Disgusted by inability to delay gratification

[KeepYourHandsOutOfTheFridge]

We get the usual "special" foods for Christmas. Most of them (chocs, cake, etc) are put away upstairs, but the collection of posh cheeses are in the fridge.

I've just found out DH has eaten a big chunk of one cheese, and drunk one of his bottles of expensive drink. He says he'll go and buy replacements. I have said that is not the point.
These are expensive treats for us.
In my family, Christmas didn't start until Christmas day. DH and I discussed this, and agreed a compromise this year that we would start eating the nice stuff on Christmas Eve for a change (just us two in the eve, big family meal on the day itself).

I am disgusted - this shows a total lack of self control and ability to delay gratification - he is like a five-year-old with no self control. He is just destroying the sense of anticipation and looking forward to sharing the treats together.

Would this give you the rage?

“Key life skill and indicator of success”

it’s a bit of cheese 😂😂😂

you really need to lighten up

Is it lack of control on his part, though? It sounds like he just doesn't value the anticipation like you do, in which case it's a difference of opinion rather than a difference in ability to delay gratification.

You're referring to the Marshmallow Test conducted by Walter Mischel in the 1950s. It's often cited but also quite flawed.

Blimey, you must get disgusted at a lot of things in life. I feel sorry for your DH. You sound like hard work.

You say "for me the season starts on the 25th". Perhaps for him the season starts earlier and he just said yes to you to stop you going on about it?

“Learning delayed gratification being a key life skill and indicator of success”
This suggests you are conflating DH starting early on the cheese with him being unable to plan for the future and that he is reducing the chance of your family prospering long term. Really? That sounds like something the nuns would have said at my convent back in the 1970s while enforcing Lenten fasting and giving up chocolate until Easter Sunday. If your DH is otherwise a hard worker and a good provider then you should cut him some slack. If he is not then you have bigger problems than cheese!

Whats the expensive drink?

Like if he downed a full bottle of scotch and ate half of a 1kg wheel of imported specialty blue cheese for the meal your hosting for family tomorrow then I get it. It will cost a lot and be hard to replace and he would be rolling around pissed instead of helping.

If he drank a bottle of pepsi max lime & ate 2 slices of cheddar in a sandwhich then not so much.

I don't tell DH what he can eat and when and he wouldn't tell me either.

It’s not like he ate the turkey

Oh yes OP, you are definitely morally superior to all of us "disgusting" greedy pigs who have only waited 363 days and not the full 365 before starting the festivities. You will no doubt have much "better outcomes", whatever that means.

Unclench. Life is short.

This thread was not about what I thought it was going to be about ….

I recall reading something years ago about learning delayed gratification being a key life skill and indicator of success. People who can't do it, who spend now instead of saving for later, have worse outcomes overall.

Surely the delayed gratification has to have a meaningful pay off. I am a saver etc because building financial security matters more to me than having more stuff.

If your DH doesn’t get a pay off for waiting because he doesn’t place the same value as you on Christmas Day as the key event then it isn’t an issue of delayed gratification is it. You are assuming he places the same value on the day as you do or you are trying to force him into your mindset. Maybe he doesn’t wait because he sees no enhanced benefit in waiting.

Disgusted and raging seems to me an over reaction to someone fancying/eating a piece of cheese, and drinking what you describe as “his” drink.
He’s a grown man, presumably contributed to the cost so can eat it when he wants to.
i don’t know how you could “get the rage” over something so trivial. Your user name sounds controlling too. Do you have issues around food?

In my family, Christmas didn't start until Christmas day. DH and I discussed this, and agreed a compromise this year that we would start eating the nice stuff on Christmas Eve for a change

Well now he is your family and he wanted to start something a bit early. Good grief. If it deprived someone else completely then I would maybe come closer to agreeing, but being so regimented would give me the rage.

But you're the one setting the arbitrary parameters for this "delayed gratification"

It's bullshit. And to say you're disgusted at your husband is just ridiculous and puerile. What a horrible way to think about him over eating food from his own fridge during the holiday season. I think it's your attitude that's disgusting.

But this seems to be a rule implemented by you. If you don't want to eat them until Christmas day then you don't have to. He's an adult and clearly thinks the festive period has started already. Good for him. Let him enjoy his Christmas for goodness sake. You sound like a right hoot.

It would bother me if we shared finances and his consuming and then replacing these "special" holiday foods (assuming he knew they were earmarked for a certain day/meal) put a strain on the whole household. Otherwise I guess it would be OK. But your post makes me wonder if he genuinely meant to replace what he's eaten so it could be used/shared as planned, or if that was a defensive response to your confronting him about missing items.

The big day? It's one day out of 365 days.

For lots of people not me, I'm in the can't stand christmas camp the holiday has already started. Perhaps your DH is in 'holiday/christmas mode' already.

You see that wouldn’t bother me, but I find your use of the word CHOCS to be completely enraging. So, horses for courses and all that.

Yes because eating some cheese on 23rd December instead of the 25th means you're doomed to a life of underachievement and poor 'outcomes'

Let your DH enjoy his cheese and wine. You can have yours on Christmas Day with the stick up your arse for company.

Your DH thinks food is about pleasure. You think it is about control. Maybe examine why that is.

This ^^

We have teenagers that want to spend time with friends after boxing day so it's much better to start the fun and food early.

There is a wider point here - which this thread has highlighted for me.
It seems almost no-one waits for Christmas day anymore.
What does that say about us as a society?

Oh and the only 'rage' I feel wrt to your posts is your insistence on calling chocolates 'chocs'.

There is a wild difference and vast void between spunking money instantly & living in debt and hoarding food.

Both are bad habits.

The experiment you refer to might be the one where they told kids if they didn't take a treat they would get a better one later on, then found that the kids who took the treatment had pooler outcomes. What they neglected to consider was that the 'greedy' kids come from a lowered socioeconomic group and probably assessed that a sure treat now is better than a maybe treat sometimes later.

We aren't a snacking family so I suppose that, yes, I disapprove of people helping themselves to food from the fridge in any event. But this is much more than snacking - it's about the DH helping himself at a random time to something special which was bought and being kept to be shared to celebrate an occasion. Bad manners.