OS marital ethical dilemma

cheapskate101

If it is any consolation I usd to have to burn my ex-husband's toast as it was just like mother used to make it.

You'll have noticed the 'ex'.

gooismeid

I didn't know you WEREN'T supposed to burn toast until it was black until I was a teenager - my mum was always forgetting the toast and decided it was easier to like burnt toast than to throw it away or make a mess by scraping it in the sink! She still likes it burnt now, 40 years later.

eamon

I can remember being a bit of a fussy eater as a small child. However like most people I grew out of it. The thing that changed me was going to boarding school at the age of 13. We had Polish nuns doing most of the cooking for breakfast & dinner and a regular school dinner prep team for lunch (this was also pre food service days). Whilst I appreciate that they didn't have the biggest budgets the food could be a appalling. However I like the other boarders and unlike the day boys didn't have the option of being a refusenik! Having no option changes everything!!

yours

Eamon

tr3mor

allIcouldwishfor wrote: »

I don't let my children say they don't like something that they haven't tried either. But we're not talking about children here. My husband is not a child and if he says he doesn't like something then that's fair enough, whatever his reasons are. Mine doesn't like certain foods, so I don't cook them for him. If I want those foods then I'll have them but I won't force him to. I don't see what's wrong in respecting his judgement over whether he wants to eat something or not.

Surely your kids see him as a role model?

Fussy eaters have fussy parents. When I have kids I'd go absolutely mad at my partner if she refused to eat something but expected them to.

Roz_V

My OH, although he will eat pretty much any ingredient, doesn't like "Vegetarian Meals"... or so he declared to me the other night:

Him: "I don't like vegetarian meals, there's no point in them"
Me: "What do you mean by a vegetarian meal? And since when haven't you liked them?"
Him: "Meals with no meat in are pointless, I've never seen the point in them"
Me: "When was the last time we ate a vegetarian meal then *****?"
Him: "ooooh ages ago..."
Me: "What about the chickpea curry we had for tea? or the 3 Bean Chilli we had the other night? or the Mexican (spicy bean) tortillas you had for lunch?"
Him: "There wasn't meat in any of that stuff?! But it didn't taste bland..."

:rotfl: Bless him...

Deb_Williams

All this talk of ILs reminds me of my late MIL.

She used to cook ENORMOUS roast meals for the family (sometimes 16 of us sitting down to dinner), often with two different joints of meat at the same meal.

She'd cook a variety of veg in the pressure cooker. Unfortunately she took no account of the reduced times this should involve, plus having 'hard' veg in at the same time as leaf veg. You can imagine what it was like, having been left to (over)cook for nearly half an hour. :eek:

She'd dish everything up onto everyone's plates (no helping yourself at her house!), then sit back and wait for us to praise the meal! Sometimes it was a long wait.

Fortunately she didn't often get the chance to ruin the meat as one of her sons or sonsIL would take that over. And my SIL (born in Bradford) would make the Yorkshire pud. :T

It took YEARS to persuade my three kids that cabbage and broccoli does actually taste nice, if it's not overcooked (my eldest daughter now runs her own restaurant).

Bargain_Rzl

While I agree in principle that an adult should be allowed to make up their own mind what they will and will not eat, there has to be some compromise in the context of a couple or family who are being fed at the same time and by the same person!

In a household where the man expects the woman to be the family "home economist" - i.e. grocery budget manager and cook - it's only reasonable to expect that the woman will make decisions about what will go in the food. No housewife wants to cook two separate meals every dinnertime, one for the non-fussy eaters and one for the fussy eaters - it's more effort and more cost. Unless there's a genuine reason for special treatment (such as allergies, diabetes, or vegetarianism) then I think the person who plans and prepares the meals should only consider one thing (other than the budget) - "Will the people I am feeding enjoy this meal?".

If the answer is yes, then the ingredients are immaterial If hubby wants something different, even though wife knows he WILL like it as long as he doesn't know what's in it, he can prepare it himself and pay for it out of his own spending money!

allIcouldwishfor

tr3mor wrote: »

Surely your kids see him as a role model?

Fussy eaters have fussy parents. When I have kids I'd go absolutely mad at my partner if she refused to eat something but expected them to.

My children aren't fussy eaters (neither is my husband, there's just some foods he doesn't like), they eat very well and will always try something new, safe in the knowledge that if they don't like it they won't have to eat the rest of it and we will try it again another time.

Children don't know enough about food and nutritition to make an informed choice about which foods to eat to get a balanced diet but my husband is a mature adult quite capable of understanding the consequences of his actions.

Incidently, one of the foods he refuses to eat is due to the fact he was force fed it as a child until he was physically sick. Are you saying it would be setting my children a good example to trick him into eating it? My husband is a role model for them but so am I.

MATH

I'm so very lucky! Mrs MATH and the MATHLETTS eat almost anything.
The MATHLETTS don't like mushrooms so I deliberately leave them cut large enough for them to pick out. However, every 6 months or so, they do have to eat one to see if they like them yet. LOL I keep telling them their tastes change as they grow up and one day they will just luuuurve mushrooms. They give me that look that only children heading for teenagedom can give - withering, I think describes it best:D

Mrs MATH isn't mad on cauliflower cheese so I save that for the nights she is out and I'm not mad on roast Pork so we never eat that:rotfl: Well, there has to be some perks to bring to head cook and bottle washer:D

MATH

I think their is a case for the adult who knows best (usually wife) forcing another adult (usually hubby) to revisit something they claim not to like.

My Father is a very fussy eater and it always restricted the family diet when we were growing up. One of the many things he claims to lothe is whipped cream, for years he has shunned my Mothers legendary Sherry trifles and pavlovas.

Out at an event a few years ago, social nicety forced him to eat whipped cream and guess what... HE LIKED IT:D Turns out that in 1964 he ate what he thought was whipped cream and didn't like it and would never go near it again, further investigation revealed that it wasn't whipped cream he had eaten but Tip Top:rotfl:

I'm open and honest with my lot because they eat most things and I think everyone is entitled to few don't likes but if they were fussy and faddy I would mince things small and lie through my teeth!