My wife (32f) and I (35m) were recently on vacation over the 4th of July, which also happens to be my wife’s birthday. We had all the normal traditions for our family, including cake. We all had a piece day-of but almost nobody ate cake the entire rest of the trip. When the time came to return home, in-laws (MIL made the cake) offered to send the whole thing with us because they “didn’t need all that and we will probably just throw it away.” My wife hates food waste, so she brought it. The journey home was two days by car. It has since been two additional days since we got back. Each night after dinner, I’ve had a reasonably sized piece of the cake for desert. I used to be a bigger guy and while I have much better habbits now, I still have a soft spot for baked goods…the cake was “budgeted for” though and I had been looking forward to eating a little. Well today my wife saw that there was only one slice left and was irate… Saying I was completely selfish and had eaten almost all of HER cake. I told her the cake had been available to all for nearly a week (counting days it sat on the counter before we took it home with us) and that nobody had bothered to touch it but me. I did apologize after she finished explaining to me that it upset her but I dont understand why it’s such a big deal to begin with. The cake was right there…she never even had a bite.
For additional context, in the past she has requested that certain foods be saved for her as leftovers etc. Ive obliged, only for that food to sit until it had become moldy and she claims she “forgot it was in there, oops.” For someone who hates food waste, allegedly, I find this behavior doubly puzzling… Was I wrong here?
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My wife (32f) and I (35m) were recently on vacation over the 4th of July, which also happens to be my wife’s birthday. We had all the normal traditions for our family, including cake. We all had a piece day-of but almost nobody ate cake the entire rest of the trip. When the time came to return home, in-laws (MIL made the cake) offered to send the whole thing with us because they “didn’t need all that and we will probably just throw it away.” My wife hates food waste, so she brought it. The journey home was two days by car. It has since been two additional days since we got back. Each night after dinner, I’ve had a reasonably sized piece of the cake for desert. I used to be a bigger guy and while I have much better habbits now, I still have a soft spot for baked goods…the cake was “budgeted for” though and I had been looking forward to eating a little. Well today my wife saw that there was only one slice left and was irate… Saying I was completely selfish and had eaten almost all of HER cake. I told her the cake had been available to all for nearly a week (counting days it sat on the counter before we took it home with us) and that nobody had bothered to touch it but me. I did apologize after she finished explaining to me that it upset her but I dont understand why it’s such a big deal to begin with. The cake was right there…she never even had a bite.
For additional context, in the past she has requested that certain foods be saved for her as leftovers etc. Ive obliged, only for that food to sit until it had become moldy and she claims she “forgot it was in there, oops.” For someone who hates food waste, allegedly, I find this behavior doubly puzzling… Was I wrong here?
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> 1) I ate the majority of a birthday cake 2) I might be the asshole because the birthday in question was my wife’s.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA its almost time for the cake to be thrown out anyways
INFO
> Each night after dinner, I’ve had a reasonably sized piece of the cake for desert [sic]
And where was your wife during this?
Silently staring at you eating dessert, while she has nothing?
NTA. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too
NTA. It was there for the taking. She’s being unreasonable and wierd. If she wanted you to save a piece she should say so. You’re not a mind reader.
I get her frustration but it’s hitting almost a week now so does she really want it that badly?
Maybe since she doesn’t mind the “older” cakes, you can hit the discount bin at Walmart and get a whole cake to make up for it
YTA. I understand your reasons, but bottom line is it’s her birthday cake to do with as she pleases. You should have asked.
Very light YTA.
Unless you had specified otherwise, I’d say your wife has a right to assume that her. birthday cake is hers, and that anyone who wants to eat some ought to get her permission each time.
On the other hand, the fact that your wife often just forgets about food and lets it go bad is a pity. Still, I think you did have a responsibility to communicate and ask for the cake, instead of just taking it. If it then went uneaten by her, you could have followed up by pointing out that it was going bad, and that she might want to share it before it does.
But, ultimately, it’s her cake, isn’t it?
IN-FO: As you were helping yourself to a slice of her cake every night, were you also offering to get her a piece and she was declining? Or were you just eating her cake without a word said about it?
Edit: Based on response, YTA. (Also, thanks for the award, whomever did that!)
NTA
My bday is the 4th as well lol I wouldn’t be upset if I waited that long to eat cake to find that there’s only a bit left for myself. I would actually be thrilled if there was a slice reserved just for me. Week old cake is gross though so I don’t get what she’s upset about. She should’ve communicated that she wanted a specific amount of the cake beforehand. It’s free game at that point.
All you had to do was freeze a piece of the cake once you started eating away at it . Yes YTA
NAH. You both have a point here. It was your wife’s cake, so she expected some of it to be saved for her. But at the same time, cakes only last so long and she clearly wasn’t touching it all week. The solution here is to communicate more clearly; she could’ve asked if you would leave her some cake, and you could’ve asked her if you could keep picking at it. Overall this is a very “not a big deal” kind of thing, but it shows that there could’ve been some clearer conversation between the two of you about it.
NTA – she had more than enough time to eat this cake and could have enjoyed it with you at any time you were eating it. Sounds like there might be something more going on here and she’s projecting and it’s not even about this cake. Idk though, you know your wife best.
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Soft YTA you should’ve asked her how much if it she wanted before eating most of it
NTA, but I have a feeling this is about more than just cake. Maybe this was a slow buildup? I don’t think you are an asshole for eating the cake, especially because she didn’t tell you it was off limits. I’d look a bit deeper OP.
Seriously? This fight is over WEEK OLD cake? It was time to toss that bad boy anyway.
I feel like the cake math ain’t mathing. Only been home 2 days, you’ve had 2 slices, only 1 left? But it was more cake than your in-laws could manage?
Either way, it was HER cake and you have eaten the most of it. I get her gripe. YTA.
The solution to this is that next time you eat a dessert, ask her if she wants a piece too. NAH
INFO: Don’t you eat together? I’m asking because you say you ate slices of cake as dessert after dinner, and she just found out.
NAH, and communication on both sides could have solved this early. You explicitly saying “I’m going to have some for dessert each night until it’s gone or gone bad” would have given her the opportunity to say something like “lemme set some aside for myself”.
NTA – You didn’t eat it all and it’s not something that stays good for a long amount of time.
My kids do the same thing, want it saved, doesnt eat it and it gets thrown out. NTA
NTA if she wanted it saved just for her, she should have said something. I tell my kids this all the time – communicate!
If you make something and want to have the leftovers, say something.
If you didn’t finish your food and want to eat it later – say something.
If you bought something specifically for yourself – say something.
I’m so tired of people expecting everyone else to be mind readers.
I mean, food she’s not notice the cake volume was decreasing? That you were eating it? Not once did she say something? That’s on her.
You’re not an asshole, but generally when I eat any of my husband’s ‘personal’ food (leftover takeout, something he’s brought home from work, a special snack he either went out of his way to get or was given as a gift, that sort of thing) I make sure he knows I’m doing it before I dig in.
It’s mostly just me yelling ‘Hey honey, I’m going to eat some of your teacher chocolates, ok?’ across the apartment and making sure I get an ‘ok!’ back.
95% of the time he’s fine with it, but I do occasional get met with a ‘Keep those grubby little mitts to yourself, wretch! Those are MY cold tenders!’
The same way I wouldn’t use his personal hair products or wear one his favourite tshirts without checking.
Helping myself without his knowledge just feels…presumptive.
NTA- maybe she didn’t want to eat it alone? In the future, cut her a slice each night too.
Go buy her another cake.
Really. Go now.
Never eat the lastslice of someone else’s cake.
That’s when they regret not having any.
NTA
The “saving” a food for someone who might want it, until the food goes bad, annoys me greatly—as a person who actually doesn’t like food waste.
She could have said she didn’t want you to eat it.
There’s still a piece left, if she wants it now.
I do not believe she was waiting for day six to eat four pieces of cake.
This is a weird control thing that my sister-in-law does too. She wants something “saved” for her in case she wants it later/tomorrow. Half the time their fridge is full of entrees that the kids and my brother aren’t allowed to eat, which my brother ends up throwing away when she acknowledges the item is no longer edible.
NTA, the cake is there, she could put her big girl pants and take it….she didn’t want it,
NTA because i absolutely hate when people don’t eat food and then get mad when someone else eats it. Yeah it was a cake made for her birthday but what’s the point in letting it go to waste. She didn’t touch it and there was still a piece left. Did she even eat the last piece or is she gonna let that get moldy.
ESH. There’s a lot more than cake going on here.
Just buy her another cake. While you are at it, buy me one too.
NTA. I think your only fault here is, as someone who hates food waste myself, every time you went to get a piece of cake you should’ve announced it. “Honey, I’m cutting a slice of cake. Want me to cut you a slice too?” That way, if she says yes, you enjoy it together. If she says no, then it’s on her for not partaking.
NTA. She saw the cake, she didn’t eat cake, cake was not wasted
She’s being immature
NTA. But it’s often not just about the cake. Time for an open-hearted talk (no defensiveness) about the meaning of the cake or a connection to a broader pattern in your relationship dynamic that has its own meaning.
NTA no cake should last past 2 days. Just eat the dang cake or put it in the freezer. This seems to be a control thing for your wife. I baked an apple cake. Gone in a day. Kid says yum, bake me more. I’m making the 3rd apple cake now. Point is, you can always make or buy more cake.
NTA at all. I don’t always love left overs and my husband will finish stuff off as to not waste it, especially birthday cake.
NTA eating a slice of cake after dinner is reasonable. Were you supposed to let it get stale in case she might eventually want a piece? Unless you had it squirreled away out of her sight, where she couldn’t see or eat at will, I have to hope she is just having a bad day.
NTA. After several days of sitting there untouched, that cake was fair game IMO. She clearly didn’t care that much about it if it took a week for her to even look in the box. And there was still a slice left for her to eat!
Esh. You shouldve asked, and she shouldve said “hey its mine”.
INFO: it was your wife’s cake, not yours – did you ask her if you could have a piece or did you just take a piece each time without asking or mentioning it?
Did you ask her whether she would like some cake each time you took a slice for yourself?
Did she see you eating it every time? Was she aware you’d been eating her cake all week or was she under the impression she had been saving it to eat/freeze later?
NTA. My daughter likes to savor her food in other words, eat it slowly over a few days. To make sure it gets eaten before going rotten I give her a due date and remind her as the date approaches. She will either eat it or tell me to do so.
ESH. You ate her cake but then she also had to choice to do so too. She could have objected to you eating it at the time but didn’t.
It’s only a fricken cake though. People need to get a grip. Talk about childish.
This just sounds weird. Does she actually hate food waste or just claim to?
Personally I’d give you a low YTA score. I can understand not wanting to see it go to waste, but it was still her cake. Could you not have asked her if it was okay to have some of her cake? Or check with her if she wanted any?
I’m a big believer in the idea that the birthday person gets most of the cake & always the first & last piece (if they want it). But your wife didn’t touch it for a week. It’s weird that she got upset.
NTA.
Just go buy a nice little cake for her and do a do over! I bet she’ll appreciate it.
NTA. A homemade cake that’s more than a week old… Is it even still good? If she wanted some, she had a week to have a slice. I’m also puzzled as to why she waited through you having several servings without commenting… Presumably, you are it when she was around rather than in secret
YTA. A normal cadence of eating sweets is 1x/week. It was her birthday cake, and you didn’t even ask or announce your plans to eat it EVERY day.
You need to apologize to your wife and find a way to acquire cake so she gets another slice.
If you haven’t already done so, throw that last slice in a freezer bag and into the freezer. She can forget it’s there and throw it out herself when there’s freezerburn covering it. ESH, I hate it when one of my kids leaves food in the fridge but forbids others from eating it or when the other scarfs down other people’s food they left in the fridge without asking.
My dad used to do this. Weeks after buying something, he’d get a craving and then be shocked that the three other people in the house ate it. NAH only because it was her birthday cake and I’d have stopped eating it before it was down to one slice and ask her. If she wants to let it mold, so be it.
Nta. We have a 2 day rule at our house for leftovers. You have 2 days that no one will touch claimed leftovers. After that they are up for grabs unless someone specifically asks to keep it for themselves a little longer. I truly can’t stand food waste and would rather someone eat it instead of it going in the trash.
Seems like a lot of people are saying that it was her cake. We never had a lot of birthday cakes in our family, but I can pretty much assure you that it never belonged to the birthday boy or girl. Maybe they got the first piece, or the slice with the biggest chunk of sugary nonsense decorating it, but after that it was just one more cake.
But OP is an adult, and in a marriage, SO I GUESS WE EXPECT CHILDISH BEHAVIOR. lol. Honey, may I have a bit of YOUR cake? Umm, I’d rather you didn’t if that’s ok, sweetie. Sure, I mean, it is your cake.
NTA. The difference between this post and others I’ve seen in the past is the fact that you had like one slice a day over 4 days. (You did not eat it all at once it one sitting leaving her no chance) I’m sure she saw you eating it. She could’ve had a piece at the same time you were also.
The only thing I guess you could do better – because you know how she reacts – is every time you get a slice say “hey honey, do you want a slice of cake?” And every other day, maybe say “hey honey the cake looks like it’s drying out. We might wanna eat it” Friendly reminders but not nagging. I have to do that sometimes to
My husband but most of the time he has eyes and can see in the fridge and I don’t need to.
NTA – your wife is being unreasonable. Is it realllllly about the cake? Do some leading questions and find out. I’m thinking there’s something else there.
Soft YTA. In general I agree with your take. But it was in fact her cake. You should have asked her for permission to consume something that is hers. That’s just basic courtesy.
Incredibly mild ESH.
I’m assuming from your description here that your wife has a pattern where she hates food waste and feels bad throwing away food, so she holds on to it, but doesn’t have the required accompanying characteristic where she makes a plan for when and how she will consume the food so it doesn’t get wasted. My ex-wife was like this, and it was absolutely maddening. To her, there’s nothing that feels bad about throwing out spoiled food, that’s just being rational. But it’s wasteful to throw out unspoiled food, so she takes it home. And she’d never do the mental math to recognize “Hey, I don’t want to eat this now, it will probably bad in 2 days, and I don’t have any plans to eat this in the next 2 days, so I should tell my wife that she’s welcome to eat my cake now.” Like, if this isn’t an ongoing thing, if your wife almost always either consumes or disposes of her food promptly and never monopolizes the fridge with hoarded food that she’s just going to throw away, then you are being irrational to eat her cake without giving her the chance to go at it, or saying “Hey what are your plans for your cake can I have a slice?” But I have a feeling that you’ve developed this tendency to slowly consume small portions of shared food that will eventually go bad to give her a chance to have a crack at it is coming from her annoying pattern that you’re adapting to.
But also, it is a birthday cake, you probably should say “Hey honey, do you have plans to eat this cake? Can I have some?” Especially if she’s the one who wanted to keep it and it is her birthday cake.
YTA it doesn’t matter how long, it was HER cake
YTA for simply being selfish or thoughtless enough not to offer her a slice when you cut yourself one.
Yeah, you can only claim dibs on leftovers for like 2-3 days tops. After that it becomes fair game for anyone who wants to eat it because it won’t be edible much longer.
You’re NTA. If your wife wanted to eat her birthday cake, she should have…[checks notes]…eaten her birthday cake.
I am a wife & have been married for 25 years & I also do not understand why it is such a big deal either.
Why is she policing food that has been available to everyone for the better part of a week? I would call her out on this and ask her why your eating 5 day old cake is “selfish”, because it seems to me if she were saving it for a treat for later she would have wrapped it & put it in the freezer, but she did not.
“We all had a piece day-of but almost nobody ate cake the entire rest of the trip.”
I would argue her behavior is selfish. In her side of the family does the person whose birthday it is generally eat the entire cake themselves without sharing? I guess in reading further that some people do indeed do this-who knew? Not me, but now I do!
Birthday cakes are for sharing in our family. Honestly if this was or any food was left to sit out on my counter for 4+ days I would have thrown it out.
I think you two have a communication problem and I don’t think she’s communicating what she’s actually angry about, it makes no sense to me.
However one solution is to make sure your wife has her very own cake every year that she doesn’t have to share, with the caveat that she is responsible for wrapping/refridgerating it to prevent mold etc in the kitchen. And that rule should apply to any other left over food she wishes to save for herself only, it should be safely wrapped/stored, not just lying around becoming a penicillin project.
this kind of reminds me of when we had our 4 teen boys in the house & they used to write their names on their food or snacks that they purchased with their own money-lol! Whatever works I guess!
NTA
NTA. It’s been a week. Cake doesn’t last. If this was day one or two you would be in the wrong, but now? Nope.
Eta. This is a typical married couple argument. It’s so simple but it’s all about communication which gets so old on something this trivial but it still matters lol.
I assume she didn’t see you eating the cake every night or she would have been aware it was being eaten.
In our house my husband is in charge of eating the leftovers unless I specifically say I want them. And if they’ve been there for a while he’ll ask before he eats it.
I would have assumed she didn’t want it either if no one ate it for over a week but it’s nice of you to ask. And it’s nice of her to speak her needs cause you aren’t a mind reader
we have a strict rule in the house that I do not eat her leftovers until the third day, mostly for restaurant leftovers that typically cost me dearly….
for something like cake or a household thing i usually make sure not to finish it off until the third day, she almost never eats leftovers.
This rule has saved a lot of fights lol, try it
Cakes last for a while if stored properly. It’s kind of funny that you “budgeted” your calorie intake so you could afford to eat a “reasonable (to you) slice” every day until it was pretty much gone.
But I side with your wife, and disagree with everyone saying it’s fine because it’s been several days. My wife does the same thing where she will steadily devour something and then say it was my fault for not consuming it all once. It was her birthday. It was her cake from her parents. She probably didn’t want to eat it she’s a big holiday celebration or during a car trip. So yeah, when she was finally in a place where she could enjoy her cake, she found that you had “budgeted” almost all of the cake to yourself because you were looking forward to cake. Her cake.
I’ve had more than enough people use the “well it had been two days and I wasn’t sure if you were really going to eat it and I just HATE food waste, so I took it! 😁😁😁”.
They never seem to care about the state of the lettuce or cabbage or carrots. But have some delicious leftovers in your fridge and suddenly everyone else has their own countdown to how long they will leave it before declaring your delicacy to be abandoned and fair game.
NTA. You didn’t eat it all. You ate a slice a day for several days. And she didn’t ask you to save it.
ESH
I some suspect foul play as well. Barely no one touched the cake (what does that mean? A bunch of people had slivers or one person had a “reasonable” size), you each had a slice. Then the cake goes two days in the car, with no one eating it and then 2 days you had a “reasonably” sized piece of cake, what does that mean? Is it reasonably sized to your previous habits? Is it reasonably sized to the size of the cake?
Based on all accounts, we only have 5 slices (3 you ate, 1 she ate and 1 left) accounted for. It might have been more helpful if you stated something like “half the cake was left and we took the remainder home”, so then we could know how you divided up the last slices.
Let’s say the cake was a 8inch, that’s the average basic size of those grocery store cakes. People rarely get the super small ones unless it’s for two people or kids. An 8inch cake is supposed to yield reasonably 11 slices and I’m being generous. If you google it, you’re going to get answers that go up to 20 cuz people will cut the cake in squares.
So it looks like you cut yourself one of those fat portions of cake that grocery stores serve individually sliced in plastic boxes priced at $6.99 and if that truly is the size then it sounds about right that the cake would yield 6ish slices.
It’s your wife’s cake, cake also lasts longer than a week, and I might have nudged her to each night if she was gonna take a piece because YES you did eat all her cake basically. And it was her birthday cake.
NTA. She had a long time to have a more substantial amount of cake. At my house we have a three- day rule for leftovers; if the owner doesn’t eat them by then then they’re fair game for the rest of the household. And if someone doesn’t want to have their leftovers eaten they need to put their name on it for exclusivity.
This comment section is so strange to me. Maybe it’s a cultural difference? When anyone I know (including myself) gets a birthday cake, we go out of our way to share with family and friends. I don’t see it as “my birthday cake” I just see it as a cake on my birthday. Everyone can celebrate with me kinda thing. So from this I’d say you’re NTA
Once it’s considered leftovers…..it’s fair game! Period!
YTA for not asking her if she wanted any every time you were getting a piece.
ESH
This problem could have been solved by you asking her if she wanted a slice literally any of the times you got yourself a piece. That’s basic consideration when you are eating a joint dessert item.
However, her being upset at not eating more of the cake is also a fault of her own as it was available to her. She could have told you “hey can you save X amount of slices for me?”