Hi Carolyn! My husband has a habit of eating the “best” foods after a grocery trip 1) first and 2) quickly. For example, he’ll just eat chips for lunch and snacks for two days until they’re all gone. This is mildly irritating when I try to eat something that’s already gone. If I mention it, he will feel bad he accidentally boxed me out and will not eat any of that item at all anymore, but then he just finds a different food to blast through — think cookies — ignoring the fruits or veggies he asked me to buy, or any of the more “prep-intensive” foods I end up having to prepare when there’s nothing quick left.
Then he complains he needs to eat healthier. So then I feel like a nag for getting one snack but still wanting him to slow down on another, and a double nag if I offer to cut veggies for him instead.
I was raised with a sibling who did this and was told “eat it before me if you want it so badly,” but that doesn’t seem like a healthy long-term strategy physically or emotionally for either of us, and may in fact be contributing to my sensitivity now. Am I micromanaging? Do we need to label his-and-her chips?!
— Living With the Destroyer of Chips
Living With the Destroyer of Chips: Omg yes — label the chips.
Always grab the easiest fix.
Obviously there’s a bigger problem when someone who eats nothing but chips until they’ve eaten every chip in the house then professes to want to eat better — a problem with a bad-health branch part for him and an I-can’t-listen-to-your-BS-anymore part for you. But you can genuinely, reasonably decide to let a Sharpie fix the smaller one.
Or decide to allow no junk food in the house and get your chip fixes when you’re out.
Readers’ solutions:
· Get two bins, one for each of you. Equally divide snacks between the two, healthy and not-so. Then you each get your share and can ration them out however you choose.
· Label the chips by name and by day. So if you eat all of today’s chips, there’s a clear stopping point. And if you blow through a week’s worth of chips and have to wait six days before someone gets more from the store, that’s on you.
· If there’s junk food in the house I will eat it until it’s gone. My husband, however, likes having junk food in the house but doesn’t eat it much. So: We buy junk food, he hides it from me and then, when I want some, he goes and gets me a single-portion size. Please note: If this wasn’t an agreement -I- requested, it would be a warning sign of a controlling relationship. But it was my idea, as a compromise.
