Is husband right that I need psychological help? (Won’t eat outside of home)

[Melessah]

When I was 19 I had a very traumatic experience. I found half a mouse in a ready meal I had bought from a supermarket. It was in a curry. I created a post on twitter and a couple of papers actually picked up the story.

if was obviously very upsetting. I was a university student at the time living off ready meals. After that experience I refused to eat from restaurants, takeaways or supermarkets. I won’t even eat crisps. Everything I eat needs to be 100% “safe”.

Everything I eat is home cooked. I would never buy a ready meal again. I don’t even buy bread from a supermarket. I eat potatoes as my main carb. I eat a lot of eggs (from my mum’s chickens).

Husband obviously knew what he was signing up for when he married me. I do not see myself ever letting my guard down.

Anyway, we were on holiday and he really lost his cool with me. I was eating fruit and boiled eggs and he told me I need help. And that he was getting tired by my the restrictions I place on myself and therefore him.

I have spoken to a psychologist but it didn’t help. I don’t want to be like this. Who is the one that is being unreasonable

@Boeufsurletoiti agree with you. How most of us eat is in relation to the world we now live in. I know several families who are vegan, don’t eat any UpF’s. Everything home cooked, fresh using raw ingredients. They would never go out for a meal, but always offer to host. That’s their normal though to me as an outsider it is a bit rigid, but They’re all very healthy.

op what you are eating doesn’t seem to be uhealthy at all in terms of food nutrition. In fact on a population level we should be eating more like that. However it’s your very restricted thought pattern around it that is the issue. personally eating out in nice restaurants is a pleasurable thing for me and my family , so not ever being able to do that would annoy me. In that respect I can see your dp’s side.

how much does food/ eating consume your daily life?

Not quite the same; ready made meals would have the foreign body cooked in them, anything in a bag of potatoes would be separate, easily removed. Potatoes don't go 'through a factory'.
However, op's reaction, though understandable, is excessive.
Finding something like that is unpleasant, horrid...but not traumatic.

That Isn’t normal though so YABU and do need help.
You need to get over this

What a shame to react this way to someone who has both professional knowledge and lived experience and it just trying to help. No she doesn't have enough info to diagnose but you've given plenty enough information to point you in a likely direction which is what she did.

I think that's ultimately why you're having a hard time on this thread, you admit it's disordered and you don't want it to continue impacting him, but you don't seem open to getting help.

I would've thought CBT would be the right direction, as it seems the important thing is practically making progress rather than trying to psychoanalyse why you've responded the way you have. But you can't help those who won't help themselves

Well, I didn't grow up eating out.
I only ever eat out if I'm catching up with university friends.
I cook daily but in no way do I have a clean diet.
Unfortunately I like crisps and chocolates too much.
Its just that eating out is not a habit for me. It's also very expensive!
And yes, I can't understand people who like eating out that much, 9 times out of 10 I come back disappointed, the food is hardly ever worth it. It's like give me my money back!

I’m a CBT therapist and CBT would definitely help with this problem.

Your future children are going to have very disordered eating.

They need to be able to go to birthday parties, eat school meals, eat birthday cake, go on play dates, have an ice cream at the park.

I once bit into a plum and maggots came out so that theory doesn't really work in reality.
Something like sliced bread you can literally see every part of the food before you eat it

To NEVER outside of her own home? That is pretty fucking weird

You need EMDR therapy. It's specifically for trauma. It will change your life and it's VERY quick.

It underlines how RARE it is, that it garnered national attention. It's not going to happen again.

The op has had psychological help, she absolutely knows that’s what she’s needed, and lashes out at everyone who’s said this and said she’s fine… on the thread she started saying my husband says I need psychological help. Op, have a go at people if you like, but they were trying to help. Picture your life if your dh leaves you and meets someone else he wants to have kids with (I would not want to have kids with someone with as restrictive a condition as you) and think maybe it’s worth trying one of the therapies again. They worked for about 18m - go try it again. Maybe second time around they will work for 3 years. But I doubt it unless you really want them to work. Which you don’t, based on this thread. Think about how it would feel if you only managed to really want them to work after he left, if you could get healthy then but still have no dh and no babies, because that ship had sailed.

I didn't grow up eating out - it really wasn't so common then anyway. I also am not keen on eating out now. It seems very expensive, not very healthy and usually disappointing to me. However, I do it occasionally to be sociable and enjoy being with others who do like it. To never eat out would be very restrictive.

I much prefer to cook from scratch, well actually what I would really prefer is someone else to cook from scratch for me 🙂 it must be sooo much work OP, I think you should try another therapist.

This sounds absolutely miserable. Of course you need psychological help. I have possibly the most devoted and supportive husband in the world, but I think even he would tire of this after a while.

It’s not even about the eating out though - it’s the limitations on her diet and the amount of time she must spend cooking

only eating eggs as protein, only foods with a peel. Eating some foods from packets (lentils and flour) but not wanting to eat food from a can (sweetcorn? Can be fully rinsed). No cheese or milk.

it must be very difficult to see your wife doing all of that and then sitting to enjoy a meal on holiday and she has a plate of fruit and hard boiled eggs every meal.

her DH is also allowed to say if he doesn’t want to live like that - it’s ok to decide something isn’t working even if you have known the person a long time and they’ve had the issue the whole time. You are allowed to change your mind.

but maybe meet him halfway - no one’s expecting op to be eating kebab from the dodgy van after treatment but if she can have an easier relationship with food it will make her more relaxed and help her relationship

Because you’re the classic poster who says AIBU - majority say, yes, yes you are. Then you post arguments to disagree and seem to take nothing useful from the thread?

Kindly, and with uncanny personal background, you are being unreasonable to let this continue because you are the only person who can change it. The good news is I believe you have the power to change it within you.

When I was a kid, we had a mouse infestation in our newly built home. I saw mice in all food. I couldn't drink milk anymore because I was convinced dead baby mice were floating in it and would slide down my throat. I was a pubescent child and my weight dropped to dangerous levels. It was in the 70s so we weren't encouraged to share our problems with adults.

At one point, my mother noticed and was very worried, took me to a doctor who couldn't find anything wrong with me except I was low weight. He said very sternly to me and my mother, "This child needs to eat more calorie-rich food. Give her steaks, hamburgers, chicken, legumes, potatoes, anything. Hell, milkshakes" etc. I specifically remember him saying "hell, milkshakes."

It was verboten to say no to adults, so I pushed myself to clear my plate at dinner and absolutely dreaded every moment. Practice and forcing myself became like a muscle that hurt at first but eventually became strong. I eventually gained weight and after about a year, it became much easier to not think of dead mice in my food. The only food I still don't eat to this day (I'm in my 50s) is milk from a glass, which I think is a win. I have never had food issues since.

Pushing myself to eat even when I felt disgusted actually worked. Granted, I was a kid and was following the rules that I didn't believe I could break. Maybe you need a therapist to help you do this. Whether or not you seek therapy, you should know that it's not normal to live like this and it IS something you can change.

I don’t think the OP wants to hear it. She thinks her DH is being unreasonable and now we are. It makes me wonder why her therapy isn’t successful. You have to be open to it.

She scrubs potatoes with vinegar before she can bear to eat then in her own house. So I can't imagine that she trusts a restaurant to give her a safe salad.

And of course it affects her husband. They can't even eat a normal meal together at home. The eating out bit is probably the least of the issues. He's having to watch her go through these OCD-like rituals with even the simplest and most basic types of produce every single day.

Again, she's already had it. That information is in her updates.

@Melessah it sounds like that was a horrendous experience and it is no wonder it left you traumatised. What was a good short-term coping response of avoiding anything that could have something untowards in it however has been more difficult long-term and appears to have expanded.

While it seems that in many ways you live your life quite happily, the fact that you would like to change suggest that there are aspects that don't work for you and it sounds like your husband is slowly appreciating the impact that this has.

I know you have tried psychological therapies but in my opinion (Clinical Psychologist) this does not sound as if it would be that hard to treat and something like CBT with graded exposure sounds like it would be helpful (I think a CBT therapist earlier said similar).

Finding someone who provides the right therapy, at the right cost, and who you gel with can be tricky but sometimes personal recommendations can be helpful to point you in the right direction.

Good luck! This can change!

Wether you realise or not you have a very serious eating disorder and need help your husband is correct . I hope you dont have kids because your issues would be seriously damaging for a child !

Sounds like arfid in the context of trauma to me, and food chaining would be a helpful way forward if you can find a service/ professional who offers this!

This contaminated supermarket food may not be as rare as we would hope. I’ve found a snail in a tin of peas - put me off tinned peas for a long time. I got food poisoning from a salad counter mexican rice. I haven’t been to a salad counter since, all bought salads have to be in a sealed tub. And I found a maggot in a baked potato once. I do eat baked potatoes again simply because they are easy and quick to do in a microwave if you get the oven cooked frozen ones which weren’t available in those days. I somehow persuade myself it won’t happen again if they’ve been frozen.

Finding a half mouse must have been horrific and would definitely put me off eating ready meals, if I didn’t already find them disappointing - I never buy them now.

Actually I find eating out isn’t all its cracked up to be, I’ve had some lousy meals out, no foreign bodies but just not to my taste. Very rarely eat out these days. You seem to be in the same position as someone with an allergy who can’t eat out in case their food is contaminated with the allergen, so not that unusual. I knew someone with this who had to start cooking everything from scratch, it’s not the end of the world. Or shouldn’t be.