AIBU to have finally snapped?

[ChilliWillies]

Strap yourself in, this will be long. I’ve also name changed as what I’ll write is so identifying if you know me.
DH is a fussy eater. He claims he isn’t and that I’m the ‘weird’ one as I eat almost anything. DS6 is also going through a phase of saying he ‘hates’ the food I’ve made. For the record, I’m a good cook and am often complimented on my food.
I have managed to expand DH’s very limited palate over a lot of years so we can have less boring food, but any new recipe is met with suspicion. I can almost accept this, but what is CANNOT handle is that he changes his fucking mind! Something I made last week that he really enjoyed, this week ‘tastes awful’. I never know if he will like something that week or not. He also has form for getting annoyed about how food is served - I served curry and rice in big pasta bowls once and he made a big performance of tipping it all out onto a plate before he would eat it. I am the only cook - he can cook, but gets ridiculously stressed by it and also takes 3 hours to make anything.
Last night, I put dinner on the table, DS said ‘yuck, I hate this’ (he doesn’t, he loved it last week, getting this behaviour from his dad 😡) and left the table. DH poked at it dubiously, tried a bit and said ‘this is really bad’. It was some Sicilian Lamb Stew, leftover from the week before, that I’d frozen and then defrosted yesterday, served over a jacket potato. I explained he had liked it last time, and he said ‘what, with a jacket potato?’ I explained last time I’d served it with mashed potato and he literally said ‘oh that will be it then, you shouldn’t serve it with a jacket potato’!!!! 😡🙄. As if that would change the taste of the stew completely.
So, I actually lost it, stormed out, went to the shop and bought crappy white sliced bread, (he will moan if I buy unsliced bread, or anything with healthy seeds and grains in it) cheap ham, burgers, chicken nuggets and chips. When I got hone, I told him that’s what they were getting from now on, I give up.
He clearly didn’t believe me, because when I made lunch just now I made them plain ham sandwiches and made myself a new chicken story fry with peanut noodles recipe I’d been wanting to try. He’s got the right hump and is now not speaking to me.
So, we’ll done for getting this far. AIBU for subjecting to them to ham sandwiches and beige food for at least two weeks until they realise how good they had it?

I'm staggered that you let your husband be so utterly rude and ungrateful about what you cook for him. Why are you even considering cooking for him again? You're allowing this treatment of yourself. He needs to cook for himself and leave you and your child to it. Unbelievable what some people will put up with from their partner.

Don't understand why you're still cooking for your husband. Leave him to it and cook for yourself and DS and if DS doesn't want what you make tell him he can butter some bread.

I wouldn't make my husband a glass of water if he behaved like this and thought a few flowers would smooth things over.
I would cease all cooking/food provision of any sort, only buy what you and DS will eat and drink. Don't even ask if he wants anything.

Also your DH should see it as part of his parenting duties to set an example of good manners and behaviour.

I voted YANBU, but I strongly considered votring YABU because you made lunch for him.

You have allowed this disrespectful, childish attitude to go on until all your H thinks is needed is a bunch of flowers you cheer you up.

The whole thing is ridiculous. You need to get a backbone (the beige food strike is a good start) and stop accepting their insults, and H and your son need to get some bloody manners

YAB madly U ..... for putting up with this for so long. If it was my both males would be wearing the food I cooked.

... So he hasn’t apologised then 🙄

They're taking the piss.

I wouldn't have even made the sandwich - DH can make them himself, and for DS.

Good for you, OP!! I hope you enjoy all of the delicious meals you can have just for you now!!

The flowers are to pacify you not apologise then? To humour your bad mood...

This is a rod for your back of your own making. Before you agreed to marry him, was he such a dh?

It must be very annoying and limiting in normal life. I can't imagine I would date someone like that because I like variety. How do yoi do restaurants? Or food on holidays? Is he this rude about food outside of the house?

So.... you still haven't said why your DH can't be left to make his own lunches?

Weird

I'm glad that you have made a stand (on your own terms rather than those others here might have gone for).

You are not being unreasonable.

Your DH was rude and treating you like a household slave.
He was rejecting you rather than the food.

(He liked it last time - so it really wasn't sensory issues or taste in general.)

With children, I would be wary of using food as a reward or punishment, as it can lead to them having difficult relationship with food

With your DH, you could make a weekly list of what you're cooking, he says if he wants some or not, and you cook accordingly. You offer Sicilian lamb stew with baked potato, he says No, that's fine. But I wouldn't cook something else instead. Up to him to sort out something else. If you're feeling kind, you could ensure there's some beige food in the freezer

The beige food strategy sounds like a good plan OP.

For me it wouldn't even be the food faddiness, it's the disrespectful, flippant rude attitude, and the calm expectation that you'll just carry on preparing meals for your family whilst he sneers and refuses them and tells you they taste shite, that would drive me nuts. I can't stand people like this.

I actually have a bit of sympathy for anyone with a reasonably plain palette because I have one too, and I'm not a massively adventurous eater. But it's about manners, and gratitude for someone going to the trouble to make you a meal. Let's face it, anyone who has the responsibility of cooking for a family day in, day frigging out knows that it can become a real chore (whether you enjoy cooking or not) and the most important thing any family member can do is thank you for cooking. Even if they're not massively keen on the food! It's a cast iron rule in our house and DH and I always thank the other for whatever dinner we've prepared, and make the DC thank whichever one of us has prepared it.

I would also say that anyone with any kind of restrictive food issues - regardless of what/why they have them - should learn to be graceful and apologetic when faced with food they either don't like or can't tolerate. I have a teenager with ASD who has MAJOR sensitivities around food texture and combinations but I drum into him that he needs to accept that this is HIS issue and not anyone else's, and that if someone presents him with food he cannot eat then he is to take responsibility for his fussiness and apologise, and still say thank you, even if he doesn't actually like the food.

I hope your tactics make your DH think, OP. Don't back down, whatever you do.

I'd make sure there were plenty of 'bland' items around and state "I'm making for dinner. DH, there's plenty of stuff in the fridge if you'd rather make something else. DS you can choose whether you have or whatever Dad is making"

For a time, I was with someone a bit similar. Said he'd eat anything, and then when the food was server: "Didn't really fancy that today". Well, it's bloody well what you're getting today! (Usually meant him starting the deep fat fryer, though. One of many reasons I ditched him a long long time ago.)

I'd make sure there were plenty of 'bland' items around and state "I'm making for dinner. DH, there's plenty of stuff in the fridge if you'd rather make something else. DS you can choose whether you have or whatever Dad is making"

Yes, I'd do this. I bet he gets over his rude manners really quickly.

YADNBU OP - stick to your plans on this. They need to learn that rudeness and disrespect is not acceptable.

Sadly I've two fussy buggers here ive given up i make them beige shit pop multivitamins in there mouths and eat healthy myself i will make healthy food a lot for them too but its 50/50 if it will be wasted if they don't eat they end up with toast

I just wouldn't cook for him at all.

OMG. Why is he not wearing the food you made him! What an arsehole. In my house if you don't eat what's in front of you, you don't eat. Stop letting him treat you so disrespectfully.

@NeverAgain2021

Just to be a little controversial there is something called ARFID

www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/learn/by-eating-disorder/arfid

It is a recognised eating disorder and if often goes hand in hand with autism.

However, you can have almost no signs of autism but still have this.

It's a sensory thing.

I have a cousin with it. He will mostly only eat beige food. And he has problems with textures and mixing things. He likes the same foods over and over. He eats quite a wide range of foods from what I've heard - but really doesn't like to try new foods and switches in and out of liking foods and then going off them again.

Really likes repetition and no surprises.

What was your husband like as a child? You'll probably find all your answers there...

that said, just hand over his menu and diet to himself. Let him buy everything and cook everything he wants to eat and provide for the rest of the family yourself.

Exactly all of this. I would add, as a fussy eater myself...... your hubby could be playing out childhood pattern of being forced or offered food that he had an aversion to. There’s a high likely hood it was his mother he had this dynamic with. Don’t get drawn into this. He is an adult , he doesn’t have to eat anything he doesn’t want to. But it isn’t fair to you or your child for him to rope him into his stand off

YABU for putting up with this for as long as you have.

Why are you doing all the cooking? And no, it's not an explanation that your DH is crap at cooking... anyone can cook an omelette or a pizza or order takeaway. Why, with you doing all the cooking, is your DH criticising you rather than thanking you?

I think you should stop cooking for your DH and give your DS a choice... eat what you cook or dry bread for dinner.