As an autistic person, I know my own quirks and triggers. My quirks I embrace and my triggers I avoid.
But autism isn’t an excuse to be rude or unreasonable. Even the Americans with Disabilities Act requires accommodations to be reasonable.
A girlfriend who found her boyfriend’s accommodations unreasonable turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
Stewlessinseattle asked:
“AITA for accidentally ruining my autistic boyfriend’s safe food?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“My boyfriend loves stew, he wants to eat it every day for every meal. His favorite stew is beef tips and vegetables from a local place, but it’s really expensive.”
“Like $47 for a big bowl (they don’t do small orders for takeout) and he is grossed out by leftovers so more than half of it gets wasted. We’ve had a couple of arguments about it.”
“He says I don’t understand his brain. I say he doesn’t understand our budget.”
“Recently I looked up some recipes, including doing a dissection of the takeout soup, and tried my hand at making a home cooked replacement for stew night. He loved it for a few days, and then one night he was hanging out with me in the kitchen and saw me put tomato paste into the pot.”
“He was really upset and demanded that I make the soup without the paste. I told him it wouldn’t taste the same.”
“He said it would be better because he hates tomatoes, they’re not a safe food for him. So I made the soup with no tomato paste and big surprise, something felt off about it to him.”
“Instead of admitting that the tomato paste was necessary he threw a fit and told me he didn’t want home cooked food anymore if I was going to ‘play with him’ and not take his safe foods seriously.”
“He thinks I changed more than just the tomato paste in an effort to get him to admit he was wrong.”
“$400 in stew orders later, I had an idea to ask the chef when we were picking up the order if there was any tomato products in the stew. And lo and behold there is tomato in the recipe—f*cking tomato paste.”
“In my mind this was great because I thought he would get over it if he knew his original perfect stew had tomato paste, like ‘oh I guess tomato paste isn’t so bad then’, but it was the exact opposite. He walked out of the restaurant without saying anything and then refused to eat the stew that night and hasn’t ordered it again.”
“And he’s been ignoring me while sulking around the house, using his whiny voice a lot, and slamming things. His sister also texted me to tell me I’m a selfish a**hole for needing to ‘get back at him’ by taking his favorite food away.”
“I literally just wanted to stop spending insane amounts of money on stew. I wasn’t trying to hurt him or ruin his life.”
“I’m not autistic, I can’t really wrap my head around caring this much about a single ingredient. I genuinely didn’t see this reaction coming.”
“We’ve been together for four years and he’s only had three other fits like this—the other ones were pretty reasonable. Those were also a little less intense and didn’t include input from his family.”
“This is the first time anyone in his family has EVER spoke to me like this. So I’ve been back and forth between ‘y’all are overreacting’ and ‘what have I done’.”
“AITA?”
“It sounds so dumb when I write it all out, but living it has made me feel physically sick with regret. I can’t think straight anymore.”
The OP later added:
“I’m getting ready for work right now so I can’t respond to individual comments, but there’s some recurring confusion/questions I wanted to clear up because it might effect the answers.”
“The stew place is a catering place with a mini-restaurant, so every time we order takeout we’re ordering a catering amount pretty much. It’s not stew made of gold.”
“We order from there 2-3 nights a week. It’s not the only thing he eats, it’s just the top 5 foods for him.”
“He doesn’t eat this unreasonably every single day. He has a job and contributes with money, I’m not funding his entire diet.”
“We do mix money, so even though ‘he’ pays for the meal half the time it does still feel like ‘we’re’ losing money.”
“He works part time and I work full time, bills are probably split 70-30.”
The OP summed up their situation.
“I revealed to my partner that his favorite safe food is actually a food he hates, which ruined his entire perception of the meal.”
“Because I have been with my partner for so long and know his very particular ways and tendency to react like this to change, part of me feels like I should have seen this coming in some way and taken that into account before willy nilly messing with his diet.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“NTA. Being autistic isn’t an excuse for any of that. Yikes.”
“My whole household is neurodivergent, probably all autistic (but one of us isn’t officially diagnosed, so who knows) and we’re BROKE broke.”
If we can’t afford safe food of the month, because it’s three days until payday, but we’ve got similar foods in the fridge/freezer? Guess what, babe, it’s home food for us.”
“And everyone survives. Even the kid, who has been known to vomit from trying new foods. Great.”
“No, I don’t whip out a can of tuna (blech) and expect that to be eaten, but when it’s literally the same thing, but made in our oven instead of one from a restaurant, that’s fine, that’s fair.”
“If he wants to blaze through $400 a week in food, I hope he’s one of the overly brilliant autists (I am not) that makes millions of dollars on some hidden gem their brain unlocked. Otherwise, no. Pick another safe food.”
“Mine right now, is these expensive ramen noodles. $8 for a pack of 5, toss in a shredded up cheese string… Bliss. Not too long ago, it was mangoes, and I lost my mind when they were 50¢ each for a week. I think I bought 20.”
“That his sister flew in to whine about it, says he was probably babied by his family the whole time. Maybe he’s never heard ‘no’ before. Ugh. I’m sorry.” ~ QuietRoyal
“I don’t believe this is a question of a**hole behavior or not. You are an absolute angel for dealing with this for so long.”
“Relationships have their quirks and struggles. Finances and budgets can be a huge one, no matter what.”
“When in-laws get involved, the quick and easy response for me is always: when you start contributing to paying our bills, then you get to start contributing to our financial conversations.”
“Essentially this is what is happening when your BF’s family is getting involved. They are sticking their nose in your business.”
“If you take the autism out of the equation, this is just a fight about budgeting better. If you throw it back in there, they clearly dealt with his safe food issues his entire life and consider it your turn now.”
“$47 per meal and not eating leftovers is a one-way ticket to homelessness. Reckless spending on a food item you can clearly make yourself, bravo to you for doing it at home to save the money.”
“Autistic spectrum is tough. Sensory sensitivity, food issues, social missteps, and just so many other areas of concern. You’ve been in a relationship for four years, so you clearly understand this struggle. It won’t get any better with him.”
“Him moping and whiny voice acting out will probably fade with time. The question for you to answer is whether you see this as a relationship-ending fight or a bump in the road.”
“Do you see a future with him? Getting married and having children isn’t the answer for everyone, but if it is on your radar, that’s the question, and not if you’re an a**hole for ruining stew. NTA.” ~ phteven980
“Massively NTA. Honest question, OP – do you want to deal with this for the rest of your life? Not sure what you want for your life – kids? Travel? Marriage?”
“When you envision these things, do you see them revolving around hunting down this specific stew to feed your partner? Do you see yourself sitting on a white sand beach worrying about where you’re going to find stew?”
“What is it that you are getting out of this relationship? From your description, it sounds like you’re the one doing the work to provide him with his food, possibly footing the financial cost of it.”
“If you’re not planning on focusing the rest of your life around stew, why are you sinking money, time and energy into this relationship?” ~ monkey_monkey_monkey
“NTA. Just because he is autistic doesn’t mean he can’t get used to (the idea of) tomato sauce.”
“I’m autistic too and have ARFID [Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder]. I got therapy and now I’m not scared of any new food anymore. He can work on this.” ~ PinkLocomatic
“Autistic adult here, and you are NTA for having a problem with this. That price is astounding and it’s not okay for him to be spending this much this regularly, especially if the food in question is replicable at home!”
“I would be thrilled if my partner put the effort in to try and recreate my safe foods for me in a more affordable, more accessible way. That’s a beautiful expression of consideration and care on your part.”
“If it matters, a little sugar and a little vinegar or lemon juice will replicate the sweetness and acidity of tomato paste if you ever try making it again without the offensive ingredient. Balsamic is nice in a beef stew and so is red wine vinegar.”
“It’s one thing to struggle with food (very normal for autistic folks), and it’s another to struggle with emotional dysregulation (a hallmark of the disorder!), but as an adult, he needs to address these things.”
“They might not be his fault, but they are his responsibility—full stop. Living on such a limited diet sounds like it would be very distressing and it’s not just affecting him anymore, it’s affecting you too – someone who loves him. It can’t stay this way.”
“There are some excellent therapies available to help increase mental flexibility in autistic people even as adults; ACT is a type of therapy that comes to mind and is known to be more helpful to autistics than more common therapies like CBT and DBT.”
“It’s really helped me move away from the kind of black-and-white thinking my brain is naturally inclined to and embrace the ‘grey’ in life. It encourages curiosity and novelty while also honoring our need for familiar and predictable things.”
“It’s helped me make peace with having a brain that complicates pretty much everything; I can’t recommend it highly enough.”
Out of curiosity (and not because it would change my judgment in any way), has your boyfriend ever been assessed for ARFID? This sounds like it might be disordered eating territory.”
“There are ‘safe foods’ and then there’s ‘my brain views non-safe foods as cardboard and I physically cannot bring myself to eat them’, in which case medical intervention is long overdue anyway.”
“If his diet is this circumscribed, he needs to see a therapist and a dietician who are knowledgeable about neurodivergence and can cater to how his brain works while still gently working toward change.” ~ CrazyCatLushie
Plenty of people with autism responded.
The same message was sent over and over—autism isn’t her boyfriend’s fault, but all unreasonable accommodations are his responsibility.
$47 for a single bowl of soup isn’t reasonable.