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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think who eats a family meal to themselves?!

588 replies

GimmeTheSnacks · 05/02/2020 23:44

I made a meal this evening ready for tomorrow as the chicken needed cooking. It was cooling down on the side before putting it in the fridge. The next thing I know dp is home from work then walks in with a huge plate of it. It looked like a lot so I asked if he'd reheated the whole thing to which he replied "no I've saved ds (5) some as I know how much he likes it". I explained it was for tea tomorrow and he said I should have told him when he got home.

He has enough common sense to know I will have cooked it for another days meal so this was just so selfish. He can be selfish with food in terms of snacks but he's never done it with a meal before. There were 4 chicken breasts in it ffs!

Aibu to think this was out of order and selfish?

OP posts:
Cantuccit · 06/02/2020 15:22

I used to get full really quickly and then get hungry again later so I learnt to eat quickly to get a full meal in.

I’m now trying to eat slowly and chew each bite at least 20 times but habits are hard to break!

JRUIN · 06/02/2020 15:25

He ate 4 chicken breasts? What a greedy, selfish fucker. Surely he would have known that that isn't a normal portion size so should have guessed it wasn't all for him?

Blackandgreenteas · 06/02/2020 15:27

Yes they do say that if you eat too fast you don’t know when you’re full.

It’s not so much the amount of overall food that’s the problem is it - although in OP’s case it sounds like he’s eating far too much in total. It’s eating food that isn’t yours/his/theirs, is meant for someone else or for a different time. It’s not being able to have any food stay in the house for 5 mins without disappeared.

WhatsTheLatest · 06/02/2020 15:32

the 1950's rang and want your husband back. What a throwback he is.

The man of the house comes in from hard day at the coal face. Little woman has prepared food. Man eats what food he wants. Little kids then go hungry unless little woman scrips from another place. Wow, how sad some men haven't evolved.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 06/02/2020 15:36

He was selfish to not have checked before eating the curry but honestly, I'm surprised that some posters relish the mothering-everybody and taking so much ownership of the family food so completely. It's throughout the thread and making me cringe.

Fine to have one partner who cooks and one who washes up but who in their right mind wouldn't have picked up this bad habit of polishing everything off, once and directly, rather than be a martyr to it time and again? It's pathetic, it really is.

I'm also agog at the juxtaposition of the many women posters on MN who happily declare that their children can eat their own bodyweight in pretty much anything, and are so proud of it... it doesn't accord with this thread much but I bet those same bountiful-mummy posters are on this thread and there's nothing that some women enjoy more than commenting - and controlling, if they can - other people's food.

Everybody should be eating their fair share and no more when it comes to family food. Not difficult as a concept.

billy1966 · 06/02/2020 15:46

God help you OP, 3 very young children, working, breast feeding, trying to juggle it all.
Squeezing in the cooking of a nice meal the night before to make the following day less pressurized.

Obviously you have those who don't expect any better from their partners.

But what he did is unbelievably selfish but isn't in isolation.
He's a greedy pig who eats and spends money on himself, ahead of his whole family.

Not a nice person.
Nice men don't behave like that, selfish pigs do.

Personally I would be reading him the riot act about money and food.

Let your irritation be the lightening rod for change.

I couldn't look at a man who felt so entitled, ahead of his breastfeeding partner and mother of his children.

In the real world, most people would be embarrassed for such an excuse of a man.

Wishing you well and support IRL.

PickleMyPepper · 06/02/2020 16:13

Gosh all this talk of 'full allocations of meals for the day', scoffing and portion sizes is madness.

I understand it's very annoying to spend time cooking something for a family and have just the one person eat it, but it's not a hangable offence.

The insults being thrown at this bloke are unbelievable.

Freezer food tomorrow instead of curry, job done.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 06/02/2020 16:14

Because he thought/assumed they had already had theirs and it was left over. Ten bloody pages and no one has understood this.

That much food was obviously not "left over"!

Unless OP usually curries an ostrich.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 06/02/2020 16:22

I honestly think if I wrote here what my ds 14 consumes in a day it would possibly cause a mass MN heart attack.

Yes - but teenagers eat loads because they are growing.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 06/02/2020 16:23

I have only ever seen small packets of ostrich, Schadenfreude, but I'm now picturing a massive - really enormous - dish of curry, with an ostrich's legs sticking out of the top of it... Shock

PickAChew · 06/02/2020 16:23

Freezer food is more plentiful when everyone earning contributes a fair share to the food budget, which it sounds like OP's H isn't.

TwentyViginti · 06/02/2020 16:24

Freezer food tomorrow instead of curry, job done

So the breastfeeding woman and DC eat freezer food because the man has eaten the healthy dinner for the whole family as a snack Hmm

SchadenfreudePersonified · 06/02/2020 16:27

If he’s very overweight then this is very disordered eating, and he should attract our sympathy, not our contempt.

"Ooooh, you poor maaan!

I'm soooo sorry you're greeeeedy!"

Bugger that!

SchadenfreudePersonified · 06/02/2020 16:28

And the beak, Lyin.

And the beak Grin

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 06/02/2020 16:28

Because he thought/assumed they had already had theirs and it was left over. Ten bloody pages and no one has understood this.

But the OP seems pretty clear that's not what happened. She has spoken to him about budgeting food and being careful before, he has form for not caring if food is intended for others, and he ate a huge amount. And even if he had assumed it was leftovers his reaction when she told him was very poor. He was all about blaming her for his own mistake. In his mind she should have warned him so he wouldn't eat it all? It wasn't his business to ask? And not just a taste, or a portion, but more than a normal helping, when it wasn't even a mealtime? Really?

If he's not selfish in other ways then it sounds as if he has an eating disorder that he wont admit to. Leaving a tiny bit for his son is proving to himself that he has some self-control. But of course he doesn't.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 06/02/2020 16:29

Well maybe a healthful takeaway then, as so many posters on the thread have demanded (on behalf of the OP who hasn't)?

The man needs stringing up by his greedy gums. I'm sure the OP feels very much better for being told that her partner and father of her children, isn't worth a light and is beyond salvation.

MN women go absolutely beserk about food, they really do. Every.Single.Time. It's just not like this in my RL circle, it's baffling. Partner does something to annoy you, you deal with it and the annoyance goes... or a mutual divorce occurs.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 06/02/2020 16:31

Schadenfreude, now that is greedy. I had ear-marked the beak for a mid-week meal elsewhere... Grin

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 06/02/2020 16:34

If he’s very overweight then this is very disordered eating, and he should attract our sympathy, not our contempt.

He only gets sympathy from me if he admits it and tries to deal with it. Not if he tries to blame the OP for failing to tell him the obvious.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 06/02/2020 16:36

Lying

Grin
C8H10N4O2 · 06/02/2020 16:51

Tbh I dont think we get a full story here - 3 children below 5, a baby, OP is working....... like how?

I would imagine the same way I did and many other women do when still breast feeding the third or fourth child - with childcare and permanent exhaustion. There was no year of paid leave when my kids were small, there isn't now for most women.

Having survived the teenage years with both girls and boys I can reassure the OP that whilst they may get hungry and eat more being self centred and scoffing large quantities from the fridge without checking first isn't automatic - its a learned behaviour.

Mine ate like horses as teens, somehow they manage to check first and never left us short of the planned meal. Nor did DH, nor did my brothers, nor did DF. Its nothing to do with the Y chromosome, its just entitled self centredness.

mummmy2017 · 06/02/2020 16:52

OP said he eats snacks, but has never eaten a whole family meal.

Blackandgreenteas · 06/02/2020 17:01

So what did you do for dinner tonight OP? Has he said anything more apologetic about his actions?

Oulu · 06/02/2020 17:15

You need to start locking away anything he can snack on apart from things like fruit. And talk to him about a budget for his meals when he's at work so there is more available for the rest of the family. I assume there's no reason why he can't take sandwiches in?

thekatydids · 06/02/2020 17:19

You need to start locking away anything he can snack on apart from things like fruit.

He's an adult not a child! You can't go round treating other adults like that Shock

QueSera · 06/02/2020 17:30

I'm so glad that I live in a house where DP and I can eat what we want, in any amount we want, when we want, without having to seek the other's permission or be judged or criticised by the other.
All the controlling fanatics on this thread, calling a man names because he ate food that was on the kitchen counter, yikes - I pity anyone who lives with you.