It's one thing to be a picky eater, and it's another to force your loved ones to cope with and adapt to your narrow scope of eating.
Redditor u/NY2LA1984, who has since deleted her account, posted a vent on the r/PickyEaters subreddit complaining about her husband's very exacting requirements for his food.
If it were only his own food being affected by it, perhaps she would have had a different response, but based on her original post, he forces OP to do the heavy lifting on meal prep and going out to the store, and refuses to let her eat her own preferred foods.
What the original post said
OP wrote, "I'm so over this ridiculousness. My husband is the pickiest eater I have ever met."
"I'm over it, times a million. He refuses to drink hot beverages, no soup unless it's December. No vegetables, just peppers and onions. Salads? Maybe three times a year and only one kind and only from one store." She went on, listing every tiny little thing her husband refused to eat, or could only eat when prepared a certain way.
"He makes quiche once a year, but can't handle the texture of scrambled eggs, won't follow a recipe and ruins it EVERY F*CKING YEAR. [...] No Italian pasta dishes without Chianti. No Mexican food without margaritas. If he drinks any juice, it's orange juice and fresh squeezed by me only. Some days he won't eat at all. Some days he will only eat peanut butter and preserves, but in a bowl not in a sandwich."
The biggest of red flags, however, was that he didn't allow her to eat anything that he wasn't eating. The reason? All "because he can't stand the smell of something he's not eating." The example she gave was that she was only able to eat two stalks of celery with peanut butter on them the night before.
Reactions to the viral Reddit post
People on Reddit and X, where screenshots of the post were reshared, took up with OP against her husband. The consensus was that it was one thing to be a picky eater, but what her husband was doing sounded like abuse and controlling behavior.
u/Background_Big7363 shared their advice for the stressed-out woman. They wrote, "So, two rules you need to make: He is responsible for his food from here on out; and You get to eat whatever you want and he gets no say. If he refuses, then get yourself free. I mean, it sounds like this relationship is more stress than joy, anyhow."
@vrcraftauthor pointed out, "This is not picky eating. Foods I hate taste bad all year, they don't magically taste better in December or once a year."
u/Viola-Swamp added, "It’s only respectful not to plop right down beside him in the couch with a plate full of something she knows is disgusting to him, but entirely forbidding her from eating her chosen likes and dislikes is a bridge too far."
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