to not want to go on holiday with DH as he’s taking Pot Noodles?

[Astridastro]

Hear me out on this, we are off to Italy in a month, a lifelong dream of mine, I had visions of long leisurely lunches and dinners, great Italian food and wine aplenty.

Food on holiday has always been a contentious issue for DH, he believes eating out is a waste of money and would rather sit in the hotel room with a Pot Noodle (seriously). On one holiday he actually went to a supermarket and bought all these pound noodles to try. Now I’m not for blowing money on fancy gourmet dinners but I like to eat nice, good healthy food. We’ve gone all inclusive and that’s usually a great compromise.

So this time I was informing him of the Italian tradition of eating late and it being an event, courses taking a while etc etc and he’s been so annoying about it saying he wants to go to McDonalds or he’ll just have Pot Noodles. He like to eat at 12 noon for lunch and 5pm for dinner on the dot, he eats very fast too. He says he’s going for the sights not for the food.

So I’m contemplating leaving him with his sad Pot Noodle and just taking the DC put for a nice meal on my own. It’s the way he keeps going on about it to get a rise out of me.

Do. And then causally drop into conversation that loads of people (apparently) piss into hotel kettles…

I would have to act like it (the pot noodles) didn’t bother me in case he was doing it for a rise!!!

UGH! What a massive turn off! If my partner told me they'd prefer to sit in with a pot noodle or a McDonalds, I honestly don't think I could go on holiday with them. In fact, it would turn me off SO MUCH that I don't think I'd be able to be in any sort of relationship with them.

Umm strongly disagree! Pot Noodle Man is 100% wrong!

Don’t forget the custard creams!

What is the problem with what another adult chooses to eat?
I wouldn't shag anyone anymore, but that's beside the point.
Italy is a bloody rip off and a waste of time, by the way.

'Neurodiverse' isn't an insult.

Ignorant Little Englander is though. And anyone who refers to the entirety of non-Northern-European food as 'muck' is ignorant.

If my DH was sat eating Pot Noodles at 5pm in a hotel while DD and I ate Italian food in a restaurant (three hours later), I'd probably divorce him. Actually, I'd never have married him.

I can't see the issue really. He eats a pot noddle, then later goes to dinner and eventually ends up with a carbonara.

Sure it's not sexy but this is quite a good little money saver. A meal out in Italy is say 30 euro, but he's only spending a quid. If he splashes out for McDonald's it's still only about 10 euro. I could maybe live with that because I could eat the difference

Not if you've already paid for AI.

This is so ludicrous and funny

Yes leave him with his pot noodle

I think I'd just leave him tbh

He sounds like a three year old.

Honestly, I wouldn't have married someone like this. My dad was horribly fussy about "foreign food" and it meant basically we never got to go on holiday abroad as a family.

One of the things I love about DH is our absolutely mutual appreciation of good food, and particularly on holiday. I just could not be with someone who is miserable about it. In the meantime, there is nothing to do about it now but enjoy your meals out and leave DH with his ridiculous pot noodles. Stupid man.

This!

Of course go and enjoy the food, his loss!

There's much more to Italian food than pasta and pizza. I don't eat those either and I lived in Italy for a year and are very well. Their cuisine is very varied

One less hungry mouth to budget for! Enjoy all the amazing fresh food and leave him to his pot noodle!

Same here.
We both enjoy eating.
A few glasses of wine and a meal is an evening out for us..

I certainly wouldn't eat pot noodles on holiday but equally the idea of lots of courses and eating late doesn't appeal to me at all. We eat at 5pm at home because of the toddler so anything after 6pm feels late. Before toddler we ate about 6pm.
I wouldn't want to be starting dinner any later than 7pm and not that several nights in a row.
So maybe there is a compromise to be had here? He tries the food but you eat at a better time for him and then if he doesn't like the food he can have something 'safe' in the hotel room.

I’d be less bothered about him sitting in and eating his Pot Noodles - assuming he’s not moaning about you going out and he really can’t face unfamiliar food as opposed to being difficult - than the ignorance. Italian food isn’t particularly sauce-based, for example. If you stick to the mains on menus, it will be fairly plain meat and fish for the most part. At least find out what you supposedly can’t eat.

Reminds me of a friend who insisted Italian food was very spicy. No, it really, really isn’t. Do some dishes have spice? Sure. But it’s not a spicy cuisine.

It’s like some people have filed all foreign food under 1970s curry house and refuse to believe any evidence to the contrary.

I know. I said that ”BoloGnaysie” was CLOSER to the authentic Italian pronunciation than “Bollonays”, not that it was 100% correct.

I’m interested to know how Pot Noodles passed the “not foreign muck test? Noodles are Chinese.

Okay... I voted YABU because you said in your OP that this has happened on previous holidays. Why did you think this would be any different? As someone else said upthread, you just prefer different things. He's up for sightseeing and sees that as more important, you're up for the cuisine, and you see that as more important.

Go and enjoy the cuisine with your kids. Are you all happy to enjoy sightseeing together during the day? If not, you're not going to see much of each other while you're away...

My partner and I never go out for meals when we go on holiday - it's not something we're interested in. We LOVE going out hiking though, so we spend all day doing that and then self cater at night. It works for us.

In your scenario though, it sounds like you both want different things. Question is, can you both live with that and both get the type of holiday you really want? All the best, @Astridastro .

Indeed. I get pleasure from food, including food from all around the world. However, I live a stones throw from a diverse city where I could eat the cuisine of pretty much any nationality I chose, cooked by a chef of that nationality any night I chose. What I can't do any night I choose is walk around a foreign city, discovering what there is to see, so would never choose to spend several hours of my holiday time sitting in a resturant. Yet somehow this makes me 'joyless', 'immature', 'a little Englander', undatable/unshaggable (lol), mean...just because I can enjoy my food but still enjoy other things more.

Not just English 😂
I know another nationality where people commknly take their food with them. They do swlf catering often and I personally know someone who brought spaghetti with them to cook because they were more expensive in shops in Italy😂 For hotels though people of course take full advantage of paid hotel food since it's already in price. Like full advantage

That's fantastic, to really enjoy different types of food in different places when you're on holiday. But we all like different types of holiday. For me, that would be a waste of time when I could be sightseeing or hiking instead. There's no problem with that - only if two people come together who like very different things... as seems to be the case with OP and her husband.

Well quite apart from the fact that’s either completely untrue or wildly exaggerated, how do you pronounce bolognaise @Fraaahnces?