'My husband ate all my food I need to recover from surgery. AITA for how I reacted?' MAJOR UPDATE

"My husband ate all my food I need to recover from surgery. AITA for how I reacted?"

TL;DR at the end.

So I just had surgery on my stomach and intestines almost 2 weeks ago.

Because of the surgery, I have to adhere to a very strict diet until I’m fully healed.

If I stray from the diet, it could cause severe complications and be possibly fatal. So for the first two weeks after surgery, I can only eat (drink?) a full liquid diet. The most solid thing I can eat is pudding. I can’t even have soup with any chunks of veg/meat in it, even if they’re soft.

There’s not a lot of variety to choose from and I’m not having a good time AT ALL. Plus I’m still having pain from the procedure and some nausea and I’ve had to go in for IV fluids and iron twice now. Prior to surgery, I meal prepped for myself and for the family so I wouldn’t have to worry about it after.

I made meals for myself for every stage of the diet and with specific macros/ingredients to meet my needs and comply with my other health problems - for example, I have celiac disease so everything has to be gluten free. I also follow a low sugar/low carb diet so everything had to comply with that as well.

I also made meals for him and our son - meals SPECIFICALLY requested by him. I stocked up on snacks they liked and asked for. We also have a fairly strict budget right now, so I made everything from scratch to save some money. About 1/4 of everything I made is in the freezer attached to our fridge for convenience sake, the rest is in the deep freeze in the garage.

So most of the meals in the house freezer are gone so I went out to the garage to restock. ALL of the meals I’d made for myself are GONE. Just completely emptied out. I’m really upset because I have no energy right now to make more - living off of liquids and having anemia will do that to a person.

My diet is (hopefully!) progressing to soft solids tomorrow, so I was really excited to be able to eat some of the food I’d made. I asked him about it and he blamed it on our son first. Which I know is BS because the kid hates all of my special food with a passion lol.

There’s no way he’d be sneaking my food. So I questioned my husband again. He admitted to it, said he’d been taking my meals to work as his lunch because he was “too tired to make his own lunch” before work. He has always made his own lunch up until now. He also said he was “bored” with the lunches he makes and my food provided “variety."

I am EXHAUSTED. This recovery period is kicking my butt. Before surgery, I ran a mile every day. Now, I barely have enough energy to walk up the stairs. I’m not supposed to lift more than 10 lbs. I’m not supposed to do anything more strenuous than walking. Even taking a shower is tiring right now.

The anemia, dehydration, and lack of proper nutrition is making it worse. So when he admitted to taking my food, I just started crying. He hasn’t been much help after surgery, my son (11yo) has been doing all the lifting for me and helping me with chores and cooking. When I started crying, he got disgusted and told me I was overreacting and being a baby.

He refuses to make me new meals, he refuses to help me make new meals, he says it’s been almost two weeks and I should be able to do stuff on my own. At this point, I’m seriously considering divorce. I mean, my son and I are already doing everything on our own already. And I know my kid won’t eat my diet food. Am I overreacting?

ALSO: I just found out he’s raided my non-perishable food stores in the pantry. It was mostly sugar free jello and pudding, stuff I can eat on the liquid diet. Pretty much everything is gone, except for some sugar free orange jello.

TL;DR: I am on a special diet due health issues and recent surgery. I meal prepped meals for myself and for the family so I wouldn’t have to deal with it while recovering from surgery. My husband ate ALL of my diet food without telling me and says I’m overreacting for being upset. AITA?

The internet had a lot to say about OP's situation.

OutlandishnessNew259 wrote:

You did not overreact. Actually, you didn't react nearly as strongly as I would have. I don't even have words for how awful that is. Knowing that you need this food for your health and survival and he eats it for lunch?

Honestly he doesn't care about anyone but himself. I know that people on this sub are quick to be like you should break up with them. But like you should divorce him. He blamed your son to boot? I don't know he just doesn't seem like a good person to me.

Panserbjornsrevenge wrote:

This is wildly malicious. There's a lot going on here, but let's think. You made liquid, gluten-free, sugar-free food obviously for surgical recovery, and he took it for lunch??? He suddenly got a massive craving for sugar-free puddings and soups? That is not what a fully functional healthy person chooses to eat when given a choice.

Do you really think he decided to eat your restrictive lunches for two weeks because he was "too tired" to make a sandwich? Do you really think he found them to be full of variety? If you are miserable on this diet, why would he subscribe to it voluntarily? He took the food to punish you for being sick.

This is absolutely divorce territory. At best it was incompetence, at worst it was malicious. Either way, his response to your understandable, exhausting crying is all you need to know. He has no remorse and he will not care for you. And when you can't care for him, he will punish you. You should leave for your own health and safety.

No-Profit9500 wrote:

There are so many red flags in this post. Leave this man child. You are not his parent- you are his partner!! He should want to be there and help you while you’re going through this but instead he’s making your life more difficult? Hell no.

MedievalMoomin wrote:

That’s disgusting. I’m really sorry. You are not overreacting. It’s a really insidious form of controlling behaviour to eat all of someone’s food, especially knowing that you have a lot of food restrictions and can’t just order in. It shows an alarming lack of empathy for you and your post-op recovery.

A week later, OP shared a major update.

This will be long, I apologize in advance.

Obligatory omg this post exploded comment. I didn’t expect it to explode this much. I’m just glad this is a throwaway account and none of my friends/family are on here. I tried to read all of the comments but there are so many and frankly, I’m tired so I’m sure I missed a bunch. Anyway, it’s been approximately a week since my post and I’ll try to answer some questions and let everyone know what’s going on.

The food I had in the deep freeze in the garage was for the next stage of my diet which is soft foods with a high protein content. Think egg salad, tender cooked chicken, vegetarian/chicken chili, soft seafood, etc. Definitely more tasty than the liquid diet I was on. So maybe that’s why my husband ate them, idk. I’m still not clear on why he did what he did.

I have no idea if he ate them or threw them out as many of you suggested. I did ask him and he danced around it and didn’t provide any answers. I think maybe he did a combination of the two. I think he has some built in resentment as I’ve had health issues since before we married. He knew what he was getting into and he married me anyway.

I don’t think he realized the toll it could have on him and our relationship though. He’s NOT a caretaker, just to clear things up. I’m not sick enough (except while recovering from surgery) to need someone to take care of me. I am very independent and I do everything myself. I do most of the child care, cleaning, errands, cooking, managing money and expenses- you get the idea.

He does get upset because I’m not always able to do activities with him that he really enjoys - like hiking, fishing, frisbee golf, etc. Mostly things that involve being outside. I’m very sensitive to temperature and heat makes me physically sick. I’m also supposed to avoid the sun as it gives me a rash and makes me nauseated.

We do a lot of indoor activities like playing games, movies, museums, going to the gym, swimming indoors, etc. I also make an effort to spend time with him individually and as a family. Up until this surgery we have had no issues and I had no idea he would act this way, maybe I missed some red flags, idk. My husband has never been ab-sive nor has he ever done anything like this before.

That’s why I made the post, I was really confused because I had no idea where his attitude was coming from and thought maybe I did something? Like I stated above, I think he has some built up resentment or something. He’s always been understanding and respectful of my needs and my health and has never shown that he may have any differing feelings.

Our s-x life is great, he’s stated he’s very satisfied in that aspect. He says he sees that I’m putting forth a lot of effort to spend time with him and make him a priority in my life and he says he appreciates it. So unless he’s feeding me a line of BS, this isn’t the cause either. The surgery I had was removal of benign tumors I had in my stomach and part of my intestine.

They had to remove 3/4ths of my stomach and part of my small intestine. They got all of the tumors and are optimistic they won’t return. I’ll have to be very aware of my nutrition for the rest of my life as I will have malabsorption issues. The surgery was done laparoscopically so it’s not as painful and doesn’t require as much recovery as an open procedure.

So, on to the update.

After we fought and he refused to rectify the situation, I told him we needed time apart. He went to stay at his mom’s house as I don’t have any friends or family nearby.

For food, I made some scrambled eggs and hard boiled some eggs to get me through dinner that night and breakfast in the morning. The next day, we talked on the phone for a couple of hours. He apologized profusely. He explained he was extremely stressed at his job and he was really worried about me and my health.

I told him that is NOT an excuse for treating me like crap nor does it seem like he was worried about me at all since he did what he did. He agreed with me and apologized again. He agreed to go to individual and couple’s therapy which is huge because he doesn’t like or believe in therapy as he’s had bad experiences in the past.

I also see my own therapist and have been for the last 15 years, to be clear. He also agreed to buy all of the groceries to replace all of the food he took and he agreed to make my meals for me with a little guidance as he’s not great at cooking. I made it clear that if he doesn’t something like this again, there will be no more chances given and I will file for divorce.

He also apologized to our son for putting more responsibilities on his shoulders. My husband is now back to staying in our home. He has been doing all the things I am not supposed to do and he’s working on remaking all of my meals. I’ve been teaching him how to cook easy meals for him and our kid so he can do so in the future.

He’s been nothing but polite, sweet, loving and respectful. He’s also been putting forth an effort to take on more responsibilities in the house so I’m not forced to have to do everything. I am, however, worried that this is all just a temporary fix because he wants to avoid divorce. I’m keeping an eye out for red flags.

I’m not willing to put up with poor treatment. I’m just waiting for him to get comfortable and revert back to old habits. So we will see what happens, only time will tell. To be clear, he’s never treated me badly in the past which is the main reason I decided to give him a second chance. I’m really hoping it’s an aberration.

As for his stress at work - his place of employment is severely understaffed at the moment. He’s been going to work early and staying late to help them with this issue. He’s tired and cranky, which is understandable. Adding my recent surgery on top of things and he just couldn’t handle it. He knew my surgery would be complicated and he says he’s afraid I’d die or end up with complications.

This is understandable as well, I’d feel the same if roles were reversed. But he does agree that none of this gives him an excuse for his behavior and he’s agreed to work on it. He says he is very satisfied and happy with all other aspects of our life together and he says he’s really disappointed with himself for the way he acted.

Again, we’ll see how it works out. I’m taking everything he’s saying with a grain of salt. That’s it. I can’t think of anything else to add. I’ll post another update if anything changes. Thank you to everyone who was kind and expressed concern for my health and my situation!

The internet continued to share their thoughts on the situation.

RedHotBumbleBee wrote:

“I was afraid you’d die so I got rid of all the food you’d need to survive.” That makes zero sense. I’m glad you’re keeping an eye out for red flags. It sounds like his mom probably (hopefully) told him how awful he was and it helped him realize he was wrong, but all the stress in the world doesn’t excuse him actively sabotaging your recovery.

Lady_Gaymer wrote:

I'm still not sure how being stressed at work equals: st@rving his sick wife.

Being disgusted by her crying.

Blaming an 11-year-old and making them pick up the slack.

Completely disregarding medical advice and expecting you to be up doing things rather than him

Like…how can you look him in the eye? That’s just awful. Why do you need a second chance to see how much he doesn’t value you.

NocturnaPhelps wrote:

Please help me understand how your husband's work stress and his worries over your health equates to him eating or throwing your food away? 🤔 It's just not computing for me. Also, why does he get to be the one that does all of the cool, fun stuff while you do all of the errands and slave work and gets sulky when you can't participate? Jesus. You have two kids!

stufferknee wrote:

I think he cried to mommy about how unfair you were being and she wasn’t the supportive shoulder he thought she’d be. So he panicked and came crying back because now there’s really no one on his side. Keep your guard up and watch for the slips, they’ll come. His reasoning makes no sense and it’s insulting that that’s the best he could come up with.