There’s a reason why people take food prep and storage so seriously.

Imagine your spouse constantly insisting that foods are “still fine” even though they’re freezer-burned, moldy, or borderline inedible.

Would you just throw them away behind their back? Or would you put them to the side and save them for when the in-laws show up?

In the following story, one husband finds himself in this situation and teaches his wife a lesson.

Here’s what happened.

AITAH for saving up all the food my wife thinks is fine for me to eat for when her family came to visit?

My wife works part-time from home, and it’s for like ten hours a week. On her own schedule. If she felt like it, she could do all he work on Sunday and take the rest of the week off.

I work in construction. I usually work at a fly-in, fly-out construction camp. However, currently I’m working at a job site that I can commute to. I’m still working 72-hour weeks.

My wife doesn’t care about the taste and texture of her food. It’s just fuel for her. I like eating good, tasty food. Not sure how else to put it. If I eat pizza, for example, I don’t want the crust undercooked and limp.

He tries to keep everything organized, but she always undoes it.

I’ve tried explaining to my wife over and over how food should be stored and prepared. She doesn’t care. The best way for me to give an example is butter. She will let it melt and harden until it is lumpy and gross. Still technically edible though.

If we buy a block of cheese, she doesn’t understand why I cut off a piece and freeze the rest. But if I’m out of town, I might come back to half a block of moldy cheddar. She will then cut the mold off because it’s still good underneath.

I organize our freezer constantly so we can use up older food before it goes off. She just dumps new hauls on top. So I find freezer-burned steaks and chicken all the time.

When her dad offered to cook, he gladly let him.

I finally got sick of this, so I started setting aside all the food she said was good enough for me to eat. When her folks came over, instead of going grocery shopping, I filled the upstairs fridge and freezer with the food I had saved. I also filled our butter bell with the grainy, gross butter.

She came home from the airport with her parents, and we spent the day talking. Her mom and dad are awesome and offered to make supper.

I said thank you and sat back. Her dad made himself a slice of toast to snack on while they cooked. He didn’t say anything, but the slice went in the garbage, and he spat out the bite he had taken. Pretty much the only things in our home that they were willing to cook were canned or in jars.

Then, he overheard his MIL confront his wife.

I heard her mom talking to my wife about whether we were doing okay on money and offered to give us money for groceries if we needed it.

She said maybe my wife should consider a full-time job to help with household expenses.

My wife tried to say that we were doing okay, but her mom showed her the freezer-burned steak and chicken thighs. The moldy cheese. The grainy butter. My mother-in-law said that there is no shame in admitting we need help.

Needless to say, his wife is very upset with him.

My wife took them to our freezer and showed them our food. Which led to her mom asking why we would let food get to that point where it was edible but gross.

My wife had no answer.

But she had plenty to say to me that night. She said I intentionally embarrassed her in front of her parents. I asked her if she would have served me that food or expected me to cook it for us to eat. She said that wasn’t the point. I think it was.

AITA?

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Yuck! No one wants to eat food like that!

Let’s check out how the readers over at Reddit feel about what he did to his wife.

It sounds like she does know better.

Interesting point.

He should consider this.

Here’s a woman who was in a similar situation.

He needed to show her!

It’s not fair that he works so much, and she can’t even be bothered to have good food at home for him.

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.