Since her husband started a new job as a high school teacher a year ago, she has been packing lunch for him. She is thrilled he found a job he loves and wants to show her support. She started packing him beautiful and creative bento-style lunches, which she says he loves. A problem arose when his coworkers started observing what he brought for lunch. She is reaching out to the online community to see if she is being reasonable in feeling upset.
Her husband would show the lunches off to his primarily female coworkers, who were jealous of how amazing they were. They began asking to taste the lunches she packed for him. Now he is completely sharing his lunch with a particular female coworker every day who never seems to have her own lunch. She is a 27-year-old, grown woman who should be cooking for herself. Instead, her husband says she only shows up with a bag of chips, so her husband feels bad and shares his lunch with her.
She is upset and feels like this woman is acting like a hungry puppy dog. She is frustrated to the point where she doesn’t feel like making these creative lunches for her husband any longer since he isn’t the only one eating them.
She is wondering if it’s wrong for her to feel this way?
Some readers from the online community reminded her that, unfortunately, her husband is playing a part in this problem.
“This hungry puppy isn’t working alone. Your husband is participating in giving your lovingly prepared lunch away. So why aren’t you asking him to stop?”
She doesn’t want to act like she is jealous. However, many readers say she is putting time and effort into preparing his lunches and has a right to question why he keeps sharing them.
“You’re his wife. You get to be jealous if the situation warrants it. But this lunch situation isn’t really about jealousy, though. This is your reaction to his disrespect of the effort you put in.”
Some people don’t see any harm in her husband sharing his meal. Others say it is more about jealousy than she is letting on.
“Sharing food is not disrespectful to the person who made it. I understand why OP feels the way she does, it’s certainly not unreasonable, but OP’s husband is not doing anything wrong by sharing.”
“This situation is definitely about jealousy. OP wouldn’t have emphasized “female coworker” if it wasn’t about jealousy. By all means, it could definitely be more about the effort thing than anything, but jealousy plays a role here.”
A few readers offered some solutions. Either pack a simpler lunch or pack him less so he doesn’t have enough to share.
“I think it’s time for a ham sandwich (no cheese) and a bag of Lays.”
“Or less food. Tell him you aren’t packing for two, and since he seems to have extra, you’re going to start sending half as much food.”
“Yeah, I wondered if she is actually packing too much food for one person or if her husband is going hungry in order to share with his coworker.”
Many say she needs to communicate her feelings clearly to her husband, and he needs to set boundaries with his coworker.
“If your husband respects you and your marriage, he will stop sharing the lunches you make him and put some healthy boundaries between himself and his coworker. Have a discussion with him.”
“She’s not the problem. Your husband not setting boundaries and you not communicating your feelings are the problems. He’s not doing anything wrong, but he needs to be more clear with her and needs to know how you feel about it.”
What do you think? Should she change the lunches she packs for her husband? Or should she be firm that he can’t share his lunch with his coworker?
This post came from the following thread.
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