eating food without permission

[thecatswhiskrs]

This is a long-running argument in our house and I'd love to get a sense from others of whether I (and my kids) are just being unreasonable....

DH has a habit of mooching around the kitchen looking for food. He feels that anything in the kitchen is (and should be) fair game. He gets very upset when we shout at him for eating something that we feel he shouldn't have or something that we feel he should have checked first.

Examples:

• A child will have cooked some cookies for themselves and others to eat. The leave the tray on the counter to cool anticipating that lovely treat later and then come back to find their father has eaten a third of the tray before they've even offered.
• A child will have made some food for their lunch. There will be leftovers and they will have mentally allocated these for their lunch the next day in school. They leave it in the fridge or somewhere to cool, come back and it's gone.
• I am making dinner. It's nearly time to eat. I've planned the meal so that everyone has (for instance) 3 sausages and two bits of bacon. He comes in and nicks two bits of bacon from the pan right before we are about to eat.

He argues that he has paid for the all of the food in the kitchen and shouldn't have to ask for permission to eat it. If we have plans for some of it and haven't allowed enough to share then it's our fault for not making enough (we should just make lots more of everything to allow for others having some). He feels that we are not being generous and that (in spite of his best efforts to model generosity) we are all just being mean.

Are we being unreasonable (or just plain miserable!) to want him to at least check whose food it is and whether it has a destination before just eating it??

Eating a third of the cookies, is that four of 12 cookies or similar? That is sneaky and obviously too many, and if his child made them, he should ask first.
Instead of sneaking in.

In his mind, the leftovers of packed lunch may be going to waste so he thinks it’s ok to eat them.

Swooping in to take bacon, Op, EVERYONE does this. Both my dh and ds do this, they come in and see bacon, they can’t help but take two slices. Yes, it’s maddening I agree! I’ve made enough for us then they go eat it before the meal. The reason you and I don’t make ‘extra’ is because of the expense and trying to make the bacon last for more than one meal. There’s something about bacon that drives people to take it.

Likewise cookies are irresistible to most people but if he ate a whole bunch then yes, no excuse for him. But everyone I know will see cookies and take one or two. A third? No.

All you can do is hold him off at the pass. Develop EAGLE EYES, Op 😂

Another thing is, he seems to be hungry all the time. Is he eating tiny portions at meals? If so, that will explain it. He’s hungry. My family eat bigger portions than me because they’re physically bigger. I keep that in mind when I cook. Maybe that’s it.

First post nails it.

"I paid for it, so I will eat" is the stuff of cavemen.

We have a shelf in the fridge where you can help yourself to anything in it - sandwich fillings, fruit, left overs, snacks, yogurts, etc. also milk and bread are always available, as is the biscuit barrel and 2 shelves in a cupboard that have jams, nuts, cereal bags, treats. Otherwise you raid the fridge / food cupboards at your peril in this house.

That would drive me insane! If I'm cooking bacon then I've cooked enough rashers for the number of people. If you take yours before I dish up then you don't get any.

If someone here bakes we'd usually let the others in the house know what we've made, and if it's for something or just because we wanted to. Eg, DS2 made chocolate brownies to share with his friends. He told DS1 and me what they were for (I already knew because I'd bought the ingredients). If I'd just come home and they'd been on I'd side I'd have asked who made them and could I have one.

If I'm out and someone finishes the bread/milk whatever they'll let me know so I can come home via a shop. (Or at least they are meant to)
DS2 WhatsApped me the other day to ask if he could have the tomatoes in the fridge or if I needed them for dinner. It wasn't necessarily about actual 'permission' in the sense I wouldn't say no, but it meant I knew I needed more before I made the curry.

I made chicken salad the other day, enough to last me a couple of days. I told the DC the tubs of salad were mine, but the box of the leftover chicken was fair game.

I think (like a PP said) it can be a budget thing. We've always been on a tight budget, sometimes extremely tight. So someone eating the tomatoes means I don't have them for the meal I've planned and budgeted for, and can't afford more. We've always had enough food that no one goes hungry, but sometimes things are for a specific meal not general consumption.

😂😂😂

No. We don’t all do this.

I think in a considerate household everyone comes to understand "the rules" - so for example my DH enjoys cheese a lot and I hardly every eat it, so if I feel like a bit and there's hardly any left, I will always check with him first as I consider it more "his" IYSWIM because it is usually purchased with only him in mind

@MysteryBelle no, everyone does not do this. I would expect anyone old enough to take food out of a pan to be able to wait for it to be served. Its not up to the OP to police food and have eagle eyes, its up to other people to develop some patience and consideration. That's all.

Its not OTT to develop a sense of the appropriate - not absolutely ALL food needs to be checked, as many pp have said, a snack cupboard or whatever is fair game but taking the last of anything that might be a meal ingredient or you know is someone's favourite is dickish.

We're bacon snafflers here. However, if I said, "DH and DD this is for X I need it all" DH wouldn't say, "I paid for it". Because he'd be single if he said that. And we don't have a small bacon budget, I cook a whole packet and they know it. The dog even gets some.

But his attitude is the issue.

Blimey, all this household upset. Can't he just buy extra snacks if he is peckish beyond his fair share of the food?

FWIW in my house baked goods are up for grabs once cooked!

I’d be tempted to make Minny’s chocolate custard pie and leave it out for him to eat.

The petty part of me would find everything that is his but you paid for and use the “I paid for it” argument. He is beyonds selfish.

My DF was cured forever the day he sneaked some jam tarts my DM had just taken out of the oven to cool.
I can still remember the war dance he did around the kitchen table

Not unreasonable at all, that’s just plain ignorant imo! My hubby and a a pain in that he eats thing that are clearly earmarked for DC lunches (stored separately from the rest of the snacks! Drives me crackers because I try to plan the week and only buy what we need, so I end up stuck when he goes off on a flippin munch 😡

mine is an ingredients eater, went into the larder recently & he's eaten a whole tub of button mushrooms
he does nip off to the shop immediately on being told off though

Nicking something from a pan or cooling rack before it’s been served is particularly rude. He sounds entitled.

Oh because HE pays for it all he thinks he can eat it all.
HIS shopping bill would be tripled next time because I’d buy loads more than needed and cook 3 times the amount.
I wonder how long it would take him to realise he doesn’t like shopping more than twice or three times a week and that he’s suddenly vastly out of pocket.

If he wants the lion’s share because he’s paying for it call his bluff.
Or you could cook a humongous amount without increasing your shopping list and see if he likes running out of food all the time.

I hope you don’t wash up when he cooks on the weekend.

My DH does this as well and thinks I’m being unreasonable if I snap at him!
Tbf, he doesn’t/didn’t take the children’s food when they were younger, but if I’m chopping something up like cheese, he just cant resist helping himself. When we’ve had people around and I’ve put out sausage rolls and snack food for example, he’ll be in there before they’ve even arrived. Not eating loads but just skimming off stuff.
What has caused big arguments is he’s a very fast eater, I’m really slow and enjoy taking my time but he’ll then start taking stuff off my plate and saying he’s helping me out!

There have also been times when I’ve gone to get something out of the fridge to use as an ingredient, and a chunk is already missing which makes me cross when I’ve bought just what I thought I needed.
Crisps and nuts are the worst! I actually don’t buy them unless we are entertaining as if he knows they’re in the house, he has to have them and is a real grazer. It seems as though it’s a family thing too. His mother was exactly the same whereas my parents always were more formal about when and where you ate.

When I stay with my mum I like to buy food for lunches and will cook a dinner I have paid the ingredients for. My brother has eaten the food I've bought for my lunch, without asking, that I share with my mum. Had words and I was the worst in the world. But he hasn't done it since without asking.

Your husband is a first class wanker OP and his behaviour should not be tolerated. Tell him to make the food and then all of you eat it. And the disgusting excuse that he pays for it? Seriously bang out of order.

Of course you're not unreasonable - you're the one doing the cooking, you're the one planning the meals, and he's messing it all up and being greedy. How are you meant to budget and be organised with him sabotaging it all? He sounds like a bellend tbh. But maybe he has other redeeming qualities!

Can you not make him a box labelled 'Bellend's Treats' and then he can help himself from that and not eat other people's lunches and snacks.

What a deeply disordered unpleasant environment your children have grown up in.

Greedy, mean, disrespectful.

He has created stress and anxiety on to your children around food where there was no need.

He has also sent a strong message of fundamental disrespect of them and their belongings.

I have 4 children and even my 23 year knows to double check if its ok to have the last slice of pie.

Same with ice creams in the freezer.
I will usually say sure, but the principle of asking and sharing treats is long bedded down here.

Not surprised to hear that divorce is on the cards.

He sounds incredibly selfish and arrogant, I couldn’t stand living with someone who didn’t have the self-control and respect for others to first ask to have a freshly-baked cookie and not just take them. I’m not suprised your dc have had enough of him.

What a twat. Nope, not ok. YANBU. Who eats their kid's cookies and thinks that's ok? Such selfish, entitled behaviour

This is more than the food

he wont do washing up because you use too many thngs

he pays for stuff so he does as he sees fit

tell me you dont wash up when hes been cooking