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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:
SnuggyBuggy · 06/02/2020 09:52

The cool wives are out in force here. And JammieCodger is spot on about how the responses would be totally different if it was a woman eating the curry.

MimiLaRue · 06/02/2020 09:53

Just make something else or ask him to do dinner

Thats actually what most people suggested- you ate the dinner, fine, but you then have to provide a replacement the next day. But we were told we were being "childish" for expecting a grown adult to replace the entire family meal they had just eaten....

SchadenfreudePersonified · 06/02/2020 09:55

Roast chicken is a funny thing to have for tea

What?

No it isn't.

It's a funnier thing to have at 10.00 clock at night.

KatyCarrCan · 06/02/2020 09:56

If he deliberately ate everyone's dinner then you have a problem and yy he is selfish and disrespectful. If he came home, ate some food that was out and only afterwards thought, 'wait a minute ...' then he could be inconsiderate or just didn't think. Was he drinking when he was with his friend because it sounds a bit like someone coming home with the munchies, eating everything in sight and then stopping to think.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 06/02/2020 09:56

In our house I meal plan with a rod of iron. People check before helping themselves to anything that isn’t an obvious snack. Fruit, cheese and crackers, beans on toast etc, fill your boots. But please don’t grab stuff for meals, or even leftovers without checking first. I cook from scratch and we have virtually zero food waste.

cultkid · 06/02/2020 09:57

@ToEarlyForDecorations actually yes sometimes I cook a huge proper meal that took all day and I'm sick of it by the time it's dinner so I have something else
It's not a big deal.

WooMaWang · 06/02/2020 09:59

@cultkid The OP isn't his mum so she isn't required to endure he has food available at all times. Being pissed off that she needs to make a whole new dinner because he ate the whole of the one she'd made already is not 'controlling what he eats'. He should have consideration for her labour and make himself a snack.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 06/02/2020 09:59

calling him greedy and a pig is mean

Really?

He helped himself to THREE ADULT PORTIONS

thekatydids · 06/02/2020 10:01

He was hungry, he had something to eat. He's your DP not your child, do you always ration his food ?

TinklyLittleLaugh · 06/02/2020 10:01

It’s all very well to ask him to cook something else, but if he’s a shit cook or routinely comes in really late, that’s not going to work.

Katy I was thinking the munchies too. It’s the sort of thing you do as a daft student who’s smoked too much weed.

JammieCodger · 06/02/2020 10:01

I don’t ‘police’ what my husband eats, but he is a normal considerate human being, who is aware that we shop once a week, and that I (yeah, wife work. He’s not perfect!) have some idea of what meals we’ll use it for throughout the week. He would realise that if he ate a family, or even half the family’s, portion of chicken, it would need replacing, and so he’d go to the shop to do that. We are lucky enough not to need to worry about budget, but if that were the case he’d somehow have to replace it with magic beans.

I do know a couple of people with fridges packed with whatever might take hubby’s fancy, over and above what they need for the week. They are also the people who have no qualms about regularly binning large amounts of food. I judge.

Kaykay066 · 06/02/2020 10:02

It’s lazy and he’s selfish for not coming to ask you if you were using the chicken for something and could he have some I often use a leg for a sandwich I am the only one who likes them so other one is for dinner rest my boys have, we have roast chicken often on a week night as it’s something they all enjoy and not strange?!?

mantarays · 06/02/2020 10:03

It’s all very well to ask him to cook something else, but if he’s a shit cook or routinely comes in really late, that’s not going to work.

Beans on toast
Spaghetti on toast
Egg on toast

He’ll manage if he’s a “shit cook”. Let him get on with it.

If he comes in late, get a takeaway out of his personal budget.

MimiLaRue · 06/02/2020 10:03

It’s all very well to ask him to cook something else, but if he’s a shit cook or routinely comes in really late, that’s not going to work

Then he can pick up a takeaway! simple. This isn't a problem that cant be solved- he is perfectly capable of getting food from somewhere and bringing it home if he is unable to cook himself.

BreastedBoobilyToTheStairs · 06/02/2020 10:05

If I've spent my time cooking a meal Dp would absolutely ask before eating 'leftovers'. If he cooked I would do likewise. I haven't had to tell him that, he just has a bit of respect for the fact that he contributes in absolutely no way to the cooking, meal planning, or budgeting, and therefore his common sense tells him that him randomly scoffing a load of food might potentially mess up the effort I've put into meal planning, especially if I don't have the opportunity to replace it. If I've somehow made loads too much when he's not there? I'll tell him to grab some if he wants. We buy other things which are a free for all for snacking. Full meals aren't.

So, you smell a nice curry when you come home hungry, assume it's leftovers.

Or speak to your wife and check rather than assuming that a portion big enough for a family meal is 'leftovers'.

SnuggyBuggy · 06/02/2020 10:06

If he'd bought his own chicken, made his own 4 person curry and eaten it then that's greedy but thats his own business.

Its the fact that the OP had taken the time to prepare and cook in advance and probably thought job done for tomorrow night and he's just swooped in and eaten it with no regard for her time and effort. It's shitty to have no respect for other people's time and no person in real life would be happy to "just cook something else"

LettertoHermoine · 06/02/2020 10:06

He did it ONCE...ONCE!!!! He is not a serial scoff all the next days dinner eaters.

I am pretty sure he will never ever ever ever ever do it again...

Christ.

sweeneytoddsrazor · 06/02/2020 10:06

Four chicken breasts in a curry would do 2 people in this house. Microwave rice would do 1 adult and maybe a little bit left over not enough for 2 adults though.
Curry isnt something you spend hours in the kitchen making and I know loads of.people who would eat at tea time and have a take away later in the evening if they had been out or were hungry. He maybe should have asked but some of the reactions are way ott

restawhile77 · 06/02/2020 10:08

I’d be fuming, Yanbu.

cultkid · 06/02/2020 10:08

Also not going to open the can of worms about his money and her money

It's just money in this house to get what we need

Confuddledtown · 06/02/2020 10:12

It's not the money I would be annoyed about, it would be my time. Theres nothing more soul destroying than spending time getting caught up and getting ahead of yourself when your organising kids to have it snatched away by thoughtlessness. Yes, it was only a curry, but its 2 hours of OPs time (say an hour to make the curry plus another hour to make a replacement meal for tomorrow) when shes already working and looking after 3 kids including a 3 month old. Maybe she has other commitments tomorrow which is why she took the time to prepare an easy meal ahead of time? I'm assuming she made him his first dinner before he went to his friends house? Of course theres nothing wrong with being hungry, but if it hadn't have been there would he have made him a massive meal or settled on some toast? Just because it's there doesnt mean it's a free for all.

ToEarlyForDecorations · 06/02/2020 10:12

8sometimes I cook a huge proper meal that took all day and I'm sick of it by the time it's dinner so I have something else*

I get that. My point is, the OP's husband smelled the nice curry when he came home with the munchies and ate the curry.

So, OP, how is this going to be resolved ?

Did he give you some money to effectively pay you for what he had eaten ? You then use this money to get more food to cook for tonight ? Or is he buying a take away for you all for tea today ?

I'm now over invested in what you will be having for tea tonight. Not roast chicken, apparently. That's weird (not in our house, but then I don't live on planet MN.)

AriadnesFilament · 06/02/2020 10:12

Selfish, ignorant, thoughtless git

I’d be so cross with him

roarfeckingroar · 06/02/2020 10:13

Thoughtless pig. I would be really annoyed.

restawhile77 · 06/02/2020 10:15

Then he can pick up a takeaway! simple. This isn't a problem that cant be solved- he is perfectly capable of getting food from somewhere and bringing it home if he is unable to cook himself.

I don’t think that would be affordable, the op has implied they’re on a budget. Whoever gets in first makes the meal, is the practical way, which seems to be what’s happening here. It would be odd if the op just made a meal for herself and the dc. Imagine if the other way round. The op is right to be annoyed though, I would be.

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