dog in the manger

A  person  who  takes  or  keeps  something  wanted  by another out of sheer meanness. The expression comes from one of Aesop’s fables about  a  snarling  dog  who  prevents  the  horses  from  eating  their  fodder  even though the dog himself does not want it. It was probably a cliché by the time Frederick Marryat wrote (Japhet, 1836), “What a dog in the manger you must be—you can’t marry them both.”