“This taste just like Mom’s” isn’t a phrase for no reason. There’s something about a grandma’s home-cooked meals that make them so delicious and comforting. Perhaps it’s that everyone always looks forward to—but only one person knows how to make it. Yep, a true family recipe means how you actually cook it is a huge secret.

One man on Reddit remembers his late mother in just that way—the woman who always cooked for his family, but never divulged just how she made her meals. When she passed, she finally gave him her recipes for some of her best dishes. The clincher? She told him not to share them with anyone.

However, with the holidays on the horizon, the man’s wife asked him if she could make of his mother’s recipes to honor her. “She loves to cook and would like to carry on my mom’s traditions,” he explained in a recent Reddit post.

Sounds nice, right? But remember how his mother didn’t want him to share the recipes with anyone?

At first, he simply told his wife that he would cook them and there was no need for her to help. But when she insisted, he wound up admitting that he just wanted to honor his mother’s request not to share the recipes with anyone. This led to a HUGE argument.

“She thinks I am being ridiculous by not sharing them with her, but my mom never gave her any of her recipes,” he explained. “If she wanted to share them, she would have. I also don’t trust that my wife would keep them only to herself. I can see her sharing them with her friends or others, which my mom definitely did not want.”

“Things would be different if I didn’t promise my mom that I would keep the recipes to myself, but I did so there’s nothing I can do about it,” he added. “Plus nothing is stopping my wife from doing her own take on them.”

In the thread, he asks the Reddit world who the jerk is—himself or his wife? And the people of Reddit have spoken. Oh, have they spoken. And they think he’s being a little ridiculous.

“Can you imagine spending holidays with him and his mother?” someone posted. “I bet it was awful. I’m sure mother couldn’t do anything wrong and wife couldn’t do anything right.”

“This is how recipes die,” another pointed out. “Your mom dies and leaves them to you. You die and don’t pass them on to anyone… and there goes those secret recipes. Dead and gone forever. Rotting recipe cards in a box that gets chucked into a dumpster after your funeral. Since you promised you would never give them to ANYONE and that seems to include your own family, then these recipes absolutely will die with you.”

“Your mom didn’t come up with those recipes, other people did and shared them with her. So why wouldn’t you share them? Have your kids come help you in the kitchen, make a family affair,” someone else suggested.

What do you think—is it okay for this man to share his recipes with his wife or should he keep them a secret like his mother’s dying wish?