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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask if you could be with someone who ate lots of crap

180 replies

user1490817986 · 02/05/2017 17:28

I've been seeing a guy for a few months, he's about 4-5 stone overweight. It wasn't an issue at first but the amount of shit he eats puts me off him. He's a lovely guy and we really like each other.

Just an example of what he eats day to day:

Full English breakfast, kebab and chips for tea
or panini for lunch and pie and chips from the chippy
or ham egg chips for lunch, pizza for tea. All washed down with loads of squash.

AIBU to be put off by this?

OP posts:
expatinscotland · 02/05/2017 22:27

'I won't give up on him, he has asked me if i'll teach him how to cook, so I will do that, and hopefully encourage him to eat more healthily.'

Taking on a person as a project is never a basis for a good relationship. He's had his entire adult life to learn to cook, it's not exactly rocket science. And eating more healthily, it needs to come from him.

TinselTwins · 02/05/2017 22:31

OP if he was really motivated with regards to you teaching him how to cook, he would have already sought that information for himself

If he's just saying that now to hang onto you, he won't stick to it. He can only do it for himself not for you

Xmasbaby11 · 02/05/2017 22:31

It would put me off. I am overweight myself and think we'd be a bad influence on each other! But I don't eat like that so I'd wonder if we were compatible.

tillytrotterstootsies · 02/05/2017 22:34

*JustAKitten Tue 02-May-17 22:11:26
Why would someone's food even affect your relationship? Not being able to eat at the same places? I'm a picky eater, I'll go to restaurants I don't like and eat beforehand to be with DP.

It's not an issue unless you're pretty shallow.*

I can only speak for myself but it's the gluttony and greed that the OP has described - not necessarily the food choices. Plus the being 4/5 stone overweight - although to be fair, he must have been overweight when she met him so like I'd previously posted I wouldn't have been attracted to him in the first place so this issue wouldn't arise.

At the opposite end of the scale, I wouldn't be attracted to a 'health freak' who couldn't have a treat now and again.

user1493022461 · 02/05/2017 22:41

Why would someone's food even affect your relationship?

Why wouldn't it?

Wando1986 · 02/05/2017 22:43

God. His bathroom habits must be disgusting.

Also his little swimmers would taste like toxic waste Envy (not envy)

Daydream007 · 02/05/2017 22:52

YANBU. His bad habits might rub off on you.

Tw1nsetAndPearls · 02/05/2017 22:52

My husband is a very very fussy eater and it caused problems early in our marriage. He is not only a fussy eater but he is also funny about food preparation and hygiene and so for example he won't eat anything our daughter has made or anything strange textured.

I love my food and love to cook. I show love through food and therefore his rejection of this often seems hurtful. I remember once about 8 years ago posting on here that I had made him some kind of pudding that he had refused eat and I was told to leave the bastard- I married him instead Wink

If food matters to you and is a big issue for him your relationship has to be very strong to overcome that. You also need to be honest with each other. We struggled when he was pretending that he would try new foods. Once we accepted each other , flaws and all we were very happy.

My husband is a rather exceptional man though and if he were not perfect in every other way we would not have lasted.

Tw1nsetAndPearls · 02/05/2017 22:53

My husband isn't overweight ( I am as I love my food) and he is - despite his awful diet - very healthy.

Tw1nsetAndPearls · 02/05/2017 22:58

I won't give up on him, he has asked me if i'll teach him how to cook, so I will do that, and hopefully encourage him to eat more healthily.

When I met my husband he promised to change, to eat a more varied diet. Of course he didn't and it caused problems for quite some time as I resented him for not changing and he resented me for trying to change him.

QuimReaper · 02/05/2017 23:01

I think culinary compatibility is very much underrated in relationships. I can think of almost nothing I like that DH doesn't (except for the odd superficial ingredient like mushrooms) and I can't imagine having to negotiate a fundamental incompatibility every day.

HermioneJeanGranger · 02/05/2017 23:02

You can't change him. If he wanted to learn how to cook, he would have done so by now. Anyone can buy fruit or eat vegetables if they want - salad doesn't exactly involve much work or knowledge of a kitchen.

Don't make his eating and health your pet project. If he doesn't want to eat healthily, nothing you do or say will change that.

DontPullThatTubeOut · 03/05/2017 16:28

I won't give up on him seriously op do you hear yourself? He isn't a project for you to work on he is a person yes get him involved with cooking if he has asked but don't pressure him.

IonaNE · 03/05/2017 16:50

It wouldn't bother me in the least. (For a start, I like "teddy bearish" men. Blush ). He is putting the food into his own body, and as long as he does not comment negatively on the OP's food choices, it's a free country and he's an adult. I don't see a problem.

sparechange · 03/05/2017 17:10

No, I couldn't, because I like nice/quality food and we clearly wouldn't have that in common.

I would want to be able to go to a restaurant that we both enjoyed, rather that listening to them moaning that they'd rather be eating deep pan pizza or cheap chinese takeaways

Equally, I couldn't be with someone who was orthorexic or OTT about 'clean eating'

LiviaDrusillaAugusta · 03/05/2017 17:19

Genuinely curious why someone who eats crap would (a) dislike 'posh' food and (b) be childish enough to whine about it. I think a lot of posters
are making up the details as they go along

GetInTheFuckingSea · 03/05/2017 18:34

Snobbery. Eating the right food is one of those things, like living in the right area or going to the right place on holiday, that has become a class marker.

JustAKitten · 03/05/2017 18:35

Agree with GetInTheFuckingSea.

It's like driving a land rover and living in the Home Counties.

GetInTheFuckingSea · 03/05/2017 18:35

See for evidence page after page of wanky weekend newspaper supplements all about what is essentially cooking dinner that a certain type of person likes to spend their Sunday frotting against.

TinselTwins · 03/05/2017 18:36

Snobbery. Eating the right food is one of those things, like living in the right area or going to the right place on holiday, that has become a class marke

mmmmm yes I'm such a snob for not wanting a relationship with someone who has self destructive habbits!

What the OP has described not much different to smoking or heavy drinking.

I guess I'm a snob if I want a partner who I can potentially grow old with

cocobatter · 03/05/2017 18:38

I was with a really greedy guy once. And that's all it was. Pure greed. I made a massive spaghetti bolognese designed to last us 3-4 days. He'd eaten the lot while I was at work Shock

When we used to go to nandos he'd always have the 'deluxe platter for 2' but just call it a whole chicken with the extra bits so he didn't sound like a fat pig. It came with two drinks ffs he was fooling no one Hmm. If course, he then tried to tell me that they were only 'small chickens'...

I'm a total foodie but I feel sick just remembering it

reetgood · 03/05/2017 18:38

I have been in a relationship for 9 years, with a man who once cooked pasta by boiling it in a kettle...

Our first argument was about toast - he (sheepishly) rejected a sandwich I'd made for him as if it was toasted it would have 'less calories'. He must have seen my lip curl, and it was all FINE FORGET IT.

He was a fat kid, who lost significant amount of weight as a young man. He has strange beliefs about food including 'good' and 'bad' foods that will make him put on weight overnight (ummm that's water). I was a skinny kid, who has to work fairly hard to be overweight. I love to cook, I'm the main food prep in our relationship, and I'm good at it.

The biggest challenge was when we started living together, to be honest. In one hand I'd have him overeating and then saying he felt sick, in the next he'd be saying he was fat and ugly. He's a naturally big human being, and mostly I've always found him attractive so it pained me to hear him say things about himself. It was extremely difficult not to get into a cycle of policing his food choices. Or to cook him a low carb thing to be supportive, only to find he'd eaten a pizza for lunch...

For the past 6 months, we've been following a slow carb, low sugar eating plan together and it's been fairly revelatory. We're finally more equal in our food relationship, I've worked on not commenting/ policing his decisions. We plan weekly menus together. He's an adult, he gets to decide what his does with body. He's also lost 23lb, where I have lost 5 :)

I'd caution you to go into this a) expecting change b) that you can do anything to influence change. And issues of weight are much, much more deeply embedded than you realise. I always thought I had a fairly body positive/ food positive outlook, but I was completely stumped by our dynamic together. Two books that helped us were the Beck Diet Solution (CBT approaches to dieting) and Always Hungry (the slow carb eating plan). However, I don't think we were ready for that until we'd lived with each other for 6 years...

JustAKitten · 03/05/2017 18:39

Because you know he's definitely going to get ill, right Tinsel?

Smoking and heavy drinking both affect those around them with smoke or drunken shenanigans.

phoenixtherabbit · 03/05/2017 18:39

I wouldn't care, and especially when living together people change their eating habits without realising anyway.

You can't tell someone what to eat if they're a grown adult.

Imagine a thread titled 'my husband has told me I need to go on a diet and I am no longer allowed to eat x y and z because he finds it unattractive'

Not ok.

TinselTwins · 03/05/2017 18:42

Because you know he's definitely going to get ill, right Tinsel?

With the eating habits the OP described? it's pretty likely, if he continues he might get lucky, like some smokers do, but he's still in self destruct mode and that does affect the persons loved ones whether its food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, cigarettes…

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