For this to be the reason for breaking contact?

[Whyjustwhywhy]

I had no sleep (literally) last night so my judgement may be clouded.

I gave my brother a lift into town as he cannot drive at the moment. When there he bought a slice of pizza and a doughnut- fine. My three year old needed lunch so we went to the M & S cafe. I bought a spaghetti bolognaise for DS - small portion as for a child. I then went to change my baby’s nappy. While I was doing that, my brother reached over and took a huge helping of DS’s food, probably half his meal.

I am furious but am I overreacting?

Yes, your brother was rude. But did your DH really just sit there and watch someone taking his son's food? Didn't he say ANYTHING to your brother?

Frankly, I would have told your cheeky sod of a brother to walk home from town!

I think the poster is suggesting that you might consider challenging the behaviour.

Brother just suddenly leaned forward and grabbed it.

And your husband just watched him do it, said nothing and then whined to you once you've left? Honestly this is so weird why wouldn't he say anything?

He could have told him to leave your son's food alone. It's what any reasonable person would have done.

Told him to get the fuck off his child's lunch???

You know what, I'm out cos I think you're just bored 🤭

And yes, going NC because your husband couldn't use his words at the time is an overreaction.

What should your husband have done? Told your brother in no uncertain terms that what he did totally unacceptable and he needs to replace your son's food immediately with a new, untouched version.

It isn’t about the lunch. If he’d knocked it over by accident it would be different. DH didn’t do anything wrong, that I can see anyway.

So what else is this about? Are you and DH scared of your brother? Has he been aggressive or threatening to you before?

Why can't he drive "right now"?

So this toddler has...

An uncle - who steals his lunch.
A dad - who just lets that happen.
A mum - who isn't sure whether her annoyance is an overreaction and doesn't think dad did anything wrong.

I hope the child learns to navigate life a bit better.

Well he certainly didn’t advocate for your toddler did he? He should have been challenging your brothers behaviour and if you can’t see that then you have an issue. What’s he going to do in future? Just sit there and allow people to take food from your toddler? What age is this brother you speak of?

Of course your DH was wrong! Why didn't he speak up? "Hey DBIL WTF are you doing, that is DS lunch? Please go and buy him some more!"

It's not difficult.

What do you mean your DH didn't do anything wrong? He sat there and said nothing at all about this child's uncle taking his lunch? I mean who just sits there and doesn't even react to something like that?

To be fair DH doesn’t understand why I’m upset or seem to think it’s a big deal so possibly I’m just being stupid.

I am just imagining trying to eat my lunch and someone just grabs it. It was a toddler sized portion and brother apparently reached across with a massive spoon and just dug in.

DH has said that we’ve both eaten bits of toddler food before which is true but not when he’s in the middle of eating it iyswim … it’s been when he’s finished or mostly finished.

My brother is a very troubled soul, not aggressive. DH is very laid back, I don’t think it would cross his mind to say anything. And to be fair it’s only on here people come out with pre recorded perfect responses, in RL I’m certainly often too taken aback of similar to deal with something well. I’m just very fed up today.

Did your toddler not get enough to eat? We often take bits off the toddlers food at cafes before giving it to them as it's only going to get wasted otherwise- those kids meals are portioned for like a seven year olds needs.

Weird to do it without asking/ weird of your DH not to ask him not to, but it doesn't sound like you had any issues with the amount your son actually ate.

How do you grab spaghetti bolognaise?

Did he have a fork in his top pocket in case a spaghetti bolognaise grabbing opportunity presented itself? Or did he just grab a handful and stuff it in his maw?

Pretty unlikely, isn’t it?

It really isn’t about what DH and I did wrong.
well it is if your drippy DH sat there and said fuck all and now you're about to cut your brother off!
Jesus speak up, tell him it's not acceptable.

My brother is a very troubled soul

My brother would have been even more troubled if he’d dared try and take food from my children’s plates. That’s wrong on so many levels, ‘troubled’ or not!

There's clearly a massive amount of backstory and history that we're not getting here.
Going no-contact over some pinched M&S spaghetti is bizarre behaviour, so there's clearly more to it.
If there isn't, just give him a bollocking, call him a greedy cunt and move on. And maybe don't take him out for a while. He can walk off the calories he stole.

It isn’t about what the food was, or about where it was from.

It feels like it was treating DS like he wasn’t even a person. Maybe I’m explaining that wrong. I’ve been struggling a lot with his behaviour since he came to us and so I’m wondering if this is why. But DH says it isn’t and I’m being unfair.

This makes it sound like your brother lives with you currently? How old is he?

Also I still don't fully understand how he ate it, where did the fork come from, did he ask his nephew and why if the childs father didn't think anything of it did he mention it to you?

He does live with us at the moment yes.

So - everyone’s sitting around the table except me and the baby. Brother had a big spoon - not sure why - and just suddenly helped himself.

DH just doesn’t think it’s a big deal.

It really isn’t a big deal. A bit thoughtless yes but not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I would be mildly annoyed and then not think about it again.