Food "banter"

[Chocoshot]

My OH is obsessed with food and makes me the butt of his food banter every Christmas. He's savoury, I'm sweet. So naturally, by the time he's consumed enough bread rolls, crisps, nuts, onion rings, salt and vinegar sticks and cheese and crackers, naturally I've already made a start on the Christmas chocolates as I only eat chocolate and nuts.

He's just opened the Christmas biscuits after consuming enough savoury Christmas food to sink a ship and I knew it was coming... "ate enough of the chocolate ones have we?! Har har har har!! Didn't like these ones did you?! Har har har har" whilst shoving 3 biscuits into his big gob all at once.

I snapped at him that he's going for the chocolate after consuming all the savoury and that he had already eaten all of the nice m&s truffles yesterday and left all the dark ones.

Now I apparently "can't take a joke."
No, I can't.
I HATE food banter and the obsession about what I have/haven't eaten. I hate having to share food with him because there's endless comments about my selections. All said with a big daft banter smile on his face.

The irony is that he's enormously overweight and is getting bigger. I am also overweight- size 16 (nowhere near his size) but have lost weight, taken up regular exercise, joined a gym and decided that this Christmas I was going to enjoy my chocolates without guilt. But he makes me feel guilty and question myself over whether I've eaten too many etc which I hate.

I know as soon as he opens the box or tin there's going to be some sort of joke made about what's left, but it's him with the real problem.

After telling me repeatedly that I can't take a joke, I've told him angrily that I don't find him remotely funny and that perhaps if he didn't have such a problem with food himself then he wouldn't be so bothered about what I'm eating. I then called him a greedy pig for everything he's consumed this Christmas (I know I shouldn't have) he just really got my back up.

Does anyone else find this sort of "banter" extremely triggering?

He needs to sort himself out anyway and I am sick of his unhealthy lifestyle.

This doesn't sound like banter, it just sounds nasty. Why is he so obsessed with what you're eating?

My DP and I are the sweet and savoury people. He loves chocolate, I love crisps. Neither of us would be vicious to each other about eating the others stuff (although if he eats my dark chocolate Toblerone, he will be out on his ear,and he knows this).

@funnylittlefloozie I don't know, but its weird. Everyday the first thing he asks me when he gets home from work is "what did you eat for lunch?" And if he suspects I've had a mcdonalds which is rare, he raids the bin for my wrappers 😳

It's not banter, it's not funny. If you told him you don't like it, why does he keep doing it?

What if you refuse to engage? Don't talk about food with him, don't share food with him. If he asks what you had for lunch, tell him you don't want to talk about it and change the subject.

Wow grow up. He isn't funny but you also sound very immature and the pair of you have terrible communication.

How fucking toxic. Raiding the bins to find out what you’ve eaten is not normal. He needs an ultimatum, he needs to work on his food issues or you’ll leave him.
Tell him how much it hurts you.

It doesn’t sound like you even like each other.

The way he is carrying on he Will solve the problem himself......unless he drastically changes his lifestyle!!

Do you have DC together. I'm also a 16 and if my DH said anything about what I'm eating I would laugh at him and eat more biscuits.

Banter is just another word for bullying. Funnily enough, mostly used by bullies.

2 DCs @bananalanacake
Perhaps I'm being a bit touchy?

I'm fed up of banter in general. Just want to be nice to each other but everything turns into a competition.

Your husband sounds absolutely vile and disgusting. Why live like this?

As you have children I would suggest relationship counselling. Otherwise LTB.

He seems deeply unhappy and projects it to you to mke you unsecure. What do you say to him when he’s looking in the bin? That’s terrible..

That is not banter... it's him projecting all of his insecurities and food issues onto you

He needs to stop and take a long good look at himself and grow up

As OP said it's all about insecurities. My husband was similar until he actually lost weight himself and since then has never said a thing! It's them projecting their greedy guilt while you're trying your best!

Your other half sounds a bit of an arse. Sorry. Sounds like he's shaming you for your food choices and there's just no need for that. I agree because he is aware of his own bad food choices he makes himself feel better by commenting negatively on yours.

I would say he's jealous you've made the changes you have and wanted to belittle this. Underneath he probably wants to do the same thing but won't admit that.

[quote Chocoshot]@funnylittlefloozie I don't know, but its weird. Everyday the first thing he asks me when he gets home from work is "what did you eat for lunch?" And if he suspects I've had a mcdonalds which is rare, he raids the bin for my wrappers 😳[/quote]
My ex husband used to do this. I divorced him for being emotionally abusive.

That’s horrific OP - the repeated comments and the bin searching are horrible, but on top of that to refuse to engage when you tell him how upsetting/triggering it is - that’s really awful and shows a complete lack of empathy

Seems to me you don’t like your DH much and judge him on his eating habits as much as he does you and, although you may not voice it in the same way, he picks up on that and goes into defence mode.

My DH is a bit like this too (but not as bad). If I buy myself something to eat when I'm out he will ask "where's mine?" Even if it's an ice cream, that would have melted, or a coffee, that would have gone cold. But it's obviously okay for him to buy Mars bars, cans of coke and takeaways without getting me anything.

I challenged him on it when one day he said "we've been eating too much junk lately..." by remaining him that actually I hadn't, it was just him who had been eating. He didn't like it but he couldn't really argue.

He was just saying "we" instead of "I" as a way of convincing himself that he wasn't so bad, it wasn't just him. Even when it was. This could be what your DH is doing too, telling himself that other people secretly eat McDonalds in their cars and hide the wrappers because it won't seem bad that he does it.

Mine also used to express shock if I ever dared to declare that I was hungry. "Really?! I'm not hungry at all!" so I'd remind him that since we'd had breakfast I hadn't eaten anything whereas he'd had three bags of crisps, a bag of jellies and half a pack of biscuits. So that could have something to do with the difference in our current appetite. He doesn't do that anymore now which is good as we have children now and he would absolutely have carried on that attitude to them.

He doesn't want you to lose weight, does he? Wants you behaving just like he does, as that would mean you wouldn't realise there is more to life than having somebody paint you as a greedy slob?

Quick way to lose 20 stone = dump him

This was one of the ways my ex used to emotionally abuse me. “Jokes” about what I’d eaten, opening packets of biscuits and shouting “who ate these?” when it was only two of us in the house. This slowly turned into him monitoring all the food in the house and constantly telling me that there was no way I could be hungry at lunchtime because I had eaten dinner the night before. The fact that I hadn’t eaten that day at all didn’t matter.

I was very skinny and very miserable when I was with him. This was one of only a huge range of abusive behaviours but it’s a real cunts trick to make someone afraid or uncomfortable to eat in their own home.

You think you’re being a bit touchy?

About your bin rummaging bullying freak of a boyfriend?