DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was wondering how to properly eat a hot roll. I looked it up: Pull the roll apart gently and butter each side. But if the roll is very hot, fingers get burned.
I tend to make a cut on the top with a small knife and pull it apart to butter it, then eat each half. My husband sticks his fork in halfway down the side of the roll, opening it like a biscuit; he then pushes the top down on the bottom so it looks like a biscuit. (But then, he eats soup with a fork after breaking off bread into it, and refuses to use soup or cereal spoons or a bread and butter plate.)
Luckily, at my daughter’s wedding last year, the rolls weren’t hot, so there was no issue.
GENTLE READER: Perhaps a lesson in elementary physics, rather than in etiquette, would solve your problem. At least your hot roll problem, although not your more serious marital problem.
If you wait just a moment, burning-hot rolls will cool enough for you to touch them. How long you will have to wait before your husband understands that it is not worth it for him to annoy you at every meal, Miss Manners cannot say.