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?

He's stuck his fingers in it so no thanks.

I find it really strange that so many pp are leaping to the defence of a grown man who has all the manners and food sense of a toddler.

It must be an embarrassment going to restaurants with him and having to tolerate selfish, immature behaviour in the kitchen at home must be so irritating. I'm sorry but he should really grow up. And also try and behave normally around food so his DC don't grow up with problematic attitudes to food.

I thought the same. Strange to dictate to someone what they can have and how. If it was OK for him to eat it with pasta, surely it was OK for him to eat it without the pasta if he didnt fancy pasta. Or it wasnt OK for him to eat it at all if the meal was for the kids and her and he didnt show interest in it beforehand.

We had someone in the family who was rigid like this, you could only eat one item if it came with another item, and if you didnt want both, you could not have either, and certain things only went with other things. I guess both OP and her husband have some compromises to make.,

How bloomin irritating. In fairness my teenage son does this with meat and I end up taking weird left overs in for work the next day but your husband is a grown up. Argh no you’re not unreasonable. He should grow up!

I'd have left him to eat them. At least he was getting some protein.

In future could you not cook the meatballs separately and scoop out a portion for him before the sauce goes in the rest? One meal two ways and every one is fed?

And yet OP still chose to marry him and have children with him?

Imagine the responses if the sexes were reversed

Nope. They’re only leftovers once everyone has had dinner.

You’d all eaten dinner, I think he should have been able to eat the leftovers that were available. And you wouldn’t ‘let’ him all because there would be leftover sauce. You sound as controlling over food as he does.

People really are infantilising this rude man! He didn’t “find” something he liked: he took food not prepared for him! Op is being told various ways she can take the time to pander to his fancies … fuck that! If he’s that fussy he can sort himself out!

It does make sense because if he picks out the meatballs it leaves the remaining sauce to meatball ratio all wrong, so anyone wanting more is then left with a couple of meatballs swimming in a pan full of sauce.

When you've spent time cooking a whole meal, if someone just comes and picks out the meat then it leaves the rest of it to go to waste. It's a little disrespectful of the time OP has put into cooking the meal.

He could just cook himself up some sausages or something and leave OP's cooking, which she's put time and effort into, for someone who actually wants a proper meal.

Just his nursery level eating habits would give me the ick. And I say that as someone who had arfid as a child - ate only 9 foods for years. But I forced myself to get over it to the point where it wasn't making everyone's life a misery.

If they would have been binned fair enough

if they were to be someone else’s lunch - no

"and can we also have the child's menu, please?"

It’s annoying but I’d of just let him have the meat balls if they were just spare for tomorrow.

I personally would find it difficult to not eat as a family but if it’s standard for you and it works then that’s fine. However, if he had said yes to the pasta would it be ok for him to have the meatballs?

YANBU op, he either eats like an adult or eats like a child. He can’t dip into both.

How would he like it if you pinched one of his alphabites?

I imagine it would go something like this

I agree actually.
It amazes me that OP could find him attractive.

I say this as someone who married a man- my second H - who had a very limited diet when I met him. He never ate fruit or dairy produce apart from.cheese, and drank multiple cups of black coffee and went through loads of biscuits every day. I will say though he would eat the meals I prepared and by the time he died was eating a much healthier diet.Actually the many years of restricted and unhealthy eating was what contributed to his relatively early death.

why do you get to dictate that he must have pasta, sauce and meatballs. Are you ok if he tells you next time you can’t have the pasta? or you must have cereal with it?

You are getting a lot of answers and from people, who have no experience of eating disorders. It sounds as if your dh have a very limited diet. And potentially could be at a diagnosable level for ARFID. Idk.

I think yabu. This is one meal, you could then have made in future for you all to sit down as a family.

I have an 18 yo dd, who I have been told by someone, who worked in eating disorders for a very long time that her eating is at an ARFID diagnosable level. It’s a really big step that your dh picked at the meal.

The idea is to get people with ED to to picking at things a few times, until they can then eat that as an actual meal. Dd has her meal, but will pick at bits from a composite meal in a pan for example, just the bits she likes and will leave the rest. But hopefully the bits she likes will expand at some stage.

Instead you told him off like a naughty child. I know you’re not going to feel like doing this. However, if you want to help, you could have a chat with him and say sorry you were grumpy. And maybe he’d like to have meatballs another day with you.

Reminds me of one of the classic MN quotes

I want a man I can have adventures and fight the world with.
Not one who sits there crying because the peas are touching the carrots

Why would he do that? That’s random and stupid. Picking out the bits of someone else’s dinner thar you fancy is just rude

ICK!!!!!!

I do feel a little mean.

He doesn’t have an eating disorder, nor is he autistic, he’s just very fussy. He lived alone for years so could pick and choose and cook everything to his liking.

I suppose my annoyance comes from years of this and the food waste. If we have fajitas, for example, he will eat all the chicken out of the pan, leaving only peppers. These then end up being thrown out as nobody wants a plate of peppers the following day. I made a fish pie earlier in the week and he picked out all the fish. It means food gets wasted that could be eaten as another meal the following day.