To think people shouldn't be helping themselves to my chocolate?

[tnorfotkcab]

My mother's day and my birthday chocolates are on the side, and DH and dBIL just think they can help themselves and then get all nardy when I say "hey! That's mine"

I happily share it... On my terms. But just helping yourself is poor form, surely??

Rude gits.

theyd have to not value their fingers to try that here 🔪

i’d be digging a hole in the patio!

(exDP used to do this….. note the ‘ex’)

Hide! That’ll solve the problem.

Hide it! Greedy thieving bastards!

I shouldn't have to hide it.... But I will.

What did the police say?

I'm sure the police would agree they need locking away as taking chocolate is a crime.

Hell would freeze over before I hid food in my own home.

You can hide it all you want but that still leaves you married to a selfish, rude git.

We've got an open box policy in our house, which thankfully no-one abuses

Is the chocolate in a tin? Pop a mousetrap in there...

A particularly heinous crime

Oh, justifiable homicide. Go for it.

Both of my ex DHs, although weirdly abusive in utterly different ways, shared this common trait. Many a time, I remember coming across empty boxes of chocolates that I had brought home because they had been given to me. One ex ate all the children's easter eggs one year. It is unbelievably selfish.

My DH would never help himself, but when I pass the box round he will always take 3 or 4 at once, that really gets me that’s just greedy

Why DBIL?

Were they out as if for sharing and open? If so they might have thought they were on offer.

I hide treats and eat then when alone. If DC see they beg for some. I can say no, but then they ask for the normal chocolate or other treats. It's ruins it as I'm finished before they're done or they're in a mood etc.

Also, DH has a sugar addiction, and if the treats are visible, he'll gobble the lot in one sitting when we're all in bed. He thinks because they've been there for a little while I'm not eating them, so fair game.

So I hide them.

I don't understand how you still have chocolate from Mothers Day.

If I'm happy to share, I leave it out. If I want it to myself, I out in my bedside drawer.
Whether it's rude depends on your family set up-I always leave stuff out that family/guests can help themselves to, and family leave their stuff out if it's for sharing, or put it away if it's not, but I would always wait to be offered before picking up something in someone else's house.

I hide my stuff and buy some cheapo stuff which I leave within reach for DH.

Throw the book at 'em!!!!

(Ideally, Deborah Cadbury's Chocolate Wars).

This pisses me off so thankfully dh stopped doing it

You shouldn’t have to hide them OP, it’s true.

I guess there’s a happy medium between “out on the side” (which sort of gives “fair game” vibes) and hidden. So put somewhere where everyone know that means it’s yours/ not to be taken without asking, but not exactly squirrelled away in secret either. People should be able to restrain themselves, but perhaps to visiting family “on the side”
looks like it means “put out for guests”. To be extremely charitable 🤔

There’s a tricky dynamic in this house as my DS believes in the seafood diet (see food and eat it) when it comes to treats, where as DD wants to make things last a really long time. And I mean really long. She’s got sweets and chocolate from her birthday in October, and from Christmas, for context.

So that works fine when it’s in her room, but when it’s in the general snack drawer or on the kitchen side, and she thinks it should be left alone as “hers” , it makes DS go insane with chocolate craving. But why should she hide it away? But then, why should it be put right in the way of most temptation?

I have recently moved a specific chocolate that she had left in the snack drawer from Christmas to a more discrete place as it was getting into the realms of taunting by this point. “I just haven’t fancied it yet, but I will at some point” is her view.

It’s a very hard line to walk!

Edit - DD is 17 and NT
DS is 12 and has ADHD
Probably relevant!

No-personal chocolate is not for sharing.

My DH troughed all of my mother's day choccy. I was very peed off and asked him to replace it. He didn't.

SO not unreasonable.