DP wants to buy food seperately

[NotTheBlinkingGruffaloAgain]

Me and DP have lived together for 2 years but for the first year and a half we lived in a commune with 30 other people with a cooking rota.
Now we live in a cottage together (since last September) he is really annoying me, he wants us to buy our own food and do our own shopping.
But when I come home from work I find that he has been eating my food so I go to get breakfast and its gone.
It really pisses me off that he refuses to shop with me but when I'm out, he eats all my (good quality) food.
What can I do?
Tonight we got into a silly argument, I said look I want to start shopping together for food and he got angry saying you eat my pea nut butter and my bread, so petty ad juvenile. But I'm starting to resent him eating my food whilst refusing to pay for any of it AHHH help!

Debt Relief Orders are quicker and simpler than bankruptcy, don't know much about them, they came in after my time. Same as I am a bit weak on bankruptcy.

BUT - this is his problem. How he approaches this will tell you a great deal about how he is going to approach all the other issues in the relationship. This isn't about the debt, it's how he deals with it.

Good luck

(btw - frugal living, bankruptcy, debt problems - lots of info on moneysavingexpert.com forums, might be worth a browse if you haven't seen them, I loot recipes and shopping tips from there).

Hey, what an awful situation, I think its become clear your not that happy, a little advice from a 38 yo mum of 2 my ds is 3 and my dd 19 month, when you have your kids it will be hard enough without worrying about your partner, you need a strong supportive partner to lean on for a bit, look to your future, what kind of father would this man make, not one to support his family. It sounds like he could have some kind of depression, but please get out of this now, don't waste your youth on him. You have plently time to enjoy being single and eventually find someone who loves and respects you and with whom you can have a healthy relationship with. Good luck.

Your relationship reminds me of one I entered at 18. I'll skip to the end (3 years later) - he wouldn't eat unless I cooked for him (and I'm fairly sure I bought all the food), even though I was a full time student and he worked, I paid all the rent and bills as his money just seemed to disappear.

I stayed as I felt an obligation to 'look after him' - I didn't know how he could cope with the bills etc on his own and I cared for him. I remember it took a while to remove myself. I had a moment at 2am one night where I sobbed as I knew it was over. It took a few more months to actually leave but mentally it was over for me from then. I stopped cooking for him and he lost a lot of weight but i knew then that wasn't my responsibility. It took time for me to withdraw.

When I did leave, he found someone else in a week and I was happy for him but exhausted in myself from the effort of the relationship. A few weeks after that I was having the time of my life but I was angry that I'd been such a mug. I'm still angry that I wasted that time with him.

This is why I am joining the chorus of people wanting you leave, but i think it sounds like you're headed in the right direction. :)

OP, a lot of people have given their natural, but extrreme reactions here and it may have had you reading this thread going "he's not that bad" to yourself again and again.

I think the question you should have been asked is "Is he in love with you?". The word "YES" or "NO" probably immediately came into your head, I'm afraid that first thought is probably the right one.

If he is in love with you, then he is obviously very damaged psychologically and incapable of showing his love in an adult relationship. If you are in love with him, you might have the patience and commitment to work on this for the years and years that will be necessary to try and build a proper life together. If you're not, you definitely won't.

If he's not in love with you, why is he with you? As many people have pointed out, because he sees you as a flatmate with benefits and a good person to depend on for the bills etc. Because he is the sort of person who slides into the easiest setup going and tries to stay there as long as possible, so that he doesn't have to make any effort. When things go wrong he will probably move on to the next free ride rather than have to take a good look at himself and sort things out (as in his teaching job).

Buying a fridge is a small step towards being a better flatmate, but nowhere near starting to be a better partner. My best advice to you is to live together strictly as flatmates for a while and see how that works out. If you happen to fall head over heels for each other again, great. If you can put up with him better as a flatmate than a partner, you are free to move on with you love life without having to deal with all the domestic turmoil - yet. If he is just as useless a flatmate as he is a partner, he isn't worth the leather on your shoes as you kick him out the door.

Today when I got in from work, he had bought me 2 presents, washed up all the crap I left in the washing up bowl before I left for work and said come on Im taking you out for dinner.

I have barriers up, it had never crossed my mind that I can actually leave at any given moment and sitting with the realization that there probably isn't a future for us esp. with regards to having children, has changed how I respond to him and what I expect.

We were in the coop after out meal and I said we need some food for tomorrow night, he insisted on going halves.

So basically he is on his best behavior.

I hope the sex thing will come back, we got home and because he hadn't slept for 24 hours he fell asleep, fair play, I'm still confused, I am young (had somehow forgotten this) and flirting with the idea of having great sex and being with someone who loves music and books, popular culture and ambition throughout this rough patch is on my mind.

But those things are illusory and every couple no matter how well suited can't avoid days where things just feel a bit ordinary, a bit stagnant?

I'm watching him like a hawk now and I think he knows it.

I was surviving on the adrenaline of us possibly calling it quits for a few days and now I've entered back into it (tentatively I must add) I feel a bit like I'm muffling a voice that's in alignment with my ultimate destiny (I'm aware of the hippy drippy way that sounds but can't think of a better way to put it!).

Feelings cropping up if I'm honest are guilt, pity and fear, not the healthiest of emotions to glue a relationship together also, being in my comfort zone.

But I've made the decision to give it another go so i'm going to try my best.

Thanks all for your insight- after speaking with my sister last night, she has said just fuck it -you're worth more, you deserve someone who cherishes you and that means the little things like taking you to cafes, buying you freesias, making you feel good.

So basically mirroring what you have said, I will be more hasty to get out if things get bad again/don't improve.

I hope you keep on posting OP.
I think your'e starting to realise how much better life could be, but there's no rush.
Just be happy.

You are cheapening yourself, OP.

One date (that he can't actually afford due to the debts) and you are onside again.
Believe me when I tell you that sex will not come back with a 45 year old man who smokes a lot of pot, it just won't.

Listen to your sister. You owe him nothing and you deserve so much more than this pathetic individual is giving you.
And you are deluding yourself. There is nothing illusory about shared interests and ambitions. They are the bedrock of happy and lasting relationships. If you convince yourself otherwise you are a fool.

I don't think calling the OP a fool is going to particularly help, Alibaba...

Have you realized that what you call "best behaviour" is just NORMAL behaviour? That's just how things are most of the time in a nice relationship.

I read your post in the week but have only just got round to posting. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. You are 27, childfree, working, applying for college. How wonderful. How absolutely wonderful.

And yet, there you are, with all you have to offer and your future before you, having arguments about peanut butter with a middle aged man.

It would break my heart if my daughter ended up wasting her youth in this way.

Please forget about it.

Gruff, I really hope things work out for you

Gruff, i said this before (20000 posts ago!) but you don't have to do anything today, tomorrow, next week. But now you've realised that there is another world, where YOU get to be happy and enjoy yourself freely, with or without a partner, then I think you know where this is going.
Good luck, (and don't ignore the muffled voice)

"music and books, popular culture and ambition" might be illusory.

What is not illusory is getting up every morning and devoting a significant part of your spare time, thought, attention and effort that day to respecting, cherishing and looking after another person.

It is that that a relationship is built on. My relationship with my partner is far from perfect, but it survives because we both know that we are trying to do that, in small ways, and despite the rest of life's hardnesses being sometimes overwhelming, day after day after day. We are not (usually) trying to figure out the minimum that we can do to get the other one of our backs about the rent, the chores, or all the other things. We are trying to find a little way that we can make the other smile, help them out, or surprise them with something nice.

That is what people mean when they say that you deserve better, not (just) the posh tomatoes and the sex.

No, Joy you are right. Gruffalo I'm sorry.

I am just sad to see how a few hours of effort from him have reeled the OP right back in.

I don't think she's really reeled in though... the hook at the moment is probably just force of habit. It's hard to have been in something for a while and just leave it overnight I guess...

I'm just gutted op thinking about the great sex and fun you could be having... dayum girl these are the best days of your life, when you have independence and are coming up to your sexual prime... and a middle aged pothead with no life plans gets to suck all that out of you. Disappointing :(

My sister is only 35 and she is with someone like this. She is dying of cancer and he is just like another cancer beating her down. She has never fagged or drank, I have, I think she has cancer because she has chosen to spend her life with a drain, where I spend my life with a radiator.

Leave him. Make yourself happy, then your mum and your sister will be.

Life is too short to be unhappy for a moment, don't toss away the best years of your life.

But I've made the decision to give it another go so i'm going to try my best.

Oh dear, you truly are hanging yourself by your own petard now aren't you.
You did not listen to your sister either; is that because she is right about him and you don;'t want to hear it.

He hit paydirt the day he met you to use and the sad thing is you're also now fully culpable as an architect in your own downfall.

for goodasgold

Did you stop to think what an idiotic and hurtful statement you were making about why your sister has cancer?

OP I've been there, got the t-shirt and cleared the shit up afterwards. This man will not change. You are going to wake up some day, years down the line and realise you have made a huge mistake, wasting your precious youth on this loser.

Please don't let this just drift on. If you're determined to give him another chance because deep down you think you don't deserve any better then please please put a time limit on it - promise yourself that if you are still feeling like this on 1 March that you will walk out.

Believe me, you will look back on this guy in years to come with absolute horror. I know i do. I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful baby daughter now but my god, i feel ill when I think about what my life could have been like if i hadn't told that manipulative nasty ex to fuck the fuck off. funnily enough I was also 27 when the penny dropped.

Look after yourself OP.

Goodasgold I am very, very sorry about your sister, but I really hope you don't make stupid statements like that in her earshot or to anyone that is likely to repeat them

"now I've entered back into it (tentatively I must add) I feel a bit like I'm muffling a voice that's in alignment with my ultimate destiny"

All I can say is, never ignore that voice within. You do so at your peril, really.

Because one day you will look up, having wasted MORE time on this bloke, and realize you should have listened to it all along. Please come back and post should that ever happen; we will welcome you, and try and help you.
Steady as you go, innit.

I'm joining in the "woo" aspect of this thread, too!

Gruffalo - that inner voice is your true self: the 'wonder child' of inner-child therapy and the 'adult in the child' of Transactional Analysis. It's the instinctual wisdom, inherited from generations past, which abuse can silence but never kill. When I clapped eyes on X2 for the first time, mine spoke very clearly indeed. I ignored it.

Don't ignore your true self; it's trying to protect you :)

Goodasgold - I understand what you meant, I think. The idea that spiritual/emotional imbalances cause physical illness is deeply entrenched in all human cultures. What we're learning about stress as an aggravating factor in illness seems to support that. But we also know that DNA is not perfect. Genetic vulnerabilities exist for no particular reason.

Perhaps medical science will be perfect one day, but it isn't yet. Until then, it's unbelievably arrogant - and unspeakably cruel - to blame illness on the sufferer. I'm a chain smoker, and have had awful relationships, but haven't got cancer (yet) and this isn't thanks to anything I've done or not done. It's bloody good luck, that's all.

When somebody is suffering, the only appropriate response is compassion.

I'm sorry for any offence I caused last night, I was very tired and did not express myself clearly.

thanks for that, goodasgold and I really am very sorry about your sister. It must be very stressful for all the family to be aware that the one who is supposed to love and cherish her is seriously failing in that basic premise x

Gruff, now that you have said a bit more about your childhood, what I said earlier "Secondly - you seem quite starved of care and affection so you wildly appreciate small gestures of kindness and use them to discount all the times and ways you are not treated well" - would seem explain why it is hard for you to expect to be treated well.

As another poster said, your partner treating you to the odd night out and going halves on the food shopping should be normal.

Just keep telling yourself - "I have a right to be treated with love and respect, a relationship does not mean that my needs come second"