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AIBU?

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Original poster

MN Jury - am I being unreasonable or is DH?

89 replies

Lovecat · 25/02/2010 23:37

So I am doing menu planning in an attempt to cut down on the ridiculous amount of food bought and wasted in our house, and everything I now have in the fridge is purchased with a meal in mind.

There are also snacky things like cheese, ham, yoghurts, fruit etc.

Came in from swimming last night, wanted a quick tea for all as I had a rehearsal to go to afterwards, had planned quiche and salad.

Go to fridge, remove box containing quiche, feels light... open it up, find that all but an eighth of it has been eaten.

"Oh" says DH, "I got hungry last night, I didn't know it was for anything in particular"

I remonstrate that of course it was for a feckin' meal, since when do I buy quiche for him to snack on?

He replies that I didn't specifically tell him that it wasn't to be eaten, therefore he's within his rights to help himself.

I feel
a) I'm not his mother, why the hell should I have to inform him in minute detail of what he can and can't eat?
b) Neither are we students in a shared house, I should not have to label the food!
c) Why can't he eat 3 meals a day instead of saving himself for just once a day and then raid the fridge and cupboards for whatever he can cram down his mouth that evening? It's not like I'm not buying him things to snack on, but he always goes for the other stuff!

OP posts:
aleene · 25/02/2010 23:40

Well you are both R and UR.
You need to post your menu up on the fridge so DH is exactly clear what he can touch and what is for meals. Boring, but no good doing a menu and not informing other people.

issysmilkbottle · 25/02/2010 23:42

i would be furious too! My dh has a late night snack habit and will happily eat all the bread/cheese/ham that i need to make ds packed lunch with!

Perhaps to prove a point put sticky labels on food to say what meal they are for....

Pikelit · 25/02/2010 23:44

YANBU. Since when has a whole (tea sized) quiche been snackin' fodder? Adults shouldn't need menus posted up either. You aren't running a school meals service.

Joolyjoolyjoo · 25/02/2010 23:44

I feel your pain! I am an avid menu planner- like you got fed-up with food beiong thrown out- and have a DH with a voracious appetite. Sometimes it is as if a plague of locusts have been in the fridge!

I have, however, trained him now- he will usually ask "Is this ham FOR something?" before devouring the whole packet. I used to buy a cooked chicken and leave it at the front of the fridge as a decoy, to prevent him finding other juicy morsels!

If he eats something I have bought in for a particular recipe, I make him go out to the supermarket to buy it again, so he doesn't do it very often now. However, we did have "Cheesegate" recently, where a 0.5kg block of cheese disappeared in 2 days!

You are NBU! I buy in thing he likes to snack on, but then he tells me he is "bored" of them, or "doesn't fancy" them, then rants that there is no food in the house I tell him he can have anything he wants if he then gets his arse down to the 24-hr supermarket and replaces it.

RebeccaRabbit · 25/02/2010 23:45

YABU. He's an adult so should be able to eat what he likes in his own home.

He is also BU in that he should have prepared the evening meal for the family if you were swimming and then had to dash out for a rehearsal.

BitOfFun · 25/02/2010 23:47

I think you are being unreasonable actually- since when has quiche ever constituted a meal? A light lunch at a pinch, but it's not exactly a force to be reckoned with, and fair game for the peckish...

Agree that you need to put a weekly menu on the fridge to avoid similar misunderstandings.

Joolyjoolyjoo · 25/02/2010 23:48

Ah, but for those who say put up a menu- I do, but DH ignores it, or apparently doesn't realise that I might need cheese to make macaroni CHEESE!

Fimblehobbs · 25/02/2010 23:49

YANBU
I meal plan, it's boring but necessary, and woe betide anyone mucking the plans up! I do leave the menu in the kitchen, not that dh looks at it though...

paisleyleaf · 25/02/2010 23:49

So did he have a bit less quiche with his salad for tea?

aleene · 25/02/2010 23:50

lol at 'cheesegate'

Shodan · 25/02/2010 23:54

Threaten to cut off his goolies if he doesn't check with you first in future.

That's what I did with DH when he 'snacked' on the mammoth vatful of bolognese sauce I'd made intending to freeze it for 7 future meals.

BooHooMonkey · 25/02/2010 23:57

OP are You married to my DH? this used to be the situation in my house!

I sense I am about to get flamed here, but my solution was to give DH a drawer in the fridge where everything was a free for all, so if he wanted to snack or needed to plan a meal he could, knowing important components of future meals are not involved.( Or KIC OF MANI as its known in our house)

GoddessInTheKitchen · 25/02/2010 23:59

i think yabvu (sorry) you even said it yourself... 'I'm not his mother, why the hell should I have to inform him in minute detail of what he can and can't eat?'

exactly! he can eat what he likes its his fridge as much as yours

i can see your frustration though as you had plans for dinner and he scuppered them!

GoddessInTheKitchen · 26/02/2010 00:00

good idea boo

Mumcentreplus · 26/02/2010 00:00

...I think he would have been UR if you had warned him that the quiche was for dinner..so I think you may be a tad UR because it was not discussed..

Personally I would actually be quite pissed if food in my house was rationed and regimented but then I'm not a midnight muncher..

if it upsets you then speak to him take him food shopping (I take mine and you can buy him things that he is only allowed to snack on and when they are done he replaces them no random eating allowed

UnquietDad · 26/02/2010 00:02

Real Men Don't eat Quiche.

I have no idea what that means, but I heard it somewhere in the 1980s.

Mumcentreplus · 26/02/2010 00:03

@GITK

Pikelit · 26/02/2010 00:03

That's a very sensible idea BooHooMonkey.

ChippingIn · 26/02/2010 00:05

Bloody hell - you lot are controlling!

Unless money is extremely tight, to the point where food really, really does have to be rationed out in a fairly controlled manner, if someone can't go into their own fridge and eat what they feel like, it's a sorry state of affairs.

You are right - you are not his Mother - so stop acting like it telling him what he can and can't eat out of his own bloody fridge.

If it's something you need for that night (ie when you are in a hurry and are counting on it), then put a note on it to say it's for tonights dinner - better still, talk to the man and tell him it's for dinner.

Menu planning - boring as all hell. Buy smaller amounts of food, eat what you want, buy more food - it's not complicated - or buy more food, but make sure things are used up. (Once again, discounting anyone on an extremely tight budget).

Monty100 · 26/02/2010 00:06

Lovecat I feel your pain.

DP doesn't understand the concept of double cooking to freeze. ie I will cook double amount of curry, chilli, bol, etc, go to pot to decant for freezer............ what's left isn't enough to freeze.

And ditto with other stuff ie quiche etc. What I've planned for a meal might be a snack to him.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

GoddessInTheKitchen · 26/02/2010 00:06

actually i just lol because i realised that in my house this would have been a completely different arguement!

dp would think me totally unreasonable for attempting to give him quiche and salad for dinner!

so i agree with unquietdad

BooHooMonkey · 26/02/2010 00:08

Thankyou Pikelit and GITK. I think I may start a petition to get KIC OF MANI to be an acronym on MN

GoddessInTheKitchen · 26/02/2010 00:08

monty, you are obviously not cooking double then are you! you need to be cooking double that!

Original poster
Lovecat · 26/02/2010 00:08

Hmm... okay, I take on board what you're saying.

However, in my defence, DH does not do the food shopping or the cooking and has no interest in getting involved in it either. If I don't cook/am not there he will either get a takeout or else wait for me to come in and then give me the puppy eyes and 'ooh, glad you're back, what are we having to eat?' thing . The times he does come along, I end up spending double the amount I normally do because of all the shite extras he loads into the trolley.

I would love to be able to load up my fridge with food and let him eat what he likes, but the fact is, we can't afford to do that. We are trying to economise so we can afford a holiday abroad this year, and food is one of our major expenses. He has agreed we need to do this, so it infuriates me that he can't stick to it!

But yes, I will write up the week's meals in future and stick it on the fridge. Whether he bothers to read it or not is a whole other matter....

And I like quiche. So ner.

(as it happened I made DD beans on toast and left him to fend for himself - I got myself a McD's on the way to rehearsal!)

OP posts:
BitOfFun · 26/02/2010 00:09

The whole point of your meal planning is that you don't want food to be wasted. If someone has eaten something, it wasn't wasted.

So unless he is kicking up a stink at nipping out to replace the absent ingredients, you are definitely being unreasonable!