happy jack
Posts : 6988
 | | Subject: The Trials And Tribulations Of The Liberal 8/5/2020, 11:36 am | |
| https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/08/dear-prudence-boyfriend-eats-kids-menu-advice.html?via=homepage_Dear_PrudenceHelp! My Partner Orders Off the Kids’ Menu When We Eat Out.Q. My partner eats like a child: My partner and I (both male) have been together for two years. He’s wonderful and I love him immensely. His family went through a rough patch when he was a kid; his parents could no longer take care of him, so he lived with an aunt until he was 10 years old. In that time he suffered from a variety of behavior disorders and underwent intensive therapy. He’s pretty much fine now: loving, caring, attentive, socially intelligent. The one “leftover” from this tumultuous childhood is his eating habits. His aunt fed him a steady diet of chicken fingers, pizza bagels, and spaghetti without sauce. He maintained this diet through college and up till now. We live together but it’s not an issue in our individual meals. The problems arise when we cook for each other or eat out (at a restaurant or someone else’s home). He always orders off the kids’ menu and frequently refuses to try a restaurant that doesn’t serve American food. At someone’s home, he’ll pick at his meal until the host realizes he’s not eating, kicking off a painfully awkward back-and-forth in which he tries to explain it’s nothing personal or related to the host’s cooking. I’ve started dreading eating with him anywhere that’s not our home. We would like to have children someday, and I absolutely will not raise children who grow into adults and still eat like this. It’s unhealthy and limiting in life opportunities—I want my kids to be able to try new foods, experience different cultural culinary traditions, all the things my partner can’t do. What’s the best approach here? I’ve tried talking, cajoling, “sneaking” spinach into smoothies, and everything under the sun, and all that results in is a sullen partner who tried some broccoli and sulked for hours afterward. Would I be ridiculous for suggesting therapy to overcome this food aversion? I know it’s rooted in the childhood trauma he experienced, but I would hate for the trauma to dictate the rest of his life.
A: I think if you’re planning on having children, you can reasonably set a goal like “I’ll give my kids a variety of foods and encourage them to eat adventurously.” But “I will not raise children who become adults with narrow palates” isn’t entirely within your ability to control. You might set a great example and encourage them at every opportunity and still end up producing a picky adult eater, because kids aren’t automatons but human beings with wills, preferences, habits (good, bad, and neutral), aversions, sensory issues, and tastes of their own. You’ve discovered a pretty thorough list of approaches that don’t work, so I hope you give up cajoling and secretly feeding your partner food he doesn’t want right away, and for good. Your frustration when your husband’s pickiness makes your friends feel anxious about their hosting is understandable, but I think the most you can do there is encourage him to be clear and polite with his hosts before sitting down to dinner, rather than trying to run interference on his behalf. If it becomes truly unbearable, you might decide to hold off on accepting dinner party invitations together for a while (not that I imagine anyone’s throwing many dinner parties right now).
Therapy might be really helpful for your partner when it comes to his food aversion. Or it might not be. It also might be helpful for him in a way that never changed his palate. Would you consider it a successful therapeutic outcome if he maintained his current diet but felt more freedom and comfort explaining it to friends and hosts? Or are you looking for an outside authority figure to “fix” your husband’s palate on your behalf? If it’s the latter, I think you should hold off on making any recommendations and focus on letting go of control over your husband’s eating.
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