to be gutted after DP confessed to eating a steak (both vegetarian -not anymore obviously!)

[Mercapto]

I've been vegetarian for 6 - 7 years. I made the decision to go vegetarian when I realised that I wasn't eating much meat due to not enjoying it due to taste and ethical reasons.

I met DP 4 years ago and he decided to go veggie with me because he wasn't one for eating much meat either.

I came home last night from work and he told me he had a confession to make. He had given in to his cravings and bought steaks, ate one last night and the other is in the freezer.

I wasn't expecting this really although he has told me he had been having dreams about eating meat.

I know I don't really have a leg to stand on and can't tell him that he can't eat meat but I have been feeling awful since I found out. I felt uspet, disgusted at the thought of animal flesh being cooked in my kitchen, not to mention a steak actually mingling with items of food in my freezer. I wanted rid of the evidence. I could see the empty packet in the bin, and the dishes he'd used to cook/ eat it. Reading this paragraph back to myself, I feel like there is something wrong with me for feeling this way. I don't have a problem with other people eating meat, I just don't want it in my house :(

I don't feel like I can talk to anyone in RL because I feel that the people around me (meat eaters) probably don't respect my non eat-meating preferences and think it's a bit silly.

AIBU for feeling this way? I havn't spoken at all to DP since. Although I did ask if he would be buying more meat, he said ocasionally. I then said could he cook it when I wasn't around (I thought this a reasonable request seeing as I work shifts and we don't always have tea together!)

Venison is not a meat people eat regularly, when is the last time you heard of a person saying they had a lovely venison stew or is my baby ok to eat venison ect

God how awful for your oh hes most likey been eating meat for ages but felt to pressured to say

I would hate for my oh to feel so repressed he had to hide eating meat from me

i thought he was shagging somone else

Its not just your home and if you have small chikdren its very likey you would face this anyway

I think this is more that about just meat

Quite often McHappy

If a women came on here a as saying oh was trying to conrol what she ate

Alarm bells would ring

Well for me they are rining now

OP, I do understand where you are coming from but I think you have to let it go unless your marriage is not worth much to you. He did tell you, at least.

Would he compromise by you going out for a meal a couple of times a week and him eating meat then, or when he is not with you? That way you don't have to have it in the house. That's more or less what we do.

DD2 is a very strict veggie (almost vegan as she eats no dairy, only eggs). When we go into places to eat she has to make sure we ask for fresh utensils/ gloves etc and she can't bear the thought of anything that touches her food having been anywhere near meat. We also have to avoid certain food colourings, most cheesy pasta sauces and a myriad other things which I proably don't need to tell you! She hates us having meat in the house at all, and hates meat being cooked in the same oven. She won't sit on leather chairs when we are out or wear any animal products, including leather shoes.

DD1 is also veggie, but worries less about the little details. I can't say I'm a vegetarian, though I eat almost no meat and only very rarely. I'm extremely sympathetic to DD2's cause.

DH is a hardened meat eater.

Most of the time I cook totally veggie meals. I have very little meat in the house and what I do is just tiny amounts to satisfy DH (eg pepperoni on a pizza). I never buy joints of meat, pieces of chicken, steak or whole fish. That would be a huge step too far for DD2.

But we do eat out and then DH gets meat. He also goes to the canteen at work and gets meat there. I would like him to become veggie because it would make our lives so simple, but you can't make someone else's choices for them. He has a right to eat meat if he wishes to do so.

I suspect you will find if you let it go with no fuss he may return to being veggie. Recently I suggested that DH, instead of taking lunch, bought hot food at work so he could get his meat fix. When I asked him what he'd eaten he said "Oh, jacket potato with beans."

My DH eats venison very regularly, it's very low fat and tasty.

Dont think you will be Reindeer as your golden bollocks will become prized amongst collectors due to your protected status, and you will have to spend your time avoiding the poachers :o

The only reason we dont eat venison regularly is the cost as it is very expensive. I am sure that more people would eat it more often if it were cheaper. I liken it to fillet steak and the like, its only because of cost that I dont have it once a week!

I work from home and find it quite easy to bung the dishes into the dishwasher and put a load of washing on in the time it takes for the kettle to boil as I get up. By lunchtime I can put the clean washing in the dryer.

I can zip around the house in fifteen minutes with the hoover too most days, and a quick dust.. it doesnt take long and it means nobody has to spend all weekend doing housework.

bollocks... wrong thread! lol!

I think you maybe letting your dd2 call the shots there, musicposy.

Wow, musicposy. So the whole family has to suffer?

I too am thinking that about your daughter MusicPosy.. fine if that is how she wants to live when she has her own place, but utterly unfair to expect you all to pander to her in your own home.

How are we all suffering? I already said DD1 was also veggie and I am virtually veggie. It's only DH out of the 4 of us who eats meat, so that's one out of 4. I don't ban it from the house, but I don't cook huge joints of meat either, otherwise I would be upsetting 3 people to pander to the one.
It seems weird that if I cooked meat for DH, that wouldn't be pandering, but avoiding it for the three people who don't want it somehow is.
I would never try to stop DH eating meat, as I said, it's his choice.

"fine if that is how she wants to live when she has her own place"

and I happen to think the house is her own place. The house is the home of all four of us. Just because two of them will eventually buy another house doesn't make this one not theirs. I cannot understand parents who take this attitude - that somehow the children are living in their house.

I think the PP's were referring to the fact that you cant even keep meat in the house because of her. That is too far imo. She can choose to not eat it etc but to ban it from the house because of one child is OTT.

Would you ban oh I dunno....green vegetables from the house if you DH demanded it?

As a RL friend of the OP , I can tell you that of course we respect your choice, I can't really pretend to understand your feelinngs though as a meat eating omnivore type. I buy as good quality meat as I can afford, eat free range eggs etc, but in reality it doesn't occupy my thoughts too much.

I read your post more that you were surprised by DP (probably after a crappy shift at work, possibly with annoying workmate) and would have liked you to tell him so you'd get time to get used to it. :)

I may be slightly biased though cos I think you are a lovely person. :-D

The thing is you can enjoy a healthy, tasty balanced diet without meat or with v little meat so i don't see why would anyone "suffer" from not having meat in the house.

We as a nation and a global population are consuming too much meat. We eat loads more than we did less than 100 years ago - 80 times more chicken per capita in the US for example. It would do us and the planet a lot of good to eat less meat and fish - and dairy - but unfortunately in the west our diets and shops are largely focused on animal based foods which means it takes more effort than it should.

I know a lot of veggies and I've only known one to use it as a cover for an eating disorder - of maybe 30 people I know with eating disorders.

However I lost at least half a stone when I stopped eating meat without trying, as I naturally found myself eating more vegetables as a result. smug, moi?

The suffering is because of lack of freedom not lack of meat. We are all capable of living in tents with no running water or electricity but it doesn't mean we should live like that.

WSS^^

It isnt about suffering at all. Its about being dictated to based on someone elses life choices.

You dont eat meat, thats fine, I would never try to persuade you to eat it because i respect your choices. I would just expect that you respect mine and if we shared a living space then I would expect compromise and not be dictated to.

I agree separate utensils good idea - eg griddle pan, spatula lifter, plates etc, maybe even separate washing up bowl? but providing meat properly sealed in freezer perhaps YABU.

Or maybe come to agreement that he doesn't cook it in the house only eats it out?

whistlestopcafe me too. I was veggie for 10 years and a bacon sandwich turned my head!

OP, i think you are being a tad unreasonable to try and dictate what your DH can and can't eat or prepare in your house, it's his house too.

I know several people who use veganism/vegetarianism to mask an eating disorder. I also know several that don't.

All that is required here is a set of 'meat' pans, some tuperware for the freezer and possibly a meat set of knives and a chopping board that the meat eater can use happily whenever the fancy takes them.

I'm a massive meat lover but eat vegetarian quite a lot as it's cheaper. I would hate to eat meat only for it to upset my spouse, I enjoy meat, I love my other half. I respect my OH but I will eat meat guilt trip free when I want to, because my spouse respects me.

I don't think YABU Mercapto in that you wish to be meat free in food prep, cooking, and eating. I do think YABU in that you seem to be all or nothing in attitude. There is an easy solution! A compromise. Give him a cupboard of his own for his meaty pans, knives, chopping boards and tupperware. Give him his own shelf in the freezer. If he sticks to this compromise I don't see why either of you will be compromised.