Daughter's 24-year-old boyfriend pushes food around and secretly trashes every meal instead of eating, pushing her mom to ban him from dinners: ‘He is no longer invited to meals’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jul 8, 2026 7:45 AM EDT

There are picky eaters, and there's this person, who treats a home-cooked meal like a crime scene they need to stage convincingly. Cut the food, move it around, add a little sauce smear here and there for realism, and boom, congratulations, you've created the culinary equivalent of a ransom note. Nobody's buying it, but everyone's too polite to say anything

Instead of just saying "I'm not hungry," our guy would rather orchestrate an entire fake-eating charade worthy of Broadway? Which is like faking a phone call to escape a bad date, except he's not dating his girlfriend's mom and also not paying attention to or paying for the steaks that are at stake.

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  • WIBTAH for asking my daughter's boyfriend to stop having dinner with us?

    Split thumbnail with a pensive woman, a magenta-tinted man looking at a piece of broccoli, and bold text reading “He is no longer invited.”
    via KinoMasterskaya/PeopleImages

    Representative image. People shown are not associated with the events described.

  • My daughter (21) has been dating this guy (24) for 2 years. It's fairly serious. He is from Mexico and has been in the U.S.
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  • since he was 3 years old. He has a strange phobia of not wanting anyone to see him eat.
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  • And it's real...I've literally never seen this kid put a bite of food in his mouth, despite spending a fair amount of time around him.
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  • He is thin, but doesn't look unhealthy. The problem is, we will take them out to dinner occasionally for holidays or special occasions.
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  • Blonde woman resting her chin on her hand indoors, with a blurred person seated in the background.
    via PeopleImages

    woman resting her chin on her hand indoors, with a blurred person seated in the background

    Representative image. People shown are not associated with the events described.

  • He always orders a full meal. He will cut up the food, push it around on the plate...but not eat ANY of it.
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  • Then after the meal, he will "donate his leftovers" to someone else. It's even worse when I make home cooked meals and they come to dinner.
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  • He does the same thing...takes a full plate of food, pushes it around, cuts it up, makes it look messed with...but doesn't eat ANY of it.
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  • Then he will scrape ALL the food into the trash can afterwards. I'm starting to get enraged over this.
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  • Man in a yellow shirt holding a fork with broccoli, looking down at the food indoors.
    via KinoMasterskaya

    Man staring down at a forkful of broccoli with a closed-off, reluctant look, like dinner has become a standoff

    Illustrative image only. Person shown is not connected to this story.

  • He wastes a horrendous amount of food, and I can't stand the money wasted when we buy him expensive restaurant meals that go completely uneaten.
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  • It's even caused a few scenes with waiters asking him what's wrong, do they need to change his order, etc.
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  • I've talked to my daughter privately and said, "if he doesn't want to eat, that's fine.
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  • Just tell him to STOP taking plates of food and ordering in restaurants!". Her response was, "but in his culture it's rade for him to not take food.
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  • I'm not asking him to do that". But I find it SO R DE that he is willing to keep wasting our money...food isn't cheap!!
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  • WIBTA for just announcing that he is no longer invited to meals? Edit: This post absolutely BLEW UP, and I appreciate everyone weighing in on it!
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  • It's not a simple issue, and hearing varying opinions on this was very valuable to me.
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  • You all made me set my frustration aside and realize there is a much deeper issue at play here.
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  • I agree he has an eating disorder, and I had a serious discussion with my daughter earlier about these behaviors.
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  • They are absolutely abnormal, and I let her know in no uncertain terms | am very concerned about his physical and mental health.
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  • She seemed a little shocked, and said she thought it was "just one his quirks" (no hate please...she is just 21 and has very little life experience with these issues).
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  • I definitely got through to her, though, and she promised to address this with him privately and suggest therapy/professional help.
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  • You all may disagree with that choice, but I don't feel it is my place as "the girlfriend's mom" to address this very personal and painful issue with him.
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  • She and I agreed that, for my part, it is ok for me to tell him that he doesn't have to feel pressured to eat with us, and it's perfectly acceptable for him to simply refuse food but still sit at the table with us.
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  • We MUCH prefer that option instead of him wasting food. Going this route, the problem is being addressed while avoiding humiliation for him, still respecting him as a person, and my daughter as well.
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  • I'm still drawing the "HL NO" line in the sand with the food wasting...but in a loving way that isn't going to worsen any underlying trauma he is already facing.
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  • I want him to find the courage to face this, and know that we are here to help and support him.
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  • Here's the thing about food waste guilt, it's basically the family unit's favorite currency. Nothing gets grandma more riled up than watching a perfectly good plate of food get quietly relocated to the trash, as if throwing away chicken parm is a personal attack on the entire lineage of home. there's a universal parenting instinct to immediately jump to "I'm banning this behavior," when really what's happening is way more complicated than rudeness, it's usually some deeper stuff nobody wants to name out loud at Thanksgiving


    At some point, every family has to learn the difference between "this is disrespectful" and "this is a cry for help wearing a napkin as a disguise." One deserves a stern talking-to. The other deserves therapy, not a seating chart change.


     

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boyfriend meal parenting dinner adulthood family food daughter adult children picky eater
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