One never wants to look a gift horse in the mouth.
But every now and then, we find ourselves feeling less than grateful when someone close to us offers a gesture which was clearly meant to please us.
While we want to appear appreciative, we might secretly find ourselves confused, or effortfully needing to hold back our amusement or disgust by the offered gesture.
While in other cases, we find ourselves with no other choice than to speak up.
Reddito AITA_Spicy_Foods was appreciative of the fact that her boyfriend loved to cook for her.
Unfortunately, the original poster (OP) found the food he cooked for her somewhat hard to digest.
And when she finally confronted him about this issue, her boyfriend’s reaction was not exactly what she expected.
Wondering if her behavior was out of line, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for yelling at my BF to stop adding spice to my food?”
The OP explained how when she told her boyfriend there was one element of his cooking that she wished he would change, she was less than thrilled with his solution.
“So recently I (30 F[emale]) have been staying over at my boyfriend (BF)’s (31M[ale]) place more.”
“We’ve divided up some chores, but one he likes to do is cook.”
“He really is a wonderful chef and all our friends enjoy the dishes he brings to parties.”
“Whereas I will admit I don’t know my way around the kitchen and have never taken the time to really dive into it.”
“This is fine since he cooks, but his meals usually include too much heat.”
“He cooks with a lot of spices, sauces, and peppers.”
“I’ve asked him time and time again to tone it down since I can’t handle the heat.”
“Or at least add those last so he can still have them but my dish will be fine.”
“He says this will ruin the dishes and they won’t come out as flavorful and be really lackluster.”
“And that added the spice at the end ruins the whole balance of it.”
“I finally snapped the other night and yelled at him to stop making hot dishes I can’t eat and he told me that I was always welcome to cook my own meals if I wanted.”
“I don’t see why I have to cook if he already is making the meal, he can just add less spice to it.”
“That will add so much more time to my night when he is already handling that chore.”
“So AITA for yelling at him after him adding spice too many times to dishes?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community was fairly divided on this issue, with some agreeing that the OP was not the a**hole, others finding neither the OP or her boyfriend at fault, and others finding them both at fault.
Most agreed that the OP’s boyfriend should listen to her low tolerance for spices and spicy food, while others felt that if cooking was considered a chore, then her boyfriend arguably had some control over what exactly he got to cook, leaving some to agree with the OP’s boyfriend that if his cooking bothered her, she should do her own cooking, or maybe they should split cooking duties.
“I’m torn on this.”
“I have a mother in law who calls salt and pepper spicy.”
“I cook things like spaghetti or baked chicken and she says ‘oh lord! This is too hot to eat!’ it’s ridiculous and it drives me absolutely batshit crazy because I literally make the blandest food in the world when she’s visiting.”
“On the other hand, if your significant other is cooking super spicy Thai or Korean or whatever dishes with huge amounts of heat that would bother a person not used to eating things with extreme heat, and just asking you to eat them and deal, then I understand your point.”
“So which one are you?”- kelsnuggets
“I love mushrooms, but my wife hates them.”
“So when I cook, I make a separate batch without the mushrooms.”
“My wife loves super spicy food, and although I’m not opposed to heat, I’m am but a humble fire eater, while my wife drinks magma from the Earth’s core.”
“She makes a smaller batch on the side without the magma.”
“I don’t see why he can’t do the same.”- escabiking
“If cooking is an agreed upon thing that he does while you do something else it’s fair to expect that some of the meals not be as spicy for you.”
“Has this conversation been had or does he cook on top of the divided up chores and not see it as being in the same category?”
“Overall it’s his house and he’s cooking so demanding he do things a certain way and then yelling at him about it seems pretty unreasonable.”- FormalJellyfish4683
“I would just exclude the cooking as a chore.”
“You both cook, and then split the rest of the chores evenly.”- ghostofastorm
“Have you explored coming up with a meal plan you both can live with that has dishes you can tolerate and dishes he enjoys?”
“Then on the days he wants to have the super spicy stuff, you settle for making yourself a BLT or something?”
“There’s a ton of room for compromise here.”
“If neither of you budge, then ESH.”- terranotfirma
“Some give and take on both sides is needed.”
“It’s not easy to both cook different meals all the time because trying to do that at the same time could be challenging with both needing to use the kitchen, but if they stagger cooking times they don’t get to eat together.”
“But sometimes one partner can’t take as much spice and the other has to, at least sometimes, tone it down.”
“My husband has crohns disease and has a lot of spices and other foods that are either very limited or completely forbidden.”
“I do my best to cook around those intolerances.”
“But some things that he’s just picky about, he has to figure out a solution.”
“Like carrots.”
“He is allowed to eat cooked carrots but doesn’t like them, so I still cook with them sometimes and, he just has to pick them out.”
“Things that actually make him sick, like taco seasoning, I leave out completely.”
“So maybe sit down and figure out what the level is that you can tolerate of which spices.”
“You may find it’s only a couple that really bother you and your BF might be willing to work around that.”
“But just saying ‘don’t cook spicy food’ isn’t very specific.”- IntroductionKindly33
“NTA.”
“You share chores and your bf does his in a way that doesn’t benefit you or makes you do your own, negating whatever benefit you get from splitting responsibilities.”
“Worse, your bf doesn’t care that you can’t eat what he makes.”
“He could certainly make some adjustments or make some meals you can eat.”
“If you can’t stomach spicy foods and you live together and he is responsible for cooking, he should be more considerate and accommodating.”
“If I were you, I’d think long and hard about this relationship.”- Rhuthbarb
“NTA.”
“The chores have been divided up and one of his is cooking.”
“Saying ‘do your own’ cooking is like if you just hoovered your side of the room, or only did your laundry etc.”
“What’s the point of splitting up chores at that point?”
“What if you were vegan and he kept making meat dishes?’
“Then he’d be the AH but now people are saying YTA when the result is the same.”
“You can’t eat what he makes.”
“As someone who likes very spicy food but has a family that can’t handle spice at all and a bf who can’t have as much as me I’m telling you it is not difficult to just separate the portions and just not make theirs spicy.”
“He’s just being lazy and inconsiderate and the excuses he gave were complete bs.”- Alternative-Pea-4434
“You say you split the chores, what chores do you do to make up for the time he spends cooking?”
“If you’re spending roughly even amounts of time on chores each day I could see how him using that time to only help himself could be infuriating and unfair.”- Azure_Wyverian
“Is every meal actually too hot or are they just more flavorful than you’re accustomed to?”
“Based on the fact that ‘he’s a wonderful chef and all our friends enjoy the dishes he brings to parties’, I’m guessing it’s the latter.”
“There’s a difference between cooking with spices and seasoning vs. adding ghost peppers to every dish.”
“That said, I’m thinking ESH.”
“He knows you don’t like spicy food, so he should make more of an effort to cook meals that you’ll find enjoyable.”
“It also seems like you need to try to expand your palate a bit and find meals or parts of his meals that you do like so he has a better sense of your taste.”
“You could also take on the cooking chore for certain days each week, so you will at least have some meals that you don’t mind eating.”- Competitive_Ad_6720
Those who love to cook, don’t really consider it a chore.
Which does rather make one wonder if the OP drew the short straw when it came to chore distribution in the house?
Then too, though, if they mutually agreed upon cooking as one of the household “chores” then perhaps the OP’s boyfriend should cook food which pleases them both?
An interesting conundrum which hopefully the OP and her boyfriend will be able to solve with a civil conversation.