Grounds for divorce? Tell me this is not normal...

[CatsArePeople]

OH never opens food packaging properly - he rips it to shreds. Stabs butter foil in the middle, the same with yogurt or cream. This morning, bag of catfood - resealable bag - ripped through the side... i want to scream.

I did this in front of my mil years ago. I wasn’t paying attention because we were talking and I expected the box of cheese to open along a seam, but instead, as it was a different brand, it had a little red pull thingie. So from her perspective I was a savage trying to tear it apart with my bare hands.

Everytime I’m exasperated with her I remember the expression of her face in that moment and try to be a little more patient because I think she really worries about poor dh married to the psycho.

Clearly YANBU. But if I told you to LTB, I would be forced to leave my own DH, who behaves in exactly the same, utterly unreasonable manner.

This. I’ve just been to get a biscuit to have with my cup of tea. There are two open boxes. One is tidily opened and closed with the little flap that was put there for precisely that purpose. The other has had the top of the box entirely ripped off and NO EFFFORT has been made with the plastic wrapper to stop them going stale and soggy. One box was opened by me, the other by ‘D’H. Guess which was which? (Okay, there’s no way on earth that they’ll last long enough to go stale, but still!)

It is definitely grounds for divorce, but he does work v v v hard and I don’t … so I shall just hide the best biscuits in future.

And don’t get me started on the clingfilm!

My mum is like this. Ham-fisted with everything. Once she played Jenga with us and willfully decided she was taking a certain piece. She brought the very stable tower down on the very first go. No one else had had their turn yet!

Is the answer glasses, my 'D'H does this when he can't see....and he maintains he can see "fine"

My packet destroyer, who also insists upon

freezing things bought in bulk still in the giant thick plastic packaging so that you are confronted with a slab of chicken pieces jamming the drawers that'll take about three months to defrost on the countertop or

leaving five torn packets of cheese open at once in the vegetable section of the fridge whilst the cheese section is full of random bits of vegetable still in trays and packaging, all unsealed and drying off, and

fills the cupboard with torn packets of rice, pasta and grains, all open to pests and pour out as you try and retrieve them carefully,

• wraps my leakproof lunchbox in about five layers of clingfilm plus random strips.

I even bought a leakproof lunch bag to put the leakproof lunchbox in. He used the lunchbag once - after wrapping the lunchbox in clingfilm as usual, he wrapped the fork under another layer and then put it all in a plastic bag.

I put it down to a suppressed trauma related to egg sandwiches and yoghurt in his childhood. There can't be any other explanation for it.

I am only grateful that tetrapacks you pull apart are no longer standard for fluids. Try pouring juice out of a gaping hole torn in the side where there is a distinct element of cardboard infusion in the contents. Or even getting it out of the fridge where it's been wedged in diagonally to avoid the contents pouring into the bottom.

I am shit hot at decanting things that cost a lot of money for this reason. But I may have to kill him this weekend, as I've been looking for the cat food tub for weeks, only to find he's taken the tub for storing guitar accessories, having snapped one of the fastenings off the lid and stuffed it down the back of his desk.

Spatial awareness is clearly not one of his strengths.

I know one of those! He also leaves crumbs in the butter and butter in the jam. The bread is left open. Sometimes the fridge isn't even closed properly. Or I'll hear a weird hiss in the distance and track it down to find he hasn't screwed the top on the coke bottle properly. Can't lift anything out of the freezer without the contents spilling out of the random hole he's created half-way down with his stupid man paws. Etc. Etc.

This thread has made me feel very grateful that DH doesn't do this. He can be a bit frustratingly forgetful about silly little things (such as closing drawers) and has an amazing aptitude for generating clutter, but at least he doesn't usually rip into packaging like a rabid animal. 😅

I did attempt some cling film wrestling the other day , it's been lurking in the drawer a while just gathering dust
There wasn't any way it was going to do anything : it just sits there mocking me.

It'll probably be there till the day I die

This is me. I do this and am always in awe of people that open stuff properly and correctly.
I get the rage trying to do it calmly. I'm not a very patient person I think that's why I do it. Always rushing.

I hear you

My mum opens everything with a Massive Knife. An ancient object which decades of sharpening has transformed from an ordinary carving knife to a terrifying dagger that looks straight off the set of a film about medieval mercenaries.

Amazingly, she has cut herself several times doing this as well as sending rice, juice (!), sauce, delicate electronics etc directly to the floor. In her case it's sheer impatience, she resents opening things properly - I swear to God she thinks "the man" has got one over on her if she tears at "tear here".

Mum?

Yes, mine does it too

😱

😂

Hahaha, DH is the same except for butter.

Annoying yes but definitely not for divorcing.

The flappy tops on cereal boxes rarely go well either with me , it doesn't go back very well and always a little tear close to the bit that goes under so it looks untidy. 'Slide finger' , hmm

I once turned around after unloading the shopping onto the conveyor belt to find DS had taken a yoghurt, shoved his hand through the foil and was merrily using his hand as a spoon. It's a very messy method, but he had the defence of being a 2yo.

In your sweetest voice, offer him a beer and a pack of crisps. Carefully remove the top of the beer with a can opener, and bash the crisps with your hand so the bag pops and the crushed crisps go everywhere. For less extreme payback, just remove the ring pulls from his cans of beer.

My DH does this with any bags of food eg frozen fruit; fish, etc. My other pet hate is he always opens the bread in a way that loses the tag with the date on it.

Clingfilm replacement - hasn't got the foggiest clue - tends to thrust the dispenser and mashed up clingfilm into my hand to deal with.

Muesli box - shredded, bits of box hanging off and plastic inner bag in tatters.

Penne pasta bag - brute force, he tried to pull the top seal apart, it ripped apart and like a pasta explosion, the whole bloody lot scattered around the kitchen - I'm still finding bits of penne down the back of the radiator months later. They invented scissors for that, DH.

grated cheese - he cuts off the plastic closure bit at the top of the bag so bits of cheese fall out every time we take it out of the fridge...sigh.

Meanwhile, I'm there with my scissors at the ready, carefully cutting across the dotted red line with the little picture of the scissors on it, just as the packet tells me to and carefully rolling the bag and putting a rubber band round it.

they say opposites attract!

@BowerOfBramble

I read all of your post nodding along with it agreeing with everything even including dodgy knife. Can confirm I must be your mother.

Thank you oh thank you for this comment. It’s made my day.

😅
It is annoying - no need.
I don't have any answers - buy a few plastic tubs and stick things in there, seeing he's destroying all the packaging?

Mine is a stickler about opening stuff properly, using the correct implement and never making a mess.

I'll tell you what he DOES do, though. Takes a bite out of things instead of cutting off a slice. So I go into the fridge and the lovely slab of Comté cheese I bought has fucking tooth marks in it and a bit mouth-shaped bite out of it. I've married a barbarian.