DH steals my snacks ...

[lightsandtunnels]

AIBU? (light hearted, but actually fuming)

DH doesn't like snacks. Well, that's what he says anyway!
Today we went to our local refillable shop, I bought a small bag of dark chocolate covered brazil nuts. Thinking I'd enjoy them this evening.

'Do you want anything?' I asked him.

'No, I'm OK thanks.'
Perfect, small bag, about twenty brazils.
Just went into the fridge. More than half of them are gone!
'You've eaten my brazils!' I wailed at him.
'Oh, I only had a few, err a couple.'
Fuming.

What makes it even worse (for me) is that I know he'll have just gone into the fridge, grabbed several, chucked them in his mouth and seconds later they'd have been gone. No bloody appreciation for the deliciously bitter but sweet chocolate enrobed around a fresh, crunchy and creamy brazil nut. I wanted to put them into my lovely handmade bowl I bought on holiday and look at them all shiny and beautiful and savour them slowly whilst watching Masterchef.

He does this all the time with packets of crisps that he says he doesn't want, then eats half of them or what I've left in the bag for the next day for myself, mini pork pies from M&S when he 'hates pastry.' Don't even get me started on the chocolate hob nobs I bought on Friday that he 'doesn't like' yet managed to gobble half the packet in the time it took me to have a shower last night.

AIBU? Think I might just LTB. Or should I just get double of everything next time?

I think it’s part of a bigger issue- I bet the snack stealers don’t do the food shopping, budget, or much of the cooking?

from dh’s point of view he doesn’t see it as “stealing snacks”, he is getting a snack from the fridge in his own house. Which he should be able to do. If something has been in the fridge a week and he happens to have eaten it over that week, it’s not like he’s snaffles the whole lot at once, if someone else wanted some they should have done so before it got eaten.

which I kind of see, tbh. If someone said to me I couldn’t have a bag of crisps out the cupboard, purely because dh was saving them, I’d be pissed off. I’d be pissed off if he bought nice food and hid it.

the root I think lies like I said with male socialisation. He’s never really food shopped for the family, or thought about meal plans for the week. As a kid his parents bulk bought from a wholesaler, so if the crisps or chocolate, or coke ran out they’d simply run to the shed for more. No need to ask if anyone wanted the last one, because there was another 50 cartons in the shed.

also I think it’s more normal for women to police “treats”. I know I am permanently on a diet, but I want the reassurance there’s a treat if I want it, because I am depriving myself most of the time. I also don’t want to go and buy more, because I’ve worked that treat into my allowance and psychologically buying more = eating more.

I hide my special snacks 😂😂

JOEY DOESN’T SHARE FOOD

My DP infuriates me a different way by resolutely not eating anything that we have, because he doesn't want to risk eating something I may have bought for the kids or be saving to make a meal with. It infuriates me because I want him to feel like he has equal access to the food instead of having to buy his own snacks, but I deeply appreciate the thoughtfulness and it means we never fall out over snacks.

That's the second time I've seen that quote on a thread today. While Joey doesn't share food he's perfectly happy to snaffle someone else's and eat out of Monica's refrigerator in the middle of the night. Putting him squarely in the snack pinching category.

@MattDamon has it, great idea with the rubbish easily available 'decoy' snacks

Can you keep things in a fake salt and vinegar crisp bag? Make it look poorly sealed and smear some jelly on it, he'll never even want to investigate it!

@Runningbird43 "from dh’s point of view he doesn’t see it as “stealing snacks”, he is getting a snack from the fridge in his own house. Which he should be able to do. "

Of course he should. That's not what this thread is about. This is about living in a community and being considerate. Knowing what the people you love like and being happy to please them. Knowing that someone loves chocolate brazils or a particular brand of hummous and either leaving it for them or making sure there's plenty left. Thinking about other people. I love to have an orange for my lunch. My family knows this. If there was 1 orange left, I wouldn't have to hide it.

Is this the Yarden humous? Because EXACTLY the same happens in this house.

You've all made me re-annoyed now! My DP ate all my caramel eggs that I had left after Easter - that I'd left in a separate place and he knows I love caramel eggs and I know he's not keen on them. His excuse was he was going to buy me more and didn't realise you could only buy caramel eggs at Easter...

I've lost count of the number of times we've had this argument about food!

(He is otherwise brilliant though)

I'm the snack thief in our house. OH used to do most of the shopping, now we tend to go together. I normally say I don't want sweets or chocolate or cake but he'll add extra in if he does get any. He's happy with the basic 'value' stuff but he'll add in some nice chocolate or sweets for me. If there's a film on telly he'll produce a bag of popcorn for me (he doesn't like it) no idea where he hides it the rest of the time, it only appears for films. He knows I enjoy popcorn with a film.
He used to keep a stash of sweets in his car for long journeys. First thing I did getting in the car, open the glove box and share some sweets with the girls.

On a serious note do you buy your dh snacks? If not why not?

Who does the shopping? If him can he buy his own snacks?

Is he skint? On a diet?

I have a husband like this;its annoying especially as he doesn't give a shiny shit if it's the cheapest own brand chocolate or something expensive.

It's down to laziness as his style of eating is open a packet and shove it in his mouth and selfishness/entitlement/king of the castle behaviour.

It's not just mine specific snacks he steals but the kids too;things he likes are brought for him but he ploughs through them and then starts on other people's.

It's supremely annoying and sometimes upsetting to live with a human hoover who's a knob around food.

Put a sign on the snacks saying "You said you don't like these, hands off!".

Why say you don't want it when you do?

My DH used to do this. Recently he made the mistake of eating a pot of breaded chicken bites that DD had brought herself. It was over a week ago and she's still moaning at him
On the plus side he didn't steal any snacks from the weekend shop.

Mine does this too then blames the dog!!!

Home made fudge made with eXtra hot chilli oil.

When I lived with someone I always had my secret stash drawer somewhere. This worked well until we both found the other one’s secret stash drawer!

We did then have convos over which snacks I didn’t mind him sharing and which ones were off limits.

It gets worse if you factor a 5 year old into the equation as per DB and my nephew. I bought them Lindt bars last time I stayed over, DB or SIL was having one (hiding from sight) then DNephew saw some and grabbed it (despite us saying it’s for adults, he wouldn’t like it!). They usually now have treats “outside” so bought, don’t really but for inside.

When we first moved in together, my DH used to eat my snacks when he'd already eaten his. He did it a couple of times claiming it had been there long enough to be a free for all, or saying it's nice to share... when he hadn't shared his. I quickly got annoyed and started telling him go out to the shop and replace my snacks like for like as soon as I noticed some/all of it was gone.

The first couple of times he refused, and I was really petty about it. "I didn't do your laundry today. I ran out of energy because I didn't have my snack to fuel me" type petty.

He hasn't helped himself to my snacks without asking for a good few years.

Standard advice - kill him first, the LTB.

Then buy yourself more treats and enjoy them.

That sounds annoying. A possible explanation though: houmous goes bad really quickly once opened, so if the cheaper one was unopened I'd never start a new pot before finishing an open one. Our situation is different though as we're all perfectly happy to eat the own brand stuff, always buy the big pot because it's better value, then end up throwing the remains away four days after opening when it's gone weird-tasting and oddly kind of fizzy. Eating up the pot becomes a challenge we all need to join in with: houmous for breakfast, lunch, snacks....

Sadly I'm fully capable of finishing any pot of houmous all by myself, long before any possibility of it going off.

(Does it really go off so quickly? I'm sure I've eaten extremely elderly houmous before now, and at worst it's just separated a bit.)

Usually because I don't want them at the time but then when your sitting down and someone else has treats the situation changes.

@BigFatLiar just seen your username 😆
I get you. I sometimes have the opposite problem and shop on an empty stomach, not good.

My exh was like that. Anything of mine he would eat whilst I was at work and would say well you wasn't here so it doesn't matter. Yet if I ate something of his all hell would break loose. In the end I would start hiding bars of chocolate and crisps inside my quorn stuff or inside my cross stitching stuff underneath all the threads and stuff. He was greedy twat anything. During the first few weeks we were together and I was round at his he got a whole cooked chicken from Tescos. Microwaved 2 packets of pasta and 2 packets of carbonara sauce and asked me to get out a plate. I got 2 out and he asked what did I think I was doing. He wasn't making me anything this was just for him and proceeded to sit and eat the whole chicken plus 2 packs of pasta and 2 packs of sauce in front of me. We could never go for a meal without him leaning across the table and grabbing handfuls of food off my plate, because 'I'd never eat it anyway' well actually I would I just never got the chance. My ex mil was the same. One time I made chocolate concrete. I made enough for everyone to have a couple of pieces each and enough to last me because at the time I couldn't freely get to a shop. That night between her and my ex they sat and ate every piece. Then moaned like shite that I'd made them gain weight at SlimmingWorld. My ex fil told them it was their own fault for being so greedy. Why the fuck I stayed in that relationship for 14 years is beyond me. The sad thing is until it became abusive I'd probably still be there now.