My boyfriend loves stew, he wants to eat it every day for every meal. His favorite stew is beef tips and vegetables from a local place, but it’s really expensive. Like $47 for a big bowl (they don’t do small orders for takeout) and he is grossed out by leftovers so more than half of it gets wasted.
We’ve had a couple of arguments about it, he says I don’t understand his brain, I say he doesn’t understand our budget. Recently I looked up some recipes, including doing a dissection of the takeout soup, and tried my hand at making a home cooked replacement for stew night.
He loved it for a few days, and then one night he was hanging out with me in the kitchen and saw me put tomato paste into the pot, he was really upset and demanded that I make the soup without the paste. I told him it wouldn’t taste the same and he said it would be better because he hates tomatoes, they’re not a safe food for him.
So I made the soup with no tomato paste and big surprise, something felt off about it to him. Instead of admitting that the tomato paste was necessary he threw a fit and told me he didn’t want home cooked food anymore if I was going to “play with him” and not take his safe foods seriously, he thinks I changed more than just the tomato paste in an effort to get him to admit he was wrong.
$400 in stew orders later I had an idea to ask the chef when we were picking up the order if there was any tomato products in the stew, and lo and behold there is tomato in the recipe, f--king tomato paste.
In my mind this was great because I thought he would get over it if he knew his original perfect stew had tomato paste like “oh I guess tomato paste isn’t so bad then” but it was the exact opposite.
He walked out of the restaurant without saying anything and then refused to eat the stew that night and hasn’t ordered it again, and he’s been ignoring me while sulking around the house, using his whiny voice a lot, and slamming things. His sister also texted me to tell me I’m a selfish asshole for needing to “get back at him” by taking his favorite food away.
I literally just wanted to stop spending insane amounts of money on stew, I wasn’t trying to hurt him or ruin his life. I’m not autistic, I can’t really wrap my head around caring this much about a single ingredient, I genuinely didn’t see this reaction coming. We’ve been together for four years and he’s only had three other fits like this, the other ones were pretty reasonable.
Those were also a little less intense and didn’t include input from his family, this is the first time anyone in his family has EVER spoke to me like this. So I’ve been back and forth between “yall are overreacting” and “what have I done." AITA? It sounds so dumb when I write it all out but living it has made me feel physically sick with regret, I can’t think straight anymore.
ETA: I’m getting ready for work right now so I can’t respond to individual comments but there’s some recurring confusion/questions I wanted to clear up because it might effect the answers:
1/ The stew place is a catering place with a mini-restaurant, so every time we order takeout we’re ordering a catering amount pretty much, it’s not stew made of gold lol 2/ We order from there 2-3 nights a week, it’s not the only thing he eats it’s just the top 5 foods for him, he doesn’t eat this unreasonably every single day.
3/ He has a job and contributes with money, I’m not funding his entire diet. We do mix money, so even though “he” pays for the meal half the time it does still feel like “we’re” losing money. He works part time and I work full time, bills are probably split 70-30.
monkey_monkey_monkey wrote:
Massively NTA.
Honest question OP - do you want to deal with this for the rest of your life?
Not sure what you want for your life - kids? Travel? Marriage?
When you envision these things, do you see them revolving around hunting down this specific stew to feed your partner? Do you see yourself sitting on a white sand beach worrying about where you're going to find stew?
What is it that you are getting out of this relationship? From your description, it sounds like you're the one doing the work to provide him with his food, possibly footing the financial cost of it. If you're not planning on focusing the rest of your life around stew, why are you sinking money, time and energy into this relationship?
phteven980 wrote:
I don’t believe this is a question of AH behavior or not. You are an absolute angel for dealing with this for so long.
Relationships have their quirks and struggles. Finances and budgets can be a huge one, no matter what. When in-laws get involved the quick and easy response for me is always: when you start contributing to paying our bills then you get to start contributing to our financial conversations.
Essentially this is what is happening when your BF’s family is getting involved. They are sticking their nose in your business. If you take the autism out of the equation, this is just a fight about budgeting better. If you throw it back in there, they clearly dealt with his safe food issues his entire life and consider it your turn now. $47 per meal and not eating leftovers is a one way ticket to homelessness.
Reckless spending on a food item you can clearly make yourself, bravo to you for doing it at home to save the money. Autistic spectrum is tough. Sensory sensitivity, food issues, social missteps, and just so many other areas of concern. You’ve been in a relationship for four years so you clearly understand this struggle. It won’t get any better with him.
Him moping and whiny voice acting out will probably fade with time. The question for you to answer is whether you see this as a relationship ending fight or a bump in the road. Do you see a future with him? Getting married and having children isn’t the answer for everyone but if it is on your radar, that’s the question and not if you’re an AH for ruining stew.