'AITA for saving up all the food my wife thinks is fine for me to eat for when her family came to visit?'
"AITA for saving up all the food my wife thinks is fine for me to eat for when her family came to visit?"
My wife works part time from home. Like ten hours s week. On her own schedule. If she felt like it she could do all he work on Sunday and take the rest of the week off. I work construction. I usually work at a fly in fly out construction camp. However currently I'm working at a job site that I can commute to. I'm still working 72 hour weeks.
My wife doesn't care about the taste and texture of her food. It's just fuel for her. I like eating tasty and good food. Not sure how else to put it. If I eat pizza for example I don't want the crust undercooked and limp.
I've tried explaining to my wife over and over how food should be stored and prepared. She doesn't care. The best way for me to give an example is butter. She will let it melt and harden until it is lumpy and gross. Still technically edible though.
If we buy a block of cheese she doesn't understand why I cut off a piece and freeze the rest. But if I'm out of town I might come back to half a block of moldy cheddar. She will then cut the mold off because it's still good underneath.
I organize our freezer constantly so we can use up older food before it goes off. She just dumps new hauls on top. So, I always find freezer burned steaks and chicken all the time.
I finally have gotten sick of this so I started setting aside all the food she said was good enough for me to eat. When her folks came over instead of going grocery shopping I filled the upstairs fridge and freezer with the food I had saved. I also filled our butter bell with the grainy gross butter.
She came home from the airport with her parents and we all day to talk. Her mom and dad are awesome and offered to make supper. I said thank you and sat back. Her dad made himself a slice of toast to snack on while they cooked.
He didn't say anything but the slice went in the garbage and he spit out the bite he took. Pretty much the only things in our home they were willing to cook were canned or in jars.
I heard her mom talking to my wife about whether we were doing okay for money and offering to give us money for groceries if we needed. She said maybe my wife should consider a full time job to help with household expenses.
My wife tried to say that we were doing okay but her mom showed her the freezer burned steak and chicken thighs. The moldy cheese. The grainy butter. My mother-in-law said that there isn't shame in admitting we need help.
My wife took them to our freezer and showed them our food. Which lead to her mom asking why we would let food get to that point where it was edible but gross. My wife had no answer. But she had plenty to say to me that night.
She said I intentionally embarrassed her in front of her parents. I asked her if she would have served me that food or expected me to cook it for us to eat. She said that wasn't the point. I think it was. AITA for using her parents to teach her about food quality?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Give your wife a box of Cheez-Its. She’ll be happy.
NTA she’s weaponizing incompetence and backfired 🤣
NTA. If this is a completely true rendition (which it rarely is), then good for you. I'm glad your wife is embarrassed. Unfortunately, if you work 70 hr weeks, and she basically doesn't work (sorry, 10hrs? That's a joke) then your wife doesn't care about you. Why are you still married?
Excellent job! Although I highly doubt she will stop. I would tell her she needs to get a full time job to help pay the bills and get groceries. Why should you work your life away to feed and house you both and your wife can't even take care of the food properly.
If she doesn’t want to work full time then she needs to stop being lazy and freeze the cheese. Put the butter up and use the food that is about to go bad. She is wasteful! I'd be pissed.
NTA. You work all the time and she has a hobby. You can and should eat what you think is good. Let her have a freezer and you get one. She can eat the nasty things and you get what you want. Put a lock on yours.
This is an example of if she wanted to she would. She clearly knows normal food standards because she knew what her parents were talking about. What is she doing with all her time? I’m not all for gender roles but he is working a ton and she is not, so it’s not about her being the woman of the house.
It’s that his partner is not prioritizing something he has communicated he cares about. We ask men to communicate with their partners all the time and OP did. She should step up. NTA.
This is insanely clever. you're NTA. i will admit when you're super busy it's easy to forget about things and cheese goes bad or something so I can also sympathize with her a bit on an occasional lapse, but i do wholeheartedly agree if the food has gotten to a point where it isn't acceptable to serve a guest, its wrong to ask anyone to eat or use it.
At that point just accept the loss/error, toss it away and move on. i'm also guilty of letting the freezer get ahead of me sometimes and it's unfortunate but i would still not dare to serve it to someone i care about. food poisoning is not worth it. She's mad that she has to concede you're complaints have been justified. hopefully this is eye opening and changes her approach.