Help OH is ruining everything

puddy

mine is very bad and i veer from trying to be firm and in charge in order to stay in control of a budget but at the same time feeling like i have no right to do this, its his home and money too.

he feels that to talk about being careful with money, to prepare for hard times to come, to cut down on things to try to save (haha) for something is 'alarmist'. he feels im 'obsessed' with money because i use this site and try to cut our bills down

he is also incredibly fussy,, he wont eat left overs or a myriad of foods, eggs, pasta, mashed potato, baked beans, anything too tomatoey, too much peppers. on the occasions that he cooks, he cooks for about 4 people, he cannot restrain himself in terms of portion size

if i try and cook things he doesnt like or which are what he considers off, then he will simply go out and get a takeaway.

the worst thing is, he wont eat anything that he considers 'stale' or 'off'. this doesnt have the same meaning for him that it does for you and I. for him it means something that has already been opened. bread is 'off' if it was opened a day ago and he then wont eat the rest. he wont eat jars of things (sauces etc) if theyve been open for a week or so. he wont drink milk that was open a day ago, this all goes to waste.

if i buy him some milk, he will therefore drink a whole litre in one go. if i say, save it for over 2 days, he'll drink half and leave the rest because its now 'stale'.

he wont even eat things that are in the freezer for too long, he says things like 'are you trying to give me that ropey old meat' when its meat that is frozen since we bought it. theres no point trying to explain about sell by/use by/best before to him. as far as he's concerned its all one thing, 'off'. he wont eat anything that has a reduced sticker on it, no matter what the date

in the past, i did damage to our relationship by lying about what id used and that just resulted in him saying he couldnt trust me, so its very difficult. as i say, i veer from one side to the other reading this section sometimes, lots of posters here seem to treat their OHs like children which i sometimes do and then feel bad that im telling him what he can and cant have.

Reverbe

Puddy sorry dump the guy... he sounds a real oddball...I'm sure he must have some amazing redeeming features you havent mentioned here tho so no offence meant..Where DO ppl get these ideas from? Have you ever spoken to him to ask why he thinks this???(parents usually) Ever tried confronting him with scientific evidence? Ever tried psychologists??

Gillyx

My OH is the exact same, he will snack and snack and snack, and I feed him loads already.

For example, the other night, I made us chicken wraps with home made wedges and salad for me (none for him he doesn't like it) so I made 17! chicken goujons for him then threw in another 5 of Mr S's fresh goujons, and used 2 large baked potatoes for the wedges, and gave him 3 wraps. 20 minutes after dinner he made 3 slices of toast and a large tin of spaghetti, then later on that night, a bowl of cereal, 2 kit kat chunkys and a packet of crisps!

I really don't know what to do any more, I just let him get on with it.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Two choices - one is buy enough for the week, plus seven tins of basics beans - and let the food run out. Repeat for as long as it takes for him to realise that eating Sunday dinner by Tuesday afternoon makes for some very boring evenings.

The second is take over another bill or two and leave him to deal with the food side.


My ex was convinced that he was starved if he had less than three chicken breasts per meal. £150 a week on food for two was easy to do.

Most recent fella; great in terms of housework, respect, etc, but despite being more than happy to cook, always an expensive and stressful event for me.

If I bought a fortnight's worth of food, it would be gone before I realised. Two litres of orange juice would be drunk in a day, because it was there. Then the next carton would be opened, only to decide he was fed up with orange juice and he'd go off to the shops to buy 4 litres of something else to waste. If he knew something was for dinner, he would decide he didn't want it and go and spend on takeaways until it went off.

If I bought sausages for toad in the hole, eggs, milk, potatoes, bacon for Saturday breakfast, some cheese for pasta, some shallots for a recipe, tomatoes, flat mushrooms for stuffing, a pack of butter for baking and a loaf of bread, I would wake up to his delightedly incinerating a whole packet of sausages, the packet of bacon, overcooking four eggs in three ounces of butter, a cup of tea which contained a quarter of a cup of milk and a stewed teabag to try and hide the taste, bread, more butter, burned mushrooms in more butter, raw chunks of 7 shallots and 5 ounces of cheese and every single tomato in the house.

Oh, and after half an egg and one sausage, he would decide he'd had enough and would chuck the lot in the bin.


The only way to deal with someone like that is to show them what they do has a consequence. Run out of food.

MessyMare

Newgirl- I do understand what you mean but I should say- OH pays the electricity, water, and the lion's share of the council tax and mortgage. I pay quarter of the council tax, £55 of the mortgage, the phone/broadband, and the food. It works out quite well for us in a sense as I earn a lot less than him, but previously to me losing my job we both had money left in the bank with this system.

Thankfully I have another job to go to now. It's a lot less again than I was on but it's double what I would have got on JSA. Also got another interview for a part time job so hoping I can squeeze this one in too and actually be earning a decent wage.

Thank you everyone, I'm going to try to put some sort of plan into action even if it means just doing lots of HM ready meals!

squeaky

Hmm... how about don't just run out of food but send him shopping for the top-up using his own money? (because you have run out of both??;))

Yes, it'll be more expensive at first (for him) but sooner or later he's going to catch on that running out of food and money is not the best joke he knows. So hopefully, over time, he'll review his attitude to stale/old/"wrong" food and/or learn to shop more frugally.

puddy

Reverbe wrote: »

Puddy sorry dump the guy... he sounds a real oddball...I'm sure he must have some amazing redeeming features you havent mentioned here tho so no offence meant..Where DO ppl get these ideas from? Have you ever spoken to him to ask why he thinks this???(parents usually) Ever tried confronting him with scientific evidence? Ever tried psychologists??

he has got some anxieties about things, i put it down to loss, he lost his mum at 12, was fairly neglected before then, dad then got depressed. he married young, then second wife died when his kids were the same age as him when he lost his mum (iyswim), so i tolerate these things. he does have redeeming qualities!

no, scientific evidence doesnt make any difference, you have to remember that some people have 'faith' in what they believe. just like a religious person that just 'believes' this is what some people are like with their strange beliefs, it doesnt matter what you contradict it with

puddy

Gillyx wrote: »

My OH is the exact same, he will snack and snack and snack, and I feed him loads already.

For example, the other night, I made us chicken wraps with home made wedges and salad for me (none for him he doesn't like it) so I made 17! chicken goujons for him then threw in another 5 of Mr S's fresh goujons, and used 2 large baked potatoes for the wedges, and gave him 3 wraps. 20 minutes after dinner he made 3 slices of toast and a large tin of spaghetti, then later on that night, a bowl of cereal, 2 kit kat chunkys and a packet of crisps!

I really don't know what to do any more, I just let him get on with it.

well he does that too, no sooner has he finished his last mouthful of dinner, he's up getting bread to 'soak up the dinner'. then he's getting frozen berries out of the freezer, then some more bread later

breakfast is a thing of tudor proportions. he will start off with a cup of milk, then ready brek (wont eat porridge), then cheese on toast, then some bread, then some fruit

then he'll say whats for lunch!

puddy

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Two choices - one is buy enough for the week, plus seven tins of basics beans - and let the food run out. Repeat for as long as it takes for him to realise that eating Sunday dinner by Tuesday afternoon makes for some very boring evenings.

The second is take over another bill or two and leave him to deal with the food side.


My ex was convinced that he was starved if he had less than three chicken breasts per meal. £150 a week on food for two was easy to do.

Most recent fella; great in terms of housework, respect, etc, but despite being more than happy to cook, always an expensive and stressful event for me.

If I bought a fortnight's worth of food, it would be gone before I realised. Two litres of orange juice would be drunk in a day, because it was there. Then the next carton would be opened, only to decide he was fed up with orange juice and he'd go off to the shops to buy 4 litres of something else to waste. If he knew something was for dinner, he would decide he didn't want it and go and spend on takeaways until it went off.

If I bought sausages for toad in the hole, eggs, milk, potatoes, bacon for Saturday breakfast, some cheese for pasta, some shallots for a recipe, tomatoes, flat mushrooms for stuffing, a pack of butter for baking and a loaf of bread, I would wake up to his delightedly incinerating a whole packet of sausages, the packet of bacon, overcooking four eggs in three ounces of butter, a cup of tea which contained a quarter of a cup of milk and a stewed teabag to try and hide the taste, bread, more butter, burned mushrooms in more butter, raw chunks of 7 shallots and 5 ounces of cheese and every single tomato in the house.

Oh, and after half an egg and one sausage, he would decide he'd had enough and would chuck the lot in the bin.


The only way to deal with someone like that is to show them what they do has a consequence. Run out of food.

but this is an example of what im talking about, who are we to decide that we can dictate what someone can eat in their own home. you say 'run out of food' but my OH simply goes out and buys his own, it will consist of stag chilli, fray bentos, crap basically, things i dont want him eating, things he cant afford to buy

left to their own devices they will waste money unless an alternative is given, mine got a shock when i found a load of marks and spencers receipts which he had bought food for lunches at work, totalling about £10 a time, i found 4 of those, all rubbish, croissants, pastries, pork pies etc etc

Trixysticks

I sympathise with you Colleen! I do a fortnightly online shop from Asda with a strict budget and meal plan. To keep OH happy I also do a mini shop on approved food about once a month. I order all the cheap luxury crackers, biscuits, pate... and stock the cupboard with them. Keeps things cheap but he can have a few snacks.