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.

Ugh this would be deeply unattractive for me but as you knew what he was like around ‘foreign muck’ when you married him, then this is just par for the course and let him get on with his pot noodles.

When you got married, did you have the speeches before the pot noodles, or after?

I used to be with a man who wanted me to watch TV with him ie sit next to him while he watched Arnie or Stallone blowing things up and doing other man stuff. No. Definitely not. Some things aren't meant to be shared. Leave him alone with the kettle and take your kids for a lovely meal.

I’m interested to know why you think “Italy is bloody rip off and a waste of time”

I am genuinely curious because I love it. Interested to hear it from your perspective.

😂😂

What was he like when you were dating??

Imagine going on a first weekend away with someone and inviting them for dinner, and then they say ‘nah I’m staying in with a pot noodle’ 🤣

I think it’s crunch time - if he cannot compromise for say, 2 meals out and order a bloody pasta with tomato sauce or whatever the most plain thing on the menu - well I couldn’t be with someone that inflexible.

Get out of the space where you are entreating him and he's teasing you. Have a conversation, you're going to hate going out for dinners, I am going to hate not. I'm going to cringe at you eating noodles, you're going to cringe at me spending money. We have different approaches and values to this one issue. Can we agree that I accept that food isn't that important to you, and that you wish to fuel up cheaply, and that you accept that I will use a budget of £x on enjoyable meals for me and the kids. Compromise is, I will find some cheap snacks and lunches, and you will come out for 2 meals with us. Maybe?

What I'm finding wild is the comments suggesting that they'd rather sight see than eat. Surely its not either or?

The only holidays I've been on where there's minimal food focus is where the days have consisted of excursions, such as Scottish Highlands, Iceland, Norway etc. But even then I take the opportunity to go to a nice cafe. I will take a couple of days to chill out and will research restaurants to visit as its not fun having every day jam packed.

On beach/city holidays, are people really sight seeing from waking till bed time. Out 12/14 hours a day, for the full 7-14 days or whatever they are away, staring at churches, cathedrals, museums etc? I tend to feel I've taken everything in after a few hours

I like sight seeing but that sounds stressful and miserable. Having a long lunch or dinner, sat in a restaurant, maybe by the sea, in an atmospheric ambient restaurant, trying new food, having a glass of wine and relaxing with your friends/partner etc, is absolute bliss. It would ruin my holiday If the person I was on holiday with wanted to retire to their bedroom as soon as we had got back from sightseeing

Yeah I just can't wrap my head round this.

How does a person who enjoys food and pleasure date a man like this and think, "Yes, you'll do, I'll marry you"?

I mean, maybe he has other really amazing qualities that we aren't aware of, but it doesn't sound like it if he's deliberately being a dick and threatening to ruin OP's enjoyment of her holiday with his stupid pot noodles.

Out of interest isn't it possible to be of the Rohan jackets , rucksacks and hiking brigade 'and' enjoy restaurants and meals out?? Seems everyone on here who likes the aforementioned think time is too valuable to enjoy lazing around in tavernas when you could just be walking miles? My mum and her husband used to love both !! I'm not talking about general sightseeing I'm specifically talking about hiking and mountaineering etc -it seems to build in to some a kind of superiority complex that the rest of us are just wasting time lounging around- whereas the reverse can also be true that they think walking round countryside for miles every day is a waste of good book reading// lounging/ long lazy lunch times. Don't get me wrong I love a good walk - I don't like the snobbery and fixed mindset that seems to come with it for some.

For me, that would be a waste of time when I could be sightseeing or hiking instead.

I like sightseeing and hiking and eating well on holiday.

These aren't mutually exclusive activities.

We don't eat multiple course meals or late, but we don't want to throw down a meal before we dash off to the next activity either.

You must have a very action packed holiday to not find time to enjoy a meal.

Do you not think there's any snobbery in calling people who don't want to eat out immature, little Englanders and a turn off, with the implication being they aren't sufficiently cultured to enjoy international cuisine? I'm a person who prefers to do other things with my evening. I don't think this makes me superior and its about as far from snobbery as you could get. Truth is, my annual leave and budget are not limitless. I'm 55 and will not be able to afford extensive travel opportunities in retirement, so I need to make the very most of the time and money I have now, and to me that means seeing and doing as much as I can. The things I've spent my evenings doing and my money on as an alternative to meals out in the past have included: Walking round the old town when it's cool enough to do so, including climbing hills for views I'd not climb in 32 degrees in the day. Going for a night swim. Taking an evening river cruise (a third of the cost without a meal included) visiting attractions that offer cheaper rates for late afternoon/ evenings. Going to an evening party at a thermal spa. None of these things were joyless and to me a better use of my time than eating, which i can do in my home city when theres nothing better to do. I dont suggest for a moment that they are superior. Its each to their own, but there's definately a stridently expressed majority view on this thread that this approach is wrong. Why is that?

Summer evenings are long. You can do these things and eat out, especially in mediterrean places with more casual and later eating cultures.

On a recent holiday to a France we ate out every evening and still found time to watch a son et lumiere show projected on an ancient church, walk around the old town and see an insane fountain display set to music, go to a wine festival, join in an outside dance class, walk around the Cathedral walls, go to a beach party, watch France go through to the Euros semi finals with a crowd of noisy, football mad French people in a tiny old fashioned market place bar.

OK, fine.
Got a cold and am probably grumpy.
My last visit was to Calabria, where they are stuck 70 years backwards with pictures of Mussolini around and insisting on being called Calabrese, not Italian.
Overpriced area, nothing nowhere, food suitable for vegetarian sparrows.
I could go on, but this made me give up on Italy, especially after so called pandemic.

😂 fair enough. You’re entitled to your opinion. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question, especially because you’re unwell at the moment. Get well soon. 😊

I absolutely love Italy.

Some of these answers are MN gold. And not in a good way.

He's a man who is not particularly switched on by food, who eats to live. Get over it everyone! People like him exist - and they can be cultured and adventurous in every other way.

OP, just do your own thing, or get him to pot noodle early and join you in the restaurant with a drink later in the evening. And have a great holiday!

@5128gap nope I see nothing wrong with that either- it just annoys me when I see posts implying that spending hours over meals isa waste of time as they have 'better things to do ' - the honest answer is 'different things to do' - I appreciate that the eating and drinking aspect isn't important for some, but for some it's one of the things that differentiate between being at home. It is indeed a really individual thing and it also hinges too on having a partner in the same mind space if you aren't on your own-

The number of people who think pizza and pasta is a majority of Italian food is quite eye opening!

Possibly have never been to Italy.

It isn’t the “food is a waste of time” element to the OP. It’s the rigidity of the husband.

Im calling neurodiversity here. In spades.

There was a thread a few years ago where a poster had a similarly rigid husband who only ate about 3 things. When it was suggested that he might be neuro diverse if he had such rigid thinking, the OP said “no I don’t think so, because he tried chicken in 1998 and again in 2004, so he will experiment.”

God makes people and matches them sometimes…

Or they have and only ate Pot Noodles? 😁

That’s totally fine but they should realise that those who like trying different foods are wrong or greedy or somehow wasting money.

It’s equally as important as seeing the sights.

I couldn't stand this either. Deeply unattractive

LTB

I meant “aren’t wrong or greedy” obviously