TL;DR: husband and I are always sick when we eat MILs food and he refuses to make her feel bad and not eat it. He’s having stomach problems and needs to follow a very specific diet. If I mention it could be her cooking or the food she offers us he gets offended and thinks im just looking for something to blame on her.
We live with my in laws. I will say I am cooking for my husband, daughter and I and MIL will come home with food and try to get us to eat again or sometimes she will ask if we can have her dinner instead of what I made. FIL works nights so she lets us know how shes “all alone and left out in the dust” when we dont want to see her after work.
I’ve tried to plan with her to avoid this but she refuses.she says she “never knows what youre doing for dinner” but won’t ask me if I’m cooking or tell me shes cooking so I dont have to. I told her since my husband’s health issues I’d be making dinner for him every day by 5 but she will act like I never told her that.
This week has been a fucking nightmare and you cant convince me its not her influence. For example: Monday-thursday I cooked food I knew my husband could eat. Bland, basic dinners but between that and his medicine he said he was feeling great..Thursday night she comes home with a pot of chicken and rice complaining that she didnt know i cooked already and thought we could all eat dinner together. She complained she hasnt seen us all week and finally feels up to having dinner(this was also at like 7 pm and my husband’s condition is worse if he eats that late)
He said he probably couldnt have the chicken anyway but thanked her. She insisted it was “bland as fuck” and he would be ok and that I shouldnt cook the next day so it wouldn’t go bad shes trying to help blah blah blah. We ate the chicken separately so if it did get him sick he didnt tell me, but it definitely wasnt bland and had tomatoes – one of the ingredients hes been trying to avoid.
Then Saturday his parents suggest takeout for dinner. My husband could have picked something on the menu that was easier on his stomach but his argument was how could he resist the burger he likes when a lot of the menu would make him sick anyway. That one is completely on him. But I wouldn’t have suggested chilis knowing his stomach issues and how he would be tempted by that burger. Anyone else suggested it I feel he would’ve tried harder to pick something healthier for himself but did not want to in front of his parents…thats a husband issue.
Sunday, he was throwing up and I had a chronic illness flare so I was pretty useless all day. I took a nap early evening and when I woke up, his mom had sent spaghetti and red sauce downstairs and he already ate as much as he could before his stomach hurt. She claimed she put a “shit ton” of baking soda in the sauce so it would not be as acidic. She did not tell me she was making sauce all day, because I wouldve told her husband cant eat it. I may be mistaken but I also always heard only a pinch of baking soda should be used in cooking as it would cause digestive issues.
For the past two days hes been throwing up just as bad as when he first started the medicine and diet and is in a lot of physical pain he is not usually in. He’s missed a day and a half of work over this and it feels like hes back to square one with how sick he is. The only factor that’s different is what hes been eating the past few days.
He learned the hard way how important sticking to his diet is but what he won’t admit is that he shouldn’t trust her judgement when it comes to food. Shes always insisting it is safe for him and he trusts her probably because shes his mom. But she doesnt have his best interests at heart and doesnt understand how important it is he stick to the diet. Sometimes I feel like shes keeping him sick on purpose but thwt would be fucking crazy. But also not surprising st this point lol
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Honestly OP, drop the rope and let your husband suffer the consequences of his inability to take care of my himself. His restrictions aren’t your responsibility, they’re his and if he chooses to eat things he knows will make him sick, he deserves it.
Sure, his mother is kind of an *itch for constantly pushing unsafe foods on him but he’s a big boy and can say no. Hell HE can ask HIS mommy why she keeps feeding him shit she has to know will make him sick. But absolutely none of this is on you to deal with. Wash your hands of it, cook for you and your kid and let your husband figure his crap out on his own. You tried to help and neither will take it. Don’t beat your head against a brick wall.
You need to have two conversations here. The first is with your husband. Tell him that you aren’t going to sit silently while he hurts himself just to soothe his mother’s feelings. He needs to start taking his health seriously, and her emotions need to take a back seat. Tell him that if he won’t have the conversation with her about his diet, then you will, and you won’t be kind about what she’s been doing to him.
If he refuses to be the bad guy by caring about his own health, then you go to his mother and inform her (not ask, inform) that any food she makes or orders for your husband will be thrown out going forward, and that you’re done letting her pretend to know what she’s doing just to spare her feelings. Pull no punches. Tell her exactly what her food does to him.
If they both refuse to change, then it’s time to find somewhere else to live for you and your daughter. Your husband can join you if he wants, but no child should have to watch their parent go through something like this.
It doesn’t sound like he has his best interests at heart.
Your husband is allowing himself to be sick in order to avoid hurting his mother’s feelings. That is completely ridiculous.
I’ve been through something similar with my husband. I stopped taking care of him or showing him any empathy when he ate foods he knew would make him sick. I didn’t stay home with him. I didn’t go to the store and get him more medicine. I made him clean up the mess that didn’t hit the toilet. Eventually, he got tired of spending his life in the bathroom and started making better choices.
I’m guessing your husband was raised with guilt around wasting food, which is why he doesn’t want to discard meals his mother brings to him. He needs to absolve himself of those feelings. Stuffing your face and getting sick isn’t going to do anything to help a starving child in Africa or even in your own neighborhood.
Your husband needs to tell his mother that starting now, you two will only be eating foods that you prepare yourselves. If she brings over food without checking first, you will not be eating it. The food waste is not your problem.
Put a sign up in the kitchen on the refrigerator and on the pantry cabinets. Then you need to somehow be absent a day or two after she’s cooked, and let your mil deal with the sick. I’d be petty enough to say where she could hear it, “Gee, I thought your mother loved you. The evidence points the other way.”
Normally I don’t like giving out work assignments, but this seems like a situation for an exception and you asked for advice.
You have two stubborn adults to navigate, both making terrible food decisions. Start writing down everything you know your husband eats daily and the effects. Dates, times, and effects. Vomiting? Log it. Heartburn, diarrhrea? Log it. Ate two cups of pasta & red sauce and missed two days of work vomiting? Log it. Personally, I’d create an excel spreadsheet to chart his intake & effects, but I’m an excel geek.
Do it for a month. Now you have evidence in hand and it’s not about blaming anyone, it’s about his choices and the effects. I’d put it on him; and start making my plan B cuz one child is enough, three is too many when two of them are adults.
There are lots of foods I’d love to eat…pasta in any white sauce, Mac & cheese, milkshakes, pretty much anything creole, anything deep fried, but I can’t. Well, I can…but the fireworks aren’t worth it. I don’t expect DH to be the Dairy/butter Police. Not his job…
My so raves my mils cooking but I find it bland. I once noticed she left a pot of soup on the stove overnight and served it to everyone. IT WAS OUT ALL NIGHT! I never trusted her cooking after that. Nobody got sick from it and I’m fucking shocked.
The good news is she’s not keeping him sick on purpose, she’s just one of those people that don’t like to face unpleasant truths. The bad news is that DH inherited the trait.
MIL wants to cook her food for her son and he wants to eat it, and neither of them want to face the fact that that isn’t practical anymore. Don’t kid yourself about DH – he’s not some sort of martyr choking down food he knows will make him sick in order to please his mom – he wants to eat her food. If MIL wasn’t around he be that guy who cheats on his diet at lunchtime and tells his colleagues “don’t tell my wife.”
TBH I get it. The prospect of eating nothing but bland basic food from here to eternity must seem a totally dreary one to DH even if it is better for his health. And the prospect of never again being able to cook any of her normal dishes for DH must be a pretty dreary one for MIL too. But facts are facts.
You need some practical solutions here and the most obvious is to find some dishes that are safe for DH to eat but are still interesting and flavorsome. There’s so many different cuisines out there that there must be some dishes that fit the bill. Ideally let MIL make some these her “speciality” so she can feed her son safely and he can enjoy eating it. And you won’t have to put up with DH continually being sick.
As for the confusion over who’s cooking each night the most practical solution there is to set up a roster. If everyone knows MIL cooks Tues & Thurs (or whatever) and you cook the other nights then you can all plan accordingly. (And DH should probably be cooking some nights too.)