Husband licks his dinner plate after eating

[letmeeatcakes]

Not every meal and only when we have our family dinner but sometimes when he has finished eating he will pick his plate up and lick it clean!! I find this totally gross and have told him but this time i told him he was worse than a dog. My daughter thinks my comments were callous!! AIBU and just let him do this if it makes him happy? Only does it at home!

Clearly not if you’ve read the thread. 😳

I now avoid bad habits since Dsis who works in a care home said what you do in private is all out there with dementia, picking your nose, your bottom or licking your plate.

Everyone picks their nose. Anyone that says they don't is a liar.

This thread is absolutely batshit. People would split their family up and get divorced because their husband licked sauce off a plate he's just eaten from? Absolute insanity.

I'd leave him.

The children now know you've lost respect for him - calling him a dog... but yes, that behaviour is feral.

Heh - I can see the Isle of Wight from my upstairs windows and I am perfectly happy to lick my plate clean.
Very occasionally I have done it in a restaurant.

I would assume that would be a case of the straw that broke the camel's back, rather than the sole reason. Because leaving a marriage, with kids involved, for someone licking a plate is batshit.

Presumably not at the table, in company or without consent.

Hmm. I'd not have married him in the first place, so the children comment is irrelevant.

No, people who live alone have been called vulgar for having the audacity to upset public manners by licking a plate where no one can see them.

Absolutely disgusting. I'd refuse to eat with him.

Forgive me, I was referring to the lickjng of genitals.

Yuck. I cringed just reading the title. My DH always "slurps" when he's drinking something through a straw, even when the drink is clearly finished & the mug empty. It's bloody off putting! But plate licking...just No

Haha, yes that changes the context somewhat!

This is a very sensible suggestion.

However I am also reminded of one of the earliest holidays DH and I took in France, probably in about 1990. We were staying in a small village in the Dordogne and followed a recommendation in the house book to visit a restaurant in the next village. Oh I will remember that night as long as I live, it could have come straight out of a Peter Mayle book!

There were only 9 of us sat down to eat in the dining room of the little guest house Chez Jeannot. No choice on food, the host just kept bringing stuff out. For about nine courses. One of the early courses was a soup and, as we were all finishing, the host came out with a bottle of wine and said something that sounded like "Chabrol". We looked blank but the lone French man at the end of our table demonstrated. Basically it meant pour a small glug of wine in to the empty soup bowl, swill it round, then drink it out of the bowl. DH and I readily agreed to this, much to the host's approval. The other six guests (Dutch I think) declined, despite his protestation that "les Anglaises" did it.

Happy days!!!

Does everyone scratch their anus too?

I live alone but don't lick plates, largely because I have a big nose and don't want to get gravy all over it. 😆

I'll use bread to mop up juices, although if they're particularly runny, I may slurp them off the edge of the plate while raising it.

@RosesAndHellebores we aren’t married, no joint children and we do not live together. He is not the only person within his family with atrocious table manners. They are all well educated and do not care. It has given me the ick.

If it has an itch, then why not?

Clearly some people are ok with someone licking their plate and some aren't. But nearly everyone (maybe actually everyone) including those who lick plates themselves agree that it isn't something you do in public or in a restaurant. Why not? Because it is something that might disgust other people. OP does find it disgusting - and has asked her dh not to do it but he does it anyway even though he knows it disgusts her. That's the problem - not the question of to lick or not lick a plate.

I think it is pretty poor of him to continue to lick his plate in front of her when it clearly bothers her - as it would a lot of people. It isn't like she is asking him to wear a dinner jacket to the table or not use salt or to decant his ketchup into a silver container - just not lick his plate.

Well, it's not unhygienic, just unmannerly. But then I'm sure no one in your household is following perfect table etiquette, so let those who are without sin cast the first stone.

If he only does it at home, and only sometimes...personally I'd let it slide, roll my eyes, and just be glad he's enjoyed his dinner. (Or as PP suggested, give him a bit of bread to mop the plate with instead.)

I have been with my mum in a cafe, she licked the plate. I gave zero fucks. LTM?

Maybe OP should let her DP enjoy the juice on his plate, and OP can leave the room. Both win then.

To me the main reason you wouldn’t do this in public is because of awareness that some people will look down on you. I think some of the responses betray a sense that ‘a lack of class’ (ie what class is, being decided by a certain section of society) is disgusting, rather than the act of licking itself?

For example one of my children recently asked me why when I told her she shouldn’t lick her knife. I said because she might cut her tongue. Nothing about shame or anyone else’s disgust. In this instance that is their problem I think! Scratching your bum as pp mentioned, however - a disgust reaction to that seems appropriate because it is unhygienic and can make people ill if they then don’t wash their hands.

I’ve never ever seen anyone lick their plate!

Neither do I.
Why waste good gravy?