My [41M] wife [39F] is making our daughter food averse. How do I address this appropriately?

A Redditor (41M) is frustrated with his wife (39F) for undermining his efforts to cook for their daughter, who has developed a food aversion after mimicking his wife’s negative reactions to his meals.

Despite his efforts to create delicious, homemade dishes, his wife’s gagging and criticism of his cooking have led their daughter to refuse to eat his food. The Redditor is now struggling to address the situation without punishing his daughter and is looking for advice on how to handle the issue appropriately. To read the full story, check it out below.

‘ My [41M] wife [39F] is making our daughter food averse. How do I address this appropriately?’

My wife has, throughout our entire marriage, had a terrible habit of butting in, micromanaging, criticizing, and offering unsolicited feedback. I like to cook from scratch whereas she prefers to buy prepackaged food at the store and heat it up. I will cut up chicken breasts, bread the strips, bake them, and serve them to our daughter. She will buy frozen chicken nuggets.

I love cooking. It’s very relaxing and centering for me. My wife sees it as a chore. I never insult anything my wife puts on the table and always thank her for putting dinner together. Conversely, I can count on one hand the number of compliments I’ve gotten on dinners that I spend hours putting together in ten years of marriage on one hand.

If I make something she doesn’t like, she’ll make overexaggerated gagging noises. When she sees the look on my face (annoyed, hurt, or a combination) she’ll tell me that she’s joking and not to get upset. I have warned her that if our daughter picks up on this habit, it will be on her to correct it.

This gagging can result if I use full fat milk in something, butter on garlic bread, or anything she deems to be too caloric. She will buy salt-free and low-fat ingredients at the store instead of what I ask her to get, which create tasteless meals. So I usually do the shopping myself. Nobody is overweight, nobody has a medical condition, she buys it just because, “it’s healthier,”

The other night, I made chicken Alfredo. I make it with heavy cream. This was with a side of sautéed broccoli and homemade garlic bread. As we sat down to eat it. My wife made one of her gagging movements and said, “Ugh. Cream, bread, and pasta. So heavy. So fatty. This is d**th.”

My daughter gagged as well, said, “Yucky!” and pushed her plate away. I stared daggers at my wife and told her, “Great, now tell her you were joking.” She shook her head, “She doesn’t like it! She knows that it’s terrible for her. Maybe this is the sign we need to start cooking healthier.”

My wife made her chicken nuggets, which she ate happily. I pointed out that these are not healthy. My wife said the she likes what she likes. Now, every time I make something, my daughter gags and pushes it away. It doesn’t matter if it’s a hot dog or a bowl of cereal.

If I put it together, she gags, starts laughing and refuses to eat until mom makes her something else. I tried talking to her, explaining that it’s not nice to not even try the food, and it’s very mean to the person making the food. She keeps saying, “Okay,” and then does the same thing the next time I make her food.

This morning, I made egg sandwiches for everyone, one of my daughter’s favorites. She gagged, pushed it away, and refused to eat it. I snapped and sent her to her room without breakfast. She started crying. My wife told me that I wasn’t being fair.

I told my wife that this behavior is not acceptable and if she’s not going to address it, I will be punishing our daughter every time she does it. She told me that’s not fair because she shouldn’t be forced to eat what she doesn’t like.

I told my wife that since she created this behavior, moving forward she will be in charge of cooking all meals, because I am done being disrespected by her and I am not going to tolerate it from our daughter.

My wife says that I’m overreacting and that I need to stop putting so much stock into how a child likes my cooking. The thing is, our daughter loved my cooking until she thought it would be funny to start imitating my wife and get something else.

I want the behavior to stop, but I don’t have it in me not to lose my cool over the situation. My wife is refusing to correct the behavior she created and as much as I hate it, I know it’s wrong to punish my daughter when she’s just doing what a terrible role model taught her to do. How do I address this in an appropriate way?

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

HatsAndTopcoats −  Your wife is an a**hole.

localdisastergay −  I think you need to be less concerned with the fact that your daughter’s reaction to your food is hurtful to you and way more concerned with the fact that your wife very clearly has an unhealthy relationship with food and is teaching your daughter that same way of thinking. If you do not get therapy involved, your daughter is going to be counting calories and restricting herself to a dangerously low daily total by the time she’s a teenager.

MarzipanJoy-Joy −  Your wife does not respect you at all, and her food concerns are hypocritical and baseless. She’s acting like a child. This isn’t about food, it’s about controlling you and putting you down, which now your daughter is doing. You majorly need therapy with this woman if you plan to stay married. 

ItsAllKrebs −  OMG I would be devastated if anyone reacted to my cooking so meanly and immaturely. Let alone teaching your kid that this is okay. Your wife is hurdling your daughter toward an eating disorder. And also being needlessly cruel to you. You need to stop including your wife in meals, full stop. She has made her bed when it comes to your labor. You need to explain, in age-appropriate terms, not just politeness to your kid but also how all foods are good.

KeyPicture4343 −  Your daughter is snowballing towards an eating disorder, thanks to her mom!  To me, the way she treats your cooking, would be grounds for divorce. As well as the way she is setting your child up for a lifetime of eating/food issues. 

magictubesocksofjoy −  i’ll be honest with you, this is divorce territory.  not because your wife is insulting your cooking but because she is sowing the seeds of an eating disorder in your daughter that she will struggle with until the day she dies. 

Next_Media7215 −  Your wife is a rude a**hole without any concept of nutrition who is literally training your daughter to have an eating disorder. I think it would be ok for her to ask you nicely not to make cream-heavy dishes but then to train your daughter that chicken nuggets are “healthier” than pasta is absurd. Frozen chicken nuggets are disgusting (disgusting and delicious, sadly).

Does she treat other disagreements in the same way? Is she an otherwise kind person? If she is ONLY this horrid about food, then I am certain that stems from deep-seated insecurity and worries about gaining weight, and she needs professional help. If she is like this in other ways, then I would ask you to ask yourself why you are with her. But you NEED to protect your daughter from this kind of restrictive and disturbing narrative about food.

I cannot stress enough how much this type of talk affects children. I’m 44 and still dealing with it to this day – and my parents were never so out-and-out over the top bonkers about it. Please! Do not just take this as her being mean to you, which it is, but she’s causing actual harm to your child.

Once-and-Future −  I would lay it out bluntly to your wife along the lines of: “Just because you have an eating disorder is no reason to deliberately give it to our kid”

trilliumsummer −  It’s going to be hard because it sounds like your wife has an untreated eating disorder. Which she is now passing down to your child. And with it being untreated she either doesn’t think it’s wrong or doesn’t care.

Unfortunately you didn’t address the food issue before you had a child with her. You 100% should have realized the way your wife reacts about food would affect any child.

However, punishing a child when it comes to food isn’t helpful. Will most likely exacerbate any disordered eating she’s developing. I would try to see if you both can have a conversation with your pediatrician to get their input. Not only on what a healthy diet for a child is, but also how parents act while eating.

Possibly see if you both can talk to a therapist that specializes in eating disorders to get their opinion on how to manage food around a child. There’s also probably a lot of books out there.

But honestly, if your wife can’t agree to stop saying yuck at the dinner table and pushing it away I would be considering separation to try and give your daughter normal eating habits 50% of the time.

pizzac00l −  If my wife ever pulled this gagging “joke” with my cooking, that would be the last day she ate my cooking, and it would be the d**th knell for our marriage too. The utter disrespect from her is way more than you should ever have to put up with.

Do you think the Redditor is justified in feeling upset about his wife’s behavior, or should he focus more on finding a way to guide his daughter through this phase? How would you address the issue of food aversions in a child without creating more tension between partners? Share your thoughts in the comments below!