Fell out over peanut butter

[Rosegarden47]

Am I being unreasonable asking my husband to not buy peanut butter?

A few months ago when exposing my DD to peanut butter for the first time my hands broke out in a really itchy rash. The second time, the rash turned into hives and my lips swelled slightly and got itchy. I took an antihistamine and it calmed down. I’ve always despised/been kinda phobic of anything peanuts so I’ve not handled it for as long as I can remember. I’m not saying I have a severe allergy or anything, but I’d just rather not take the risk so I asked my husband if we could not buying it in future. I started buying my daughter cashew or almond butter instead which she really loves and I don’t have an issue with.

Well, since then my husband has started buying it all the time and jokes that I “helped him rediscover his love for peanut butter”. I bit my tongue at first because he used to always wash any plates or cutlery he used, but now he’s just started leaving all his peanut buttery things for me to deal with. Aside from my allergy concerns, the smell literally makes me want to vomit.

Today he sat down next to me at the breakfast table and opened the jar and I said “yuck, I wish you wouldn’t buy that stuff.” He completely flipped and said I was childish and rude for insulting his food. He said the hives and itchy lips were all in my head and called me a liar and said I’d never asked for him to not buy it in the past.

I didn’t want this to be a big deal and I’m hurt my husband won’t respect my request about one food item he rarely bought in the past. I have no idea if I’m being unreasonable or not asking him not to buy peanut butter.

You’re married. It’s not his house. He needs to fuck off and NOT with your precious child.

OP, I implore you to get private allergy testing at the earliest opportunity, like others have said. Peanut allergy is hugely serious and IS life threatening. I suspect it's going to turn out that you are very allergic and should have no product in your home ever again that contains or may contain peanuts.

My toddler, 1 year old ds has peanut allergy and has two epi pens at nursery and two at home. We never leave the house without them, even to go on a walk.

Honestly, some of the posters on this thread are absolutely idiots and completely selfish. Allergies are very very serious.

He sounds very controlling, you’re not allergic to peanut butter unless he believes you? Is he a fucking Dr that test people for signs of allergies?? He is now pushing serious boundaries by opening it up near you knowing the smell makes you gag, making “jokes” you help him rediscover his love of pb and leaving cutlery and plates lying around for you to clean. You might only get tingling lips now but that could change to being a medical emergency.
He is horrific @Rosegarden47 and it’s not something you can ignore, he would still be the same if it was your dd with the allergy, life threatening or not.

My husband is allergic to my absolute favourite food. I won’t have it in the house unless he’s out for the night, because I love him.

Sorry @Rosegarden47 this isnt looking good - you need to get back in therapy for yourself first and foremost. I think you will have to seriously consider leaving him. He's not at all the kind of guy to live with or be married to. he's a liar, a gas lighter and a fucking weirdo tbh. who the fuck treats the mother of their child like this? who threatens to take the child unless you apologise for HIS bad treatment of you? How fucking dare he trot out the 'it's my fucking house' bollocks.

WEll it's also YOUR fucking house, and HE has no right to endanger your health. He canfuck off with his PB but nothing else. tell him to go back to his mum. he has no business treating you like this.

This. THIS is what NORMAL looks like @Rosegarden47

If you get it done at a medical facility like a GP or hospital, it will always be IgE.
I’ve seen pharmacies do IgG testing (though they should know better!)

An abusive twat

Who risks their life of their loved one

You may have not been allergic with ex bf but now getting a reaction of swelling lips

I would pay for private testing so know either way

But your further update

He is abusive

It's not just physical

It's intimidating and mental and emotional abuse

What an absolute pig. That is deliberate. It would be such a shame if you felt sick and vomitted all over the bastard....

Oh Rosegarden, he's an abusive piece of shit. Can you and your daughter go somewhere else? Do you have support in real life?

I'm so sorry he's treating you like this, you don't deserve it.

Men like him make me so mad. He's trash.

I have not heard of this claim that peanut allergies resulting in skin rash cannot be anaphylactic. However you did not ONLY get a skin rash, you also got tingling and slight swelling in your lips. Everything I've heard about food allergies indicates that anything causing swelling in mouth area is a higher level of risk because that means the airway is in play. Airway = breathing. You also had two systems affected (skin, airway) which suggests a systemic reaction and systemic reactions indicate your physiological response is in the same category of responses as anaphylaxis. We don't have a way to predict when a systemic reaction will, or will not, turn into anaphylaxis, that's why they are treated with such urgency.

Peanuts and tree nuts are unusual amongst allergens in that the allergenic proteins are extremely stable in the environment. Studies have shown that if peanut butter is left on a surface at room temperature for even 6 months, there is still plenty of allergen present at the end of that time. There have been allergic people who have had allergic reactions in response to blood transfusions that used blood taken from people who had eaten nuts that day. That is how stable the allergenic proteins are. It is one reason why, even though your child should be exposed to nuts via MOUTH to avoid becoming allergic, that probably should not happen inside your home. Your daughter is a baby, likely to smear nut butter in random places when she eats. The peanut "dander" will accumulate and could cause you to have a reaction at some unpredictable time in the future.

Your husband's approach to your allergy seems to be:

expose OP to nuts, repeatedly, despite signs of reaction --> if OP dies then she must have been telling the truth about her allergy.

I think it's easy to see that his approach to your allergy is idiotic, callous, and risky.

My guess is that the doctor's approach is driven by economics. Someone at central office has done a financial risk-benefit calculation and decided that, statistically speaking, "mild" peanut allergies are less risky than COPD and cancer. Hence the doctors are probably getting some pressure to reduce the number of expensive allergy testing and epipens that they give out. This may be true on a population level but that doesn't count if you are living with someone who deliberately exposes you to your allergen. If you can afford it, you should probably get private testing so you have some ammunition to argue with your husband. If you don't get tested, even if you leave him, he could send her back from his custody time with peanut residue on her possessions, hands, etc. I think you need information that is solid and legally defensible, if you see what I mean.

OP my DS had similar reactions to you, 1st was rash, second was tingling swollen lips. He carries 2 epipens everywhere due to risk of anaphylaxis. He can smell peanuts from 50m away!

I love peanut butter. I sometimes eat is in work and wash my hands, face and brush my teeth before I go home so as to avoid any risk of exposure - because I love him.

I have severe food allergies too, my DH is the same as you, as in so careful and wouldn't dream of messing with them
OP's situation and DH is fucked up.

He doesn’t sound like a very nice man. His reaction and behaviour is just horrible.

He can’t be a nice man aside from this, this is who he is and it’s nasty.

First you need to pursue an allergy test, diagnosis and an Epipen because your reactions are serious and could get much worse.

Second, you need to leave this relationship. He is dismissive of your health - and that alone is a good reason to leave. He is gaslighting you about the allergy conversation, putting his own enjoyment of a random food over your serious health concerns and he threatened to take your child.

Put together that to- do list:

Urgently seek medical advice and testing.

Leave bastard.

I don’t think OP’s husband would give a crap if she was tested and it turned out exposure to pb would be life threatening for her. I don’t think he would care if it was their dd neither! He would just keep buying it in and exposing her to it. He actually thinks it’s funny!? He is
gaslighting her, telling her she isn’t allergic and it’s all in her head, he cant believe the audacity of Op telling him she can’t have it in the house. He is deliberately buying it and exposing her to it. He is playing mind games and risking her health whilst passing it off as a joke.
Nasty cunt

There is a lot of confusion about anaphylaxis, seemingly even among medical professionals.

If your DS had the reaction you described then he had a anaphylactic reaction. He did not go into anaphylactic shock, that is different.

Any systemic reaction where more than one organ system is affected and especially where the breathing and/or circulatory system is affected is anaphylactic by definition.

In your DS’s case rash + wheezing/coughing = anaphylaxis

The problem with anaphylaxis is nobody can know which reactions (a small minority) will progress with extremely serious consequences. It’s almost impossible to say. So if anaphylaxis is suspected treatment is an epipen - and fast.

I would be going to the GP for testing now. Don’t wait for another reaction. If the airways are compromised during a reaction they will prescribe an epipen.

This isn't about peanut butter - it's about your husband being a complete arsehole.

Please make plans to end this relationship, he's not going to get better. If it wasn't about this, it would be something else. He's using it as a stick to beat you with.

Do you work? Do you have access to your own money?

Also, tell people in your life, friends and family about his behaviour.

Oh love, it’s not about the peanut butter. That’s just a symptom of the root cause of the problem -your horrible husband. You don’t deserve to be treated this way

I think you made it sound like its your personal taste preference, but your reaction shows you are actually allergic. You need to make it clear to him its a health issue, not a taste preference. As many posters said before, you need to see your GP and get an EpiPen, and explain to the idiot you're living with this is very serious matter.

Even if it was just your taste, your husband is acting like he actually hates you. Why are you with this man?

You need to leave, OP.

This.
Just because this happened ( and it’s a sign to be taken seriously) last time you handled peanut butter doesn’t mean it’s the only reaction you’ll get. You could go to anaphylaxis another time.
Your husband is being stupid and needs to educate himself on the dangers of allergic reaction. It’s not something to mess with. Eating two small pieces of pineapple put me in hospital for 24 hours.

Actually, reading your update I wouldn’t bother trying to educate him. He sounds nasty and controlling. Speak to a solicitor and/or Women’s Aid about leaving.

He is being horrible. I am intolerant to coconut - it makes me have a very upset stomach, sickness but I don't class it as an allergy because I've never gone down the formal testing route and I only get ill if I ingest it. I did make myself vomit for a whole day after using coconut oil on my newborn and I had it on my hands and it was obviously too much, that wasn't fun. Anyway, my husband, my family and my friends all respect me when I say I am intolerant. If my husband has anything with coconut in it is very, very rarely in the house and he would just keep it separate. He certainly doesn't make fool of me, try and make me ill, be horrible about it. Your husband is horrible. The person you are married to should be the one to support you and show compassion not gaslight and try to make you ill.

Awful.
It isn't the first time something like this has happened. No surprise there.
I wondered what else had happened previously because this kind of behaviour normally doesn't appear out of the blue.
He's showing no regard for your health and no love and care and really you do need to ask yourself if you want to stay with someone like that.

York Test labs can send you tests in the post, pinprick for blood then post back

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