Different ethics in a relationship? Vegan

[FruitFriends]

I've been with my boyfriend 10 months and we've been living together for 7 months. Things are great and feel serious/long term, we talk about things like marriage/kids in the future which is what we both want.

However, I am vegan and he is not. He is great, he respects my views and is, most of the time, vegan in the house. However, he's from a rural area and shooting/fishing is what he's grown up with. Mostly clay pigeon/releasing the fish after, but I know on some occasions hes been involved with killing/eating animals.

Hes now arranged to go fishing with a friend. He's said they will be releasing the fish after, but it still bothers me a bit. And I guess even though I know he's not killing anything this time, it's just brought up the fact that he's okay with hurting animals?

I keep flitting between not wanting to think about it, to thinking "at least he's not killing anything, and maybe he never will", to worrying that one day he will want to do something like going hunting and that would really upset me.

I know at the end of the day i have no right to say what he does, but the idea of him wanting to hurt/kill an animal really upsets me

I'm not really sure what responses I'm looking for from this - maybe if someone's had any similar experiences and how they've found it?

Are you ok with him eating meat anyway? Animals have died for that to happen. Feels odd to say I'm not ok with you fishing but am ok with you eating meat. You need to be consistent is what you are saying.

I guess it's the more active approach, with fishing/hunting? But I can see what you're saying, I know it's illogical to protest more about this when ultimately I dont like him doing anything that harms animals.

You are making huge compromises in your beliefs in order to keep the relationship going. How long do you think you can keep that up without losing your mind?

It sounds like you won't be happy unless he also becomes vegan at some point!! I don't think it's fair on either of you to drag this relationship out. If he becomes vegan just for you it is likely that he will resent you in the future. It has to be his choice and you have to respect his choices otherwise the relationship will never work.

”he respects my views”

So he should. How about you reciprocate by respecting his views? Or does respect only work one way?

The thing is op it depends on what you view as a deal breaker.
I know couples who are different race, different religions/ no religion, different political parties but appear to have happy relationships.

He respects you- you need to respect him too.

That wouldn’t work for me. People suggest that you should respect his views, but that’s very difficult when his views are repugnant in your mind. That’s like saying, I don’t beat my dog with a baseball bat, but I respect my boyfriend’s right to beat his with a bat whenever he likes. You feel strongly about animal cruelty and not harming or killing animals, when we have no need to. Especially for “fun”! He isn’t fishing for his family’s survival. He’s harming them for his own pleasure. You don’t have to respect that, just because he respects you having quorn for your dinner! You are not being unreasonable.

BUT we have to respect men as they are. He may change his views, but he may not. You have to make peace with him as he is now, in case he doesn’t.

It would not work for me.

It's really hard OP I'm a strict vegetarian, would be vegan but I eat eggs I get from a local friends chickens.
My ex husband ate only meat - literally only meat. No veg or anything and the whole house stank.
That particular thing didn't break up our marriage (there were plenty of other things) but it's so wonderful to have a house that no longer smells like an abbatoir and no meat fat splattered up all the walls or pieces of bleeding corpse sitting in the fridge.
I'm free just to have wonderful plant based food on display everytime I open the fridge.
It's like a breath of fresh air.
Sorry but I couldn't date a meat eater again. Ex had horrible breath because of his diet.

My exH was from a similar background and I have been vegetarian (going towards vegan at times) for 30 years. We were married a long time, I wasn't veggie when we met.

Mostly it was no great issue. I didn't try to influence or comment on his diet, not he mine. He did hunt occasionally over the years, and I just didn't connect or engage with that at all. He didn't tell me about it and I didn't ask.

I didn't think less of him, either - if you were going to, you'd have to think less of all the rest of your family & friends who aren't vegan. I agree with what said earlier about consistency. Abattoirs are much worse than field hunting, in my view.

We had children, and managed to agree how they would be fed. He always prepared meat. It's not what split us up.

I think it is like most things - is the relationship is strong enough, and you both respect each other's views, it doesn't have to be an issue. You can't use the field hunting as a way of trying to move him towards veganism, I don't think. That doesn't look like mutual respect. The equivalent might be him asking you to be veggie rather than vegan.

You need to respect him and his views just like he has done with your own. if you can't then just leave him and find
Someone with your exact views and beliefs rather than trying to change him, he'll resent you for it
Personally I think there should be give and take in every situation and chill out a bit - he's not hunting endangered species or torturing animals - also where do you stop - do you let ants run wild in your house, not kill mice or rats in your house, let flies in, and mosquitos etc - how about not washing things in case it kills the bacteria?

I think, as others have said, that if you can't respect his right to live according to his values and views, as he respects yours, then you are not going to be compatible in the long term. He doesn't seem to have any issues with you being vegan but you clearly have issues with his fishing and so on.

The problem is you have every right to be vegan, its fine. But he has every right to go fishing / hunt / eat meat, that's fine too.

He's not doing anything wrong and actually I'd have a think about the differences between game shooting and tesco pork, which you're okay with him eating. One, had lived a wild full life and is shot quickly to be eaten. The other lives a dull cramped devoid life, to be stunned and bled out. They won't even use bullets because of the cost. One seems a lot more humane to me.

Respect goes both ways and if you can't respect him like he does you, you should let him go so he can be with someone who does

I'm a vegetarian and personally I'd sooner someone shot a pheasant, plucked and ate it than went to Tesco and bought a chicken.

IMO the pheasant has had a much nicer life than the chicken, and the person shooting plucking and eating the pheasant isn't under any shrink-wrapped illusions about where dinner has come from. The meat eaters that irritate me tend to be the ones who neither know nor care about where their meat comes from.

Dont draw lines. Let him be who he is and accept that or dont, and finish the relationship.

Its no more fair what you are doing to him, than if he tried to stop you being a vegan.

Yeah respecting beliefs goes both ways op
If you can't cope with him going fishing then its probably not going to work

You need to respect his views to and not try to change him

Have to live and let live. This is no different from a bacon loving Christian having a relationship with a Muslim or Jew. His ethics allow him to eat meat, hunt and fish, yours do not. If you cannot be tolerant of his beliefs, then perhaps you are better off dating only vegans.

I'm vegan but have to say I have less ethical issues with field hunting than the commercial meat industry. If he's e.g. shooting a rabbit it's had a free life up to then and then a pretty quick albeit painful end. Far better than the misery of intensive farming and ending your days in a slaughterhouse.

How will you feel if he wants your child to eat meat? Hunt? Fish?

If you need him to change to be acceptable to you, then that’s clearly wrong and probably suggests more things that are wrong with the relationship than your dietary mismatch.