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??

I couldn't be bothered by this - apart from the I pay for the food I'll eat it comment. I like everyone to feel comfortable in our house. Admittedly, our budget isn't terribly restricted but I loathe waste. No-one has ever eaten ingredients but my planned lunch for work has often disappeared. I should either label it or tell people - my fault I ended up with a (rather nice) school dinner!

I smiled inwardly when dd2 said to her bf (they are 27 and were here for Christmas) no, it's fine. Mum's not the food police. If it's in there and not an ingredient go for it.

I'll admit I'm fairly laid back about stuff like that. We share the home, we share the food. You eat it and we need more, go buy some.

Selfish and greedy thats it.

The fact that there are not more female murderers is just amazing to me. I bet my arm and leg that if you did start to make extras that he wouldn't eat most of them and then would complain about the additional food costs and food waste.

Agreed.

But only some men.

They really aren't all greedy arses.

I can't think of any man I know, saying I paid for it, so I'll eat it🙄 that's the real dregs territory.

What's upsetting about someone eating the food which is in the house?
I'm genuinely bewildered by this.

I don't think that's unreasonable, permission sounds a bit dictator like but at the end of the day you plan your weekly food shop around plans and the people you buy for ie you buy x yogurts for the kids lunches for the week. It's all very well well him saying we'll make more in case someone else wants some but that will just end up very wasteful if it doesn't get eaten. I do the food shop in our house and my husband has his snacks he knows are his, if he wants something else he will always check it won't leave us short before I go shopping again.

Sallyh87
He ate the child’s lunch?!
I read it as leftovers from the child’s lunch but the child was thinking about taking it for lunch the next day

That doesn't even matter. Mine looks like a train rail and he will still eat all my birthday chocolates (that he bought) just because they are still there 2 days later with only a couple missing. Fat or thin, it is a selfishness thing.

And we’ve just had an argument an hour ago over a similar thing. Had a busy DIY day so stuck a frozen pizza in the oven. We decided we’d have half each. He took his half off to watch tv. No problem with that as I took a slice outside into to sit in the garden to catch up on emails etc.

When I came back, my remaining slices had gone! He ‘assumed’ because I’d left them on the chopping board I didn’t want them. I hit the roof because he could easily have just asked and particularly as we’d agreed we each only wanted half. He can’t see why I’m a bit pissed off about “only a few slices of pizza”! There’s other food to eat, that’s not the issue, it’s the thoughtlessness and selfishness that has really got my goat this evening!

Maybe I’m just tired and not very patient after a long day?

Firstly if he's had his 2 pies of bacon, don't put him any on his plate, he's already had his. Also, if he's paid for the food, tell him to cook it.
It sounds like he needs to get his blood sugar in check, it may stop him snacking

Plans, budgets, mental load, time.

From the description of ‘kid food’ snacks for her daughter’s lunch in the post you quoted, it sounds like things like fruit roll-ups, those yoghurt flake things, Pom bears, etc – it’s upsetting if anyone eats an entire box of expensive snacks!

That poster comes up with a lunch plan for her kid, the kid picks out the snack food, then when it comes to making or packing lunch on the first day, the entire box is gone. So now lunch is awry and the poster has to return to the shop and buy more. But they’ve already done the food plan, the buying and putting away and thinking, and now have to start again. Because a grown man has eaten an entire box of Real Fruit Juice Bear-Shaped Melty Things instead of making some toast, or eating fruit or nuts or anything else available to him, and presumably not replaced the Real Fruit Juice Bear-Shaped Melty Things, or written on the board that more are needed in the next shop.

He sounds like an utter twat.
He needs to ask first.
And if he isn't getting enough he needs to think about planning and cooking his own meals and buying his own snacks. Why in gods name is it your job to protect your children's food from him? What a nasty selfish man.
And I'd say this about any gender.
I have a big appetite but no way would I eat something whilst someone was cooking it without asking... no way would I eat anything which looked like someone might be using it for something without checking first. Amd if I want snacks I pick them out and buy them myself... and yes I do work but low and behold I still managed to have the mental space to visit the supermarket every noe and then and decide what food I personally need beyond what is planned as meals

Don't ignore the small things.

Good people don't do this.

Selfish people do.

He's showing you who he is.

He knew well what he was doing, but said fxxk it, and didn't care.

These are the red flags that women reflect upon and wish they had paid attention to.

NOT the cheap words, but the actions.

This is a red flag.

Clever women clock them and don't ignore them.

Hence they avoid have children with the selfish twats that make truly awful long term partners.

YOU have been warned!

I wouldn't be able to find the energy to type out the OP about this, let alone get worked up or caught in the drama of it all.

Awful Selfish greedy behaviour eating your pizza like that

don’t see how anyone could think you were unreasonable

Disappointed to see this question hasn’t been answered.

But then I saw you’re filing for divorce, so who cares, get rod of the greedy fucker,

What if those cookies had been for a school bake sale?…

he shouldn’t be snacking right before dinner.

just because he bought it doesn’t mean your a free slave for the house. How bloody rude. Do you know how much a private cook, driver, babysitter is??????

So he assumed it was fine? Like it’s your dinner. Not his.

Because the kid food like cheese sticks are often pricy and just for the kid.

as I got older I just took cheese but when I was younger I had a more kid friendly lunch so yeah if my step dad ate my dried fruit I would have been upset. I wouldn’t eat fresh apples it hurt my gums.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas

When I came back, my remaining slices had gone! He ‘assumed’ because I’d left them on the chopping board I didn’t want them. I hit the roof because he could easily have just asked and particularly as we’d agreed we each only wanted half. He can’t see why I’m a bit pissed off about “only a few slices of pizza”!

He's just a greedy, entitled oink really. He has, presumably, a tongue in his head and at least a couple of grey cells so could have checked with you first.

I wonder how he'd reacted if you'd behaved as he did? 🌹

You can't just buy or make extra for people like this because they hoover it all up anyway. It's not about hunger. It's either control or want/greed.
The ones who eat all the obvious kids' lunch snacks are just arseholes. No adult needs to eat an entire pack of cheese strings, do they? And for the posters saying "it's all food, we share everything" - I can only assume you've never had to deal with someone like this, because how do you make your dc lunch if half the items you've bought for it are missing? Or you go to make dinner and the ingredients aren't there? Do you never plan any meals? Is it all ad hoc whatever's been left by the greedy fucker?

I think families are just different. It soudns like there are a lot of rigid rules about food and who can eat what. That would drive me a bit crazy!

My husband often cooks and I will nip a little something as I walk through the kitchen. If he then shouted in anger at me and told me I am not to touch food without his permission, it wouldn't go voer well but it sounds like in your house, that is the dybanic - you should at each other in anger when someone does something you don't like. My husband and I also wouldn't do well if one decided the other needed to ask permission to eat.

Baking is usually a family event. If you make cookies or a cake etc, it gets shared. It isn't all yours because you made it. We don't really do food ownerhisp in that way as to whoever baked or cooked decides what others eat and they need to ask permission. If food is for a different reason (baking for a party or cooking to give to a friend who just had a baby etc) we make that clear and that it is for someone else and not for sharing within the family.

We share lunch foods too so no one gets to claim foods for the week only for them. A kid can't say I want the blueberries, no one else eat them, I am going to take them in my lunches all week.

It is hard to know if he is just frustrated with the dynamics and all the rigidity about ownershp or food and needing to ask permission to eat or if he is actaully being an asshole and just eating it all. I would certainly struggle in Ops house as it is far too rigid and me and mine for us and maybe there needs to be a family discusion if it isn't working for him. He should feel comfortable that he can eat without being shouted at in anger or needing to ask permission in his own home. But that doens't mean anything he wants, whenever he wants.

It really annoys me when I buy something for me. No one else ever buys it, or asks for it, but they eat mine 🤬🤬🤬

Just start making large cheap dinners like pasta so it is all the same for everyone and there are never bits and pieces lying around ....some men are very hungry , what can you do?

The fact he’s still living in the house says you did well 😂 incredibly selfish, he could have asked!