Nutrition is one of those tricky tight ropes to walk. Too much indulgence or too little nutrition can both lead to health issues. So, it’s understandable there are people who obsess a little about what they eat.
Where you encounter issues is when these choices affect your partner, like what’s happened to Redditor maybenotenough. The original poster (OP) waa having a disagreement with his spouse about how to handle their nutritional needs.
To find out if he was wrong, he took his story to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit. There, the story was explained and OP’s actions were judged.
The question was:
“AITA for asking my wife if when she cooks, she can just make normal foods for me and use smaller portions?”
This was what happened:
“My wife gained some weight over the past year and was already overweight, so she wanted to make change. She’s also pretty short, so the amount of calories she needs to eat is a lot lower than me. I’m 6’4 and an average weight for my height.”
“She started using the ‘1200isplenty’ sub to get ideas for foods and so she’s constantly getting excited about low calorie substitutions for things. Stuff like cauliflower instead of rice, spaghetti squash, halo top, PB2, etc.”
“She’s a good cook anyway. But because of the way she measures and portions out things I end up still hungry and going through lots of snacks where I’d rather just have a filling meal.”
“One of the things she makes is burritos with these Extreme Wellness wraps that are 50 calories, cauliflower, beans, homemade salsa, and whatever else we have around. They taste good but aren’t satisfying at all for me and make me toot a lot.”
“I finally sat her down and told her that I’m totally excited she’s getting in control of her diet and that she’s doing great, I’ve noticed a huge change in her overall. But that I need more calories and more satisfying meals.”
“I asked if she would mind throwing some rice in the instant pot when she does stuff with cauliflower, or I said I’d do it and she could just warm it up for me with the cauliflower.”
“I gave a lot of suggestions.”
“She got mad and accused me of trying to sabotage her. I argued back saying that there’s nothing to sabotage, I want her to lose weight as well so I would be shooting myself in the tootsies if I did that.”
“We kept going back and forth and finally she just threw up her hands and said ‘Whatever fine be an a**hole and eat all that in front of me.’”
“She went and vented about it on her twitter and all her friends were telling her I was a bucket crab (I don’t really get it) and trying to push food on her.”
“I just want to feel satisfied AND have her lose weight. AITA?!”
There were a lot of assumptions in the comments, so OP had to clarify a few things. To start, the couple is vegetarian, so suggestions of meat weren’t super helpful.
Additionally, their division of labor had the wife cooking, while OP contributed in other ways.
“She prefers to be the one in control of food, shopping, etc. I offered to make stuff like rice and potatoes ahead of time to portion out and she said that it was a strain on the budget etc” – maybenotenough (OP)
“She prefers to be the one to cook for us. Budget, act of love, etc. I do other stuff she doesn’t like doing (vacuum, garbage, laundry, etc).” – maybenotenough (OP)
On the AITA subReddit, people are judged for their role in a story. It’s decided whether it was their fault, someone else’s fault or no one’s fault.
This is done with one of the following acronyms:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
In a rare turn of events, the subReddit couldn’t decide who was at fault. However, there was much agreement it wasn’t OP.
So while OP wasn’t TA, people couldn’t tell if this was a NTA or NAH situation.
“I don’t think you’re being an AH, but you’re probably gonna have to start making your own food to avoid fighting with your (h)angry wife.” – AloungerAtTheClubs
“NAH”
“You clearly need to satisfy your appetite. But rather than eat the things she desires why not increase your portion sizes of the same food?”
“This way she isn’t envious of the additional sides she can’t eat and no additional cooking needs to be done.” – bbanda
“NTA”
“A bucket crab is when you have a bucket full of crabs none escape because as soon as one tries the other pull them back down again.”
“What your wife is doing maybe healthy for her but it is unhealthy for you. You are not getting the nutrition you need to maintain your energy.”
“Since she is not being reasonable you need to take matters into your own hands. either start eating more filling foods Before you get home from work or you start cooking your own meals.” – MinsAino
“NTA. Purely because you offered to make the rice yourself and gave suggestions. All these people saying make it yourself aren’t reading closely cause she will still get mad you’re eating it in front of her. NTA” – iamhewhocomes
“NAH? She’s in the stage where food is probably really triggering for her, and is just trying to rid it all. But, she can’t do that at your expense & she’s really running the risk of developing some bad & unhealthy eating habits herself.”
“Maybe you guys can compromise & you can make your own bigger meals for a bit till she feels more comfortable with her routine. I struggle with calling her a complete AH, because I know exactly the feeling she’s going through.”
“It took me about a year after my weight loss for it to really settle in & now I’m able to see delicious food & just say nahhh no thanks.” – _Deletion
Other people tried to provide some suggestions for OP, like increasing his protein intake to feel fuller.
“NAH, but instead of carbing out on rice and potatoes what about you guys adding more protein to meals? like boiled eggs or cheese?”
“Protein has always done more for me in both filling up AND when managing my weight” – Majestixal
“Yeah this is a really good suggestion, we have a friend who we trade eggs for stuff with and I could ask them for more eggs. Sometimes they have way too many of them so I think they’d be down.” – maybenotenough (OP)
While not every comment was a winner, there were enough positives for OP to do something about the situation, whether or not he was TA. He took many of the comments and had a talk with his wife about how to move forward.
In an update, he said:
“Guys, one of the suggestions I made like I said above was that I could make my rice and stuff ahead of time and she told me it would be too much strain on the budget and would be too much temptation for her to have around.”
“Anyway I brought up a couple of things when she got home and she agreed we can shift stuff around in the budget to get me a big bag of rice and dry beans she’ll just try to avoid the extra calories.”
“We live in a studio apartment so she said she’ll probably go for a walk or something while I’m eating until she’s more accustomed to it if she has to.”
This isn’t quite the fairy tale ending one could hope for, but it’s a start.
Relationships require compromise, and OP has been more than willing to take a step. Now that his spouse has as well, they can move forward.
There doesn’t have to be an AH in every story, and taking the time to listen and talk things through helps improve things over all.