Man's calls wife 'privileged' for throwing away leftovers; she calls him 'gross.' AITA?
Waste not, want not but he got caught.
One man wrote to Reddit when he felt his wife was being incredibly wasteful with their food. He says that she grew up with more money and, in his family, throwing away food was a cardinal sin. She is not having it and has been looking him in the eye while she throws away food in the fridge.
"AITA for starting a fight with my wife over leftovers?"
I (33M) kind of started a fight at my wife (30F) over her wasting food. She and I had very different upbringings when it came to food.
Her family had the disposable income to eat out multiple times per month, and her family would cook large meals (enough to feed an army basically), and when the food entered “leftover territory,” the rule in their house was whoever gets to it first gets to it.
My family was much more money-minded, only eating out on special occasions and cooking just enough for one or two meals. Takeout was never shared, and if we had leftovers, it was equally distributed.
Some would be surprised to learn this has caused a great deal of dispute in our marriage.
My wife does the majority of the cooking, and she likes to order delivery a lot, as we both have demanding jobs. Over our 10 year relationship, she has learned to cook in much smaller helpings as much of it would spoil.
She’s not good about eating leftovers (the small of a lot of cold food makes her feel sick), so she tries to meal prep or cook just enough to cover 2 meals max as she knows letting food spoil irks me.
When we have leftovers, I always let her know when her portion is still in the fridge. Typically she tells me to have it if I want it. She has said before that if she were truly coming back for it, she’d write her name on it or tell me not to eat it as she was saving it for later, but to my recollection she has never done that.
I always tell her that the leftovers are her’s so she can have them, and we go back and forth like that in several rounds. The other night, we had leftover Chinese takeout (her leftovers, I ate mine).
She asked me what I wanted her to cook for dinner and I reminded her that she has her leftovers. She said “oh yeah, hand it here.” So I gave her the container and I watched her dump it straight into the trash without looking at it. Wide-eyed, I asked her “what are you doing?”
She proceeds to inform me that she has come up with a new system: if she tells me 3 times that I can eat her leftovers because she does not intend to come back for them, she will throw it out before it spoils.
Apparently that was the 4th time I reminded her about the leftovers so that triggered the disposal. I got quiet to process the fact that she made this decision without talking to me about it, and finally I said she could have told me she was going to throw it out, then I would have eaten it.
She firmly thinks that the statute of limitations expired as she told me 3 times I could have them, and she “could do with them what she sees fit.”
I would have if I had known she’d toss them instead of conceding in eating them after understanding I truly didn’t mind her eating them herself. I feel like she truly hasn’t listened to/disregarded me feelings/upbringing with food. I told her “do you” and haven’t really talked to her since. So, AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
YTA. Your wife has made her position on leftovers very clear and you don't seem to be able to adapt to that. Let me recap. First, she basically gave you a free pass to eat her leftovers whenever you want because she by default doesn't want them.
You weren't comfortable with that setup (though it doesn't sound like there was ever a situation where you ate her leftovers and she got mad about it), so you keep reminding her about the leftovers that she has basically said she never wants. She got sick of this and threw out some food.
I understand that that's wasteful and upsetting to you, but you were driving her crazy and she snapped. She's also now given you clear expectations for the new system so that you both don't have to keep getting upset over this all the time.
Also, just to cement you being TA, you say 'if I had known she’d toss them instead of conceding in eating them after understanding I truly didn’t mind her eating them herself.' Dude, this has so clearly never been about her thinking she's not allowed to eat her own leftovers.
The issue is YOU not being able to understand that she DOESN'T want to eat her leftovers and is quite happy to let you have them. Stop trying to convince her to eat them, she doesn't want them!
But you're missing the most important piece of the puzzle- she made this decision WITHOUT TELLING HIM FIRST!!!! can you imagine a world in which a spouse makes a decision about days old food without their partner? The sanctity of marriage is gone 😔
That’s the funny part. What part of “you can have them” three times didn’t tip him off that they were getting tossed if he didn’t eat them? Was he hoping he’d just wear her down enough that she’d stomach them to shut him up? He sounds insufferable.
Exactly. He was hoping to wear her down or guilt her into eating them.
It's simpler than that. He doesn't WANT to eat the leftovers. He feels obligated to. And since he doesn't enjoy it, he needs her to eat her portion, so he doesn't HAVE to eat that as well. Eating leftovers is something he sees as an obligation/ chore.
Serious food issues from his childhood, but I don't think it's actually control issues in this case.