DH takes the best of everything

[Floranan]

It really p me off, he always gets in first with food / drink takes the best for himself always. Buy doughnuts leave them on the side, he doesn’t think “ oh she loves the apple one or DGD loves the pink one so I’ll leave them and have the chocolate one” oh no if the apple of pink one looks best he takes it. I know that’s a silly example but you get the idea.

today I served dinner. On a Sunday we always eat as a family at the table and I put the food out in serving bowls. I think I should do a diagram people are going to ask for a diagram. Anyway I sit at the end so I can easily get things and DH one side and dd (adult) sits opposite. DH and DD are very close have the same interests and can talk for hours. I don’t normally mind but today I lost it.

I put the chicken in the middle of the table the potatoes my side of the meat the veg the other, forget the gravy go back to kitchen to get, via back door to let dog in. Get to table and they have served themselves. dd normal size meal fine, DH his plate is over flowing all the breast gone leaving just 1 drum stick and the wings and thighs, I only eat the breast or a little thigh I wouldn’t mind but it was 1.9 kg chicken !. DD passed me some thigh meat, I took some spuds and asked for veg, then asked again, then asked for wine they had wine where was mine. Normally I would make a fuss insist I’m passed stuff but today I just couldn’t be bothered, if they couldn’t see I didn’t have any dinner I just couldn’t be bothered. I cleared the plates away, realised the reason I hadn’t been offered veg was because the pig had but the most of it on his plate only to leave what would have been mine because he was full.

i left them to clear the kitchen (they always do if I cook) though I normally stay and help,

I just feel un important, not noticed, at one time he would have made sure I had the best he would see a lovely slice of meat and put it on my plate. When did that stop ? I missed it happening. I know now and for some time, I seem unimportant to him . I’m in bed with a glass of wine and some spicy tangy wotsits watching call the midwife.

'At one time he would have made sure I had the best he would see a lovely slice of meat and put it on my plate. When did that stop ? I missed it happening. I know now and for some time, I seem unimportant to him.'

I think that's really sad and even worse than if he had always behaved so selfishly.

You have the practical option of plating up in the kitchen and putting aside things you want but it's not just a question of getting round his bad manners, is it? You feel excluded from his relationship with your daughter and unimportant to him. That's a bigger question and the awful table manners seem to be a symptom of bigger problems.

Serve the food onto plates and don’t make it a free for all.

Plating up on the kitchen doesn't solve the problem IMO. Adults should be perfectly capable of exercising good manners and self restraint when faced with shared dishes of food, and should be modelling this to children. Plating up is treating the symptom and not the cause.

I’d stop cooking for him all together.

And I’d be taking what I wanted from whatever it was on the kitchen counter, first.

He’s a thoughtless, entitled, greedy pig

This is what we train our children out of doing when they are toddlers, totally unacceptable in an adult and reveals great selfishness and a dollop of contempt for you too.

Why on earth have you allowed this selfish git to do this for years and years ? His bad manners are rubbing off on your daughter too. Find your very very quiet and cold as ice voice and tell the pair of them that you will not tolerate their disrespect ever again in anyway shape or form. Let them salve away in this heat and cook a roast dinner. Stop being the housekeeper.

YABU because you’re being ridiculously passive and now left feeling resentful and sorry for yourself.

Yes, your DH (and DD to an extent) are taking you for granted but you’re allowing this to happen. You say he used to treat you well and you can’t remember when the last time was, so it’s been a steady decline.

Instead of sulking (which is what you’re actually doing!), you need to act like a grown up and have a serious conversation with both of them about how unhappy you feel and how their actions make you feel unloved and taken for granted.

A good relationship doesn’t just happen. Both partners need to put continued effort into caring for each other throughout their time together. When one partner stops making the effort, that’s when everything begins to unravel.

Do you work OP? At work, staff need a leader to manage them and in the family, you’re the leader. Sometimes even the most loving partners need a bit of extra guidance and reminding to step up and put more effort in.

My father was exactly like this. Being challenged about it was water off a duck's back and he carried on taking what he wanted. The only thing you can do with someone like this is "be more selfish" yourself at times and take your fair share (or best bits) before he has the chance. I wish that wasn't true but sometimes it's the only way to stop being kicked to the bottom of the pile like my mother who just accepts it.

Yep, the same here!

No, you can carve a breast or simply halve them. He's greedy and the adult child is copying his thoughtlessness.

He is selfish and it’s unlikely the behaviour will change (I’m assuming you have raised it before)so you either accept it or pre empt it.

sunday dinner - plate it or say to both save me half a breast please ( if you all want breast you need a large chicken)
doighnuts- sometimes choose yours first or say don’t eat the pink one it’s dgd.

yes it’s annoying though. Dh often thinks of him self , then me then kids whereas I do kids, dh , me. It is frustrating

I would have had it off his plate

and if that led to it being on the floor so be it

no more cooking for them or shopping for them either

Why would only two people get the breast? When you carve a roast chicken the breast gets sliced, into multiple slices. Basic manners to make sure everyone gets a couple of bits.

i would’ve tipped his dinner over his head. What a selfish pig.

if you want to stay with this prince, dish up everything on to plates. And make sure he gets the worst cuts!

You've never seen a chicken carved up?

I'm assuming that at least one of the men sitting at your table is your son. What are you teaching him?

One day his unfortunate wife will be writing a thread on here about how her DH is a greedy, sexist, entitled pig and how when they go to visit her PIL she gets tiny portions of food and she's starving because her MIL serves penis portions to the men!

The doughnuts example I do think fair enough- if you put them out why didn’t you take the apple one etc.

the meal- can you not just insist on basic manners? As you leave say ‘DH please can you serve us all meat’ for instance- it’s only good manners to take eg the potatoes and then say ‘who needs potatoes’. If he’s tasked with serving the family not just himself he might portion more fairly.

If the meal is symbolic of wider issues then have that conversation with him

Why wouldn't you just buy a pack of chicken breasts?

@Floranan you should have called then out on it for serving when you weren’t sat down then for taking all the food for themselves .
Just wow
Then I’d have explained that if they can’t see it for themselves then you are stopping cooking .
Ask why they do it ? Do they not care ?

You could maybe just make Sunday lunch next week for one and sit down and say nothing when they have no food .
Or make a roast serve yourself the best and leave the rest in the kitchen for them to crap from.

Good points, and also remeber men are completely brain dead and unable to think about anyone else or exhibit basic manners. Just have an apple OP, that's more than enough for a mere woman. 🙄

With only 3 of you it’s a huge amount of extra work to put everything in serving dishes. Tell them you’re changing the way things are done because you have had enough of being everyone’s waitress. Plate up the best bests of meat in the kitchen and get them to help carry everything else back and forth. Next time you forget something, tell one of them to go get it.

He’s being selfish, but you’re behaving like the chef and waitress and teaching him to take you for granted. You can change that.

I’ve got another confession to make
I’m your fool
Everyone’s got their chains to break
Holdin’ you

Were you born to resist or be abused?

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?

Who on earth has voted you are being unreasonable?! And why?!

he sounds soooooo greedy which is really unattractive.
Ick.

I think a lot of us think she's unreasonable for not telling him to sort himself out and replating

Thankfully they won’t be around too long with all that pork & red meat- this sounds astonishingly unhealthy

My DH was a bit like that when we first married 20+ years ago but i stamped it out pretty quick. I made a big thing about taking everything off my plate and redistributing it to the kids as he had given them such a tiny portion whilst piling his plate and made myself some cereal.
But, for my DH it was learned behaviour from his overbearing 'I'm the man of this house' Dad. It was how he was brought up and took some time to unpick but we got there in the end. I don't think it was gluttony just sub-conscious behaviour.

What the actual fuck? So you cooked the meal, replayed the meal and then gave yourself a bowl of cereal instead of saying actually you’ve given yourself far too much food there, it needs to be shared and I need some of the meal too.

I’d have been appalled if my DH allowed me to have a bowl of cereal after making dinner for everyone. In fairness he’d have been appalled if I had even suggested such a thing.