DH holds his knife like a pen

[user8558]

It drives me nuts.

It's pathetic that it irritates me the way it does. I don't nag him. I don't even bring it up (once ten years ago I did point out it wasn't the correct way, he asked what it was to me, I said it drives me crazy but that that's my issue)

It drives me silently crazy every day.

I'm ridiculous, why can't I just let it go?

I am with you, OP, although I know it is unreasonable to be so irritated and it doesn't really matter (but it does!).

I had it so drummed into me as a child I hate watching other people eat 'wrongly'. DP will hold his knife and fork the 'wrong' way round; knife like a pencil and lick his knife. I correct DD when she does it and he just contradicts me.

A left handed person having use their left hand for a knife and right for a fork are using cutlery correctly

Nah, I'm not accepting that! If I used my knife in my left hand it would be incorrect. My left-handedness doesn't change that.

My Dd is left handed, she still holds her cutlery correctly, just in the opposite hands.

My DH is right-handed and does the pen thing with his knife but not the fork. I’ve mentioned it to him many times over the years but he’s says he doesn’t care.

Recently he’s taken to scoop-eating just with his fork, American-style. I think that’s even worse and it drives me potty. Again, he just doesn’t care.

He also salts everything I cook without tasting it first. But at least he doesn’t actually chew his food with his mouth open. That definitely would be a dealbreaker.

As a left-hander who uses cutlery in the conventionally correct way and has suffered no trauma as a result, I agree with @DappledThings. I wonder why a righty like @SimonJT is so fussed.

@Zhampagne

As a left-hander who uses cutlery in the conventionally correct way and has suffered no trauma as a result, I agree with *@DappledThings. I wonder why a righty like @SimonJT* is so fussed.

Because people shouldn’t be made to feel inferior if they aren’t right handed. Lots of left handed people cannot force themselves to be right handed, and they shouldn’t be judged for it.

The way I hold a pen is wrong, an OT tried to help me do it correctly even with a splint but it's too painful.
I use cutlery the right handed way but I m not sure if it's "correct" either but after years of a horrendous self esteem
and shame having a co-ordinaton disorder,I ve stopped caring anymore as i m not a messy eater.

Why doesn't he hold it properly?

Previous XH used to mash all the food up with his fork and then shovel it in once it had the consistency of baby food.

I used to cook lovely meals with varying textures and colours and he'd reduce it all to greenish slop.

I divorced him, obviously. How I didn't kill him is another matter.

• Lots of left handed people cannot force themselves to be right handed, and they shouldn’t be judged for it.

I'm not forced to be right-handed. I write with my left hand, I chop with a knife in my left hand, I consider it to be an advantage when driving as the gear stick is on the left, I throw with my left hand, I am biased to my left side to the extent that I broke my left wrist twice as a child putting it out to fall on and I use cutlery correctly.

The only person I've ever known to do it the wrong way round that I've actually eaten with is right-handed and just prefers it the wrong way round.

I can understand OP. My MIL always eats pasta dishes with a spoon, really grates on me. I know it’s not rational but still.

I was brought up to hold my knife and fork 'correctly' by my mother. My father (a qualified, professional man) held his knife like a pen.

Although my mother was very strict, it was never mentioned.

I assume there is more going on in your marriage than just this,

@IHaveBrilloHair

My Dd is left handed, she still holds her cutlery correctly, just in the opposite hands.

I don't understand why left handed people do it like that, I mean whether you are left handed or right handed you still have one piece of cutlery in the wrong hand. Why not just make it easier on yourself and use the cutlery in the way the table is laid when you go out for a meal rather than faffing about and changing it every time?

Somebody once told me that when a relationship is coming to an end “you find everything the other does absolutely irritating, from what they say to the way they hold the spoon”.

I have had 3 LTR since then and in every one of them I remember looking at disgust at the way they were holding the cutlery when for years I couldn’t care less.

So it may be that the way he holds the knife is not the problem, but everything that has happened before you got to where you are now.

@DappledThings

* Lots of left handed people cannot force themselves to be right handed, and they shouldn’t be judged for it.

I'm not forced to be right-handed. I write with my left hand, I chop with a knife in my left hand, I consider it to be an advantage when driving as the gear stick is on the left, I throw with my left hand, I am biased to my left side to the extent that I broke my left wrist twice as a child putting it out to fall on and I use cutlery correctly.

The only person I've ever known to do it the wrong way round that I've actually eaten with is right-handed and just prefers it the wrong way round.

You said above “if I used my knife in my left hand” that suggested that you do not use your knife in your left hand. But here you say you do use your knife in your left hand.

My dd is left handed and has special needs and can hold his knife and fork correctly . It's not difficult and it's my job to make sure he is trained 🤷‍♀️

It's even in the urban dictionary. www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=HKLP and I quote:
HKLP
An acronym for "Holds Knife Like Pen," used to describe the table manners of alower classoruncouthperson trying to imitate what he believes erroneously to be the behaviour of the upper classes at table. As the acronym suggests,the knifeis held as though it were a writing instrument.
"He'strying too hardto beposh:typical HKLP."

I think the PP means she uses a knife in her right hand when she is eating a meal but in her left hand when she is chopping up vegetables. I do the same.

Sorry about the formatting.

But here you say you do use your knife in your left hand

I said I chop with my left hand i.e. when preparing food. I don't eat with my knife in my left hand. I'm not aware of any etiquette around the way in which utensils used for food prep are used.

What does uncouth mean, I haven’t heard that word before.

I don't understand why left handed people do it like that, I mean whether you are left handed or right handed you still have one piece of cutlery in the wrong hand. Why not just make it easier on yourself and use the cutlery in the way the table is laid when you go out for a meal rather than faffing about and changing it every time?

Only a right-hander would say this.

How about you switch which hand you use for a while, and then report back on how easy it was to just switch?

My dd is left handed and has special needs and can hold his knife and fork correctly . It's not difficult

It might not be difficult for your dd. That doesn't mean that it isn't difficult for some other left handed people.

Again, same as @DappledThings, if chopping an onion or similar I use the knife in my left hand. If carving meat with a fork and carving knife I will often hold the knife in my right hand as this is familiar from thirty-five years of cutlery use.

What @SimonJT won‘t appreciate as a right-hander is that most left-handers have a degree of ambidexterity from a lifetime of fitting in to a left-handed world. Most of us are perfectly capable of using cutlery in the conventionally correct manner and do not need a right-handed saviour to defend us.

@SimonJT it means lacking in manners or refinement.