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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DH wants to eat fruit cake for breakfast

116 replies

LadyinLavende · 17/11/2018 14:35

To put this in context, I live in France and DH is French.
Last week a friend who was in the UK brought me back a slab of iced fruitcake.
it is in a plastic box and I have eaten a piece every day so what is left is approximately either 3 largish slices or 4 small ones.
This morning DH got in a strop because I said it wasn't reasonable for him to "finish it up" for breakfast (and if I hadn't intervened he would have eaten it all) ..... there was plenty of breakfast food in - French bread (butter, jam, honey, marmite, peanut butter), brioche, cereal....he doesn't even particularly like fruitcake whereas for me it's a real treat and replacing it is not as simple as just going to buy another slab - I had it specially "imported".
He got very moody when I said I didn't think he should eat fruit cake for breakfast....and muttered the whole time he was eating his bread and marmelade. I wouldn't even have begrudged him a piece but I know what he's like... he'd have scoffed the lot.
AIBU?

OP posts:
BlueJava · 17/11/2018 16:19

Why not just say "Please can you save me a small bit too?" After all you've had a piece every day you said so perhaps it is his turn now! YABU

CSIblonde · 17/11/2018 16:21

Cake for breakfast is fine, just make sure you ask him to leave a bit. And get the recipe off Google. It's so easy to make & bought readymade fondant tastes identical if you can source that on the interweb or local shop.

VickyEadie · 17/11/2018 16:21

My response would have been "Touch myfruitcake, feel my fork".

Sethis · 17/11/2018 16:22

I live in Italy where Baked Beans are £3 per tin. On my salary I can't afford that on anything close to a regular basis. Likewise M&Ms are ~£2.50 for a small bag, and many sweets/chocolate are completely unobtainable here.

Don't even talk to me about bacon.

My GF, when she visits, tends to bring a rescue package with all of the above. While she's staying with me then I share them with her, no problems at all, and she's generally nice enough to leave me the majority share because she knows it's a treat for me.

I'd be incredibly fucked off if I turned around one morning and she'd eaten ALL of the remaining Baked Beans or similar, apropos nothing at all.

YANBU for not wanting him to finish the cake, however Y might have BU about how you phrased it or said it. But he was BVU for trying to lay claim to it anyway when there were other options available.

Bittermints · 17/11/2018 16:23

I'm on your side, OP. If he doesn't like it much, he leaves it for you. Maybe you need to explain to him why and how it lasts so long and that it isn't going to go off and be wasted. That's the only explanation I can think of for why he would insist on having some when he already said it wasn't his kind of thing.

Horrible memories of the time we had a bottle of prosecco or something else fizzy for a birthday, and there was just a little bit left. I put an old sherry bottle cork in the bottle, put it in the fridge, and all the next day at work, which was very busy and tedious, I was remembering on and off that there was just enough there for me to have a glass with dinner, and I was looking forward to it. Smile

At last I got home and looked in the fridge. Bottle gone. Shock Husband wandered in holding an empty glass. Hmm He said he thought it needed using up, so drank it to get it out of the way. He hadn't realised I might want it. What a shame, as he wasn't a huge fan of fizzy wine and would really have preferred his usual glass of red. Angry Sad Envy

Reader, we are still married, but my goodness, that was a moment when the marriage vows were tested. Grin

TheGrassIsGreener3 · 17/11/2018 16:24

OP's friend bought her a slice of fruitcake from the UK! It is the OP's cake. It's your cake to give to who you want OP. Your DH was out of order for trying to eat it all.

1tisILeClerc · 17/11/2018 16:25

Dried fruit and some other ingredients are ridiculously expensive in France. Even porridge oats are twice the price.
Either sultanas or raisins are not easy to find either.
Similarly cheese that is good for 'cooking' like a 'boring' cheddar.

Lunde · 17/11/2018 16:27

Why not just order some more from the British Corner shop and all manner of iced fruit cakes can be yours within the week - or you can buy the ingredients and make your own
www.britishcornershop.co.uk/cakes-christmas

TatianaLarina · 17/11/2018 16:28

I much prefer French (and Italian) sausages.

English sausages and baked beans are two of my bêtes noires.

Do love a good jar of cassoulet though.

Chocolatebourbons · 17/11/2018 16:28

LTB Cake

TatianaLarina · 17/11/2018 16:29

That was to LeClerc ^^

Antigon · 17/11/2018 16:33

Are people not reading properly?!

HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE FRUIT CAKE.

It's wasted on him. He's a greedy fucker and should eat the brioche instrad, I knows it's precous stuff to OP.

blueskiesandforests · 17/11/2018 16:35

At least 3/4 of the people posting away in this thread haven't rtft and are utterly lacking in insight about what (including ingredients) is available to buy in different countries, and why this might be relevant.

I wonder if the sharey MC shareys are equally zen and selfless if their teen uses up their favourite cosmetics/ partner uses up their expensive special treat bubble bath/ other pamper or self care products having recently did missed them as a bit shit?

TatianaLarina thank you for that link. I'd never heard of them. As always with those international shops it ends up incredibly expensive though - I got mildly excited thinking I'd get some Christmas crackers and mince pies and shipping alone went up to 16.50€ as soon as I added a box of mince pies Shock

howabout · 17/11/2018 16:37

DH informs me no-one cooks from scratch in France hence the scarcity of raw ingredients - all about the patisserie and boulanger.

If there's no porridge or dried fruit I'm not going though so problem solved for me at least.

French MIL makes the best steak, salad and all manner of fancy veg dishes but we keep her this side of the Channel so all entente cordiale here.

Original poster
LadyinLavende · 17/11/2018 16:39

Thanks for the support, those of you who "get it"...(particularly @SewButtons and @Bittermints) .... Clearly you have to have experienced a similar situation to fully understand.

I think the point about him wanting to eat it for breakfast was that he would need (and clearly intended) to eat all of it in order to have enough food, whereas if he were having it as a snack or dessert later in the day he would only have had a slice of it - leaving me some which wouldn't have bothered me as much.
I made the first mincepies of the season last week and the last two mysteriously disappeared so there weren't any when I fancied one... but I didn't even mention it as I have a jar of mincemeat to make some more... just no time to bake at the moment.

OP posts:
blueskiesandforests · 17/11/2018 16:49

Lunde Just the dried mixed fruit, black treacle, rollable marzipan and rollable fondant icing from that website would be 45€ - they don't even have candied peel. It's be days or a week til they were delivered. There'd be shopping required for other ingredients including brandy if you don't normally buy it, probably another 20€ plus.

Then baking a fruitcake, plus icing it when it cools, is several hours work.

But sure - why doesn't the woman "just" spend 70€ and a few hours work so her man can "finish up" something he doesn't even like for breakfast!

Ohsolomio · 17/11/2018 16:50

Food is for sharing on the continent.

pallisers · 17/11/2018 16:50

blueskiesandforest has it absolutely right.

I'm away from home too and if a friend sent me something from home because they knew I really liked and missed it (and they have) I would think it mean of dh to sulk because I didn't want to give him a large portion of it.

Everyone brings my dh a particular bar of chocolate when they visit because they know he loves it and misses it. I don't make him share and I certainly wouldn't sulk because he asked me not to eat the last three bars of it but only take one instead.

pallisers · 17/11/2018 16:51

Food is for sharing on the continent.

so why didn't he want to share the last of the fruitcake with the OP?

justher · 17/11/2018 16:51

Maybe off topic but my sister bought herself a scone ( a giant scone) which she loves, and took it home. She ate half, and gave her husband half, but seems he wasn't as keen on it but carried on eating it anyway.

She watched him like a hawk, and couldn't wait to say, 'hang on, just leave it if you don't really want it' He did.. She scoffed it !

The moral is this.. Eat and savour what you like.. Share a bit, but make sure you get the lion' share !

theworldistoosmall · 17/11/2018 16:57

I really don't understand why you didn't just cut him some and give it to him.
He could have then topped up on whatever other stuff was hanging around.

blueskiesandforests · 17/11/2018 16:58

Ohsolomio where did you pull that gem out from? "The continent" being one hive mind with this attitude to foid you've invented, or observed in one specific place presumably? It isn't for sharing in our part of Germany...

DrWhy · 17/11/2018 17:02

I totally sympathise. Sharing the cake evenly if it was something you both enjoyed would have been reasonable. Him finishing up something you enjoy and he isn’t bothered by and that it’s difficult to replace is totally unreasonable!
I am genuinely surprised that you can’t get fruit cake ingredients in France though. I managed to source them (and mincemeat ingredients) in Borneo! I guess thinking about it though that’s an ex-British colony that still has certain British influences, you couldn’t buy fruit cake but you could buy dried fruit. If it’s just the obscure things like black treacle you could ask your friend to bring some on the next visit as it will last years! If it’s bulky things like the fruit you have no chance. The thing we couldn’t get was ‘proper’ (pre-kraft) Cadbury’s chocolate- they have a different recipe in hot countries with a higher melting point, which is like wax. If DH has without warning eaten what was left of that from the supplies that we brough from the UK he might have been ex-DH!

C8H10N4O2 · 17/11/2018 17:21

Thirding the difficulty of getting some of the key ingredients in France (and some other European countries). Online often requires large orders or is for cheaper quality ready made cakes. Baking ingredients are second only to marmite and salt'n'vinegar crisps in requests from colleagues working in Europe.

Also don't see why the OP should have to source, buy and make another cake just so that DH can pig out on it when he doesn't even like it and has many other foods for breakfast.

Inertia · 17/11/2018 17:22

blueskiesandforest has it spot on!

He can eat what he wants from household foods for his breakfast. It's really unreasonable to expect to eat all of something that's been bought as a gift for you, especially he doesn't even like it that much.