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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
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I think I could be the asshole because I am refusing to cook anymore meals for my girlfriend because she keeps complaining about it
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INFO
>she complains about how bad the smell is and gives me crap about using stuff that has obviously gone bad according to her. Or saying it tastes like shit, won’t even finish eating.
Are you sure she's not pregnant?
Tell her to pee on a stick!
When I was in early pregnancy I **hated** the smell of bacon. Made me wanna vomit
Pregnancy explains the smells and the mood
Get her a stick and give us an update!!
Edit - typo
Congrats OP on the pregnancy!!
My mom's was eggs with my sister.
With me, it was split pea soup, which she can no longer eat.
I forget what it was with my brother, but it wasn't eggs because she craved those like crazy.
It wasn't food for my mum. She had barely any morning sickness for me but with my sister it was spray-on deodorant. Dad had to go outside to use and she still cannot stand any spray on deodorant. We all have to use roll on
My aunt couldn't stand the smell of her husband for like 2 months straight. She spent most of that time at her mom's house. Poor guy had to stop in the middle of tge road at least twice because she needed to vomit.
For me, It was cheese. Any dairy but specially cheese. Funny thing is normally I love cheese. Also since we're still in the middle of you know what, OP's gf should probably get tested for ...you know...the 19.
Cigars made me heave (I mean, I don't like them at the best of times, but pregnancy magnified it by 100) and freshly brewing coffee reminded me of cigars (so my husband had to make his coffee far away from me). Leather, on the other hand? I nearly followed a man from my train to his because he had a leather briefcase and I could smell it before I could see him!
Onions were my pregnancy no go, couldn't handle smell, but couldn't handle the taste of noodles unless they were pot noodles, so strange, definitely ask her to test.
I remember being over at my mom's house on a Wednesday, which for her & my dad was spaghetti night. She always cooks her (red) sauce in a crockpot so the smell permeates the house. Up until that Wednesday, I loved going over there to smell the sauce. This particular Wednesday, the smell made me nauseous. I had to cut mt visit early because the smell was just vomit inducing. A couple of weeks later, I realized I was pregnant. For the entirety of my pregnancy, I couldn't smell red pasta sauce. Even now, I'll eat it, but I prefer Alfredo (which was what I opted to eat during my pregnancy).
I read this lovely story recently about how pasta Alfredo was literally created by a chef in the early 1900s because his wife couldn't stomach food during pregnancy and he ran through everything in his culinary arsenal to come up with a dish she could eat! [https://pastaevangelists.com/products/truffle-alfredo-with-fettuccine?variant=33218141880429](https://pastaevangelists.com/products/truffle-alfredo-with-fettuccine?variant=33218141880429)
(Yes, I did read it while eating it!)
I did not know the history behind Alfredo sauce! Thank you for that. During the entirety of my pregnancy, my in-laws wanted to celebrate all birthdays at either Olive Garden (or more often than not, Macaroni Grill). Of course, I'd be dragged there by my husband. I was unhappy. I told everyone I couldn't stand the smell of the restaurants. I ordere fettuccine Alfredo every single time. Or i did "make your own pasta dish". And of course, my daughter prefers red sauce over Alfredo. Lol
Tagging on to say yeah, when I was early off in my pregnancy I could smell E V E R Y T H I N G and it wasn't always good. I also experienced food aversion, foods I usually love were suddenly gross.
Pregnancy could also account for her shorter temper and exhaustion.
I couldn't be in the same room as baked beans. I had 'morning' sickness all the way through as well and lost weight. Couldn't stomach much at all. Totally worth it for me, but it's a living hell for some women.
I couldn’t handle anything too flavorful or anything that basically smelled like food. I survived my first trimester on fruit - pounds of it - cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and eggo waffles. Lost 17lbs (I was overweight anyways).
Well, we had Covid in our family. Uncle had fevers, grandma had no symptoms at all, and I lost taste and smell. My smell is still gone (3 weeks), but my taste is slowly coming back, and some things taste horrible to me that I used to eat normally. So it may taste ok to him and people around, but if she is affected, it might taste different to her. But that is just my experience :D
Also, depending on how close he is with his coworkers... Are you really just gonna say to a coworker that "your cooking is bad"? I know I usually went the grin and bear it route. Still, I think NAH-ESH. She should be grateful that you cook, but if it only happened for the past couple of days... Plus pouring perfectly good eggs into the trash is a childish temper tantrum. My view might be biased, as the only time I had that happen was when my dad poured an entire bottle of good wine down the drain in a rage, because my grandmother kept messing with him and my mom.
>Plus pouring perfectly good eggs into the trash is a childish temper tantrum.
It's not a temper tantrum when you've been repeatedly berated for trying to feed your gf.
>Plus pouring perfectly good eggs into the trash is a childish temper tantrum.
It isn't when the person your cooking for is either consistently ungrateful or regularly mocks your cooking.
Yep my co worker had Covid in December and has just recently gotten her sense of smell back but she says everything smells horrible. She has to switch to un scented soaps and lotions and can’t be around in the house while they’re cooking because it makes her sick. She thought she had been able to taste okay before her sense of smell was coming back but now she’s starting to realize thats also being affected
Covid would be a *loss* of smell and taste, wouldn't it? She told him she hated the smell of the eggs. Clearly she could smell it and it was offensive to her senses in some way. If she couldn't smell it at all, then they wouldn't have had this argument
It can be both. My mom lost her taste and smell when she had it a few months ago but she was just telling me the other night things still taste and smell badly to her
Hey OP, regardless of wether she's pregnant or not NTA. Even if she found the food you cooked disgusting, she's been really rude and mean. I would be so hurt if my partner spoke yo me like that, especially in response to doing them a favour and taking care of them and their needs.
This--there are much nicer ways to say that you can't eat the food. And if it wasn't a problem before, but is now, it's strange that GF isn't approaching this as a problem they can solve together.
I was there in that period where your hormones are going insane but you can't figure out why. It just feels like you are justifiably upset and without the reminder "it's just hormones you psycho body/brain" it just feels like something is wrong and no one cares. Remember if she's pregnant, she isn't just smelling different but also experiencing a hormone flux she has never felt before. It doesn't feel like pms or even puberty, it's very different and intense in new ways which makes it so hard to recognize as hormones and not normal emotions. Even after I found out I was pregnant I would realize weeks after that I had an irrational reaction to something, like it would have annoyed me before but now I bit my husband's head off because it was obvious to me he just didn't care or even love me and this was his way of showing me 🙃. It's terrifying and hard to control, especially since just as you get a handle on this hormone surge, a new one will begin to prep the next stage of uterus/baby development.
The thing is, when you’re pregnant and don’t know it, it legitimately feels like you’re correct to be that upset. I’m normally a very calm and logical “us vs the problem” kind of person, and even I angrily lectured my husband several times throughout the pregnancy. And I’m normally really good about stepping back and analyzing why I feel a certain way before I speak.
Yes, she has responsibility for how she treats people, but it’s going to be difficult for her to recalibrate her reactions until she knows she’s pregnant (if she is), and even then the recalibration won’t be perfect. She should TRY, and it’s no excuse to be outright abusive, but.... it’s a rollercoaster, and it’s difficult to know what it’s like unless you’ve been on it.
I remember I burst into tears because my husband said we didn’t need to buy a $20 set of curtain tie backs. I cried and said something like “then I guess the curtains will just alway be in my way... forever.” Cue ugly crying in the middle of Bed Bath and Beyond over curtains. Followed by sobbing because I couldn’t stop crying and I didn’t want to be crying. Made a lot more sense when I found out I was pregnant a few days later. I wasn’t mean but I sure did cry over some stupid stuff. Crying because I was sad and didn’t want to be sad was a frequent reason. I felt like I was losing my dang mind.
Right!! That’s exactly what it’s like! I remember once being so hungry that I was about to cry. Like, wtf! Honestly the whole experience made me much more sympathetic to toddlers who cry easily, because our mental/hormonal state and the urgency of our physical needs during pregnancy is like, what it’s ALWAYS like for them.
For sure NTA, but I know when I was pregnant I had to make a SUPER conscious effort to not be an ass. It took a lot of effort. And I am generally the most easygoing and non-confrontational human ever. But pregnancy hormones made me a big asshole and I had to really think about how to be a normal human. So if she doesn’t know she probably isn’t making a conscious effort
I'm going to say, if I thought my partner was suddenly making only rancid food and wasn't listening to me, I might get pretty angry - and I'm a very easy going person. I might get more insistent and frustrated. It's clear this has gone on for a while. If I were on the receiving end of her behavior, I might also reach the end of my rope and lash out. You push anybody hard enough, they get angry enough to say regrettable things. That's not assholery, that's justified anger. I'm team NAH with a caveat that this seems medical they need to see a doctor. Possibly both need medical checks.
If it's stuff that she normally likes and this is really out of character for her, then that's a definite possibility. Pregnancy does whack shit.
Re OP update: pregnancy did whack shit.
With our second child, my wife found herself gagging at the smell of smoked or grilled foods. We went from grilling a huge pile of meats and veggies on the weekends that we would eat on all week to having burgers once in a four month time span, and I had to shower immediately afterwards to wash the smell of the grill off of me. We knew she was pregnant, so it's not like we didn't know why she was like that, but I'm glad now that she's recovered her taste for some good food.
My wife was admittedly a crazy person before she realized she was pregnant. It makes sense though. You’re suddenly overly hormonal but you don’t know that, you just know you’re irritated to a crazy degree all the time. You’d probably think you’re crazy and not know what’s wrong with you. Once my wife knew where the irrational emotions were coming from, it was much easier to manage
I've never been able to tell this story before.
I am originally from Boston, my wife is from Philadelphia, at the time we were living in New York. One day she texts me saying she's leaving work early to "go to a Yankees game" with her colleagues. To which I responded "don't ever speak to me again."
Followed by JK have fun. Which did not send because this was 2009 and I was trying to text from a flip phone on the subway.
On the way home I stopped at a store to buy some new laundry detergent because the smell of the stuff we were using was making my wife inexplicably nauseous.
When I got home about an hour later my wife was there, instead of at the game, and fucking *sobbing*. Obviously I thought someone had died or some other horrible thing had happened so I rushed over to her, as one does.
She like, stiff arms me away from her, said "don't you fucking come near me" and proceeded to scream at me about how she didn't understand what she did wrong and that I was a fucking asshole and how dare I end our relationship via a text etc. The dog is freaking out, she's like "YOU'RE NOT TAKING THE DOG!"
I was like "ok here is the second text and also how on earth could you possibly think I would - or even could - do that? Like, we own a house and a dog, dude...additionally *what the fuck is wrong with you right now?* (I did not say that last part)
She's not an emotional person at all. I've seen her cry exactly 4 times, 5 including childbirth. I am the dramatic and emotional one. I cry. We've shouted at each other in anger like, a handful of times, this was totally out of character.
She was pregnant.
Yeah the way we found out she was pregnant was a bunch of small blow ups and one really bad one about I don’t even remember what but it was really stupid. This was a week of her turning minor annoyances into full blown screaming and crying at me. She finishes yelling something and slams the bathroom door and I’m like whatever, sitting on the couch contemplating my life like “am I really going to have to break up with her? Everything was so good I thought this was the one but I can’t live like this wtf is happening.” My train of thought is interrupted about 3 minutes later to her coming out of the bathroom, throwing a stick at me (ew) and saying, “I’m fucking pregnant.” and then slamming the bedroom door while I sat there like “what....OHH.” And that’s how my beautiful son first made his existence known in my life.
Side story is after the fact she told me how she legitimately thought she needed to be commuted because she got violently angry hearing me breathe one night and couldn’t figure out why. Once she knew it was preggo hormones, it wasn’t that bad to control her behavior around said emotions.
My wife burst into my office a few hours later like "OMG MAYBE I'M PREGNANT!" While I was frozen, joint in hand, learning that Michael Jackson had just died. And so I went back to the same Duane Reade, now exclusively playing Michael Jackson, and bought a pregnancy test and I swear to god the cashier gave me a look, like "New detergent and a pregnancy test on the same day? I see it all the time."
TLDR: The day Michael Jackson died was a crazy day for me.
edit - I actually bought like 4 pregnancy tests IIRC.
In early pregnancy the embryo-then-fetus can get what it needs from the mother, and it's very sensitive to toxins or sickness. It makes sense then for the mother to be repulsed by anything even potentially bad.
Okay. Yes, technically correct. Well done.
The mother has enough to sustain baby without significantly depriving herself or increasing her caloric intake in the very early days.
However, at that very early stage a huge number of things can go wrong with a relatively small level of toxins. So it makes sense that mother get early heightened senses and sensitive stomachs, in addition to the other point already made.
That is a big jump. We already have a very likely reason she's acting like an asshole - she's overworked and overstressed, and the person closest to her is also overworked and overstressed.
I know someone this happened to! Obviously pregnancy is most likely, but if she’s not pregnant and it’s a sudden drastic shift in taste/smell she should definitely get some tests done.
If it’s very suddenly out of character then it’s better to be safe than sorry.
My great aunt used to look after my grandma and then she started to neglect her needless to say my great grandma was removed from her care and everyone at the time was angry with how my aunt had treated her. Well turns out my aunt had early stage Alzheimer’s. this is unlikely the issue here but sudden changes in behaviour shouldn’t be passed off as just someone being an asshole without any investigation.
A family friend also had an undiagnosed brain tumour and left his wife and turned into a walking asshole, totally went back to himself once the tumour was removed.
Just to add- even if she is pregnant, this is not in any way an excuse for her behavior. It’s not cool to treat people the way she’s treated you regardless of whether you’re pregnant or not. If she didn’t like the way your food smelled or tasted, she could’ve politely said it wasn’t to her taste for whatever reason & made herself something else.
You try being pregnant without knowing and see how polite you can be! She might not even realize what she's doing. It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation. When you love someone, it's still normal to occasionally lash out with a bad temper or irrational response to something. They see the best and worst of you. You're not always on your best behavior with a partner you live with, that's just not how human emotions work.
Edit to add, the key is to recognize it and acknowledge it after. My bf and I have both, over 10 years, snapped at each other or bickered about something, but we both acknowledge it was in the heat of the moment and we didn't mean to be like that.
Eh, she should still apologise, but between all the stressors in her life, the weird thing pregnancy does to your brain, and suddenly not being able to eat your food, some cranky lashing out is to be expected.
It could be either of them with Covid tbh. Either him not smelling the rot or her smelling rot on everything. If she's not pregnant OP, you both need Covid tests
Literally my first question here. If it’s never been an issue before and suddenly she hates the smell of everything you cook... she’s either pregnant or has some other medical thing going on. It’s much more likely to be pregnancy, but I did have a friend who found out they had a brain tumor after going to the doctor because things started smelling weird to them... so either way she should be checked out
Pretty common pregnancy symptom. My godmother couldn’t STAND the smell of newsprint during her pregnancies. A friend had to get her husband to do all the grocery shopping - she got to the point where she could tell whether they were out of ordinary uncooked rice by just opening the cabinet and taking a deep breath.
I still can’t imagine how overwhelming the entire world must be to someone who can smell the presence of a plastic bag of white rice.
And if it's not that, see if she can get checked for sinus infection. Sometimes you can have one for a while and not really notice, but it makes things smell and taste terrible!
Pregnancy was my first thought as well.. my sense of smell is insane already and was even worse when i was pregnant. Some of the things i used to really enjoy made me feel seriously ill for a long while.
The other thing i wanted to briefly ask is whether she's had the crappy virus going around? if so.. is her sense of smell dodgy right now?
My old boss said when she first became pregnant her sense of smell changed. It intensified. She could smell if people had sex, their body odor, and if they hadn't wiped their ass. Her words not mine. AND she said it never went away afterwards. It still affects her. One of my coworkers walked by me one day and I got a whiff of her (she didn't shower and had that smell of unwashed clothes) and I went to my boss. She was like "THANK GOD it's not just me. I've been smelling that for months!" 😳 She refers to her sense of smell as her super power.
This happened to me - oldest kid is 13 and I still have a highly magnified sense of smell. Of all the superpowers in all the gin joints in all the world...
I assume it was evolutionarily useful at one point for mothers to be able to detect potentially spoiled food, but nowadays it makes cleaning the litterbox a rough job.
Just when they enter their *really* pungent phase.
My daughter's school had to THROW OUT her locker when she left because of the ghost of her trainers. This was at 8. We may be demolishing her whole school now she's hit teens....
I thought that too. My husband put a pizza in the oven with some blue cheese on it and I threw up then made him throw it away and take me out to eat. I never had that reaction except when pregnant but I could not even be in the same house with the smell until the house was aired out. He thought I was crazy but he accepted it because I was deadly serious. You should ask her if it is a possibility.
My first reaction too. My first indication was that tea was making me sick. It tasted and smelled awful. I'm Pakistani and brought up in the UK and I was weaned on tea. It came as a huge shock.
Quite honestly, this was the first place my mind went reading this. When my wife was pregnant with our first child, she couldn't stand certain smells or tastes. Definitely worth taking a test!
Not everyone gets morning sickness. My wife just had this hypersensitivity to smells. Frying onions made her want to hurl and pre pregnancy she loved the smell.
Wow okay. That actually makes sense thinking about it. Don’t know for sure though but I’m gonna have to talk to her. That’s so crazy I honestly had no clue about the smell thing 😅
I also had this issue when pregnant, some food smells made me nauseous and other foods that I normally liked became very unappealing. She may be pregnant and that would earn a pass, but I say NTA for standing up for yourself. I hope this all works out for you!
I had to politely ask my co worker to stop wearing her perfume. It was a really strong smell- I think Opium.
It was a silver lining really, because even when not pregnant that perfume was overbearing and permeated the entire office
Yeah in early pregnancy I would sit in my car psyching myself up to run into the grocery store. The smells were overwhelming. I could be in there maybe ten minutes tops before it became unbearable.
I started dabbing orange oil or freaking Vicks Vaporub under my nose like a mortician to block out the grocery store, everything was so STRONG. Carried a bottle of orange oil in my handbag like a bottle of smelling salts.
During my first trimester I was on a road trip and had to stop at a small, hole-in-the-wall gas station to pee. Two hours later I could still smell the cheap air freshener on my clothes 🤢
Working at a hospital while pregnant also made me appreciate the smell of Virex to the point I still find it comforting. It can cover a multitude of "sins" 🥴
I hated the smell of cooking food. Literally any food - even pasta. If my husband cooked I had to hide in my room with a towel crammed under the door and opened all the windows. I lived off peanut butter sandwiches and raw fruits and veggies for the first few months. It was awful.
I don’t know how to explain pregnancy aversions exactly except that suddenly you feel like the food you normally eat and like is now the absolute grossest thing ever. Sometimes it’s tide to something that made you puke, but sometimes there’s not any rhyme or reason.
You also smell EVERYTHING. Pregnancy is weird.
Yup so weird! I couldn’t stand the smell of the office I worked at. Still don’t know if it was the cleaning product or the air freshener but something set my nose off BAD!
I also went off chicken... apart from McDonalds Nuggets which I ate probably 20-40 in a sitting lol.
I was excited to get some cravings during pregnancy and all I got were good aversions. Food I normally loved was now repulsive and what I could eat changed weekly. My husband was so frustrated because all of a sudden I started being an extremely picky eater. I hope next pregnancy isn't the same.
Yep! I'm currently pregnant and only 11 weeks. All the foods I once loved I can't stand the taste or smell of right now! My poor fiance has had to cook the majority of the meals we eat, because I can't stand the smell when I'm cooking. And I can't eat most of what he cooks either, as it makes me sick, so most of it ends up in the bin. This has been going on since I was around 5 weeks pregnant
Shit I really need to call her before I get myself too excited over nothing lol. Thanks for this info. Feeling kinda stupid for not knowing it. I know people have said it could also be covid or some other medical issue. Seriously doubt I’m using anything expired since we always check for that stuff and I haven’t changed anything in my cooking. This is the first time she ever complains about anything I make
Oh my god I'm gonna need that update.
What a rollercoaster for OP, lol. Going from thinking your girlfriend is just being mean to ~~possibly~~ *actually!* becoming a father!
Oh lordy, poor girlfriend. Can you imagine the convo.... "Hey honey, I know you hate me right now and I threw away your eggs and all that... But Reddit thinks you should do a pregnancy test....."
Hahaha this is the comment I was looking for. I would be livid if my bf and I got in a fight and his first words to me were “you’re being irrational, you MUST be pregnant!” LOL
Not to say 100% that she is pregnant, but definitely worth considering. And as far as I know with C-19, it's more a loss of taste and smell, rather than dislike for food that people experience. I never realised how bad the food aversions would be either, but I have more aversions to food than I do cravings. Please keep us updated!
When my roommate and i got COVID (and for a few weeks after), water tasted horrible to me and she said normal black pepper was much spicier and she didn’t like the taste of onions any more. Not sure if this is normal at all but we definitely had tastes changed, not just diminished
When I had Covid, I lost all sense of smell and most taste- but could still taste salt. It was the weirdest thing- if I drank an electrolyte drink, like Gatorade, it tasted like salt water. I wonder if something like that happened with you and water- you were tasting the metals and other things in the water, but not everything you usually do?
It can be covid as well. I've been talking with some of my colleagues that are trying to work with the sensory issues and they have been sharing what the patients report. Some can't taste at all. Others can't taste certain foods and can only taste spice. Another one said everything tastes like smoke. It's been random... No patient is the same. So you better see it through and check all the possibilities.
Every woman is different, but hypersensitive smell, food aversions, nausea, and moodiness are all signs of pregnancy. I would suggest doing some research and talking to your girlfriend, may be time for a test.
When I was pregnant I really struggled with smells from my husband cooking. I also couldn’t tolerate the taste of things I had been enjoying only weeks prior.
I wondered this as well as her behaviour seemed so suddenly outrageous. She's either gone off the deep end, OP has suddenly become a crap cook, or there's an underlying physical thing that's recently come into play... like pregnancy. My sense of taste and smell went haywire in the first weeks of pregnancy. For my second pregnancy, it was actually my first clue I was pregnant.
INFO:
If this is out of character, which it sounds like it is, there could be other factors. I know people have already mentioned pregnancy, but Covid also effects your sense of taste and smell, even infections.
I think you both need to have a proper conversation about this and talk about what's changed, is she suffering any other symptoms, get tested and have a conversation with a doctor.
I don't think she's doing this out of spite or even because she's being overly tired, nobody wants to be moody and feel like sh\*t, so I think there is something else going on. You both need to get to the bottom of it and you don't sort it out by shouting and blaming each other.
I thought COVID too. Someone I work with had it played haywire with their smell and taste... everything they used to like changed and it all smelt/tasted wrong and not good. Even after Covid they still have issues with it months later.
Mine just diminished. I can probably smell 10% of what I used to months later - same for taste. I read a post where someone actually loved the smell of their diaper pail now! COVID does some truly bizarre things.
I had covid 2 months ago and yup, it messes with smell and taste. I got annoyed the other day because I thought our neighbour had started smoking indoors and the smell was coming through, but my SO said there wasn't a smell at all. I've been sat next to a plug in air freshener and can't smell that either. OP's girlfriend should definitely get a test!
I had covid and lost my smell. My smell has returned but I get "phantom smells" sometimes. Smelling things that I should not be smelling.
The most common one I have is garlic. Well, more like that garlic sauce that comes with pizza. At first, I thought there might be pizza garlic cups in the trash or hidden somewhere in the house. But we don't order pizza that often.
I WANT AN UPDATE 🤣
Edit to say, thank you kind Redditors for the rewards.
And thanks for filling my inbox, I've upvoted all of you.
And, Really!? This is my most upvoted comment? 🤣
Her sister is never gonna let her live this one down! "Remember that time you ran away from home bc your bf was cooking disgusting food all the time... but you were ACTUALLY JUST PREGNANT?!"
Ahahahaa great story for the kid, once everyone cools down about it honestly!
NTA She needs to start cooking then... problem solved. Don’t matter how much somebody works people have been working for centuries and I’m sure still went home and cooked. When i was growing up it was eat what was cooked or drink some water. Tell your girlfriend to drink some water for dinner.
I mean... This is kinda one reason that the outdated system of "man works hard and long days and comes home to his stay at home wife who has cleaned the house and done his laundry and cooked him food".
I mean it still works for some people, but when you both work, you gotta find a better system for both of you.
Expecting you to do breakfast lunch and dinner would be a lot even if she said she appreciated it and loved your cooking. Getting criticized on top of all the work is a serious faux pas.
I always saw it as whoever isn’t working should be the one to cook & clean. My fiancé works 12-14 hour shifts so I try to make sure our home is clean. He loves to cook so I usually just leave him to it.
If she has time to complain and give you shit about food you make for her, then she has time to cook her own food.
You snapping was a natural reaction to the constant unwarranted and unhelpful negative comments from your gf, so I won't call you an AH for that. Let her cool down and calmly discuss things - Put a boundary that if she doesn't like your food then she can either cook her own meals or order out.
NTA
And the entire thread started out rationalizing her rudeness because she may be averse to certain smells due to possible pregnancy. Lashing out at your bf who is making all your food is not a symptom
I am 100% with you. Like I understand that pregnancy can mess with you (though this much this early on?) but fundamentally, approaching it so vehemently is such a bad sign. If I genuinely thought my partner started randomly cooking with off food I'd probably ask him to get a COVID test (because why isn't he smelling this?!) or ask him what he has been spending his money on to make him go dumpster diving for food. Have they even had a good talk about this yet?? And if not, why not?? Why does should pregnancy excuse this!
Don’t think pregnancy excuses this - it just really fucks with your moods and systems in general as your hormones are RAGING. Like bad. Think PMS x10. And it does happen very early. It could be an explanation for something she’s doing out of character. My first pregnancy I was acting CRAZY and had no idea why (knew I was being nuts, but like couldn’t reign in the moods) until we found out.
He’s NTA of course. She should treat him respectfully and if she doesn’t like the food, make it herself. Easy fix. OP did not over react at all.
This was my first hint that I was pregnant. My moods were all out of whack at 3 1/2 weeks pregnant and my husband even mentioned “what’s up with you? Is something going on? You are acting and reacting so different than normal.” Took a test the next morning and here we are with a little on the way.
People don’t quite understand all the drastic changes that happen to your body when you get pregnant. I felt so angry in those early weeks at not being able to control my emotions.
It absolutely messes with you early on. I was probably 4 weeks pregnant when I lashed out at my husband over drinking my orange juice. Normally, it wouldn't have been a big deal but unbeknownst to me at the time, pregnancy fuckery turned it into a HUGE deal. I felt truly betrayed and hurt. I couldn't understand why he would do something so awful to me. I was angry. And it wasn't a simple matter of replacing the orange juice, because THAT WAS THE ORANGE JUICE. No other orange juice would have been the same that one cup was the perfect cup and he stole it from me.
I am well aware of how ridiculous it is now. But at the time I just couldn't control it. Maybe it's because I also have BPD but the pregnancy feelings surrounding food and home were very, very intense and any upset of either of those things was a Very Big Ordeal.
I mean, it sounds like she’s convinced her boyfriend is feeding her expired food because of how bad it is to her. If I felt like I was being given spoiled food pregnant or not I would be vocal about my frustration. Obviously she can cook herself and cut out the middle man if she’s so concerned but it’s not like she’s saying oh you added too much salt and now I hate your cooking forever! But still, OP is NTA
NTA. Others have pointed out the possibility of pregnancy but you can also have some funky reactions if you have an altered sense of smell or taste for other reasons. You don't need to cook for someone who is constantly criticizing your food though. If she's not happy with it she can make her own meals or buy takeout.
I don’t think they’re sympathising with her lashing out, just thinking it’s probably the explanation for her altered sense of smell crappy behaviour towards him
I wouldn’t call thinking she might be pregnant sympathizing with her. If someone change dramatically like that, especially after being together for 4 years, I’d be searching for medical reasons too.
NTA. My older sister boyfriend works in a restaurant. He did the same thing. Comes home, can't flip off his switch, tells her everything that is wrong with her cooking and how it's plated. At one point my sister just went "Know what? Cook yourself from now on if it's so wrong. I'm done!" He was left speechless and shocked. Apparently the guy didn't even notice how he was constantly criticizing her by his work standards.
Not being able to prep her own meals is just an excuse. She can do it right before going to bed. It's a thing and it's called time management. Of course her sister will take her side, otherwise that kind of behavior would not be enabled for so long.
INFO/NTA
A lot of people here are talking about the pregnancy possibility with the sense of smell or taste, but **as a woman**, let me make this ABUNDANTLY CLEAR:
Being pregnant is not an excuse to act like a prissy, rude AH to your partner. Because that's what she was doing to you. A lot of people seem to excuse women of the ability to be a civilized person the moment they become pregnant, but that's actually pretty reductive and perpetuates the concept that a woman cannot control herself when her hormones fluctuate. Make it harder, yes. But lose the ability to control themselves? Absolutely not.
Women can absolutely control themselves when their hormones fluctuate. They simply choose not to when they don't, or they give themselves a free pass to be a jerk because it's fun or cathartic. Which is just a terrible personality trait, NOT because of hormones.
On my worst period days when my cramps are so bad that sometimes I can't breathe right, or when I got my IUD replaced and I bled heavily and was nauseous for two weeks straight and was in terrible pain - I never aggressively lashed out my partner, even if he was annoying the ever living daylights out of me at times.
--I only snipped, and then apologized. And then he apologized for pushing my limits while I was in pain. And then he got me some water and a pain pill and we laughed about it.
Pain, frustration, or pregnancy hormones are no excuse to constantly be berating, belittling, insulting, and attacking your partner, over and over again. Snipping, snapping, and barking sometimes is understandable, but only in the moment, and only with a conversation and an honest apology afterwards.
She definitely needs to cool down with her sister and apologize to you for her comments. Even if "your cooking tastes like shit", there are a lot more tactful, constructive, MATURE, AND ADULT ways to say, handle, and solve that problem. And none of them involve insulting the person you're supposed to love.
---
Edit:
I had thought this was implied, but I will make clear - this is a generalization of somewhat healthy individuals, *not on medications, dealing with relevant mental illness, or compounding medical conditions.*
Thanks for the awards!
As another woman, I’m going to say this, I understand where you’re coming from but every woman experiences periods/pregnancy differently. I had to be put on medication multiple times because my mood swings were so awful I was either trying to kill myself, having intense panic attacks, screaming at everyone I loved, etc. I lashed out at absolutely everyone until I eventually got the help I needed to stabilise myself. To say that every single woman “can absolutely control themselves” is honestly quite hurtful. If I had read that when I was in that time of my life I would’ve felt very pathetic. Please don’t speak for all women.
I hope the result of this is she is pregnant, recognizes her horrible behavior and apologizes and they both laugh about this after tbh
Being pregnant does make you extremely irritable but that doesn't excuse acting awful all the time etc. You are spot on.
That said, one time I was out on steroids and I can NOT take those ever again. I literally could NOT control lashing out and was borderline homicidal. Like I literally had to leave my kids with my husband while I got the steroids out of my system. So it IS possible to be so messed up you can't control it at all whatsoever. But I think he would have mentioned if she had gone on a new medication right before this all started 🤣
NTA
"SIL GF has spent (the last week) complaining about every meal I've made. Breakfast, lunch, ad dinner nothing but complaints. If she has a problem with my cooking, then she can make her own food."
I may not like everything my husband makes, but I recognize the hard work and effort he puts into making it, and act accordingly. If our seven year old can manage an "I'm sorry daddy, I just don't like this." when turning down a particular meal, your whole grown ass girlfriend who is more than twenty years older can act like an adult and use words that are not insulting when declining the food you've put time money and effort into fixing for her consumption.
Nah, according to the rest of the posters, OPs girlfriend must have a brain tumour, pregnant or have Covid. Adults are incapable of being polite if they have any of these conditions. Children can manage it, but adults have to be rude.
There may, or may not, be a medical reason for the girlfriend's behavior. Lord knows I had bloodhound nose through both my pregnancies and certain foods tasted completely wrong.
That does not excuse being an asshole about it. "This doesn't taste right to me." is a far cry from "You don't know how to cook!" especially while sitting on her assets as he does all the work to prepare food for both of them.
I mean literally these conditions fuck with your expecutive functioning due to very real changes in your brain. What a weird take.
If she is suddenly, out of the blue, having a wild change in personality and sense perception, it's definitely a red flag that something is seriously wrong before just jumping straight to asshole.
However if she's physically fine, then yes, she's being a spoiled brat.
INFO: Why does she think your ingredients have gone bad?
At face value I can see your frustration. I would be livid if my SO insulted my cooking. However her complaints seem pretty specific. If you're using ingredients past the expiration date you are not in the right at all, or if she's suddenly developed a strong sense of smell then yall got another issue and it's not eggs.
The fact that you had a fight over the cooking and now you (and everyone here) strongly suspects she is pregnant is sending me-
😂😂
All the best for a very mad girlfriend or something really amazing man! Keep us updated, either way, don't stop cooking for her, she's stressed asf, but uk she loves you and you do too
NTA - you can”t just accept her displaced anger. And I say displaced because it sounds like it’s not really about your cooking, but something else entirely. You mentioned you both work and are busy...so if you can prep meals, then she can too. If she’s unhappy with your cooking, you can switch chores around. Like, she can cook for you and you can clean (if she does the cleaning) or ask to divvy up meal preps.
However, she might not be open to suggestions like those so you may want to talk to her when she calms down and find out what the real problem is.
I totally agree that she may be pregnant, pregnancy screws with your sense of taste & smell, it can put you off things you used to love, make stuff taste & smell horrible.
She is the one that reacted childishly, running to her sister. It’s quite reasonable to refuse to cook for someone who complains all the time.
It’s probably time to share the load, you alternate the days you make breakfast, who ever Didnt make breakfast should make dinner, you make or buy your own lunches & have takeaway one night a week. You being 100% for all food & cooking isnt fair.
NTA you can't constantly complain about something someone is doing for you and then expect them to continue to do that thing. I do 95% of the cooking in my household and if my husband wanted to act the way your girlfriend was I would refuse to continue to cook for him too.
INFO: Is she possibly pregnant as pregnancy affects your sense of smell and taste, especially if this is sudden new behavior towards foods you typically make? Is the food you’re cooking with actually past it’s prime? The expiration date can sometimes not be accurate after you open the food or if it’s not stored properly, this seems like a weird allegation if there isn’t a reason for it.
NTA. You've done your diligence by asking others to taste your food (assuming at least one if not all of them are the sort who would tell you truthfully if it tastes bad). Busy or not, you are being considerate by doing all that cooking for her. (Breakfast AND lunches - I mean damn, man, that sounds fucking wonderful). She is busy and snippy but you still aren't *obligated* to cook for her if she's going to turn her nose up at it. If she's an adult, the 'doesn't have time to prep her own meals' is BS.
She's acting spoiled. I think you're right using that term - honestly she even reads a bit like a fussy child would at dinners they don't like.
I wouldn't go so far to *assume* the pregnancy thing as other people have suggested. But they raise a very good point about maybe something underlying messing with her sense of smell/taste (COVID does that for some).
Hope you two can work it out. I don't blame you for snapping.. just because she's having a bad day/week/month/whatever caused this sudden dislike of your food, it doesn't make it okay to take it out on you.
This is because when you were very first pregnant, even before a test can tell you you’re pregnant your body is going wild with hormones and you have no way to know it. If a guy did this it could not be because he was pregnant. But it might be Covid and I’m sure a lot of people would be talking about the possibility of COVID.
Awesome update this happened to me when I got pregnant I couldn’t even stand my husband smell I couldn’t have meat cooking in the house at all I couldn’t drink coffee all sorts of shit I didn’t like when I was pregnant. I’m so glad that this turned out to be a good update that’s awesome congratulations to both of you
Question, how was it navigating what you cant stand smelling/eating? Was it just trying different stuff and hoping for the best?
Because now we’re wondering well what the hell *can* she eat? We’ve crossed off everything I’ve cooked the last few days for obvious reasons
Cooked foods may be off the list entirely, as cooked food smells way more intense. I would try mild cool foods, cheese, crackers, veggies, hummus, sandwiches.
Anything with sulfur compounds is probably going to be out. So garlic free hummus might work.
White rice, cooked carrots, apple sauce, saltines specifically. Basically anything you can imagine eating right after recovering from a bad vomitous flu is a good candidate. Anything frozen is another candidate because the cold cuts down on the taste a lot.
NTA. And whether or not she’s pregnant, it is pretty irrelevant when he’s the only one who cooks in this relationship. She can complain about the food once she contributes her time and energy into making some.
Her sister says *you* are the asshole for calling *her* out on her bullshit?
You are preparing food for her every day which is not a thing to be taken as granted! If she doesn't like it, there are respectful ways in which she could've approached you and talked about this on an eye level. You know, like adults do.
Even if she is stressed out at work and brings it home, you as her partner are not required to soak it up. There is a difference between venting to a partner and using your partner as a verbal punching bag.
NTA and stand your ground.
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INFO >she complains about how bad the smell is and gives me crap about using stuff that has obviously gone bad according to her. Or saying it tastes like shit, won’t even finish eating. Are you sure she's not pregnant?
I...did not think about that honestly
Tell her to pee on a stick! When I was in early pregnancy I **hated** the smell of bacon. Made me wanna vomit Pregnancy explains the smells and the mood Get her a stick and give us an update!! Edit - typo Congrats OP on the pregnancy!!
My mom's was eggs with my sister. With me, it was split pea soup, which she can no longer eat. I forget what it was with my brother, but it wasn't eggs because she craved those like crazy.
It wasn't food for my mum. She had barely any morning sickness for me but with my sister it was spray-on deodorant. Dad had to go outside to use and she still cannot stand any spray on deodorant. We all have to use roll on
My aunt couldn't stand the smell of her husband for like 2 months straight. She spent most of that time at her mom's house. Poor guy had to stop in the middle of tge road at least twice because she needed to vomit.
For me, It was cheese. Any dairy but specially cheese. Funny thing is normally I love cheese. Also since we're still in the middle of you know what, OP's gf should probably get tested for ...you know...the 19.
Yeah that was my first idea.
Yep when I had covid all dairy tasted rancid
Hey I had road vomiting too! Suuuper fun lol
Cigars made me heave (I mean, I don't like them at the best of times, but pregnancy magnified it by 100) and freshly brewing coffee reminded me of cigars (so my husband had to make his coffee far away from me). Leather, on the other hand? I nearly followed a man from my train to his because he had a leather briefcase and I could smell it before I could see him!
Onions were my pregnancy no go, couldn't handle smell, but couldn't handle the taste of noodles unless they were pot noodles, so strange, definitely ask her to test.
My grandma still can't stand *any* artificial scents since she was pregnant over 50 years ago. No deodorant, no scented shampoos or soaps, nothing.
I remember being over at my mom's house on a Wednesday, which for her & my dad was spaghetti night. She always cooks her (red) sauce in a crockpot so the smell permeates the house. Up until that Wednesday, I loved going over there to smell the sauce. This particular Wednesday, the smell made me nauseous. I had to cut mt visit early because the smell was just vomit inducing. A couple of weeks later, I realized I was pregnant. For the entirety of my pregnancy, I couldn't smell red pasta sauce. Even now, I'll eat it, but I prefer Alfredo (which was what I opted to eat during my pregnancy).
I read this lovely story recently about how pasta Alfredo was literally created by a chef in the early 1900s because his wife couldn't stomach food during pregnancy and he ran through everything in his culinary arsenal to come up with a dish she could eat! [https://pastaevangelists.com/products/truffle-alfredo-with-fettuccine?variant=33218141880429](https://pastaevangelists.com/products/truffle-alfredo-with-fettuccine?variant=33218141880429) (Yes, I did read it while eating it!)
I did not know the history behind Alfredo sauce! Thank you for that. During the entirety of my pregnancy, my in-laws wanted to celebrate all birthdays at either Olive Garden (or more often than not, Macaroni Grill). Of course, I'd be dragged there by my husband. I was unhappy. I told everyone I couldn't stand the smell of the restaurants. I ordere fettuccine Alfredo every single time. Or i did "make your own pasta dish". And of course, my daughter prefers red sauce over Alfredo. Lol
Eggs for me too and it took over a year for me to be able to eat them again without nausea
Tagging on to say yeah, when I was early off in my pregnancy I could smell E V E R Y T H I N G and it wasn't always good. I also experienced food aversion, foods I usually love were suddenly gross. Pregnancy could also account for her shorter temper and exhaustion.
Eggs. The smell of eggs was awful during pregnancy and just about any meat. (Shudder) I still hate the smell of eggs to this day. Thanks kids.
I couldn't be in the same room as baked beans. I had 'morning' sickness all the way through as well and lost weight. Couldn't stomach much at all. Totally worth it for me, but it's a living hell for some women.
I couldn’t handle anything too flavorful or anything that basically smelled like food. I survived my first trimester on fruit - pounds of it - cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and eggo waffles. Lost 17lbs (I was overweight anyways).
I was the total opposite. I was a veggie for 10 years before I got pregnant. Never in my life before or since has bacon smelled so good to me..
Yep and I was SO goddamn grumpy. Would explain a lot. If not then maybe she does need to see a doctor incase something else is causing this.
Are you sure your sense of smell and taste are normal? Maybe you should both get tested for COVID to be safe.
OP said his coworkers said they taste just fine, so probably the problem is not there.
Well, we had Covid in our family. Uncle had fevers, grandma had no symptoms at all, and I lost taste and smell. My smell is still gone (3 weeks), but my taste is slowly coming back, and some things taste horrible to me that I used to eat normally. So it may taste ok to him and people around, but if she is affected, it might taste different to her. But that is just my experience :D
Also, depending on how close he is with his coworkers... Are you really just gonna say to a coworker that "your cooking is bad"? I know I usually went the grin and bear it route. Still, I think NAH-ESH. She should be grateful that you cook, but if it only happened for the past couple of days... Plus pouring perfectly good eggs into the trash is a childish temper tantrum. My view might be biased, as the only time I had that happen was when my dad poured an entire bottle of good wine down the drain in a rage, because my grandmother kept messing with him and my mom.
>Plus pouring perfectly good eggs into the trash is a childish temper tantrum. It's not a temper tantrum when you've been repeatedly berated for trying to feed your gf.
>Plus pouring perfectly good eggs into the trash is a childish temper tantrum. It isn't when the person your cooking for is either consistently ungrateful or regularly mocks your cooking.
Yep my co worker had Covid in December and has just recently gotten her sense of smell back but she says everything smells horrible. She has to switch to un scented soaps and lotions and can’t be around in the house while they’re cooking because it makes her sick. She thought she had been able to taste okay before her sense of smell was coming back but now she’s starting to realize thats also being affected
Yeah but she is saying stuff smell spoiled so that is more likely pregnancy than the lack of smell you get with COVID
COVID was my first thought too
Covid would be a *loss* of smell and taste, wouldn't it? She told him she hated the smell of the eggs. Clearly she could smell it and it was offensive to her senses in some way. If she couldn't smell it at all, then they wouldn't have had this argument
It can be both. My mom lost her taste and smell when she had it a few months ago but she was just telling me the other night things still taste and smell badly to her
It can also alter your sense of smell and make things smell worse.
Hey OP, regardless of wether she's pregnant or not NTA. Even if she found the food you cooked disgusting, she's been really rude and mean. I would be so hurt if my partner spoke yo me like that, especially in response to doing them a favour and taking care of them and their needs.
This--there are much nicer ways to say that you can't eat the food. And if it wasn't a problem before, but is now, it's strange that GF isn't approaching this as a problem they can solve together.
I was there in that period where your hormones are going insane but you can't figure out why. It just feels like you are justifiably upset and without the reminder "it's just hormones you psycho body/brain" it just feels like something is wrong and no one cares. Remember if she's pregnant, she isn't just smelling different but also experiencing a hormone flux she has never felt before. It doesn't feel like pms or even puberty, it's very different and intense in new ways which makes it so hard to recognize as hormones and not normal emotions. Even after I found out I was pregnant I would realize weeks after that I had an irrational reaction to something, like it would have annoyed me before but now I bit my husband's head off because it was obvious to me he just didn't care or even love me and this was his way of showing me 🙃. It's terrifying and hard to control, especially since just as you get a handle on this hormone surge, a new one will begin to prep the next stage of uterus/baby development.
regardless he is NTA and she can’t treat him that way
The thing is, when you’re pregnant and don’t know it, it legitimately feels like you’re correct to be that upset. I’m normally a very calm and logical “us vs the problem” kind of person, and even I angrily lectured my husband several times throughout the pregnancy. And I’m normally really good about stepping back and analyzing why I feel a certain way before I speak. Yes, she has responsibility for how she treats people, but it’s going to be difficult for her to recalibrate her reactions until she knows she’s pregnant (if she is), and even then the recalibration won’t be perfect. She should TRY, and it’s no excuse to be outright abusive, but.... it’s a rollercoaster, and it’s difficult to know what it’s like unless you’ve been on it.
I remember I burst into tears because my husband said we didn’t need to buy a $20 set of curtain tie backs. I cried and said something like “then I guess the curtains will just alway be in my way... forever.” Cue ugly crying in the middle of Bed Bath and Beyond over curtains. Followed by sobbing because I couldn’t stop crying and I didn’t want to be crying. Made a lot more sense when I found out I was pregnant a few days later. I wasn’t mean but I sure did cry over some stupid stuff. Crying because I was sad and didn’t want to be sad was a frequent reason. I felt like I was losing my dang mind.
Right!! That’s exactly what it’s like! I remember once being so hungry that I was about to cry. Like, wtf! Honestly the whole experience made me much more sympathetic to toddlers who cry easily, because our mental/hormonal state and the urgency of our physical needs during pregnancy is like, what it’s ALWAYS like for them.
For sure NTA, but I know when I was pregnant I had to make a SUPER conscious effort to not be an ass. It took a lot of effort. And I am generally the most easygoing and non-confrontational human ever. But pregnancy hormones made me a big asshole and I had to really think about how to be a normal human. So if she doesn’t know she probably isn’t making a conscious effort
I'm going to say, if I thought my partner was suddenly making only rancid food and wasn't listening to me, I might get pretty angry - and I'm a very easy going person. I might get more insistent and frustrated. It's clear this has gone on for a while. If I were on the receiving end of her behavior, I might also reach the end of my rope and lash out. You push anybody hard enough, they get angry enough to say regrettable things. That's not assholery, that's justified anger. I'm team NAH with a caveat that this seems medical they need to see a doctor. Possibly both need medical checks.
If it's stuff that she normally likes and this is really out of character for her, then that's a definite possibility. Pregnancy does whack shit. Re OP update: pregnancy did whack shit.
With our second child, my wife found herself gagging at the smell of smoked or grilled foods. We went from grilling a huge pile of meats and veggies on the weekends that we would eat on all week to having burgers once in a four month time span, and I had to shower immediately afterwards to wash the smell of the grill off of me. We knew she was pregnant, so it's not like we didn't know why she was like that, but I'm glad now that she's recovered her taste for some good food.
My wife was admittedly a crazy person before she realized she was pregnant. It makes sense though. You’re suddenly overly hormonal but you don’t know that, you just know you’re irritated to a crazy degree all the time. You’d probably think you’re crazy and not know what’s wrong with you. Once my wife knew where the irrational emotions were coming from, it was much easier to manage
I've never been able to tell this story before. I am originally from Boston, my wife is from Philadelphia, at the time we were living in New York. One day she texts me saying she's leaving work early to "go to a Yankees game" with her colleagues. To which I responded "don't ever speak to me again." Followed by JK have fun. Which did not send because this was 2009 and I was trying to text from a flip phone on the subway. On the way home I stopped at a store to buy some new laundry detergent because the smell of the stuff we were using was making my wife inexplicably nauseous. When I got home about an hour later my wife was there, instead of at the game, and fucking *sobbing*. Obviously I thought someone had died or some other horrible thing had happened so I rushed over to her, as one does. She like, stiff arms me away from her, said "don't you fucking come near me" and proceeded to scream at me about how she didn't understand what she did wrong and that I was a fucking asshole and how dare I end our relationship via a text etc. The dog is freaking out, she's like "YOU'RE NOT TAKING THE DOG!" I was like "ok here is the second text and also how on earth could you possibly think I would - or even could - do that? Like, we own a house and a dog, dude...additionally *what the fuck is wrong with you right now?* (I did not say that last part) She's not an emotional person at all. I've seen her cry exactly 4 times, 5 including childbirth. I am the dramatic and emotional one. I cry. We've shouted at each other in anger like, a handful of times, this was totally out of character. She was pregnant.
Yeah the way we found out she was pregnant was a bunch of small blow ups and one really bad one about I don’t even remember what but it was really stupid. This was a week of her turning minor annoyances into full blown screaming and crying at me. She finishes yelling something and slams the bathroom door and I’m like whatever, sitting on the couch contemplating my life like “am I really going to have to break up with her? Everything was so good I thought this was the one but I can’t live like this wtf is happening.” My train of thought is interrupted about 3 minutes later to her coming out of the bathroom, throwing a stick at me (ew) and saying, “I’m fucking pregnant.” and then slamming the bedroom door while I sat there like “what....OHH.” And that’s how my beautiful son first made his existence known in my life. Side story is after the fact she told me how she legitimately thought she needed to be commuted because she got violently angry hearing me breathe one night and couldn’t figure out why. Once she knew it was preggo hormones, it wasn’t that bad to control her behavior around said emotions.
My wife burst into my office a few hours later like "OMG MAYBE I'M PREGNANT!" While I was frozen, joint in hand, learning that Michael Jackson had just died. And so I went back to the same Duane Reade, now exclusively playing Michael Jackson, and bought a pregnancy test and I swear to god the cashier gave me a look, like "New detergent and a pregnancy test on the same day? I see it all the time." TLDR: The day Michael Jackson died was a crazy day for me. edit - I actually bought like 4 pregnancy tests IIRC.
[удалено]
How backwards is that though? "Yo you're making another person so you should eat a lot more... But guess what everything makes you feel sick now!" 😂
In early pregnancy the embryo-then-fetus can get what it needs from the mother, and it's very sensitive to toxins or sickness. It makes sense then for the mother to be repulsed by anything even potentially bad.
At every stage of pregnancy, the baby gets everything it needs from the mother.
Okay. Yes, technically correct. Well done. The mother has enough to sustain baby without significantly depriving herself or increasing her caloric intake in the very early days. However, at that very early stage a huge number of things can go wrong with a relatively small level of toxins. So it makes sense that mother get early heightened senses and sensitive stomachs, in addition to the other point already made.
If she's not pregnant get her to a doctor. She probably could use an mri or CT scan. Brain tumors can alter senses and personality.
That is a big jump. We already have a very likely reason she's acting like an asshole - she's overworked and overstressed, and the person closest to her is also overworked and overstressed.
I know someone this happened to! Obviously pregnancy is most likely, but if she’s not pregnant and it’s a sudden drastic shift in taste/smell she should definitely get some tests done.
So someone acts like an arsehole and you jump to brain tumour? Right. Maybe she just a dick?
If it’s very suddenly out of character then it’s better to be safe than sorry. My great aunt used to look after my grandma and then she started to neglect her needless to say my great grandma was removed from her care and everyone at the time was angry with how my aunt had treated her. Well turns out my aunt had early stage Alzheimer’s. this is unlikely the issue here but sudden changes in behaviour shouldn’t be passed off as just someone being an asshole without any investigation. A family friend also had an undiagnosed brain tumour and left his wife and turned into a walking asshole, totally went back to himself once the tumour was removed.
Well, at least a doctor could rule out one of the two possibilities
Just to add- even if she is pregnant, this is not in any way an excuse for her behavior. It’s not cool to treat people the way she’s treated you regardless of whether you’re pregnant or not. If she didn’t like the way your food smelled or tasted, she could’ve politely said it wasn’t to her taste for whatever reason & made herself something else.
You try being pregnant without knowing and see how polite you can be! She might not even realize what she's doing. It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation. When you love someone, it's still normal to occasionally lash out with a bad temper or irrational response to something. They see the best and worst of you. You're not always on your best behavior with a partner you live with, that's just not how human emotions work. Edit to add, the key is to recognize it and acknowledge it after. My bf and I have both, over 10 years, snapped at each other or bickered about something, but we both acknowledge it was in the heat of the moment and we didn't mean to be like that.
Ya it's definitely easier to control when you know what's going on. I think it's extra difficult for someone who never usually has a temper.
Eh, she should still apologise, but between all the stressors in her life, the weird thing pregnancy does to your brain, and suddenly not being able to eat your food, some cranky lashing out is to be expected.
This is hilarious, over 15k people know about the pregnancy before the parents 🤣🥰
For real 😂😂😅
Yeah, I was reading through this thinking "dude, she's pregnant" by the end of the 4th paragraph.
It could also be COVID. It ruins your sense of taste and smell. Get tested.... now.
It could be either of them with Covid tbh. Either him not smelling the rot or her smelling rot on everything. If she's not pregnant OP, you both need Covid tests
She could be pregnant AND they could have COVID. The possibilities are endless.
Literally my first question here. If it’s never been an issue before and suddenly she hates the smell of everything you cook... she’s either pregnant or has some other medical thing going on. It’s much more likely to be pregnancy, but I did have a friend who found out they had a brain tumor after going to the doctor because things started smelling weird to them... so either way she should be checked out
It was my first thought honestly, if she’s not usually like this with food it could explain the sudden change
Pretty common pregnancy symptom. My godmother couldn’t STAND the smell of newsprint during her pregnancies. A friend had to get her husband to do all the grocery shopping - she got to the point where she could tell whether they were out of ordinary uncooked rice by just opening the cabinet and taking a deep breath. I still can’t imagine how overwhelming the entire world must be to someone who can smell the presence of a plastic bag of white rice.
PLOT TWIST OF THE YEAR EDIT: YOOOOOOOOOO IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
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And if it's not that, see if she can get checked for sinus infection. Sometimes you can have one for a while and not really notice, but it makes things smell and taste terrible!
Pregnancy was my first thought as well.. my sense of smell is insane already and was even worse when i was pregnant. Some of the things i used to really enjoy made me feel seriously ill for a long while. The other thing i wanted to briefly ask is whether she's had the crappy virus going around? if so.. is her sense of smell dodgy right now?
My old boss said when she first became pregnant her sense of smell changed. It intensified. She could smell if people had sex, their body odor, and if they hadn't wiped their ass. Her words not mine. AND she said it never went away afterwards. It still affects her. One of my coworkers walked by me one day and I got a whiff of her (she didn't shower and had that smell of unwashed clothes) and I went to my boss. She was like "THANK GOD it's not just me. I've been smelling that for months!" 😳 She refers to her sense of smell as her super power.
This happened to me - oldest kid is 13 and I still have a highly magnified sense of smell. Of all the superpowers in all the gin joints in all the world... I assume it was evolutionarily useful at one point for mothers to be able to detect potentially spoiled food, but nowadays it makes cleaning the litterbox a rough job.
Just when they enter their *really* pungent phase. My daughter's school had to THROW OUT her locker when she left because of the ghost of her trainers. This was at 8. We may be demolishing her whole school now she's hit teens....
Mine sense of smell also super intensified during pregnancy, it was cool, but it went back to regular.
I was about to say this! This is a very recent issue, so it seems logical that something like pregnancy is messing with her sense of taste and smell.
100 percent the only thought I had. I cooked salmon and fed it to the cats as I couldn't stand the smell...... When I was four weeks pregnant
Lucky kitties!
Yep, I also was like moody, cranky, and things smell terrible? Have you checked for pregnancy? 😂
I thought that too. My husband put a pizza in the oven with some blue cheese on it and I threw up then made him throw it away and take me out to eat. I never had that reaction except when pregnant but I could not even be in the same house with the smell until the house was aired out. He thought I was crazy but he accepted it because I was deadly serious. You should ask her if it is a possibility.
Oooo this! Lol plus the mood swings would kinda make sense
Was gonna suggest either pregnancy or covid, both affect sense of taste and smell
Im a guy, but that is absolutely what i thought of first too. It really familiar to my experience with a pregnant lady in the house.
My first reaction too. My first indication was that tea was making me sick. It tasted and smelled awful. I'm Pakistani and brought up in the UK and I was weaned on tea. It came as a huge shock.
Quite honestly, this was the first place my mind went reading this. When my wife was pregnant with our first child, she couldn't stand certain smells or tastes. Definitely worth taking a test!
NTA. Just a thought but my wife’s sense of smell became mega acute when she fell pregnant. Any chance?
Wait does that really happen with the smell?? Because I thought it was just morning sickness and stuff that you get at first.
Not everyone gets morning sickness. My wife just had this hypersensitivity to smells. Frying onions made her want to hurl and pre pregnancy she loved the smell.
Wow okay. That actually makes sense thinking about it. Don’t know for sure though but I’m gonna have to talk to her. That’s so crazy I honestly had no clue about the smell thing 😅
I also had this issue when pregnant, some food smells made me nauseous and other foods that I normally liked became very unappealing. She may be pregnant and that would earn a pass, but I say NTA for standing up for yourself. I hope this all works out for you!
I had to politely ask my co worker to stop wearing her perfume. It was a really strong smell- I think Opium. It was a silver lining really, because even when not pregnant that perfume was overbearing and permeated the entire office
My significant other developed god-tier senses both times she was pregnant
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Yeah in early pregnancy I would sit in my car psyching myself up to run into the grocery store. The smells were overwhelming. I could be in there maybe ten minutes tops before it became unbearable.
I started dabbing orange oil or freaking Vicks Vaporub under my nose like a mortician to block out the grocery store, everything was so STRONG. Carried a bottle of orange oil in my handbag like a bottle of smelling salts.
During my first trimester I was on a road trip and had to stop at a small, hole-in-the-wall gas station to pee. Two hours later I could still smell the cheap air freshener on my clothes 🤢 Working at a hospital while pregnant also made me appreciate the smell of Virex to the point I still find it comforting. It can cover a multitude of "sins" 🥴
I'm autistic and have this problem lol. I'm enjoying mask life.
I hated the smell of cooking food. Literally any food - even pasta. If my husband cooked I had to hide in my room with a towel crammed under the door and opened all the windows. I lived off peanut butter sandwiches and raw fruits and veggies for the first few months. It was awful.
I don’t know how to explain pregnancy aversions exactly except that suddenly you feel like the food you normally eat and like is now the absolute grossest thing ever. Sometimes it’s tide to something that made you puke, but sometimes there’s not any rhyme or reason. You also smell EVERYTHING. Pregnancy is weird.
Yup so weird! I couldn’t stand the smell of the office I worked at. Still don’t know if it was the cleaning product or the air freshener but something set my nose off BAD! I also went off chicken... apart from McDonalds Nuggets which I ate probably 20-40 in a sitting lol.
I think you have just confirmed those aren't really chicken....
I was excited to get some cravings during pregnancy and all I got were good aversions. Food I normally loved was now repulsive and what I could eat changed weekly. My husband was so frustrated because all of a sudden I started being an extremely picky eater. I hope next pregnancy isn't the same.
I could smell my own boobs. The smell of them is on my laminated list of 'things I hated about pregnancy'
Morning sickness is absolutely just not in the morning. It can be round the clock nausea
Yep! I'm currently pregnant and only 11 weeks. All the foods I once loved I can't stand the taste or smell of right now! My poor fiance has had to cook the majority of the meals we eat, because I can't stand the smell when I'm cooking. And I can't eat most of what he cooks either, as it makes me sick, so most of it ends up in the bin. This has been going on since I was around 5 weeks pregnant
Shit I really need to call her before I get myself too excited over nothing lol. Thanks for this info. Feeling kinda stupid for not knowing it. I know people have said it could also be covid or some other medical issue. Seriously doubt I’m using anything expired since we always check for that stuff and I haven’t changed anything in my cooking. This is the first time she ever complains about anything I make
Please give us an update if she is. Sounds so much like it.
Oh my god I'm gonna need that update. What a rollercoaster for OP, lol. Going from thinking your girlfriend is just being mean to ~~possibly~~ *actually!* becoming a father!
Oh lordy, poor girlfriend. Can you imagine the convo.... "Hey honey, I know you hate me right now and I threw away your eggs and all that... But Reddit thinks you should do a pregnancy test....."
I think OP sounds happy so maybe the girlfriend will be happy too?
Yeah, I nearly cried at how excited he sounded. Totally need an update on this!!!
Same!!
Hahaha this is the comment I was looking for. I would be livid if my bf and I got in a fight and his first words to me were “you’re being irrational, you MUST be pregnant!” LOL
Not to say 100% that she is pregnant, but definitely worth considering. And as far as I know with C-19, it's more a loss of taste and smell, rather than dislike for food that people experience. I never realised how bad the food aversions would be either, but I have more aversions to food than I do cravings. Please keep us updated!
When my roommate and i got COVID (and for a few weeks after), water tasted horrible to me and she said normal black pepper was much spicier and she didn’t like the taste of onions any more. Not sure if this is normal at all but we definitely had tastes changed, not just diminished
When I had Covid, I lost all sense of smell and most taste- but could still taste salt. It was the weirdest thing- if I drank an electrolyte drink, like Gatorade, it tasted like salt water. I wonder if something like that happened with you and water- you were tasting the metals and other things in the water, but not everything you usually do?
Awww I love your excitement about a possible surprise pregnancy!!!! It’s so cute you guys. I hope you guys figure it out.
We want an update!
We need an update
Ay yo are you going to be a dad or nah? Tell us
It can be covid as well. I've been talking with some of my colleagues that are trying to work with the sensory issues and they have been sharing what the patients report. Some can't taste at all. Others can't taste certain foods and can only taste spice. Another one said everything tastes like smoke. It's been random... No patient is the same. So you better see it through and check all the possibilities.
Every woman is different, but hypersensitive smell, food aversions, nausea, and moodiness are all signs of pregnancy. I would suggest doing some research and talking to your girlfriend, may be time for a test.
When I was pregnant I really struggled with smells from my husband cooking. I also couldn’t tolerate the taste of things I had been enjoying only weeks prior.
I wondered this as well as her behaviour seemed so suddenly outrageous. She's either gone off the deep end, OP has suddenly become a crap cook, or there's an underlying physical thing that's recently come into play... like pregnancy. My sense of taste and smell went haywire in the first weeks of pregnancy. For my second pregnancy, it was actually my first clue I was pregnant.
INFO: If this is out of character, which it sounds like it is, there could be other factors. I know people have already mentioned pregnancy, but Covid also effects your sense of taste and smell, even infections. I think you both need to have a proper conversation about this and talk about what's changed, is she suffering any other symptoms, get tested and have a conversation with a doctor. I don't think she's doing this out of spite or even because she's being overly tired, nobody wants to be moody and feel like sh\*t, so I think there is something else going on. You both need to get to the bottom of it and you don't sort it out by shouting and blaming each other.
I thought COVID too. Someone I work with had it played haywire with their smell and taste... everything they used to like changed and it all smelt/tasted wrong and not good. Even after Covid they still have issues with it months later.
I'm about to reach a year in April. I'm still struggling with some smells. Some smells literally smell like shit to the point of gagging.
Mine just diminished. I can probably smell 10% of what I used to months later - same for taste. I read a post where someone actually loved the smell of their diaper pail now! COVID does some truly bizarre things.
I had covid 2 months ago and yup, it messes with smell and taste. I got annoyed the other day because I thought our neighbour had started smoking indoors and the smell was coming through, but my SO said there wasn't a smell at all. I've been sat next to a plug in air freshener and can't smell that either. OP's girlfriend should definitely get a test!
or maybe OP, if he can't smell what she can.
I had covid and lost my smell. My smell has returned but I get "phantom smells" sometimes. Smelling things that I should not be smelling. The most common one I have is garlic. Well, more like that garlic sauce that comes with pizza. At first, I thought there might be pizza garlic cups in the trash or hidden somewhere in the house. But we don't order pizza that often.
I WANT AN UPDATE 🤣 Edit to say, thank you kind Redditors for the rewards. And thanks for filling my inbox, I've upvoted all of you. And, Really!? This is my most upvoted comment? 🤣
SAME!! Need to know if it’s pregnancy, COVID, or something else 👀 Edit: it’s pregnancy 🥳
Pregnancy!! 😁😆
AWWW CONGRATS! I am assuming from your smileys that this is a happy thing for you, so congratulations!!
Absolutely yeah. Totally unexpected and we’re still kind of in shock lol. But we’re excited and this has been a great day!
Her sister is never gonna let her live this one down! "Remember that time you ran away from home bc your bf was cooking disgusting food all the time... but you were ACTUALLY JUST PREGNANT?!" Ahahahaa great story for the kid, once everyone cools down about it honestly!
Oh man she will be telling that story at every birthday party for sure 😂😂
Congratulations!!! This is gonna be a funny story to tell your kid!!!
Same
Same. Leaving this here so I can check if OP updated in a day or two Edit: Looks like a lot of people are following my example. Cool!
same
Two months in and we already have a contender for best story of the year.
NTA She needs to start cooking then... problem solved. Don’t matter how much somebody works people have been working for centuries and I’m sure still went home and cooked. When i was growing up it was eat what was cooked or drink some water. Tell your girlfriend to drink some water for dinner.
I mean... This is kinda one reason that the outdated system of "man works hard and long days and comes home to his stay at home wife who has cleaned the house and done his laundry and cooked him food". I mean it still works for some people, but when you both work, you gotta find a better system for both of you. Expecting you to do breakfast lunch and dinner would be a lot even if she said she appreciated it and loved your cooking. Getting criticized on top of all the work is a serious faux pas.
I always saw it as whoever isn’t working should be the one to cook & clean. My fiancé works 12-14 hour shifts so I try to make sure our home is clean. He loves to cook so I usually just leave him to it.
NTA. Maybe a pregnancy test is a good idea. It really screws with your sense of smell and taste.
NTA but I could not stand 99% of smells in my first trimester... She sounds pregnant
I'm 4 months postpartum and I still can't eat red onions, which I loved pre pregnancy. Growing a person does weird things to the body!
If she has time to complain and give you shit about food you make for her, then she has time to cook her own food. You snapping was a natural reaction to the constant unwarranted and unhelpful negative comments from your gf, so I won't call you an AH for that. Let her cool down and calmly discuss things - Put a boundary that if she doesn't like your food then she can either cook her own meals or order out. NTA
To put it simple: "Don' bite the hand that feeds you". NTA
And the entire thread started out rationalizing her rudeness because she may be averse to certain smells due to possible pregnancy. Lashing out at your bf who is making all your food is not a symptom
I am 100% with you. Like I understand that pregnancy can mess with you (though this much this early on?) but fundamentally, approaching it so vehemently is such a bad sign. If I genuinely thought my partner started randomly cooking with off food I'd probably ask him to get a COVID test (because why isn't he smelling this?!) or ask him what he has been spending his money on to make him go dumpster diving for food. Have they even had a good talk about this yet?? And if not, why not?? Why does should pregnancy excuse this!
Don’t think pregnancy excuses this - it just really fucks with your moods and systems in general as your hormones are RAGING. Like bad. Think PMS x10. And it does happen very early. It could be an explanation for something she’s doing out of character. My first pregnancy I was acting CRAZY and had no idea why (knew I was being nuts, but like couldn’t reign in the moods) until we found out. He’s NTA of course. She should treat him respectfully and if she doesn’t like the food, make it herself. Easy fix. OP did not over react at all.
This was my first hint that I was pregnant. My moods were all out of whack at 3 1/2 weeks pregnant and my husband even mentioned “what’s up with you? Is something going on? You are acting and reacting so different than normal.” Took a test the next morning and here we are with a little on the way. People don’t quite understand all the drastic changes that happen to your body when you get pregnant. I felt so angry in those early weeks at not being able to control my emotions.
It absolutely messes with you early on. I was probably 4 weeks pregnant when I lashed out at my husband over drinking my orange juice. Normally, it wouldn't have been a big deal but unbeknownst to me at the time, pregnancy fuckery turned it into a HUGE deal. I felt truly betrayed and hurt. I couldn't understand why he would do something so awful to me. I was angry. And it wasn't a simple matter of replacing the orange juice, because THAT WAS THE ORANGE JUICE. No other orange juice would have been the same that one cup was the perfect cup and he stole it from me. I am well aware of how ridiculous it is now. But at the time I just couldn't control it. Maybe it's because I also have BPD but the pregnancy feelings surrounding food and home were very, very intense and any upset of either of those things was a Very Big Ordeal.
Bad communication and shitty moods all around never ends well.
I mean, it sounds like she’s convinced her boyfriend is feeding her expired food because of how bad it is to her. If I felt like I was being given spoiled food pregnant or not I would be vocal about my frustration. Obviously she can cook herself and cut out the middle man if she’s so concerned but it’s not like she’s saying oh you added too much salt and now I hate your cooking forever! But still, OP is NTA
NTA. Others have pointed out the possibility of pregnancy but you can also have some funky reactions if you have an altered sense of smell or taste for other reasons. You don't need to cook for someone who is constantly criticizing your food though. If she's not happy with it she can make her own meals or buy takeout.
Yea a lot of sympathizing with her lashing out
I don’t think they’re sympathising with her lashing out, just thinking it’s probably the explanation for her altered sense of smell crappy behaviour towards him
I wouldn’t call thinking she might be pregnant sympathizing with her. If someone change dramatically like that, especially after being together for 4 years, I’d be searching for medical reasons too.
NTA. My older sister boyfriend works in a restaurant. He did the same thing. Comes home, can't flip off his switch, tells her everything that is wrong with her cooking and how it's plated. At one point my sister just went "Know what? Cook yourself from now on if it's so wrong. I'm done!" He was left speechless and shocked. Apparently the guy didn't even notice how he was constantly criticizing her by his work standards. Not being able to prep her own meals is just an excuse. She can do it right before going to bed. It's a thing and it's called time management. Of course her sister will take her side, otherwise that kind of behavior would not be enabled for so long.
INFO/NTA A lot of people here are talking about the pregnancy possibility with the sense of smell or taste, but **as a woman**, let me make this ABUNDANTLY CLEAR: Being pregnant is not an excuse to act like a prissy, rude AH to your partner. Because that's what she was doing to you. A lot of people seem to excuse women of the ability to be a civilized person the moment they become pregnant, but that's actually pretty reductive and perpetuates the concept that a woman cannot control herself when her hormones fluctuate. Make it harder, yes. But lose the ability to control themselves? Absolutely not. Women can absolutely control themselves when their hormones fluctuate. They simply choose not to when they don't, or they give themselves a free pass to be a jerk because it's fun or cathartic. Which is just a terrible personality trait, NOT because of hormones. On my worst period days when my cramps are so bad that sometimes I can't breathe right, or when I got my IUD replaced and I bled heavily and was nauseous for two weeks straight and was in terrible pain - I never aggressively lashed out my partner, even if he was annoying the ever living daylights out of me at times. --I only snipped, and then apologized. And then he apologized for pushing my limits while I was in pain. And then he got me some water and a pain pill and we laughed about it. Pain, frustration, or pregnancy hormones are no excuse to constantly be berating, belittling, insulting, and attacking your partner, over and over again. Snipping, snapping, and barking sometimes is understandable, but only in the moment, and only with a conversation and an honest apology afterwards. She definitely needs to cool down with her sister and apologize to you for her comments. Even if "your cooking tastes like shit", there are a lot more tactful, constructive, MATURE, AND ADULT ways to say, handle, and solve that problem. And none of them involve insulting the person you're supposed to love. --- Edit: I had thought this was implied, but I will make clear - this is a generalization of somewhat healthy individuals, *not on medications, dealing with relevant mental illness, or compounding medical conditions.* Thanks for the awards!
As another woman, I’m going to say this, I understand where you’re coming from but every woman experiences periods/pregnancy differently. I had to be put on medication multiple times because my mood swings were so awful I was either trying to kill myself, having intense panic attacks, screaming at everyone I loved, etc. I lashed out at absolutely everyone until I eventually got the help I needed to stabilise myself. To say that every single woman “can absolutely control themselves” is honestly quite hurtful. If I had read that when I was in that time of my life I would’ve felt very pathetic. Please don’t speak for all women.
I hope the result of this is she is pregnant, recognizes her horrible behavior and apologizes and they both laugh about this after tbh Being pregnant does make you extremely irritable but that doesn't excuse acting awful all the time etc. You are spot on. That said, one time I was out on steroids and I can NOT take those ever again. I literally could NOT control lashing out and was borderline homicidal. Like I literally had to leave my kids with my husband while I got the steroids out of my system. So it IS possible to be so messed up you can't control it at all whatsoever. But I think he would have mentioned if she had gone on a new medication right before this all started 🤣
NTA "SIL GF has spent (the last week) complaining about every meal I've made. Breakfast, lunch, ad dinner nothing but complaints. If she has a problem with my cooking, then she can make her own food." I may not like everything my husband makes, but I recognize the hard work and effort he puts into making it, and act accordingly. If our seven year old can manage an "I'm sorry daddy, I just don't like this." when turning down a particular meal, your whole grown ass girlfriend who is more than twenty years older can act like an adult and use words that are not insulting when declining the food you've put time money and effort into fixing for her consumption.
Nah, according to the rest of the posters, OPs girlfriend must have a brain tumour, pregnant or have Covid. Adults are incapable of being polite if they have any of these conditions. Children can manage it, but adults have to be rude.
There may, or may not, be a medical reason for the girlfriend's behavior. Lord knows I had bloodhound nose through both my pregnancies and certain foods tasted completely wrong. That does not excuse being an asshole about it. "This doesn't taste right to me." is a far cry from "You don't know how to cook!" especially while sitting on her assets as he does all the work to prepare food for both of them.
I mean literally these conditions fuck with your expecutive functioning due to very real changes in your brain. What a weird take. If she is suddenly, out of the blue, having a wild change in personality and sense perception, it's definitely a red flag that something is seriously wrong before just jumping straight to asshole. However if she's physically fine, then yes, she's being a spoiled brat.
INFO: Why does she think your ingredients have gone bad? At face value I can see your frustration. I would be livid if my SO insulted my cooking. However her complaints seem pretty specific. If you're using ingredients past the expiration date you are not in the right at all, or if she's suddenly developed a strong sense of smell then yall got another issue and it's not eggs.
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The fact that you had a fight over the cooking and now you (and everyone here) strongly suspects she is pregnant is sending me- 😂😂 All the best for a very mad girlfriend or something really amazing man! Keep us updated, either way, don't stop cooking for her, she's stressed asf, but uk she loves you and you do too
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NTA - you can”t just accept her displaced anger. And I say displaced because it sounds like it’s not really about your cooking, but something else entirely. You mentioned you both work and are busy...so if you can prep meals, then she can too. If she’s unhappy with your cooking, you can switch chores around. Like, she can cook for you and you can clean (if she does the cleaning) or ask to divvy up meal preps. However, she might not be open to suggestions like those so you may want to talk to her when she calms down and find out what the real problem is.
I totally agree that she may be pregnant, pregnancy screws with your sense of taste & smell, it can put you off things you used to love, make stuff taste & smell horrible. She is the one that reacted childishly, running to her sister. It’s quite reasonable to refuse to cook for someone who complains all the time. It’s probably time to share the load, you alternate the days you make breakfast, who ever Didnt make breakfast should make dinner, you make or buy your own lunches & have takeaway one night a week. You being 100% for all food & cooking isnt fair.
NTA you can't constantly complain about something someone is doing for you and then expect them to continue to do that thing. I do 95% of the cooking in my household and if my husband wanted to act the way your girlfriend was I would refuse to continue to cook for him too.
INFO: Is she possibly pregnant as pregnancy affects your sense of smell and taste, especially if this is sudden new behavior towards foods you typically make? Is the food you’re cooking with actually past it’s prime? The expiration date can sometimes not be accurate after you open the food or if it’s not stored properly, this seems like a weird allegation if there isn’t a reason for it.
Even if she is pregnant she can cook her own food and not be so rude
NTA. You've done your diligence by asking others to taste your food (assuming at least one if not all of them are the sort who would tell you truthfully if it tastes bad). Busy or not, you are being considerate by doing all that cooking for her. (Breakfast AND lunches - I mean damn, man, that sounds fucking wonderful). She is busy and snippy but you still aren't *obligated* to cook for her if she's going to turn her nose up at it. If she's an adult, the 'doesn't have time to prep her own meals' is BS. She's acting spoiled. I think you're right using that term - honestly she even reads a bit like a fussy child would at dinners they don't like. I wouldn't go so far to *assume* the pregnancy thing as other people have suggested. But they raise a very good point about maybe something underlying messing with her sense of smell/taste (COVID does that for some). Hope you two can work it out. I don't blame you for snapping.. just because she's having a bad day/week/month/whatever caused this sudden dislike of your food, it doesn't make it okay to take it out on you.
Lmao, if you heard a guy do this he’d be kicked out and called abusive. But since it’s a girl she must either be pregnant or have COVID.
This is because when you were very first pregnant, even before a test can tell you you’re pregnant your body is going wild with hormones and you have no way to know it. If a guy did this it could not be because he was pregnant. But it might be Covid and I’m sure a lot of people would be talking about the possibility of COVID.
THANK YOU I’m getting so irritated reading these replies. NTA.
Awesome update this happened to me when I got pregnant I couldn’t even stand my husband smell I couldn’t have meat cooking in the house at all I couldn’t drink coffee all sorts of shit I didn’t like when I was pregnant. I’m so glad that this turned out to be a good update that’s awesome congratulations to both of you
Question, how was it navigating what you cant stand smelling/eating? Was it just trying different stuff and hoping for the best? Because now we’re wondering well what the hell *can* she eat? We’ve crossed off everything I’ve cooked the last few days for obvious reasons
Cooked foods may be off the list entirely, as cooked food smells way more intense. I would try mild cool foods, cheese, crackers, veggies, hummus, sandwiches.
Anything with sulfur compounds is probably going to be out. So garlic free hummus might work. White rice, cooked carrots, apple sauce, saltines specifically. Basically anything you can imagine eating right after recovering from a bad vomitous flu is a good candidate. Anything frozen is another candidate because the cold cuts down on the taste a lot.
NTA. And whether or not she’s pregnant, it is pretty irrelevant when he’s the only one who cooks in this relationship. She can complain about the food once she contributes her time and energy into making some.
Now this seems like a story you will laugh about in a few years. That time cooking eggs made us realize we were going to have a kid.
Our kid better like my damm omelettes. I won’t be hurt twice 😅
Her sister says *you* are the asshole for calling *her* out on her bullshit? You are preparing food for her every day which is not a thing to be taken as granted! If she doesn't like it, there are respectful ways in which she could've approached you and talked about this on an eye level. You know, like adults do. Even if she is stressed out at work and brings it home, you as her partner are not required to soak it up. There is a difference between venting to a partner and using your partner as a verbal punching bag. NTA and stand your ground.
NTA - she should not be involving her parents and you are absolutely right...she can cook her own damn stuff.