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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to have finally snapped?

595 replies

ChilliWillies · 11/02/2021 13:35

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?

OP posts:
Housecar · 12/02/2021 18:32

Are you a paid servant or his wife??Confused

Catcoffeecake · 12/02/2021 18:37

Sounds like he's using this as a means of controlling you. Big red flag to me. Well done on standing up to him, stay strong!

momtoboys · 12/02/2021 18:42

When he went to the effort of switching to a plate from a bowl I would have lost it. What a child. I had a picky eater in my clan. I tried the "eat what I make or go hungry" tact, but that didn't last long. I started having something handy that I knew he would eat that he could heat up on his own if he didn't want to eat what I made for the others. I did make him take a bite of everything I made, though. We called it the "no, thank you" bite. (sounds incredibly pretentious as I type it out! :))

Clearaschristal · 12/02/2021 18:48

Tell him to cook for himself!!! Grr

Shell4429 · 12/02/2021 18:50

You are definitely not being unreasonable - but your DH seems like someone on the spectrum to me. Sounds just like my ex husband and son, both have Aspergers.

Middersweekly · 12/02/2021 18:54

YANBU OP. You’re DH could do with a few visits to a psychologist about his strange relationship with food. It’s also not acceptable that his habits are rubbing off on your 6yo!

Harls1969 · 12/02/2021 18:57

Well I'd completely stop making him food and I wouldn't be shagging him anytime soon either! Good luck OP

eeyore228 · 12/02/2021 18:57

I see so many posts about kids who are fussy eaters and how there's very little parents can do, yet this guy is shamed for being one. This is what happens when it's not able to be addressed or just ignored. I agree that OP should not be bending over backwards but you can't blame her DP for actually being fussy. It's all facilitated by her and those before.

Gabbianni · 12/02/2021 18:59

Fussy eaters - let them get on with it - as a child, I was 'forced' to eat food I really didn't like - and it turned me into a fussy eater - living in Asia cured that - as I discovered I love Asian food. Every week I'd ask what they want to eat - I'd get it in and at mealtimes I'd line it up in the kitchen and say you get on with it, then I'd make what you want e.g. your stir fries, btw it sounds great - I love crushed peanuts in food, very Indonesian. Being rude to someone who has taken time and care to cook food for you is just not on - let them eat beige, personally, that turns my stomach - but each to his/her/their own!

19lottie82 · 12/02/2021 19:00

I’m a bit confused as to why you feel you are punishing your DH and DS with beige food? It sounds like that’s what they want?! Especially your 6 yo. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a young child who would pick tagliatelle with prawns and cherry tomatoes, over chicken nuggets!

Ash2956 · 12/02/2021 19:02

I flipped this week, am fed up of having to think of meals for each day. When I ask for suggestions for meals nothing is forthcoming. Then DH said he’s fed up of casseroles!! So this unpaid maid has seen the light and has decided DH can do his own food. It’s very liberating!! I’ve spent the afternoon reading as I’m having a casserole I froze last week. DH has made himself cheese sandwiches. He’s looking sorry for himself but I’m part caring!! Casserole is delicious by the way...DH just said ‘ ooh that smells nice’. 🙄🤷‍♀️

Lockandtees · 12/02/2021 19:02

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Bilbettabloggin · 12/02/2021 19:03

My husband once told me that that food isn’t important to him and he doesn’t really notice what he eats. It could be a pot noodle for all he cares. I am a good cook and always cook from scratch. I was so cross I went out and bought a huge tray of pot needles which I proceeded to serve up to him at every meal. He didn’t see the funny side but is now very careful about what he says about my cooking!

Carriecakes80 · 12/02/2021 19:06

He sounds like my autistic brother. My little brother was only recently diagnosed but the whole way he speaks about food, from the little you tell us was so exactly like my brother!

MrsJBaptiste · 12/02/2021 19:06

I'm not really into food and my kids can be very fussy but I stilk think YANBU 😮

LovelyIssues · 12/02/2021 19:10

Well done OP!!! Flowers that sounds draining. Leave him and DS to live off bland beige food and make yourself the scrummiest you enjoy Wine

Cosmos45 · 12/02/2021 19:19

Continually amazed at how much shit people are prepared to put up with. If I make a nutritious meal that is tasty you eat it or feed yourself, end of actually. If I admittedly messed up a meal I would put my hands up but these prima donna's need reining it. Just stop cooking? I would..

Candyfloss99 · 12/02/2021 19:22

YABU to have made him a ham sandwich. What can a grown man not even make himself a sandwich??

Jeeperscreepers69 · 12/02/2021 19:23

If someone poked and prodded at food I'd cooked. I pick up there plate and bin the lot. Plate as well. Sorry but your a doormat

Mimilamore · 12/02/2021 19:27

I'd get stabby....

Belinda554 · 12/02/2021 19:32

I was a very fussy eater as a child, so I have sympathy, but it got to the point where I was cooking three different meals.😬I’m vegetarian so there’s always options of veggie or meat.
Last night i made chicken korma curry for the meat eaters..one child was moaning, I said eat it or leave it. She ate it, and said it was actually ok. 🙄 not spicy enough though. (but normally she hates spice.) Bloody annoying as she changes her mind daily.
Just cook a meal and fuck them if they don’t want it.

Jaxxy · 12/02/2021 19:35

YANBU

I actually agree with some comments about the more alarming undertones, it’s feels more controlling behaviour than fussy eating. I mean to criticise everything you do/make, the stew example really amplifies this ie eating it one week but not the next.

You might need to tell him he needs to make his own meals and you need to be firm with DS and perhaps evaluate whether this behaviour exist elsewhere.

Another option would be to agree a meal plan for the week before you put all the effort in.

You deserve much better for the huge effort you are putting in.

ohcarolina2001 · 12/02/2021 19:36

Fussy eaters do my head in. YANBU

SaphiraBlue · 12/02/2021 19:36

YANB - my partner is the same and so is my stepson - they now eat at my mother-in-law’s (she looks after SS before and after school, so my partner eats there when he picks him up) She panders to their bland ever changing palette and hates me so feels like she’s winning - I however have less hassle making meals as I make only 2 (for me and my son) and we eat more seasoned food - winners all round as far as I’m concerned. Friday and Sunday we sit round as a family and I try to cater to my SS’s tastes to keep the peace.

Aiwendil · 12/02/2021 19:37

I would have totally fecking lost it as well. Except I would have thrown the bread on the table and told him to make his own dam sandwiches and dinners from now on.

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