If your gut is telling you something's "off" about your relationship, it's best to listen to it.
In a popular post on the Relationships subreddit, a woman shared her strange experience with her BF becoming aggressive about her vegetarianism. She wrote:
Me and my boyfriend have been together for three years and have lived together for one year. I've been a vegetarian since I was eleven years old through my own choice, no one else in my family is veggie. My bf eats meat. Although my dream, ideal partner probably would be a vegetarian, I view this as a Dan Savage 'price of admission' for an otherwise great guy.
Usually we cook veggie meals and he adds meat to them. If he wants a meal where that doesn't work, we just cook our own things and eat them together. The cooking works out to about 50/50 and so does the cleaning, so I don't think the problem is with that. He eats meat most days, I have no problem with meat in the flat. I won't cook it, that's all, cause it grosses me out.
Meat pizzas and stuff like that I don't mind, but nothing than involves really touching the meat. Recently he's been really obsessed with my vegetarianism in a way he never had before - he's always made stupid jokes but that's a better reaction than a lot of people. He's proper grilled me about it around four times in the past fortnight.
Anyone who's been veggie know how annoying those constant conversations are. He's started genuinely saying that its stupid, unhealthy, hipster, all that stuff. I've shown him the studies saying vegetarians usually live longer, that a veggie and even vegan diet is accepted unanimously by dieticians as just as healthy as a meat one - he just doesn't accept it.
He has a far worse diet than I do! I don't snack, don't eat fast food, don't have sugary drinks and he does all the time. (We're both slim however.) He's been asking if I'd ever quit a lot too. I'd like to point out that I never bring my vegetarianism up in conversation because usually people just try to lecture you. Whenever we talk about it, he brings it up.
Now, there's been a handful of times in the past few weeks when he'll cook a meal for us and I'll notice that it's not vegetarian. Some examples: He made spag bol saying it was quorn when it just obviously wasn't. They don't look the same. When I pointed this out, he just laughed and said it was a brain fart and he forgot - which, okay, whatever, I guess that could happen.
He gave me a sandwich with ham on it (another mistake, apparently, since he was making us both them and just put the ham on both, despite this never having been a problem before). He made himself a bacon butty and asked if I wanted an egg one. I say yes and when I walk into the kitchen he's using the same pan that he'd used for bacon.
He said he didn't know this was a problem when he 100% did because he always swapped pans before this. And it's not about the washing up, because when he cooks, I wash up and the other way around. He made chicken enchiladas and told me they were veggie. Luckily I saw the chicken when I cut it in half. Same excuses: an honest mistake.
I thus far haven't accidentally eaten any meat. I've been cooking for myself for the past week, but he keeps offering to cook for both of us. Am I just being paranoid? The idea of him sneaking meat into my food seems crazy but it really seems like he is! Why would he even bother to do that?
TL;DR: Boyfriend has become aggressive towards my vegetarianism and I think he's trying to sneak meat into my food.
[deleted] wrote:
I think you're using the work "sneak" incorrectly. This douche knows full well what he's doing and you should probably have some serious second thoughts about him and his actions. Mistake my ass.
OP responded:
I'm glad people are agreeing with me. I didn't think it could be in any way a mistake either but he insists that they are. Won't change his story at all.
[deleted] wrote:
Have you talked to him about the fact that he's being incredibly disrespectful towards you and your moral choices?
OP responded:
I question him after every incident and I've asked him separately as well. I was like "you've been making a lot of these mistakes, wanna talk about my vegetarianism? Are you confused about it? Resentful?" He insisted and insisted that every single time was a mistake and then huffed off to bed.
cat_romance wrote:
It does sound like he's setting you up for a "did you like what I made you for dinner? HA, it had meat in it, sucker" situation.
These are no honest mistakes. You two have lived/eaten together for quite some time now and to suddenly be making 'mistakes' like this is ridiculous. He's definitely trying to get you to eat meat.
I think you need to have a serious talk with him. Tell him that you know he's trying to sneak you meat. There's way too many coincidences for these to be accidents anymore. Tell him that if you ever suspect or discover that he has fed you meat you will break up with him on the spot (at least, tell him that if that's how you feel.
For me it would be a total breach of trust). Ask him what his deal is with your being a vegetarian. Is a friend giving him s**t? Did he read something that made him worried? Is he concerned about what you two will feed future children? There's something that got the fire going under his feet and you need to figure out what it is.
cybertron wrote:
Vegetarian (18 years) here with a non-vegetarian-never-been-vegetarian wife. All told we've been together ten years. For anyone who gives half a shit about their significant other, those "mistakes" don't happen. Disagreement is fine, lack of consideration is not.
This isn't a matter of "whoops added the ham" either, it's that he isn't respecting the choice you've made and is actively undermining your decision.
[deleted] wrote:
Have you talked to him about the fact that he's being incredibly disrespectful towards you and your moral choices? I question him after every incident and I've asked him separately as well. I was like "you've been making a lot of these mistakes, wanna talk about my vegetarianism?
Are you confused about it? Resentful?" He insisted and insisted that every single time was a mistake and then huffed off to bed.
So after posting, I stuck to only eating food I'd made and my bf got more and more antsy about cooking for me. I sat him down the next day and asked him the same stuff: if he had a problem with my vegetarianism, why he was trying to contaminate my food: since I asked WHY and not IF, he blew up. Demanding to know why I didn't trust him, how I could accuse him of this.
He also kept trying to get me to explain why I'm veggie in the first place, but he knows this well so I didn't let him derail the conversation. Eventually, after the most frustrating, circular argument ever, he stormed off to our bedroom. We didn't speak that night or the morning. When I got home the next day, he'd actually gone and cooked an entire chicken "for us". He asked me if I'd eat it.
It was so surreal: him stood at the kitchen counter with this cooked chicken asking me to eat it when he's never known me to eat meat, as if we hasn't been arguing about this at all. I didn't even respond. I shouldered my way past him to the fridge ... which was a massive mistake. I guess he went a little nuts.
I still can't really believe this happened, but he grabbed me by my hair at the back on my head and with another hand tried to force chicken into my mouth. I am still shocked by this. It was terrifying, he was so much stronger than me. He didn't succeed and after some moments of me struggling, he let go.
He just stood there, looking defeated while I literally ran out of the kitchen and got some stuff and went to my parent's. I'm there now, it's been the better part of a week. He's agreed to move out: put up no fight for the flat or for us (which I wouldn't accept of course anyway). When we spoke on the phone to decide this, he sounded ashamed. Quiet. I hope he's ashamed.
I'll never know why he suddenly snapped about my vegetarianism and I frankly don't care anymore, he's obviously just a wanker to do that anyway. This past month or so has been so different from the rest of our relationship, it's crazy, but there's no coming back from this. I'm well shot of him.
TL;DR: BF tried to force feed me, we're done.
Gulliverlived wrote:
Thank you for providing me with my slackjawed reading moment of the day.
It's pretty hard to come back from 'that time I crammed my girlfriend's mouth full of poultry.'
hashtagsugary wrote:
I felt utterly sick when I read that. What on earth. This guy is profoundly unwell, or damaged in some way to force food into your mouth - regardless of whether it is food you would normally consume or not and being held up by your hair when it happened? My goodness, I hope you are out of there now. Do not ever talk to this man again.
Biff_aka_levi wrote:
Goddamn. How did he go from denying contaminating your food to outright force feeding you chicken? I imagine that was some scary s**t. Sorry you had to go through that and good on you for getting the f**k out.
tomorrowgirl wrote:
Realistically how did he think that interaction was going to go? Did he think after he'd grabbed you by the hair and force fed you chicken you'd be like, DEAR GOD THE DELICIOUSNESS OF IT ALL! I RENOUNCE EVERYTHING I BELIEVE IN! F#$K THE CHICKENS! THANKS BABE!
Seriously. What an idiot. I hope someone close to him knows or finds out the real story and helps him to see how truly f#$ked up his actions were.
Edit: FYI this was a rhetorical question.
iftheresaway wrote:
I know it's ridiculous to look for logic in this nutball's actions, but this is the part that just baffles me. I've been a vegetarian for twenty years, and you know what? Of course meat is delicious! My husband eats meat, and he cooks things all the time that smell super yummy. But I don't eat them, because that's an ethical choice I've made for myself.
It's not like if I had an accidental taste of meat (which of course I have in twenty years, s**t happens, especially with restaurants) I'm going to suddenly change my entire moral code. That would have to be one really f**king amazing bite of bacon.
Clearly, OP was right to trust her gut when things started to shift in the relationship.