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??

If a man had written this OP and said that he objected to his wife eating any of the food in the house, people would rightly call him controlling.

And especially if he shouted at her in anger for not asking permission.

He’s an arsehole just like another man I used to know who did the same thing

This absolutely screams of a man that considers himself the main character and the rest of his family just the bit part players. Personally, I’d consider it a symptom of something altogether more sinister. He doesn’t respect the wishes or needs of his wife and children at all. Worrying.

I’m bewildered that you cannot understand that when my DD who is 11 goes to pack her lunch, all of the snacks she has picked out for the week are gone, and he hasn’t told her or me they need replacing. Can you really not understand the concept of expectation vs reality that is inconvenient and stressful. I guess you live a dream life.

I bought special lunch bits for making up lunches easy, and god help anyone who touched them.

They were warned.
Yoghurt pouches, cheese strings, fruit boxes, pain au chocolate, flapjack bars etc.all the bits mine liked in theirs, even as teenagers, that filled up the lunch boxes.

The whole house knew better than to touch them.

If anyone baked, they had the courtesy to be respectful of the baker.

Picking a bit of bacon or tasting dinner is a thing here though.

Yes, thank you! Like can people not imagine how fking annoying it is??? I liken it to forgetting to buy milk. You realize just as you’re make your morning cuppa. Now imagine that but times 100 because (insert item) is gone due to the greedy sht you live with

The man I mention is the reason I have an eating disorder because I had to hide food for fear of him eating it.

He sounds a complete twat. As for nicking stuff they have got for their lunch of that they have made that is selfish in the extreme.

The cookie monster

This 💯

Living with a bloke who eats like a child is incredibly stressful;it's not only about selfishness it's about laziness;notice what's being eaten has been prepared by others;similarly living with a man like my husband who doesn't really eat anything unless it can be crammed straight into their mouths with no prior preparation by themselves is really fucking annoying.

Expect them to make their own food instead of eating others. If you know you didn’t cook or make it, it is not automatically yours.

Food is meant to be shared. I understand your daughter's frustration but she's hiding food in her room. Does you children help clean up the kitchen after they have eaten or made cookies. I have teenagers and I give them chores and one of them is clean up the kitchen. You have created an us against him do you spend quality time with your husband or are you mainly with your children.

If a woman posted that her son had made a tray of cookies and she's eaten 1/3 of them while they were cooling, she'd be called a pig. And if she'd said she pays for it so she gets everything, well actually I can't imagine a woman saying that.

You're missing my point.

If a man posted that his son had made a tray of cookies and his wife ate some of them.........................and he objected to her taking things from the fridge.......................he would be called controlling.

You go to work to pay bills, buy clothing and food. If I work my arse of and I am hungry and you tell me not to eat it or ask that's a liberty. When I cook or make something there is loads left over for others to eat for lunch or a snack and there's six in my house. My fridge gets raided all the time but they learn to leave some left overs for someone else. It sounds as if she's rationing food my partner goes into homes and they have locks on the kitchen door and that's to stop their children eating.

NOTHING the op has written says she is starving him or stopping him from eating ANY food. Fgs. Why are there so many apologists on this thread? Would they really be happy with there being less of the good bits for dinner Ie bacon and everyone just being expected to have less of them because greedy guts ate them? For their kids to go make lunch and find the lunchbox snacks gone? When posters say buy more how much more do they mean? Does the op have to double the meat and treats buying? Go to the shops every single day? Where would you draw your line? My7yo knows he has to check there is enough milk for everyone’s breakfast before having a glass at night, because he lives with other people and that’s basic courtesy. This man is a complete dick.

Thoughtless and greedy but he sounds hungry. You need to ask him what sort of snacks he wants to munch on and then keep some for him in the fridge/cupboard. Put them on a certain shelf and make it clear they are his snacks not other peoples food.

‘Some men are just hungry, what do you do?’ Leave them because they are dickheads with no self control if their hunger manifests in eating all the good food, food specifically for a meal and dc snacks, there is plenty of food for him that he could eat with minimal prep but that’s not how entitled dickheads think.

Dinner was 5 mins away in one example. Do you think he was genuinely too hungry to survive for 5 more minutes? also, rhe op says this:
We do have snacks, bread and other ingredients lying around that are all fair game if he wanted to make himself something...
Anyway she’s divorcing him so good for her.

If he takes his share early he gets no more.

Absolutely no to taking kids food for school lunches and cookies.

The Cookie Monster
👏👏👏😅 Best. Answer. Ever on mn.

OP, you already know he's a selfish person. Sadly, it seems your children know that too.

I wish you well. to you and the kids.

How have you put up with this despicable behavior for so long? Eating a third (4 or ? How many?) of a batch of cookies straight out of a hot oven left unchaperoned on the worktop…gulping down remnants of his own child’s lunch that said child had silently and mentally earmarked, but sadly left unmarked, for the next day’s lunch…scarfing two slices of freshly cooked bacon from a sizzling pan…Without Permission.

Treason!

He bought the food but he better not say he bought the food. Will trigger false memories of another life chained to the stove that only a well trained pretend psychic can unearth. Raging 50s housewife with frying pan leads the charge and indignant MNers with unlimited bacon budgets from their own 50s husbands follow breathlessly with predictable and highly couth ‘FFS’ replies and other various expletives and buffoonery.

😀

You all act like he committed the crime of the century. Haha. Craziness. Go put your aprons back on and get to work. You all acting like it’s the 1900s and you’re being oppressed by the Cookie Monster. Nutcases.

Give off? Huh?