Carolyn Hax: Panic at the pantry! Husband eats all the good snacks. - The Washington Post

Hi Carolyn! My husband has a habit of eating the “best” foods after a grocery trip 1) first and 2) quickly. For example, he’ll just eat chips for lunch and snacks for two days until they’re all gone. This is mildly irritating when I try to eat something that’s already gone. If I mention it, he will feel bad he accidentally boxed me out and will not eat any of that item at all anymore, but then he just finds a different food to blast through — think cookies — ignoring the fruits or veggies he asked me to buy, or any of the more “prep-intensive” foods I end up having to prepare when there’s nothing quick left.

Then he complains he needs to eat healthier. So then I feel like a nag for getting one snack but still wanting him to slow down on another, and a double nag if I offer to cut veggies for him instead.

I was raised with a sibling who did this and was told “eat it before me if you want it so badly,” but that doesn’t seem like a healthy long-term strategy physically or emotionally for either of us, and may in fact be contributing to my sensitivity now. Am I micromanaging? Do we need to label his-and-her chips?!

— Living With the Destroyer of Chips

Living With the Destroyer of Chips: Omg yes — label the chips.

Always grab the easiest fix.

Obviously there's a bigger problem when someone who eats nothing but chips until they've eaten every chip in the house then professes to want to eat better — a problem with a bad-health branch part for him and an I-can't-listen-to-your-BS-anymore part for you. But you can genuinely, reasonably decide to let a Sharpie fix the smaller one.

Or decide to allow no junk food in the house and get your chip fixes when you're out.

Readers' solutions:

· Get two bins, one for each of you. Equally divide snacks between the two, healthy and not-so. Then you each get your share and can ration them out however you choose.

· Label the chips by name and by day. So if you eat all of today’s chips, there’s a clear stopping point. And if you blow through a week’s worth of chips and have to wait six days before someone gets more from the store, that’s on you.

· If there’s junk food in the house I will eat it until it’s gone. My husband, however, likes having junk food in the house but doesn’t eat it much. So: We buy junk food, he hides it from me and then, when I want some, he goes and gets me a single-portion size. Please note: If this wasn’t an agreement -I- requested, it would be a warning sign of a controlling relationship. But it was my idea, as a compromise.

· I have eaten 100 percent of the last two chip bags that have come into our house. But, if my husband’s name was on one chip bag and mine on the other, I would have only eaten one bag. It’s one thing to be a chip destroyer, another to be a chip thief.

Carolyn: Thanks for the comfort of knowing this isn’t as weird and unique a problem as I thought.

— Chip-Destroyer’s Spouse again

Chip-Destroyer’s Spouse again: It takes a lot to be weird around here.

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Carolyn Hax: Panic at the pantry! Husband eats all the good snacks. - The Washington Post
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