Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DH and Dinner - AIBU

682 replies

Redlioness123 · 23/10/2019 19:15

I'm just really interested to know whether I am BU or not, as my husband thinks I'm being controlling

I have made a lasagne today. It's not something we have often so I spent a bit of time on it making it from scratch etc. I also cut a nice salad to go along with it and I was planning to make some seasoned wedges before serving around 7.15pm (the time we eat most days).

DH arrived home from work around 6.30. Claimed he was starving, I told him what was for dinner and to have a banana or something (Lasagne is already made and is staying warm at the bottom of the oven)

I went out the kitchen to do something and returned after 5 mins to see that he has helped himself to a ginormous serving of the lasagne and begins complimenting me about delicious it is. I got visibly annoyed and asked why he couldn't have something else or at the very least, a tiny portion rather than a dinner-sized portion. His response was that he is only going to have a small spoon of it when we sit down for dinner and have a plate made up mainly of salad and wedges instead Hmm

I've left him to it but it's pissed me off so much - he does this all the time and I think it's so disrespectful to someone who's been slaving away in a kitchen to just dip into a hot dinner they've made like it's a snack. Is it weird that I would want to eat it and enjoy it together?? Maybe I'm just being silly - it would be great to get opinions!

Also I'm not sure if it's relevant but I work full time too and usually try to get home much earlier than DH to make a start on his snack dinner

OP posts:
ineedaholidaynow · 24/10/2019 08:32

So when does it become ok to help yourself to the meal before everyone else eats? Not ok for a child but ok for DH.

He was not ‘starving’, he had eaten well during the day.

I assume it would not have been ok if he had come home and demanded to know why his dinner was not yet ready as he was starving. The difference here was that part of the dinner was in an edible format (ie not raw meat/ingredients) so he could eat it straight away, but the actual meal was not ready.

Still think he should have mucked in to help not just scoff a large part of the lasagne.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 24/10/2019 08:34

ineedaholidaynow

I wouldn’t like it if my DH did this every day, can’t lie, but occasionally because he is really hungry? Not an issue.

I also think terms like “scoff” aren’t helpful. This isn’t about greed, it’s about him just being more than usually hungry. That isn’t a crime.

CarolDanvers · 24/10/2019 08:35

If I was starving I really wouldn't have wanted to wait 45 minutes to eat and no a banana wouldn't have cut it. That said I do understand your anger. I would have been too. Maybe could have made ready and served him his portion?

CarolDanvers · 24/10/2019 08:36

Would he just carve into a cake without checking too?

Would a grown adult really be expected to ask if they could have some cake?

Carparkticket · 24/10/2019 08:37

I think I will go against the flow but I really think if someone comes home starving and dinner is ready it is pointless to wait.
I wouldn’t want to wait either.
I don’t eat dinner at the same time everyday

seaweedandmarchingbands · 24/10/2019 08:37

Would a grown adult really be expected to ask if they could have some cake?

Yes. And they can’t just take a piece. They have to be “carving into it”. The language must reflect their gluttony. 😂

DoctorAllcome · 24/10/2019 08:40

Agree 100% chilled bee. And then imagine being told you are the rude one and being forced to apologize like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Charley50 · 24/10/2019 08:44

Hmm if I'm hungry I get hangry, and get a bad headache and stomach pains, and have to eat something, anything, right then.
I agree that it was rude to eat so much lasagne, but I might have eaten a knob end of it myself. My DP wouldn't have cared.

Is your DP actually overweight OP? If not, his eating habits and calorie intake shouldn't really be an issue, unless he lived on junk food, which he doesn't.

53rdWay · 24/10/2019 08:45

If I’d been making a cake and hadn’t yet finished it, and also needed to put the baby to bed before I got to eat any, and came in to find my husband tucking into one layer of the unfinished cake because he was hungry right then and there, then yes I actually would be pretty pissed off.

Jojobythesea · 24/10/2019 08:46

@DoctorAllcome mine at that age couldn't stay awake later than half six, seven, and then would sleep until at least seven the next morning. I think most babies of that age need twelve hours and also they are all different.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 24/10/2019 08:47

53rdWay

But the lasagne was done. It’s not like he saw it stewing on the stove and took a portion like soup.

Original poster
Redlioness123 · 24/10/2019 08:47

@ChilledBee That makes you sound like an impulse problem. Why can't you have a banana? Are you really going to suffer, really? Where's your accountability and self-regulation to not be absolutely starving when you return from home, knowing that dinner is unlikely to be ready waiting on the table for you?

OP posts:
53rdWay · 24/10/2019 08:49

But the lasagne was done.

But the meal wasn’t done.

CarolDanvers · 24/10/2019 08:49

If I’d been making a cake and hadn’t yet finished it, and also needed to put the baby to bed before I got to eat any, and came in to find my husband tucking into one layer of the unfinished cake because he was hungry right then and there, then yes I actually would be pretty pissed off.

Well that's a very specific situation around cake isn't it? And wasn't mentioned as being the case in the initial just carving into a cake scenario.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 24/10/2019 08:50

But the meal wasn’t done.

It’s still not an unfinished cake. The DH taking his lasagne didn’t affect the OP having hers, just serving it like she wanted to. Which isn’t - in my view - always more important than someone’s hunger.

DoctorAllcome · 24/10/2019 08:51

Lol Chilledbee, OP is now trying to control your eating remotely by saying you have an impulse problem, no accountability and self regulation and that you just eat a banana.

Jojobythesea · 24/10/2019 08:51

@Ihavetoomanyfeelings 👏👏👏 agree with every word. There was another thread the other day about people being entitled ...... think it shows who falls into which category on this thread. 🤔🤔

seaweedandmarchingbands · 24/10/2019 08:52

Accountability and self-regulation? Good grief. Get me out of here! 😂

Original poster
Redlioness123 · 24/10/2019 08:53

The meal wasn't ready though was it ?@seaweedandmarchingbands It would be like eating a chicken curry and having a huge bowl of the curry while you wait for the rice to cook. Is that ok then? Or a roast dinner where the chicken is cooked and resting on the side but the veg is still cooking, but carving off your portion of the chicken and having that in advance. I don't understand how people can't understand how weird that is. I can only imagine that you must make very basic meals that take you no time and effort that you really wouldn't care if someone ate it before it was ready

OP posts:
Soontobe60 · 24/10/2019 08:53

@DoctorAllcome
She is controlling mostly because she is unreasonably inflexible, priortizing routine over basic needs and overreacts with anger to anyone not following the routine/exercising flexibility.

Are you for real? She was PUTTING A BABY TO BED! Bathing, feeding, comforting a baby. Surely that's a basic need that is an absolute priority. But oh no, according to you, she should have been flexible enough to have put her baby to one side and fed her adult husband because he was hungry! The vast majority of people on here have agreed with her in that what he did was rude and unacceptable. He is an adult. He could have opened the fridge and had a quick snack. My kids/DH/me would do just that if we were hungry before tea time. It's not controlling at all!
You sound like a right barrel of laughs!

Original poster
Redlioness123 · 24/10/2019 08:54

@seaweedandmarchingbands good idea, you've been here for 12 hours posting pointless goady comments, so ta-ta

OP posts:
CarolDanvers · 24/10/2019 08:55

It would be like eating a chicken curry and having a huge bowl of the curry while you wait for the rice to cook. Is that ok then? Or a roast dinner where the chicken is cooked and resting on the side but the veg is still cooking*

I don't think it's the same. Lasagne is a meal in itself. Potato wedges are not an expected accompaniment to lasagne.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 24/10/2019 08:55

Ha ha - I am genuinely not goading you. I think you have control issues and am telling you this so you can help yourself.

CarolDanvers · 24/10/2019 08:56

I agree with you seaweed and I can't see how you're being pointless and goady Confused. You're just not agreeing.

I should probably leave too in that case.

DoctorAllcome · 24/10/2019 08:57

OP, you got your 77% majority agreeing with you. The other 23% at least validate that your DHs POV is not way out in la la land. Take it while you are ahead. But these efforts to try and control mumsnet to 100% agree with you by individually targeting every poster who disagreed with you to say that they have various fictional “problems”....is yet more controlling behavior. You can’t control everyone around you. People will disagree including your own husband. It’s called diversity.