Man apologizes but has no regrets after eating wife’s birthday cake. AITA?
"AITA for eating most of her birthday cake?"
My wife (32f) and I (35m) were recently on vacation over the 4th of July, which also happens to be my wife's birthday. We had all the normal traditions for our family, including cake.
We all had a piece day-of but almost nobody ate cake the entire rest of the trip. When the time came to return home, in-laws (MIL made the cake) offered to send the whole thing with us because they "didn't need all that and we will probably just throw it away."
My wife hates food waste, so she brought it. The journey home was two days by car. It has since been two additional days since we got back. Each night after dinner, I've had a reasonably sized piece of the cake for desert.
I used to be a bigger guy and while I have much better habbits now, I still have a soft spot for baked goods...the cake was "budgeted for" though and I had been looking forward to eating a little.
Well today my wife saw that there was only one slice left and was irate... Saying I was completely selfish and had eaten almost all of HER cake. I told her the cake had been available to all for nearly a week (counting days it sat on the counter before we took it home with us) and that nobody had bothered to touch it but me.
I did apologize after she finished explaining to me that it upset her but I don't understand why it's such a big deal to begin with. The cake was right there...she never even had a bite.
For additional context, in the past she has requested that certain foods be saved for her as leftovers etc. Ive obliged, only for that food to sit until it had become moldy and she claims she "forgot it was in there, oops." For someone who hates food waste, allegedly, I find this behavior doubly puzzling... Was I wrong here?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
INFO: As you were helping yourself to a slice of her cake every night, were you also offering to get her a piece and she was declining? Or were you just eating her cake without a word said about it? Based on response, YTA, mainly for not offering her cake while getting some for yourself. (Also, thanks for the awards, whoever did that!)
Do you think she didn't know the cake was there? I don't think it's his job to remind her of the cake every single day...
I don't think it's his job to remind her of the cake. I think it's courteous to offer her a slice of cake when he's getting one for himself, just generally, given that they're married and cohabitating, but especially since the cake was for her birthday.
Seriously? This fight is over WEEK OLD cake? It was time to toss that bad boy anyway.
INFO: "Each night after dinner, I've had a reasonably sized piece of the cake for desert [sic]"
And where was your wife during this? Silently staring at you eating dessert, while she has nothing?
Sweaty_Towel6536 (OP)
In the same room. The cake was in a cooler, in the trunk of our car...or in the hotel room we stayed at en route to our home. There was no attempt to be discreet or sneak a slice while she was away etc.
NTA. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too.
You’re not an AH, but generally when I eat any of my husband’s ‘personal’ food (leftover takeout, something he’s brought home from work, a special snack he either went out of his way to get or was given as a gift, that sort of thing) I make sure he knows I’m doing it before I dig in.
It’s mostly just me yelling ‘Hey honey, I’m going to eat some of your teacher chocolates, ok?’ across the apartment and making sure I get an ‘ok!’ back. 95% of the time he’s fine with it, but I do occasional get met with a ‘Keep those grubby little mitts to yourself, wretch! Those are MY cold tenders!’
The same way I wouldn’t use his personal hair products or wear one his favourite tee shirts without checking. Helping myself without his knowledge just feels…presumptive.
NTA. I think your only fault here is, as someone who hates food waste myself, every time you went to get a piece of cake you should've announced it. "Honey, I'm cutting a slice of cake. Want me to cut you a slice too?" That way, if she says yes, you enjoy it together. If she says no, then it's on her for not partaking.
NTA. The “saving” a food for someone who might want it, until the food goes bad, annoys me greatly—as a person who actually doesn’t like food waste. She could have said she didn’t want you to eat it. There’s still a piece left, if she wants it now. I do not believe she was waiting for day six to eat four pieces of cake.
This is a weird control thing that my sister-in-law does too. She wants something “saved” for her in case she wants it later/tomorrow. Half the time their fridge is full of entrees that the kids and my brother aren’t allowed to eat, which my brother ends up throwing away when she acknowledges the item is no longer edible.
Cakes last for a while if stored properly. It's kind of funny that you "budgeted" your calorie intake so you could afford to eat a "reasonable (to you) slice" every day until it was pretty much gone.
But I side with your wife, and disagree with everyone saying it's fine because it's been several days. My wife does the same thing where she will steadily devour something and then say it was my fault for not consuming it all once. It was her birthday.
It was her cake from her parents. She probably didn't want to eat it she's a big holiday celebration or during a car trip. So yeah, when she was finally in a place where she could enjoy her cake, she found that you had "budgeted" almost all of the cake to yourself because you were looking forward to cake. Her cake.
I've had more than enough people use the "well it had been two days and I wasn't sure if you were really going to eat it and I just HATE food waste, so I took it! 😁😁😁". They never seem to care about the state of the lettuce or cabbage or carrots.
But have some delicious leftovers in your fridge and suddenly everyone else has their own countdown to how long they will leave it before declaring your delicacy to be abandoned and fair game.