I didn’t let my husband eat the meatballs, AIBU?

[dancebabybee]

My husband is an incredibly fussy eater. Basically, he will only eat beige foods and sugar. This makes going out to eat very difficult as well as cooking for him at home. There have been times in restaurants when he will complain there is NOTHING he likes on the menu (despite the menu being extensive) and he ends up eating a bread basket. I am giving you this history as it is important for what happened this evening…

I made meatballs, tomato ragu and spaghetti for dinner. Due to my husbands extreme fussy eating, I don’t usually cook for him and he is left to sort himself out. Me and the children had this for dinner. When I went into the kitchen afterwards, he had started picking at the sauce left in the pan, scooping the meatballs out, scraping the tomatoes and sauce off. I asked him whether he wanted me to make him some pasta, he said no he just wanted to eat the meatballs. I told him to please not, as it will just leave a load of sauce that nobody will want to eat without meatballs in it, and I wanted to save the spare for lunch or dinner tomorrow. He then got annoyed about this and sulked off…

AIBU?

... Why? Perhaps because they're husband and wife, and a team. If this is the only thing that OP has to worry about in her marriage (?), she's very fortunate!

Where's the team part in this scenario involving OP? It's OP doing all of the planning, cooking etc DH turning his nose up at most of it or randomly picking out bits (ruining lunches/dinners for others) and that's between eating takeaways and bread because he can't be arsed to cook.

He is team DH and team DH only.

This. And men who are 0/100 on meal planning/courtesy to the cook are rarely 50/50 everywhere else in the partnership. Funny that.

He is team DH and team DH only.

Indeed and claims not to want to be on OP and kids team, but takes what he wants on a random whim.

I'm sick of all the "be kind" bleating. The other person has to be kind too, otherwise it's just treating the kinder person like a doormat. That's not kind, is it?

In that case he is a deeply selfish man.

if he was on his own, fine, destroy your body with whatever shit you want.

but he’s a father. Everybody knows eating like that is incredibly bad for you both physically and mentally. He role models to his kids daily that nutrition isn’t important, he ruins meals out and holidays by restrictive restaurants, no family dinners and he cba to ever cook them a healthy meal. As parents we often do things we don’t want for the good of our kids - eg sitting bored in a park or poolside or in our car waiting - he is too selfish to show them nutrition

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I read it as aphid 😆

This would've annoyed me, but only because he didn't ask or offer to help sort it.Had he said 'I'm going to eat these meatballs but I'll make some more' or 'Can I take those meatballs and make something else with the sauce or even 'can you do something else with this sauce?' It would have been better.

I'd have then done something else with the sauce for another meal.

@Pollinotal Agree. I couldn’t be attracted to a man with the palate of an unadventurous two year old. Enjoying an array of food/cuisines is important to me.

You're not being mean.

But is this the first time you've brought the issue up? Because there's a pattern of behaviour here of him ruining leftovers and causing food waste. If he just wants plain chicken, meatballs or fish, it's cheaper and more efficient for it to be cooked alone rather than resources used to cook it alongside food he won't eat (which is also why all the people telling you you're BU are wrong).

So it needs to be addressed. Personally I'd have told mine why it was a problem pretty early in the day, but did you? He should know not to do it, of course, but I've a bit more sympathy if this is an entrenched behaviour you didn't have a problem with until now.

I have told him many times that it is annoying to ruin leftovers by picking out all the protein.

Yes I agree. Very selfish to come and just pick out the best bits.

Then he's being a massive twat and you aren't annoyed enough.

I think this is something that people just see differently.

If he put it all on his plate, OP wouldn’t have minded. Let’s say he did that but unknowingly to OP, he just picked out the meatballs and left the rest. Is she going to check how much of the rest that he ate? At what point is enough of the rest an acceptable amount - and who gets to decide that?

Thats why I think it’s really controlling.

If OP had said that he couldn’t have had any of it because he hadn’t asked to be included and she needed that food for tomorrow’s lunch, then fine. But that wasn’t the case - she was happy for him to have it, but only if he ate the amount that she deemed acceptable.

I appreciate we disagree on this but I don’t think any adult should have to abide by another adult’s rules on how much they have to eat to be allowed to share food.

Yes she wouldn't have but that would be like if someone made a cake and someone else in the family doesn't eat cake but they decide to just take all of the buttercream out of the cake, so that the rest of it is ruined.

If it was my house I wouldn't mind someone having a slice of cake, I also wouldn't mind them finishing the whole cake, what I would mind if someone just took the buttercream out of the cake ruining what was left of it even though others would have enjoyed it the next day.

I think it's extremely rude and disrespectful, and I think it's extremely unfair to consider people controlling when they object to rude and disrespectful behaviour.

If OP had said that he couldn’t have had any of it because he hadn’t asked to be included and she needed that food for tomorrow’s lunch, then fine

It's interesting you think that's fine, because I would actually consider that to be bad, whereas I don't think not wanting someone to pick the protein out of something isn't.

Wait, where’s the team work? Do you think OP making all the meals for her and their kid and then DH picking out whatever bits he wants rendering the rest useless is team work?

You're right, and actually I wonder whether it isn't controlling behaviour from DH to continually ruin food he's been asked not to pick bits out. Very disrespectful of OPs efforts when he could just cook plain meat, or even buy pre-prepared to eat out of the packet if that's too much like hard work.

It could just be lazy and selfish, but wouldn't rule out the possibility that it's also to show her who's boss. He can waste what he likes, her efforts don't matter.

Being unable/unwilling to eat a wide variety of food does not mean someone isn’t a functional adult.

Don’t you think that fussy eaters wouldn’t be that way if they had a choice?

Personally I find people who are ‘foodies’ terribly pretentious.

Yes. We have a rule in our house where anyone can try food, we dont say no, unless for thebkids its totally inappropriate etc.
But, it's he is an adult the caveat would be that he can, but he must cut it into 4 and dip it in the sauce for each bite!

He will learn.

Ive managed to get my big house troll to eat peanut butter ans cheese sandwiches, cinnamon bagels, roast lamb, sprouts, cabbage etc.
All whilst refusing to eat the Kraft crap he makes!

Mine was a fussy eater, we didn't marry until he'd learnt better.

I agree with the OP. Also, it is not a very good trait to have when there are children who see this and could be apt to copy and think it is OK.

This reminds me of DH and me living with MIL and BIL when we'd just graduated. We'd all cook for ourselves during the week. DH had to have words with BIL because he'd stand by the hob picking the best bits out of something DH and I had made to last us 2 days.

I think if he's fussy enough that you eat separate meals, then he can't dip in and out of family meals. He shouldn't suddenly decide that he now fancies a bit of a meal that's not been cooked for him because he knows the drill, he knows how the house kitchen works.

I also agree that fussy eater men are hard to cope with. I had an ex who, in any restaurant would only eat tomato soup, steak cooked until it resembled shoe leather, and tiramasu. No matter what else was on offer. And he wouldn't eat cheese, unless it was the plastic-wrapped floppy processed slices.

The day I told him that one of the main ingredients in tiramasu was mascarpone, which is a type of cheese, was one of the most satisfying of my life. The cognitive dissonance scrambled his brain.

My 12 year old is a “fussy eater” but has gotten so much better. He still won’t eat wet food or anything with a sauce. If we have a dinner like meatballs I will just make his without the sauce. Could you not do that? It wouldn’t be hard. Not saying you should all of the time as he’s a grown man but sometimes accommodating the food issues isn’t an issue.

I couldn't have fallen for a man like that.