In an ideal world, every relationship would be fifty-fifty, with an even distribution of chores and responsibilities for each partner.

If one partner takes out the trash, the other feeds the cat, for example, meaning that neither partner would feel like too much of the household burden fell on them.

In reality though, it’s not uncommon for two partners to be on different schedules, work different hours, and have different quantities of energy and enthusiasm for the tasks.

This is all okay, as long as it’s working for everyone.

But when the woman in this story had to take on extra work in an emergency, her responsibilities at work didn’t change. And yet her husband kept on taking.

Read on to find out what caused her to finally snap at him.

AITA for telling my husband to not eat the food I made for my lunches?

My husband (34, male) and I (33, female) had a little exchange yesterday morning.

He works remotely full time, while I work in person all five days of the week.

I also do most of the cooking and cleaning.

Since I’m not home during the day, I make my lunch and make sure he either has leftovers or I make something fresh for him the night before.

Then, something happened that changed things for this woman.

On Monday, there was a crisis at work and I realized that I was going to have to work longer hours this week and won’t have a lot of time to cook.

I stayed up until 2am on Monday night, cooking a variety of food items to cover my lunches for the week and at least two to three days worth of meals for all of us.

My husband went to bed at 10 pm.

For my lunches, I made stuffed squash since I can just boil a little bit of rice to go with it every night while packing my lunch.

But she never expected what happened the next day.

The next morning as I was heading out for work, I started showing my husband what was in the fridge so he didn’t tell me later that he didn’t see it.

He saw the stuffed squash and started taking one out of the container before I could tell him I made it for my lunches. Here’s where I might be in the wrong: as he was taking one out, I said a little too loudly “no, that’s for my lunches”.

He looked a bit like how our daughter looks when I scold her for something. The intention was to let him know I made it with a specific purpose, so he’s not just eating all the portions I made for my lunches and leaving me scrambling again.

I also told him that he’s more than welcome to try one if he wants it, I just didn’t want him to think he can have all of it.

He wasn’t saying anything more on it and I was running late, so I left for work.

Read on to find out how this moment continued to affect their relationship.

When I got home, he seemed unnaturally quiet and distant with me. I asked him why he was acting weird but he said he isn’t and nothing’s wrong so I dropped it.

At the end of the night, he told me he didn’t like how I spoke to him that morning about the food, and he felt like I was trying to control how much he was eating.

My husband is the sort of person who will eat half a pizza that was meant to be shared between three people because he really felt like stuffing it in the moment, without asking if there’s enough for everyone.

Don’t get me wrong, he generally is very considerate, but he has some ‘cookie monster’ moments.

Even so, I’ve only ever commented on it if he’s being rude to guests by doing it, or if he’s overeating something he needs to restrict for medical reasons.

Let’s see how the woman was feeling after he’d explained his hurt.

Considering how much food I made to make sure he has plenty to eat during the day, that comment seemed to come out of left field and was honestly quite hurtful.

However, I apologized for my tone from the morning and for making him feel bad about it, and explained the reasoning and the intention behind it.

Was I wrong for telling him to not eat the food I made for my lunches? Is it reasonable for him to think I’m trying to control how much he’s eating just based on that one comment?

AITA?

Given the stress that the woman is seemingly under at work, and the fact that she stayed up until the early hours cooking, it’s understandable that she might have felt a bit snappy when her husband immediately reached for her lunch.

Sure her tone might have seemed hurtful, and it was right for her to apologize for it – after all, he’s her husband and equal and it’s not right for her to scold him.

But the amount of effort she’s putting into making their food feels a little one-sided, and perhaps he could do a little more to prepare some of his own food, given he works from home.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.

This person agreed that he needed to put more effort in, rather than simply relying on his wife to feed him.

While others suggested she explain just how much work cooking is, on top of her workday and commute.

This Redditor, meanwhile, thought that her husband’s touchiness might indicate a genuine problem.

Something isn’t right here.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.