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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Husband labelling HIS OWN FOOD

334 replies

MrsWestox · 28/01/2023 18:37

Hi all
Now, am I being old fashioned here? Husband since 2014 has taken to labelling ALL the food he buys with a sharpie pen..which ironically I bought.. expecting no one to touch it. But when it comes to the food I buy..plus literally everything else from loo roll to bin bags to washing powder that I buy..is fair game for him to use or eat as he sees fit. So much for a shared household eh? Sharing is caring..( lol)! Has anyone else experienced this..? Am I being unreasonable to be totally razzed off by this?

OP posts:
ArthurFoxache · 29/01/2023 07:30

savoycabbage · 28/01/2023 18:42

Start repacking all the food in DHARMA packaging from LOST.

That's deep 🤣👍

YouJustDoYou · 29/01/2023 07:36

MrsWestox · 29/01/2023 00:56

Thanks OldFan
He is also moaning on about my kids making too much noise and bangs on the walls and floor in protest..

Oh god, what a weird thing to do. I would rather live on my own happily with my kids than have to have someone like that in my house.

Wetblanket78 · 29/01/2023 08:03

Exactly this🤣🤣🤣

Saracen · 29/01/2023 08:12

This behaviour is so extreme that I'd wonder whether he has become mentally ill. However, I get the impression that you don't love him and this is just the last straw, so perhaps it's better just to split up rather than trying to support him to seek help.

saraclara · 29/01/2023 08:32

He's your lodger, and a grumpy one at that. Nothing more. You need to evict him.
Please tell me that it's your house?

RiotousRoquefort · 29/01/2023 08:41

Ugh, this sounds terrible OP.

Living like this will have really diminished your spirit. You need to end this marriage and get your life back.

The level of dysfunction here cannot be minimised. I really feel for you, it's no way to live.

Dachshund40 · 29/01/2023 09:01

@MrsWestox we had a smaller fridge as well as the large fridge to keep our child’s medicine in as they are disabled. The smaller fridge got taken over by him and he’d put his food in there, it was for packed lunches for him, he would go absolutely mad if anyone ate his food from this fridge. He would eat food from the regular fridge and sometimes join us for family meals, he’d happily use the loo roll I bought on the big shop for everyone. It all started when I snapped one day and said he was a grown up and could make his own lunches (our kids didn’t eat packed lunches, but he expected me to make him one everyday because he worked, I also worked and did all the child care!) the relationship ended due to other more controlling behaviour I won’t go into now. It’s not a pleasant way to live and I would be concerned it’s the start off more unpleasantness building up in the home

Original poster
MrsWestox · 29/01/2023 09:08

Daschund40 thanks for sharing. You're so right. It's a slippery slope downhill. 😖

OP posts:
Theunamedcat · 29/01/2023 09:25

I think you and your children wouod be happier without him file the papers get him.off your back this is NO way to live for anyone

Soothsayer1 · 29/01/2023 12:23

Sharing food, eating together is very important significant and symbolic for humans, when we hunted and gathered we came home and shared what we had with the rest of the tribe, this was a way of strengthening the bonds that we had with other people, a way of saying 'we are in this together I will share what I get with you you I won't let you go hungry, you will always have a place at my table'... that kind of thing.
This man does not see himself as part of your tribe, he wants to hold himself separate and apart from you as if you were in some way a threat to him.

He is not partner, it might be convenient to live with him for now but make sure you always have a backup plan, don't share anything important with him because he doesn't share with you.

Livinghappy · 29/01/2023 12:30

What is the housing situation?

If you own I assume he will now have a financial interest due to length of marriage. He is clearly highly resentful of "blending" and never intended to be a true partnership. Unfortunately this is fairly common as I recall another MN posting something very similar.

OldEvilOwl · 29/01/2023 12:33

The obvious solution is to bin the sharpie, I mean husband. What a miserable git!

Hesma · 29/01/2023 12:35

Don’t buy ‘his stuff’

Soothsayer1 · 29/01/2023 13:17

Livinghappy · 29/01/2023 12:30

What is the housing situation?

If you own I assume he will now have a financial interest due to length of marriage. He is clearly highly resentful of "blending" and never intended to be a true partnership. Unfortunately this is fairly common as I recall another MN posting something very similar.

I agree, most of us have strong impulses to prioritise our own children, it seems to me that blended families can be inherently problematic unless both partners are very well balanced stable with good insight etc

JimStars · 29/01/2023 21:24

Well if he acts like a Univ student then you need to start labeling stuff like sharing a flat with students.

I Spit in this — don’t touch!

J

Fraaahnces · 29/01/2023 21:30

Start calling him Victor Meldrew

dizzydizzydizzy · 29/01/2023 21:56

Very odd behaviour! Eat some of 'his' food OP.

BigFeelingsMoment · 30/01/2023 09:43

MissMarplesbag · 29/01/2023 07:10

Behaving like this. I don't know why it autocorrected to selfridges hampers!

Thought this was actually rather an excellent typo. Selfridges hampers are a rather grand kind of basket case 👏

MrsHutch3029 · 30/01/2023 10:02

This guy would be my STBEH if he did that to me. Could understand an occasional treat he was really looking forward to, but everything he buys, while everything else in the house is fair game? Seems kind of like a symptom of a deeper problem.

charlertin · 30/01/2023 10:31

What?? 😂😂
Where are ya'll mumsnet posters finding these men? 😂😂
Does this mean that the "suitable men" pool is now corrupt and there is no hope for the singles out there? 😔

GeneralDeborah · 30/01/2023 11:37

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SpongeBobJudgeyPants · 30/01/2023 12:37

I don't know why people are doubting the OP. Unfortunately, these prize specimens of men walk among us. Having been married to someone who was extremely mean, I could see this would have been potentially the next phase. Why are some people so lacking in imagination, that they do not know of anyone like this, so it can't possibly be true? Hmm

DuckbilledSplatterPuff · 30/01/2023 12:39

BigFeelingsMoment · 30/01/2023 09:43

Thought this was actually rather an excellent typo. Selfridges hampers are a rather grand kind of basket case 👏

Show quote history

Miss Marples, your phone has a secret AI chip and it has picked up on the fact that you are jonesing for a Selfridge Hamper (or its subliminal advertising) and has taken to dropping it casually into your posts/texts on the pretense of auto correct. It knows you are a MN poster and is secretly monitoring how many people on this thread will suddenly order a hamper. More likely to Amazon sharpies tho.

Op. Are you getting video/photo evidence together? Plus. I would bin the sharpies or dip the tips in water to make it difficult to write with.

melj1213 · 30/01/2023 13:31

I could get it if the stuff he was marking was just "special" stuff (like favourite treat food etc) because, whilst I don't use a Sharpie, I have set places and baskets in the fridge/cupboards for "stuff anyone can freely help themselves to", "stuff for meals so don't take without checking first", "DDs stuff" and "mums stuff, don't touch if you value your life" and both DD and I understand the unwritten rule of knowing which is which.

When I lived at home my siblings and I would label treat stuff, especially chocolate/biscuits, as my dad would just hoover stuff up and then when you complained later that he'd eaten a whole packet of your biscuits then he'd just shrug and say "They were just in the cupboard and I was hungry. How was I supposed to know they were yours? They didn't have your name on!" So we started putting our name on them ... He'd still eat them but we would make him replace them (well mum would in the weekly shop) and it seemed like he would restrain himself more to maybe a couple of biscuits rather than the whole pack when they were labelled.

But writing it on everything is weird and just takes me back to my uni days where you literally had to label everything and even then it would still go walkabout ...

JaneJeffer · 30/01/2023 13:33

Why are some people so lacking in imagination
I think the opposite is true as demonstrated on here every day