I know I am, please tell me to get a grip

[Starfondue]

So this is a total non-issue, so why am I upset?

My husband and I try to eat super healthy most of the time, but do enjoy the odd treat together course. If I see something I think he'll like, or if someone has baked cakes at work and there's a lot, I always bring him one. Nothing is off limits! I wouldn't buy myself a treat and not get him something too.

A few months ago I logged onto Tesco and there were some really random junk food items on the favourites. I could see that everything else was stuff we normally buy so I mentioned it to my husband, expecting him to say oh yeah, I bought it when doing xyz' (it was a meal deal type thing) but he denied knowledge. I couldn't care less about the food or money, but the fact he obviously had bought it and was lying really upset me. In the end he said he had bought it on x date. It was pretty recent so I remembered the day, he'd been out but made sure he was home by lunch and I'd spent a while making a nice one as he'd been out all morning. We got into a bit of an argument but he couldn't see that my issue was why was he lying/hiding something so non-important. He didn't see the big deal, but to me it hurt a bit as I always make an effort to bring him a treat if I've had one at work or something, but he hadn't thought to phone and ask if I'd like anything.

I logged onto Tesco tonight and there are all sorts of random items now in favourites - big bags of sweets, sausage rolls and pastries etc. He must have been buying it and eating it in the car, why! Why is he lying to me about something like this!?

He's out and I messaged him when I saw it but I have deleted them all. Maybe I shouldn't even bring it up. Why am I upset. Ffs.

Are people generally going through life just casually lying to their partners and it's no big deal?

I don’t lie to my partner. But if I was in a relationship with someone who over-monitored my intake of snacks and felt hurt or betrayed by me not disclosing every food purchase, I can easily imagine feeling the instinct to lie. That wouldn’t be because I am a casual liar. It would be because the dynamic was off and the relationship wasn’t healthy.

That’s the point people are making, I think. OP is over-monitoring and then acting like the problem is her partner’s response.

I think that your answer is here, to why your reaction to this is so off whack.

You both decided to embark on a healthy eating plan. As with all things, there will have been one of you that was more into this idea than the other. He lost 4.5 stone. You lost 2 stone that you didn't necessarily feel that you needed to, and now you're pissed off because you feel he's eating things that you're not.

Don't wrap it up as faux concern for him, and wanting to "help" him with the Sausage Roll Habit that you've discovered. If he's got an undiagnosed eating disorder then it's absolutely his responsibility to ask for help, and not yours to sit him down when he gets home and ask him to explain the receipt for the bag of Haribo you've found, and what exactly is he going to do about it.

You need to do absolutley nothing other than apologise to him for being out of line, unless you want to cause a massive issue in your relationship that will take ages to undo, if that's even possible.

Over a period of many months some items appearing on a loyalty card favourites list doesn't equate to him choosing to eat large quantities of junk food in secret and lie about it.

If there is something getting in the way of him funcitoning as a healthy autonomous adult, it's the third degree when he gets home about something that is absolutely a non issue, and shouldn't really even be the topic of a conversation, with anyone. When did you eat this and why, because I'm upset about it, it's not ever going to end well.

Partners of whichever gender don't need us to sniff out their underlying issues. Undiagnosed mental health problems are a significant problem for everyone, but help that is unwanted, is actually control, not help.

I've just gone on to my Tesco app and looked at 'favourites' (didn't even know it was there!) and there's loads of stuff I've only ever bought once or ages ago? And stuff I don't even remember buying. And I'm the only one who does the food shop and uses the Clubcard!

But am in agreement with others that it's weird and controlling behaviour OP.

Me too. Especially when I ordered jam doughnuts! Bloody Tesco and their substitutions 😂

Ok I've just RTFT. Wow.

Imagine if a woman posted on here that her DH was texting her whilst she was in work quizzing her about some random sweets / snacks on a Tesco order and asking why she was lying...😐

What has she done that is "over-monitoring"? She asked if he'd bought the items, and she remembered a recent day she'd made him lunch. Is that what you are talking about?

Most people that lose weight put it back on sadly. He has lost 4.5 stone and he is struggling to keep up his diet habits/live in a calorie deficit etc.

I think I would just say to him that if his dieting lifestyle is leading him to need to binge he needs to up his calories in meals/treats in everyday life. Let his weight plateau for a while. If he is exercising he can probably have his haribo/a cake etc without weight gain but it would be nice for him to shed the shame around having a snack.

I don’t agree he should buy you food whenever he buys his own though. If he pops in the garage at 10am and wants a sausage roll he has to buy you even if he won’t see you until 5pm? It sits sweating in the car all day? What if he starts bringing carrier bags of treats and you put your 2 stone back on? Why not buy the snacks you want and let him buy the snacks he wants. At best texting “in the garage - do you want anything?” Why would you want a bag of haribo/cake/chocolate that you haven’t asked for when you have been dieting?

You've said several times "it's not about the food" so why did you bring it up with him in the first place? Why even mention it?! You said you saw random junk food items, then later clarified it was a meal deal, so a sandwich, snack and drink, big deal, and you felt he needed to justify it. I imagine, from your other comments about never having anything (food or otherwise) without involving him, if he'd confessed he would have had the Spanish inquisition over why he didn't bring you something, why he didn't call you when he was buying a bloody meal deal. I can understand why he lied. Poor bloke.

Neither you nor I have the first clue about the dynamic in this relationship. All we know is a man is secretly eating junk and lying about it. Some people have taken it upon themselves to decide from this sparce information that the only possible reason for this is that the OP is 'controlling'. Others of us are sufficiently open minded to see other possibilities. Its up to the OP to consider what resonates.

@5128gap

All we know is a man is secretly eating junk and lying about it.

Is one way of looking at it, just not mine.

I have plenty of experience with disordered eating. Denying something happened until the proof is undeniable does make you a liar, even if the reason for the lies is because of a mental health issue. And secrecy and lies do hurt other people and destroy trust, unintentional or not. Just ask anyone who has been in a relationship with someone with an addiction. It doesn't just affect the sufferer.

Is it not possible that he just, over the course of several months, fancied buying some items from Tesco that were not on their shared meal plan, and eating them, while away from the house, without feeling it necessary to report back to OP his movements?

The fact that he didn't buy the OP one, bring one home, or phone her to ask her if she wanted one are not evidence that he has disordered eating, or a mental health issue that he needs help with.

Previous posters have confirmed that items show up in the Tesco Clubcard favourites when you've bought them once, and months later. This doesn't consitute undeniable proof. If my OH asked me this evening whether I ate a meal deal on a particular date a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't honestly be able to tell him, because I wouldn't have a clue, and therefore if he pulled me into a conversation about it, I would absolutely look like I'd been lying about it. I do not have disordered eating, my mental health is robust.

If OP had watched him on numerous occasions from the back bedroom window pulling up on the drive and eating family packs of crisps, bumper bags of donuts and sausage rolls, and whatever other contraband he had on him, then putting the wrappers in the wheely bin and coming into the house, that might be evidence of disordered eating.

What has happened, is not.

I totally get the OP. Just happening to mention "Oh there's a massive bag of sweets on here", while you happen to be looking at your Tesco account is not controlling - that's all she's done. But then her husband insisted he knew nothing about them.

My DH and I have been together 30 years, and, just like me , and everyone else, he'll buy food just for himself, eat it in the car or whatever, no big deal, BUT he nearly always makes out that he never does that. It's the lying and the hypocrisy that gets my back up. I never do or say anything about the actual behaviour, but I will when he's making snarky remarks about me going to McDonalds with the kids, or when I'm eating a chocolate bar, or baking a cake - he makes these kinds of remarks, but I know he secretly eats crap in the car, in his home office, and he gets McDonalds when out etc. I'm not mega-healthy, but he eats way more unhealthy food than me, so fuck off with the snarky comments (is what I'm thinking).

He desperately wants to portray this image to the world that he's perfect - eating healthily being part of that, so he only eats unhealthy food in secret. I think I mostly feel really sorry for him, that he feels the need to put an act on TBH? It must be so draining.

And a word of caution, my DH developed type 2 diabetes a few years ago, directly caused by his appalling eating habits (which the doctors know nothing about). And last year, he had bowel cancer. Yes, as PP have said, everyone has a right to eat what they want, but those are the consequences.

His hypocrisy surrounding the diabetes drives me nuts - we had a party for his birthday. Absolutely everyone we know thinks he lives a completely sugar free, almost carb free lifestyle, so he insisted the cake I baked him was sugar free (he does all the food shopping & cooking, but I do occasionally bake). So, I played along with this silly charade, even though both he and I know, that he'll be binge eating chocolate in his home office upstairs as soon as the guests have gone.

I was responding to another poster who said it was disordered eating.

Though, the OP does say that he denied it but then admitted it and was able to tell her the exact date he bought the food. It doesn't mean he has an eating disorder, but it does show he is willing to lie to her.

Sometimes it’s just nice to choose what you want and scoff it down on your own, without having to think of anyone else for once! Leave him be!