Husband won't eat anything that is remotely outside his narrow Venn diagram of acceptable foods

I have next to no admirable qualities but I will be accommodating to a fault. That's probably the only good quality I will ever have. Anyway. Yesterday husband asks me what I am making for lunch. Mind you I'm also preparing for a phone screen but still majorly technical interview. I tell him. He makes a face. I don't even know why. It's "simple food" the way he likes it, which is what he always tells me how his family always ate simple food and they didn't have money and he is not used to the "fancy food" I ate -- I also grew up middle class but of course everyone is more privileged than his highness. I even went up and asked him why, did he not like the items I was making. He makes this very passive aggressive face saying, "nope it's fine."

Then at dinner I was supposed to make something elaborate according to my original plan, but he said he didn't want anything too heavy so I said I'd make sandwiches. He said he didn't have enough protein in the day. We're indian and very traditional Indian diet is very carb laden, especially if you're vegetarian. So I found a recipe you make with tempeh and beans and a bunch of spices -- I mean you would not guess there was tempeh in there. Trust me. I even steamed the tempeh and he asked later if I was using that to steam tofu. I said it was tempeh. He asked what tempeh was and I explained it's fermented soyabean. Again makes a face saying he doesn't like soybean.

I mean this is like the hundredth thing he won't eat. Won't eat garlic and shamed me immensely for using it. But will eat garlic fries, garlic naan, garlic noodles outside. It's just me who's not allowed to use it and even if he sees me putting a clove in he immediately puts up a rant. He will claim his family again never ate it. Won't eat mushrooms. Once shamed me for ordering them for myself. I actually stopped buying them for the first 5 years and now I just said eff it. Doesn't like cheese. Doesn't like a lot of vegetables. If we eat out it's usually Indian or very rarely Thai.

He tends to like more action than I do. This one day he was picking out movies and I made some criticisms about some of the ones he was showing. Mind you he is the ultimate rant master. He will rant about everything -- Gen z kids and how privileged they are (I get paid less often than this rant), how people have such lavish weddings or show off, how people get promotions they don't deserve --- the list goes on but he is specific about movies too. Oh but apparently he will watch anything I recommend (ha! One way ticket to delusiontown) And so he actually got upset with me and left saying I was being too picky and he always watches what I suggest.

This argument was admittedly a few months ago, but after all his complaints about food I just...I am sick and tired of biting my lip all the time. I already try as much as I can to eat separately from what he eats so I can still eat the foods I enjoy. Even when I try to get his protein in because he's always complaining he doesn't get enough, it's a problem. I made these really nice savory veggie muffins two weeks ago and each had 8g protein in them. He would not eat more than a bite and kept leaving them out and they would go bad. What did I do to deserve this crap?

Posted Feb 22, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

026
Loading comments…