To think DH should have told me he was changing his mind?

[Edddie]

I am living with an eating disorder that is largely anxiety driven. A big problem for me is eating in front of other people, and feeling judged when I eat or for what I eat.

I am now at a point where I can eat socially. If I am out for a sit-down meal with other people having a meal then that’s ok - but I wouldn’t order a starter/dessert when others weren’t. I wouldn’t pick up canapés that are circulating, I wouldn’t grab food from a buffet… I don’t eat in front of people if others aren’t eating. I’ll have small portions, “healthy” foods and small bites to avoid being judged. DH is very aware of these things.

Today, we’re at a touristy place. It’s me, DH, two DCs and DH’s friend. We passed somewhere selling cream tea and DH stopped and said he wanted one. So we went in and got a table. DH confirmed I would have one and I said yes. DH and his friend went to order at the counter. Then, it arrived and both DH and his friend has changed their minds and I was the only one having cream tea.

This immediately (rationally or irrationally) makes me feel like the fat, gluttonous, awful person. But I also feel extremely anxious - especially with DH’s friend there. I nibble a bit and pass it over to DH. Then I’m left spiralling over whether DH’s friend, and the waiting staff and other customers are thinking I’m rude for not eating it or gluttonous for ordering it or judging me for everything.

I feel as though, given that DH knows how I feel about food and eating, he should’ve told me that he was no longer having the cream tea.

Separate what happened and the thoughts in your head to what actually happened.

Cream tea came. You had a nibble. Husband ate the rest. Nobody else would even have cared or noticed.

OK: fair enough.

You aren’t unreasonable to feel he should have said something.
You are massively unreasonable to make such a song and dance about it, and be unable to process those feelings in a more constructive way.
You are also being unreasonable to have so little compassion either for your husband or for yourself.

He should have told you he was no longer eating. It’s not difficult or a big ask.
Now you have experienced this situation can you think of a way to remedy it? Could you and dh have had a scone each? Could you manage a acceptable amount to eat solo and box the rest to take home (even if it doesn’t get eaten)

I do not have an eating disorder, however, I would feel uncomfortable eating on my own in a group of people.

I would have insisted that DH share with me because I feel terrible eating by myself. If he flatly refused, I would send the cream tea back. You are right to think DH rude.

I feel strongly about being the last left eating at the table. I time my meal to finish about the same time as my dining out friends. If I finish first I leave my cutlery in the NOT FINISHED position so that the waiter doesn't take my plate and leave my poor friend eating and with the only plate.

I dislike dining at restaurants where the waiters clear the plates as soon as one eats the last forkful of food. Waiters should clear the table when all guests have finished.

A cream tea is a scone with a cup of tea. That is not “quite substantial.” It’s a scone.

Does your therapist know about your “strategy?” Because that’s not a strategy… that’s literately just your eating disorder being in control. What you’re doing is a disorder, it is not a strategy to cure your disorder.

What “song and dance”? I didn’t make any “song and dance”? Why are you trying to invent anything you can to make me wrong? 😂

So true: also the implication that someone else is coerced into playing the role of The Glutton to keep your eating disorder happy is very very unpleasant.

The remedy now is that, in settings that I could previously cope with (sit-down meals where everyone is having a defined portion of food), I now do not order until and unless I know everyone else has actually ordered food. It means that I will be the one to go to the counter each time, or the last to speak to the waiter, or won’t eat at all just in case. It’s a step backwards because a set-up that used to be very clear and safe (that people would decide on food, order it and it arrive) has become one that isn’t (people can say they’re ordering food but that doesn’t mean that they actually are).

The remedy now is that, in settings that I could previously cope with (sit-down meals where everyone is having a defined portion of food), I now do not order until and unless I know everyone else has actually ordered food. It means that I will be the one to go to the counter each time, or the last to speak to the waiter, or won’t eat at all just in case. It’s a step backwards because a set-up that used to be very clear and safe (that people would decide on food, order it and it arrive) has become one that isn’t (people can say they’re ordering food but that doesn’t mean that they actually are).

No, it isn’t. Not if you’re not determined to twist everything and kick me non-stop which you have pointedly done over and over and over again on this thread.

Someone who is worried about being judged will determine what to wear to a social event based on what others are wearing. But, now it’s in a context that you understand, you’ll feign the inability to understand comparisons and go “but food isn’t clothes - I’m sooooooo confused… I don’t understand… it’s so offensive to make any comparisons to anything ever wahhhhhhhhh” - like you have again and again on this thread.

You can’t possibly call me unpleasant after seeing your behaviour.

It is not helpful for you to ask for opinions when you don't want them, but you clearly need to see a specialist therapist urgently. Your approach is allowing your eating disorder full control and that will get progressively worse the longer you leave it.

Agree, and at what point are the children going to be brought into having essential roles in this strategy?

I wouldn’t want to be the only one eating either especially if I had been told they were eating (it was their idea in the first place!) and I don’t have an ED. Is there any chance they did it on purpose to see how you dealt with it (in a thoughtless rather than spiteful way if your dh is normally a good person). It seems very odd for them to change their minds.

I’m leaving this thread now.

Thank you to the majority, who posted helpful responses (even if they didn’t always agree). It is interesting to hear that some people would think this is normal as I’ve never personally come across it before (or seen it happen in books, TV or film). In fact, if someone has examples of it happening that I can look at in books/TV/film then that would be very helpful.

I simply don’t have the time or patience to deal with the increasingly nasty and illogical fantasies of some posters. Clearly bored with their own lives… As no one can say I’ve done anything wrong that I actually did (rather than something they invented and imagined), I’ll take it that I’m not being unreasonable.

You’re not sounding very well.

You have an eating disorder. By definition, your behaviour is not “normal” and is actually negatively affecting your life, and it affects those around you. It is a disorder, meaning it is unreasonable. Your behaviour is unreasonable.

Your strategy to handle this is no strategy at all; it’s literally just your disorder being in charge. And now you’re going to let it get worse. You’ve just posted that from now on, the disorder will control even more of the situation because you will always have to order last etc.

Your disorder is fully in control. You don’t have a strategy. You need better therapy. Get more help. You cannot possible walk away from this thinking your behaviour is reasonable. It is perfectly ok for someone else to decide they don’t want to eat, anytime at all.

You may not see this but having seen your updates, I'll just add tuppence more - kindly, a strategy that is wholly reliant on the actions of others may be a useful stop-gap for beginning to manage your disorder (and well done for coming that far -it's no mean feat) but, as you have seen, it is quite fragile and shouldn't really be seen as the end of the road. There's no point in debating the reasonableness or otherwise of your feelings but please be kind to yourself AND to your husband. It's a difficult thing to navigate for everyone.

I hope you are still receiving specialist support and can work through this with them, hopefully finding some more sustainable long-term relief.

@Edddie in an ideal world, he would have at least warned you, but, in the moment, for whatever reason, he forgot, or judged he couldn’t come back to the table, to pre-warn you and ask if you no longer wanted your order (it would have got very complicated and probably would annoy the person at the till). If it were me at the order point, I would have got quite flustered if I would have to leave the queue and so on. I might have said to you ‘sorry, I know the change will have unsettled you, but it was chaos up there - let’s share it’ or I might have forgotten. If you then (gently) mentioned it, I would have said ‘sorry, I should have thought, will try not to do that again’ but I would expect you to let it go after that. Have you spoken to him about it? Unless he did it deliberately (which sounds unlikely) given he seems pretty supportive, I think give him the benefit of the doubt here.

@Edddie,I’d suggest you never ever waste energy engaging with trolls and wrong-think. It’s pointless. IRL, what you need to figure out is why your DH did it, and if you can trust him not to do it again. That’s the only important part of this. Good luck x

@Edddie Regardless of anything else OP a lot of people, including myself, would not be happy at being presented with food when no one else was eating, if they had been under the explicit impression that the others were eating too. That in itself is not unusual. I would have not been happy and I love food. Obviously there are other issues involving this and I wish you lots of luck in managing it (my mum had an eating disorder).

If someone is worried about what other people are wearing because someone is going to get labelled “A Right State” or “The Scarecrow” then yes that would be unpleasant.

What you’re putting forward is (a)If I eat the most I am an awful fat glutton, plus (b) I monitor what you eat, to make sure I am not the glutton, but at the same time (c) You eating more than me says nothing about you.
Can you see why people might struggle to believe part (c) and why they may not like to participate in part (b)?

Can you also accept that you are simultaneously saying “Yes, I do think everyone judges everyone else at the table for gluttony” and “No, that’s twisting my words.” You are playing both sides here on the one hand you do think people are nasty judgmental when it comes to making choices about what to eat; on the other hand you don’t think think that at all when it comes to owning that thought process.

In your last reply you talk about being safe: and the obvious question is Safe from Whom? What bad thing can actually happen if someone eats part of a cream tea?

Oh OP, would you not prefer to get to a point where you could enjoy the cream tea that you wanted regardless of anything, that's what I would be focusing my energy on. I wouldn't say it's an eating disorder, more disordered eating brought about intrusive thoughts. Think how free you'd feel without it and instead of living by your strategies work to reduce them till they're no longer needed

Hmm, this is tricky. I often change my mind last minute about stuff like this - fancy something and then actually don't. I wonder if your DH might have though "actually I don't fancy one, but I don't want to ruin it for Edddie (maybe especially given your ED) so will go ahead with her order". Not saying his reasoning is the correct one, but it might have come from a good place.

Re whether it rational or irrational to feel like fat, gluttonous, awful person about eating a cream tea - I can confirm it was definitely irrational.

Wrong think? Are you saying it's socially unacceptable for posters not to agree with op?

I’m really sorry, I don’t think that’s a remedy. Having to always go to the counter or be the last to order.

Thats the ED not the remedy, as a pp said.

I know how you feel OP - I have a toilet anxiety that I need to be the last to go to the loo before we leave the house and everyone else has to be ready to go before I do. So I can walk straight out of the house and we all leave once I’ve been. It’s pretty crippling and irritating for other people, I’m aware, but if someone tries to mess with it or manipulate me into not being the last, the whole thing becomes 100% worse. It’s not really a strategy though - a strategy would be a thought process I could come up with to not mind not being the last.