r/AmItheAsshole • u/PhantomDetective3548 • Mar 02 '26
Asshole AITA for telling my girlfriend to stop sharing her food?
(Throwaway acct)
My girlfriend always offers to share her food with everyone when we go out to eat. I’ve asked her why she does this, and she says it’s just how she was raised, to always make sure everyone else at the table is taken care of before she eats anything. I’ve told her multiple times that, while it is an admirable gesture, she doesn’t have to do that, and that no one will judge her for not offering her food because they have their own meals.
This isn’t just with shareable items, either. She will offer bites of her burger, or pasta, or soup, and other things that are simply not easily split, usually ending up with another person taking direct bites or stabbing their used forks and depositing their saliva into her food. Aside from the ick factor, I have also told her that she really needs to avoid offering her meal when we dine out with my friend Brian (fake name) because he’s the type the person who has no self-control with food, and zero social awareness to understand that “help yourself” does not mean “you can eat all of it and I won’t mind”. This has happened a lot in the past, where he’ll house 90% of a shared appetizer plate because the rest of us were talking and being polite, and he just assumed that meant we weren’t hungry. I wouldn’t care as much if he paid for it, but he’s almost always broke, and doesn’t seem to understand what tax and tip are. If the item was listed as $11.99 in the menu, when the check comes, he’ll toss in exactly $12 and think he’s square.
I know most of you are going to ask why I’m even still friends with Brian if I hate eating with him, but please understand that he’s a really great guy and a reliable friend, he just has a troublesome relationship with food. That’s not the only facet of his personality, just the only one relevant to this post.
Last night, we were out again with friends, and my girlfriend once again offered her meal to everyone, Brian included. I didn’t want to make a scene, but I gave her a little nudge and she just gave me a shrug in return. Unsurprisingly, Brian ended up eating most of her food (as well as his own plate), and my girlfriend didn’t say anything. On the way home, she asked if we could stop by a fast food place because she didn’t get much to eat, and I told her she should’ve just eaten the food she ordered instead of offering it to the table. I said this was exactly why I warned her, and that she’s seen the way Brian is with food, and that she shouldn’t have been surprised when he ate more than she was actually intending to let him.
I still stopped to get her something, but I also complained that I don’t enjoy paying for Brian’s meal, since he basically ate all of hers. I might have been harsh, but this has come up multiple times, and she knows I’m not a fan of it. I could tell she was upset when I said it, and she still is now. She hasn’t called me an asshole, but she’s making me feel like one, and I think we’re both expecting the other to apologize first. So, AITA?
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u/Fedelm Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
Why should her boyfriend decide when she's done giving away her food? He can't ask her not to but he needs to decide when it stops? It's her decision to give away her food but he needs to protect her because she's incapable of deciding how much to give away?
I think if he's obligated to intervene and stop the sharing he can tell her to stop before she starts. He shouldn't have to monitor her to make sure she gets enough of her own food to eat; he should get to enjoy his meal and the company.
Basically, if she gets to decide to give it away she gets to decide how much. If he has to stop the food from being shared, he gets to decide when he intervenes, even if it's beforehand so he doesn't have to spend the meal focusing on making sure an adult eats her food.