Embarrassingly greedy DH

[Ludicruss]

Today, we had a socially distanced gathering for a handful of people in our garden. It was great, but I'd forgotten about the way DH behaves around food when we're entertaining in our own home.
I was serving the food myself to prevent the risk of any covid contamination, wearing gloves. DH goes to find something to do inside whilst I serve the food for everyone and myself. He reappears when everyone starts eating and serves his own plate. What he then does is finish EVERYTHING off, leaving no possibility for me to return to serve up seconds for anyone. I was mortified. His plate was over flowing and more than doubled everyone elses plate.
I could see him standing at the side of the garden eating away his mountain of food out of the corner of my eye, DM got up to see what was left when she had finished, clearly intending to have some more. But all of it had gone.
I had tipped 3 packets of crisps into one bowl and nobody had asked for any during the first time I was serving, when I looked into the bowl after DHs visit, there were around 8 crisps left in the bottom of it. He had demolished almost all of them.
There was a tiny piece of chicken left and a pitta bread which DM ate as she clearly hadn't finished eating ( she had only wanted a small amount on her plate originally). I was also still hungry.
I had made most of the food and I'm pissed off that my effort was wasted on him stuffing himself with it all.
I was utterly embarrassed.
I made a joke about him eating all the crisps and DH went extremely red in the face. He will no doubt call me out on it later on for embarrassing HIM!
He is very over-weight and embarrassed about it, but nobody is allowed to mention it or his eating habits. And yet he stuffed himself with all the food for the guests.

How do I broach this? I love entertaining, I have really missed it, but he spoilt it for me today.

He doesn't do this when he visits other peoples houses,just at ours.

If there is ever shared food on the table at regular meal times,he always seems to wait until we all have a bit on our plates and then eats everything that's left. Sometimes I find myself filling my own plate with too much before he dives in and eats it all. I rarely serve food this way in th3 evenings because of his greediness. But it can't be helped when entertaining.

What do I say to him?
It's ridiculous.

Yes, I get why op plated up in the current climate, but not why she didn't just serve a chicken breast and pitta as a standard portion.
There shouldn't have been scope for "how much would you like?" in that scenario, unless it was "would you like one or two?" and as op had involved half portions in her portion control that wasn't an option.

@Thisismytimetoshine

She harangued him about eating all the crisps, in front of their guests.

@Thisismytimetoshine

The OP stated this in her opening post: “I made a joke about him eating all the crisps and DH went extremely red in the face.“

How is that haranguing him? She didn’t even mention to him all the other food he took.

OP, if you want to discuss this further, start a thread with a really dull title and link to it from here.

Then those who RTFT can join you for a relationship-based convo and those who want to get excited about food and portion sizes and woman-blaming can keep going here.

But why didn't op plate up her husbands at the same time. It's like he wasn't properly invited.

Did he skulk off with his plate of shame because he you gave him 'the look' op; or is he always like it?

@CharlotteCollinsneeLucas

@Ludicruss but seriously though, was there any chatting with your husband afterward? And yes, I actually would start a different thread.

Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it with her because she's overweight herself.

Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it because she has form for under catering and blaming him for it.

Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it because he's fed up of "mountains of food" ,"piled up plates", "demolishing", "hoovering" etc comments.

People aren't blaming her just for the sake of it. They are because she under catered and her reluctance to admit it ,she over exaggerated, and (at least for me) the maths doesn't add up. In one of her updates she insists that what she served the first time was more than enough, but at the same time complains her and her mum went hungry.

Her first post definitely does not paint a picture of 2.5 chicken breasts,3 small pittas and 2/3 little bags of crisps.

The op can be a man, woman or zebra I would still say they are the shit host. The other adult of the household is obviously not part of the group - why else would they run and hide? Very controlling partner is the op. The other half is bullied by the op and needs help.

Lol, yes start another thread because anyone who disagrees with you won’t spot it..🤣

As it stands, the only thing OP's really told us about is her feelings about his eating. It's hard to discuss their relationship when this is all we have to go on - and more so when it doesn't sound like he ate an unreasonable amount, OP seemed to be surrounded by people with disordered or restricted eating habits who may skew her view on portion size, and when her descriptions don't make it clear whether her portions were filling or not, as PrincessConsuela pointed out.

The only other thing that's clear is the contempt with which OP views her husband. But maybe OP doesn't want to discuss that.

Oh wow the incredible double standards once again shown.
the OP's DH behaviour may have been annoying (although I have to say I am bemused that the OP was able to keep tabs on who ate what) there is a huge difference behaviour. The OP purposely acted and spoke in a way to embarrass her DH in front of others. She made a joke so people could both notice and laugh at him.
There is no excuse for this disgraceful behaviour .
I doubt those agreeing with her would do so if he had made a joke about her being too fat etc infront of friends.
Instead he would have been called cruel controlling, manipulative and a bully, which is exactly what she is

In our family someone seen to be greedy can be called out on it in a jokey way. Maybe op is the same.

Cousin Dave goes in for a third large sausage roll from the buffet with quite a few people waiting, Uncle Ron shouts 'Oi Dave, leave some for the rest of us will you, I'm starving!' with a laugh, job done.

@Jenniferjareau agree - I wouldn’t throw a strop if dh said “Oi leave some for the rest of us”either.

@Jenniferjareau

I don't think the OP was in a jokey mood after her husband took a plateful , have you read the first post? I think everyone can agree she wasn't in a humorous mood.

She lieterly said it in her op imade a joke about him eating all the crisps

There are jokes that are genuinely meant to be funny and said in a good natured way, and acerbic loaded comments with underlying subtext intended to embrarrass. From the opening post, I would hazard a guess it was the latter.

I am now imagining a sort of Maggie Smith Dowager Countess withering comment, but I may just be getting carried away!

I think the OP was embarrassed and used a joke to cover it up, at his expense and thereby passing the embarrassment to her DH.

Of course this whole debacle would have been avoided if she had served up more chicken

I know but there are jokes and there are jokes.... "I made a joke about him eating all the crisps" is what she said. (Isn't really a funny joke)

Maybe I'm missing something but I get the feeling she was pretty annoyed by this point (she says herself she is pissed off)

I don't think it was a well meant joke. I think it was a dig she could disguise as a joke .

If this was the other way round and someone's DH had said this to them there'd be outrage.

I would be absolutely livid if my partner dared comment on my eating / consumption in front of others.

Cook more food. You didn't plan it well, that's what it shows me!

It's like Jack Sprat and his bloody wife round 'ere...the husband wants to eat loads and the wife has been miserly in her portion sizes. Both bad hosts.

Food (and lack therefore) aside - I’d be pissed off of dh did the following

1. Skulked around inside only appearing when the food was available
2. Took every last thing left without checking if guests wanted any more
3. Sat over in a corner eating it all by himself.
4. Then ate all the crisps after no one else had any.

I’ve said it before - I’ll say it again - it’s about manners. Op said she loves entertaining - his behaviour is not really conductive to this.

@Jenniferjareau

In our family someone seen to be greedy can be called out on it in a jokey way. Maybe op is the same.

Cousin Dave goes in for a third large sausage roll from the buffet with quite a few people waiting, Uncle Ron shouts 'Oi Dave, leave some for the rest of us will you, I'm starving!' with a laugh, job done.

Ah yes but at that point uncle Dave can stop himself or return it. Even give it to whoever said it.

What she did was say this AFTER he’s already eaten it. What was he meant to do? Feed her like a bird?

@Carolbaskinstiger

Food (and lack therefore) aside - I’d be pissed off of dh did the following

1. Skulked around inside only appearing when the food was available
2. Took every last thing left without checking if guests wanted any more
3. Sat over in a corner eating it all by himself.
4. Then ate all the crisps after no one else had any.

I’ve said it before - I’ll say it again - it’s about manners. Op said she loves entertaining - his behaviour is not really conductive to this.

But did he want to entertain? My partner and I don’t always entertain together, very frequently if I am he will only appear to grab food after everyone else has eaten. Because he doesn’t have to host just because I am.

But then we’d run out of food my brother or partner would probably just run to ASDA for more.

The OPs manners haven't been great. She doesn't provide a lot of choice , or a lot of quantity of food. She says it's a basic lunch... Did she really just invite people to a basic lunch? Or did her guests think they were going to get a good meal?

Her opinion of her husband is not nice to listen to , do you think as a guest you would have picked up on this? I would have.

Everything she says about her husband is subjective. He doesn't at any time say anything or do anything that we can really comment on , or have an opinion on. He doesn't make one joke to her , or upsetting comment .

All he does is eat a plate of food , that's all he does ....

Maybe he ate it out of the way because he knows how his wife thinks of him.... It's her family that's visiting maybe he feels alone.

Everything I'm saying is subjective and I couldn't possibly know if it was true or not. Similar to everything the OP says about her husband.

Just because this is relationships, doesn't mean the responses should not be honest and support what the OP thinks is right.

Shaming her H was wrong on every level. It was unkind and uncalled for.

Accusing him of eating all the food as many posters keep on saying, is simply not true. If he did that ....he would have had 9 chicken breasts and the same amount of pitta. Just stop saying he ate all the food...he did eat a third of it...never mind all of it.

The problem here is the OP refuses to accept anything was her fault, including under catering.

It's just not okay to shame and embarrass him as she did, then show no remorse.

• 1. Skulked around inside only appearing when the food was available

1. Took every last thing left without checking if guests wanted any more
2. Sat over in a corner eating it all by himself.
3. Then ate all the crisps after no one else had any.*

1. she said he disappeared when she started serving the food. Maybe to get something, maybe he had something to do, maybe he went to look in the kitchen for more food when he saw the portions, maybe he needed a shit.

1. He didn't eat every little last thing.

Basically it comes down to loyalty. You are supposed to have loyalty towards your spouse. Given the actual situation , and I believe I understand it as much as I can... I would be very, very upset if my husband wrote about me in the manner the OP has written about her husband.

If you would be fine with your spouse saying that about you , then I congratulate you on your high self esteem but I also commiserate with you on your poor choice of life partner.

It reminds me of being bullied when I was a child.

And the OP never came back and said, I over reacted guys , I've calmed down. No , she came back and said "I didn't undercater"

She didn't say , please don't call my husband names she just kept saying "I didn't undercater"

She doesn't have a clue what loyalty is and I'm starting to feel sorry with her for that.