We all know that one of the fastest ways to someone’s heart is through their stomach. I can easily be won over with a delicious, homemade pastry. And every time I make dinner, I can’t relax until my partner assures me that the meal was delicious. Food truly is a love language! 

But as much as sharing a meal can bring people together, it can also drive a wedge between certain couples. One woman recently shared a story on Reddit detailing why she started lying to her husband about all of the food that she had been feeding him for an entire year. Below, you’ll find all of the details, as well as a conversation with marriage therapist and creator of Save the Marriage, Lee Baucom, PhD.

This woman’s husband refused to eat food prepared by her

Image credits:  arthurhidden/Envato (not the actual photo)

So she came up with a deceptive way to keep him well fed and earn some extra cash for herself

Image credits: Rido81/Envato (not the actual photo)

Image credits: anonymous

“Like most things in marriage, food isn’t just food, in some cases”

Image credits: JANG ‘S/Pexels (not the actual photo)

Many things become a compromise in marriage. You and your partner might have different preferences when it comes to what movies to watch, which album to play in the car, where to spend the holidays and whose favorite sport you’ll play over the weekend. But because you love each other, you work together to find middle ground and take turns choosing what’s for dinner and who does the dishes that night. And if you can’t, well, you might be in for a rocky relationship.

To learn more about this situation that was shared on Reddit, we reached out to marriage therapist and creator of Save the Marriage, Lee Baucom, PhD. Dr. Baucom was kind enough to share his thoughts with Bored Panda and discuss why something as simple as food can cause issues in relationships.

“Like most things in marriage, food isn’t just food, in some cases. It can be more about background issues and control issues. The food we grow up with has lots of psychological elements, given how strong taste and smell play into memories,” he noted. “And since food prep is a household duty, it can often reveal ways a couple navigate tasks of the household.”

We also asked the expert what spouses should do if they can’t agree on what to eat. “I always encourage couples to learn from each other, and allow each other’s experiences to stretch the other,” Dr. Baucom says. “So, it is really a matter of negotiation from a place of a shared experience, versus ‘Do I get what I want?'”

But according to the therapist, that’s not the issue in this marriage. “It is a story of one spouse criticizing the other (clearly, unwarranted, since he loves exactly what he was criticizing when he thinks it isn’t from her), and of dishonesty about resources.”

“True partnership never benefits from personal attacks nor lies and secrecy”

Image credits: BGStock72/Envato (not the actual photo)

We were also curious about the issue of keeping secrets about finances in a marriage. “One person commented about how she was making money here. But in reality, it was merely a dishonest shift of resources in the household. A couple does well to see money as ‘our resource,’ and decisions on how to spend it as a joint task,” Dr. Baucom told Bored Panda. “They may have separate accounts. But in reality, there are resources coming in and resources going out.”

“The real danger here is in the dishonesty of the shift,” he noted. “Money is symbolic, mostly around control and decisions. The red flag is layered in control and dishonesty. His control and her dishonesty. That indicates something is amiss for them.”

The therapist also pointed out that the reason this woman lied to her spouse initially was not to get him to eat her food, but rather to prove his criticism wrong. “It is a somewhat manipulative way of proving a spouse wrong, albeit without his knowing it. And I am guessing that this is true because she fears his reaction,” he shared.

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But of course, this is not a healthy way of getting what you want from your spouse. “When there is a critical and manipulative element to a marriage, the couple is headed for trouble at some point. Both are trying to find some foothold of control, but never actually address their partnership,” Dr. Baucom says. “True partnership never benefits from personal attacks nor lies and secrecy. Those are elements of a struggling marriage… even if neither person is aware of that at the time.”

We would love to hear your thoughts on this situation in the comments below, pandas. Do you think this woman’s tactic to get her husband to eat her food was harmless? Or do you believe she’s damaging her marriage in the process? Feel free to share, and then if you’d like to read another Bored Panda article discussing drama surrounding couples and food, look no further than right here!

Some readers took the woman’s side and called out her husband for refusing to eat her cooking

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However, others thought she was wrong for staying with her husband and secretly keeping his money

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