I hate greed, I think it's his greed more than his selfishness that would turn my stomach.

I am just like your DH. Where snack food is concerned, I know no boundaries. I've even stolen the kids' sweets. It's always driven DH mad. When we first met, he kept the salad drawers in his fridge full of fun-sized chocolates. I cleaned him out the first weekend I stayed over.

The only answer is not to have any of my trigger foods in the house. If anyone wants sweets or crisps, they have to get their own and either hide them, or eat them straight away.

Yeah. I'm greedy and selfish. I can't help myself.

Butterbur... Is there any help you can get? It must be an awful thing to have absolutely no control over yourself. Is it just sweets and crisps or anything that can be considered a snack?

Just sweets and crisps. I have always been like this, since I was a little girl.

I don't need help, as long as the foods aren't in the house. And I'm not overweight. And tbh, nobody else needs sweets and crisps, and they have plenty of opportunities to get their own, so I don't really feel I'm depriving them.

Of course you can help yourself from not eating. It's a compulsive behaviour, compulsions can be treated, as can addictions although food is not addictive, well not this sort of food.
We have free will.
Part of treating compulsive behaviours is realising you can control your behaviour and decide to leave the sweets alone/ not wash your hands etc.
You are a person not a household object like a vaccuum cleaner.

It's not just a pointless compulsion. Snack food is nice. If there was no downside, that's what I would live on the whole time. Sod fruit and vegetables.

I can't be bothered to seek treatment. It doesn't interfere with my life - or other members of the family's, so it's not that big a problem.

Butterbur, what are your thought processes when you see these foods? I genuinely don't understand how you can't help yourself (not trying to be horrible, just curious).

Yearning. Wanting. They prey on my mind if I know they're there. I know I will crack sooner or later, so why wait?

TBH, I'm surprised I'm the only one like me on this thread. I thought it was more common.

But if you know they're the children's, doesn't it bother you?

it is compulsive eating.

that's an eating disorder.
especially if he can't stop even when you've told him it's unfair.

My ex was like that.
I was given two really lovely (small) boxes of fudge for my birthday - one chocolate and one vanilla.
about 2 weeks after my birthday, i went to open the chocolate one and they'd all been eaten (notice, i hadn't even opened it). I had a go at him.
two days later, i went to open the vanilla box. half had been eaten (that wasn't even open when when i'd had a go at him).
i hid the rest in the loft.

I did get to the stage where I had to hide food from him, because he just hoovered everything .

I'd put a lock on the fridge and on the food cupboards, if i were you.
hide the key, and make him ask every time he wants food. (or buy his own)

Butterbur... It might well be more ocmmon, I think it is too. I suspect that you were the first to be brave enough to post about it.

I'm a bit eating disordered, my Dad always used to eat everybody else's food all the time. It made my brothers greedy and it made me not want to eat it at all at the thought that somebody else wanted it more. I doubt that makes any sense. EDs are complicated sometimes.

Could you really not stop yourself? Not if your children asked you not to eat a specific thing? Or would you just be unable to ocncentrate on anything else but that 'thing'?

Sorry for all the questions.. it's genuinely interesting and it's giving me a different perspective. :)

Butterbur- I am just like you, but getting a lot better now. If it's (trigger food) in the house, I will constantly think about it until I devour it. Or I eat it, chew it to get the flavour and spit it out. Ot take a bite out of it, spray it with bleach and throw it in the bin. Or throw up (far less likely nowdays, but I still relapse).The only thing I don't do it is with the DC's stuff for some reason.

Butterbur, if you can't allow other people to have certain food in the house without stealing it, then yes you have a problem. You are selfish and greedy, just like the OP's DH. If this is due to an addiction that you can't control, then it is selfish of you not to get help. Either way, you are kidding yourself that this behaviour is acceptable.

I don't know of any female compulsive overeaters who would eat their childrens' food in this way.

Bingo. There is a depressing pattern on this thread of men with a real sense of entitlement. They don't plan meals, cook or shop (or even pay for the food in some cases) but they feel entitled to help themselves to anything they want regardless of the fact it will mean someone else, even their own children, going without. They consider they have more right to it than anyone else. I can't believe some would even eat stuff given as presents without remorse.

That's more an attitude problem than a compulsive eating problem, in my view.

I have shared with a compulsive eater. Nice man, but it drove us all mad in the end. My mother once came to visit with a food parcel. By the time I got home from a night out the following day, he had eaten it all: one small roast chicken; one small ham; one loaf homemade bread; two fruit cakes. But even he, acting under a genuine compulsion, was deeply ashamed and remorseful. He did offer to pay for everything he'd eaten, and he did understand why I was furious.

Some of the men posted about on here don't even go that far.

I can stop myself for a short amount of time, but not indefinitely. I know as soon as the craving is satisfied, I will wonder why on earth I did it - usually the actual experience is not as nice as the anticipation. There is also an element of self-loathing afterwards, partly as a result of the sugar induced lethargy.

The only thing I have read that makes any sense is that sugary, fatty and salty food is addictive. Apparently consuming it triggers the reward centres in the brain in the same way as addiction to nicotine, alcohol and heroin.

It's certainly true that the more I do it, the more I want to.

butterbur you are not alone.
although i hate my compulsions and would give anything to stop it.
i eat anything. i got to a size 26 and then got a bike, ate healthier and got down to a size 14 in sept last year.
my doc was hrilled with me, but i kept saying to him, i have changed what im eating and im excersing and the weight is coming off but I havent changed, instead of binge eating 4 packeds of cakes and loaves of bread till i felt pain or sickness and had to stop, i was cooking whole heads of cauliflower, eating 3 broccoliis, complusve eating was stilll there but the choice was better i told him, my mentality hasnt changed and im scared i will just go back to how i was, he laughed it off and said why worry you have done it...
since sept 10th i have put on 22lbs.
yesterday i cryed in anger and frustration as i was eating my second packet of jaffa cakes. i was beyond full, i felt sick and painfully bloated, i had been eating most of the day. i just keep doing it. it feels like i have two people in me, me, who wants to be normal and healthy and this horrible bitch who tells me awful things, forces me to eat and eat and makes me hate myself.
its like im self harming but with food.
i think that this is a real mental health issue but no doctor will listen, i am just overweight and using excuses to them, i dont know how i can break the cycle, or get them to understand.
its so much more than just wanting a bad snack and eating it, depriving someone else of it, there is no control, no one wants to be held hostage to food.
if he is genuinely a compulsive eater, its much harder battle than that.

I'm not saying the behaviour is acceptable abbirhodes, just that in our house at least it is now all out in the open, and everyone knows where they stand.

I should add that the DCs are all teenagers now, so able to get their own supplies if they want.

Bloody hell, Bubbub... you've got to get back to your GP (or find another one) and make him listen. :(

That is absolutely tragic, you've done all that work making yourself healthy and you realise that there's still the same underlying problem and your GP isn't taking it seriously.

Do you know what I would do? I copy your paste, just as it is, go to your GP and ask him to read it, then ask for it to go in your medical file. He won't be able to fob it off.

Ask him what is available in terms of help, you have to have it. If you can eat that much cauliflower, broccoli, etc. and still feel so empty and needing to eat, you deserve every bit of help out there and you must have it.

I have sesame seeds in my keyboard...

I meant: I would copy and paste my post (Bubbub), just as it is and go to my GP... etc.

Bubbub that is so sad, i am shocked at how ignorant I was about compulsive eating, now it really does sound like self harming.

I second LyingWitch, please go back, or ask to see a different doctor. You deserve some decent help and understanding of what you are going through.