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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder if I am a ball breaker or SIL is a bit of a wuss?

71 replies

DrSeuss · 22/02/2015 21:58

Background to this is that SIL has been ill and is now rather under weight.

This is not just my opinion, after a recent family gathering, a number expressed concern at how thin she is. She is not anorexic or anything of that nature, she just needs to regain the lost weight now she is recovering.

Today she told me that she often fancies a curry. Home made, not take away. However, if she makes one, her husband complains a lot about the fact that both she and the house smell of spices, which he dislikes. Therefore, even though she is getting over a serious illness, needs to eat and would enjoy a curry, she never makes one.

I said, can he really not accept that you enjoy eating it and just put up with it? Apparently not. DH feels that it is unreasonable of me to suggest that she do something which would cause her husband to be unhappy. I feel that allowing someone who has been very ill to have food that they enjoy while recovering is a fairly basic thing to do. MIL has obviously strongly influenced this attitude. She will not cook certain common foods even though she enjoys them, just because FIL complains if she does. Personally, I buy cheese that my DH won't touch as well as other foods which he dislikes but I love. I don't try to make him eat them but don't see why I can't eat what I wish, paid for by me, in the home which I partly fund and run.

So, am I a harridan for suggesting that an adult tell her husband that she can eat what she wants, as the in laws feel?

OP posts:
CocktailQueen · 22/02/2015 22:01

No... very odd.

Chillyegg · 22/02/2015 22:03

YANBU seems a bit selfish of her partner really. I don't like a lot of foods my DP likes and vice versa, doesn't stop us buying them or cooking them.
Could you batch cook her some curry while she's recovering? She might not feel up to confronting her DH if she ill.

ScrambledSmegs · 22/02/2015 22:07

Weeeeeeell... I was all set to say YANBU and of course she should cook her bloody curry, and then I remembered the time DH decided to cook kippers. The house reeked for a week and I couldn't go near him for ages as Eau de Kippers does not a sex-god make.

So I get where her DH is coming from.

Original poster
DrSeuss · 22/02/2015 22:08

Even if I made her some portions of curry, she would not use them as it would cause him to be inconvenienced. MIL has made it her life's work to see that all food, arrangements etc are just as FIL requires. I have suggested to her before that he just be told that she is cooking a food that she likes even if he hates the smell but she will not do it. SIL has been taught that this is how a wife should be. The idea of saying, "I want a curry, I am having a curry, deal with it." is just totally alien.

OP posts:
MomOfTwoGirls2 · 22/02/2015 22:08

Can you cook her up a batch of curry that she can freeze/reheat?

Poor woman, BIL is BVVU.

MrsTedCrilly · 22/02/2015 22:09

YANBU.. Very selfish and controlling of the husband! The smell of egg makes me wanna boak but my partner can eat it every day if he wants! (glad he doesn't though Wink)

honeyroar · 22/02/2015 22:09

It is weird. I know someone the same. She hates the smell of Indian food and won't let her husband go for a curry. Once a year she goes off on a sport training camp and he goes for an Indian with his friends, leaving him two days for his breath to freshen up before she comes home! She is a millionaire and they both live off her money...

Original poster
DrSeuss · 22/02/2015 22:10

It's the attitude that I just can't get my head around. For example, FIL dislikes prawns. Therefore, there will be no prawns on anyone's plate, no matter what they like.

OP posts:
sooperdooper · 22/02/2015 22:11

Yanbu, I eat what I like, how odd!! DH also sometimes cooks stuff I hate, liver and onions, ugh it stinks but I'm not eating it and it'd never occur to me to say he can't

Nervo · 22/02/2015 22:13

I won't have mushrooms in the house.

However, if dh had been ill and fancied mushrooms, I'd relent.

Original poster
DrSeuss · 22/02/2015 22:13

And it's less that the husband has issued a curry bann. SIL is just so indoctrinated with the idea that husband's wishes are paramount, she will not cook what he might complain about. She is a university educated professional but is not able to eat what she likes in her own home! I just don't understand.

OP posts:
PowderMum · 22/02/2015 22:15

My DH cooks food I don't like the smell of, it's his house too.

Your in laws sound like the have stepped out of the 1950's - man must be obeyed and pandered too. Maybe the fear of 'foreign' food stems from this too

SaucyJack · 22/02/2015 22:16

YANBU.

Having said that, I will not allow marzipan to cross the threshold.

anothernumberone · 22/02/2015 22:16

FIL dislikes prawns. Therefore, there will be no prawns on anyone's plate, no matter what they like

That is pretty extreme alright and YANBU. I hate liver, the smell but I cannot imagine telling DH he can never cook it again. That said it would be a cold day in hell before I would ever cook it for him.

Bumbiscuits · 22/02/2015 22:20

If someone has been/is ill they get to eat what they fancy. Your SIL should be telling her H to wind his neck in.

whothehellknows · 22/02/2015 22:22

You've got to invite her over for curry. Her husband can stay at home and cook his own dinner.

Now I want curry.

Original poster
DrSeuss · 22/02/2015 22:23

That's just it. Neither MIL nor SIL would tell their husbands to take a running jump. About anything. Ever. Food is the main one but there are others. SIL once described me as "too assertive". I feel that as an equal partner I get an equal say.

OP posts:
Original poster
DrSeuss · 22/02/2015 22:24

And if she went home smelling of it, he would be inconvenienced. So she wouldn't do it.

OP posts:
Purplepoodle · 22/02/2015 22:29

My parents would be like this. Dad hates fish so will not have it cooked in the house.

BerniceBroadside · 22/02/2015 22:29

Fuck that shit.

He could bob round to his parents' house for a nice ham butty, then open a window on his return, if he's that bothered.

UmizoomiThis · 22/02/2015 22:30

But he's not telling her what to eat - he's telling her the smell of cooking the curry makes him ill. She can eat all the bloody curry she wants, he just doesn't want to be forced to smell it in the house, on his clothes.

A lot of offices ask their employees not to microwave pungent foods (like curry) if the office is open plan because the smell lingers for hours.

coolaschmoola · 22/02/2015 22:31

... is not able to eat what she likes in her own home!

That's not exactly true though. She IS able to, but she CHOOSES not to because she would rather put her DH's feelings before her own.

It may not be a choice you or I would make, but the point is it is HER choice. Just because you wouldn't do it doesn't mean she shouldn't. It certainly doesn't make her a "bit of a wuss" - really? Hmm

Perhaps she's thinking of posting a thread about her selfish sil who puts her own feelings before her DH's....

Horses for courses. I'm sure there are things that you do that she doesn't agree with. And that's allowed. It doesn't make either of you wrong.

DoJo · 22/02/2015 22:31

It sounds like a pretty limiting life to lead - I can't imagine subjugating all my desires to accommodate those of someone else for a reason as petty as 'not liking a smell'. I am allergic to nuts, so I ask my husband to tell me when he has eaten them so that if I am overcome by the urge to stick my tongue in his mouth I don't die. That is about the limit to which I think a person should influence what someone else eats.

BerniceBroadside · 22/02/2015 22:31

I don't think the office argument is relevant. He doesn't have to sit in the house moaning about the smell.

Original poster
DrSeuss · 22/02/2015 22:32

It doesn't make him ill! He is not ill. She has been ill. He dislikes the smell, that is all.

OP posts: