10 Relationships Ruined By Food, According To Reddit

Food can make people very passionate and emotional—the word "hangry" took off for a reason. And sometimes that can have devastating, potentially life-changing outcomes. Nowhere is there more evidence of this than on Reddit. The social media platform's endless threads, most specifically on the AITA (AmItheAsshole) page, showcase the many ways in which food and drink can cause relationships of all kinds to crumble, whether by denying someone a meal, lying about flavoring, or feeding a human's beloved snack to a dog.

Being that these are anonymous postings on the internet, we can't say with 100% certainty exactly how true some of these scenarios are. But true or not, these can still serve as valuable cautionary tales—fables, even—of the consequences of culinary incidents gone wrong. Here are 10 ridiculous Reddit stories about how food has ruined relationships.

At the onset of the pandemic, people went into a panic about their foodstuffs, and this Reddit poster (30M) is no exception. According to his post, he bought 45 cans of beans when the lockdown first hit in 2020, just in case. Then one day he went to make some chili and discovered the beans were gone. His girlfriend (30F) had buried them in the woods and wouldn't tell him where they were.

He writes:

I asked her to explain and she told me she was afraid that "if things get bad" we might have to worry about "looters or whatever" and that the beans could be in danger of being stolen. I said I thought this was completely ridiculous and unlikely. She became angry at me and said she "is protecting our beans."

The girlfriend goes on to say she won't share the location because she "will never jeopardize my beans," while the original poster goes on to contemplate whether or not he should break up with her. Considering this was the start of a very long lockdown, we don't have high hopes that these two are still together.

Being the significant other on a family vacation can be a fraught position from the jump, but when it's a very expensive family vacation where you're supposed to cover your own costs, it can become downright traumatic. In this situation the poster (29M) who makes more than three times as much as his girlfriend (30F) asks us if he was the asshole for inviting her to an expensive vacation abroad, filled with costly outings and meals, without him or his affluent family covering her bill.

He goes on to say that his girlfriend even worked an extra job before leaving to save up money, but ended up still cutting back while on the trip:

When we got home I asked her why she skipped out on several of the outings and only ate 2 meals a day- I mentioned how I heard her stomach growling one night and said I was concerned about her having an eating disorder. She got teary eyed and said that 3 meals a day wasn't fiscally feasible for her and neither were the outings that she chose not to go on (she went on 3 of 6 outings). She said she was not expecting everything to cost so much and she was overwhelmed.

Ultimately the internet made a ruling: asshole. We hope this girl got out while she could.

What would you do if you found out your spouse had been keeping a secret from you for 13 years? This tale of marital strife comes to us from Reddit's TIFU (Today I Fucked Up) page, another gold mine for viral woes. The original poster writes that while their wife hates lime-flavored candies, the OP loves them and the pair has developed a routine that involves a handoff of the green morsels.

They write:

What she doesn't know is that the green Haribo gummy bears are actually strawberry.

Shortly after we married, for one reason or another, I looked at the back of the Haribo gummy bears package and discovered this.

So I haven't said anything for 13 years. Every time we get gummy bears, she gives me the orange and green (strawberry). I've never said a word. I've enjoyed eating my little lies.

One night, the wife discovered the truth and now eats all of her spouse's favorite flavors out of spite. A fair punishment for the betrayal if you ask me.

When culinary snafus become a life-or-death situation, that's when you've got a real problem. The poster of this conundrum (M18) was simply trying to save himself from having a deadly allergic reaction to peanuts, and the poor soul is wondering if he's the asshole for not eating his godfather's wedding cake.

There was something on the cake that looked suspiciously like peanuts. He writes:

I didn't want to risk it so I refused to eat it. My grandmother got pissed. She said I'm an asshole who's trying to ruin my godfather's wedding because I hate him.

My mother seemed to agree with her, two of my aunts also agreed and told me I should eat it to make my godfather happy. I didn't.

My mother told me at the end that I should have just ate a piece, waited and if I went into anaphylactic shock they would just bring me to hospital and everything would have been fine (No, I don't have a EpiPen.) Which she is kind of right, I didn't really know.

Forcing a family member to go into anaphylactic shock over a stupid piece of cake? Yeah, that's gonna burn some bridges. And poster, you are most certainly not the asshole.

Fast food can be a touchy subject, as is proven by this incident involving a mom with three sons (6-year-old twins and a 4-year-old) who cut off unsupervised visits between her kids and their grandma, her mother-in-law, over some unsanctioned drive-thru meals. The mom writes:

I am very peculiar about the children eating fast food like McDonalds and KFC. KFC, they've had along with Subway and some other fast food places but I avoid ordering from those places. When they get older, sure, I will be unable to stop them from eating fast food but when they are this young and eat what I give them I rather they don't know McDonalds even exists.

Turns out when the boys visit Grandma, she always treats them to a drive-thru snack. Even after their mother asked her several times not to, she continued to take the boys to McDonald's, which the kids called their "secret meal from mummy." After multiple "secrets" got out, the poster eventually told her mother-in-law that if she wanted to see her grandkids, she could only do so under supervision to make sure no junk food was being eaten.

Ultimately this poster was voted not the asshole, with a majority of the comments citing the fact that teaching children to keep secrets of any kind could lead to dangerous situations.

This post lays out the classic Cold Water Boyfriend, Room Temp Water Girlfriend scenario that we're all familiar with—right? In this situation, the poster (35M) likes cold water while his partner (33F) will only drink pre-boiled water at room temperature. They seemed to have figured out a system that includes boiling water and splitting it between an in-fridge water dispenser and an out-of-fridge jug. But it turns out it's a delicate formula, one that causes drama if messed with.

The poster writes:

There was going to be some burst water main repairs outside by the utility company so in the morning before my partner woke up, I decided to make sure we had enough water to drink. I filled the dispenser with 1 jug, then halved the room temperature water in the other jug into both

I went back to work and thought nothing of it. Partner wakes up and goes down and she is furious. She doesnt have any room temperature water. I try to placate her by mixing the lukewarm water with water from the dispenser to make "room temperature" water but its futile.

She wont relent. She tips the entire bottle of water I mixed out into the sink and tries herself and cant get the temperature right either. She is absolutely raging at me at this point for not listening to her or caring about her needs. She storms out of the house in a huff.

As of now, Reddit users have stated there's not enough info to make a ruling, with the comments full of room-temp water lovers chiming in.

If you're having a wedding, you better feed your guests, or prepare for the wrath (or at least passive aggression) of family members. One couple who opted to pay for a wedding reception appearance by Mickey and Minnie Mouse instead of catering learned that lesson the hard way.

The bride (F28) took to Reddit to determine whether she was the asshole:

Background-my fiancée and I are huge Disney fans, and we travel to Disney World as much as we can throughout the year. Disney is such an important part not only to us, but also our marriage.

The issue was with our decision to not offer catering services/bar services at our wedding due to routing the money towards having a wedding Minnie and Mickey make appearances at our special day. The cost to have both Minnie and Mickey for a good chunk of time (30 minutes) was almost exactly what our parents allotted for our catering budget, so we scheduled an appearance during our first dance and our wedding photos, forgoing served food (though there were PLENTY of facilities at the venue where people could eat...).

She goes on to clarify that one of the food options available was vending machines, so yeah, maybe don't expect the best gift (if any) from the aunt who's complaining about you on Facebook.

One of the most sacred relationships is the one between a hungry person and their delivery driver. And pissing off anyone who's in charge of your food is probably a bad idea. But even we couldn't have anticipated that ordering too much soda would be what ruined it for this poster.

They write:

So the Papa Johns app has 2 deals where I am located. You can buy 4 20-oz sodas for 6$, or you can buy 4 2-liter sodas for 8$.

I was ordering and got the 2 liters since it just seemed like a much better deal. The driver scolded me and said only ever order 2 sodas, never 4. He seemed pretty annoyed. Why have such a good deal if I'm not supposed to use it!!

I also gave him a few bucks extra since he had to deliver extra soda. My pizza also seems.... tampered with. AITAH?

That's the entire post, short and sweet, and now we're all afraid to order more than two sodas with our pizza delivery ever again.

How far would you go to please your significant other's mom? Would you eat a special mystery casserole made only for you that goes against your dietary restrictions? This poster (F23) didn't, and may have ruined her relationship over it.

The poster, while not 100% vegan, is still trying to eat a mostly vegan diet and when invited over to her boyfriend's (M24) parents' house for dinner, simply asked that there be at least some kind of vegan food available, even in the form of a side dish. What she got instead was a special casserole just for her while everyone else was served potatoes with various sides. At first she assumed the casserole was all vegan—but, she writes, she assumed incorrectly:

She told me it was her signature dish and no, it wasn't vegan and yes, she knew it didn't align with my diet but I should give it a try since it would be so much better than whatever else I could have. I was irritated that she went out of her way to cook something she KNEW I didn't want to eat, so I told her that I appreciated her effort but that I wasn't going to eat it but I'd be happy to just have some plain potatoes. That's when she got mad and defensive and called me ungrateful that I wouldn't even try it.

On our way back, I was still confused by the entire thing and asked my bf about it but he accused me of causing a scene. He agreed it was stupid his mom made the casserole but said that since I still eat non-vegan food occassionally, I should not have made it awkward. I probably would have eaten it if this had been a misunderstanding or if she had accidentally served something not entirely vegan, but I found her serving me the dish disrespectful and it was a matter of principle for me.

Sticking to boundaries around your personal diet? Not the asshole. Not sticking up for your girlfriend when she's uncomfortable? The asshole.

When you are truly craving something, truly looking forward to a little treat after a hard day, and you find out someone else took that special snack, there's hell to pay. When that "someone else" is your husband's dog? You go to Reddit and see if you're the asshole.

"AITA for leaving and staying at a hotel after he gave his dog my snack?" the poster asks In the subject line, going on to write about how pepperoni sticks are their favorite snack, and not the cheap ones either. The poster works in a hospital emergency room 60+ hours a week and is currently using a crutch to get around and after a long hard day just wants to bite into an $18 hunk of cured meats.

They write:

Well 2 days ago I had taken a couple slices and his dog that he got about 6 months ago was at my feet begging and digging at my heels and I said "Absolutely not, this is my snack only" and left it at that. But the next night (yesterday) I get home and go to get the pepperoni and my husband was sitting at the desk with the rest of my pepperoni sliced up in a plate, leaning down and feeding it to his dog (he hates pepperoni so he wasnt even eating it). I ask why the hell he is giving his dog my snacks and he said "it's no big deal, we can just get another one". It just bummed me out beyond belief and I left and went to a hotel room and basically cried my night away over this. I know it sounds stupid but he knows I wont share that snack with his dog so he did it behind my back. He says I'm acting childish over food and saying I'm only pissed because I dont like the dog and dont want her having anything of mine. AITA?

The takeaway here: dogs have their own treats they love that will do just fine—never get between your partner and their special pepperoni sticks.