To not want to eat Chinese - help me to see if I’m being unreasonable

[Watermoves]

My partners favourite take away is Chinese. I’m not keen, I’m vegetarian (raised this way) and just find its bland and boring. I have eaten Chinese but I don’t really like it.

Therefore we often have Indian, Mexican, pizza etc if we have a takeaway all of which he also really likes. I often offer to get him a Chinese or suggest he gets one if I’m working late etc but he always says no.

it come to a head tonight as he wanted a Chinese take away and I didn’t fancy it but suggested I would get something else. He said it’s not the same eating a takeaway alone. I kinda get that, but I would have got myself an Indian. (We would be eating at the table together just different food)

He basically said I should suck it up and eat the Chinese food every so often for him? My rationale is that I shouldn’t have to eat what I don’t want or like?

who is being unreasonable?

wow....my late husband and I ate very different diets and we just ate what we wanted.

That menu looks delicious.

Of course you shouldn’t have to eat a meal you don’t like, just do your parter can have the experience of ‘sharing’ his takeaway. How utterly ridiculous. Tell him to piss off.

Ultimately OP you shouldn't have to eat Chinese food just because your partner wants to. Not everyone likes the same thing and that's okay, and takeaways are too expensive to 'waste' on food you don't like.

But if you like Indian food, maybe Indo-Chinese would be a good "compromise"? Plenty more vegetarian options and guaranteed it won't be bland! That way your partner feels like you're "having the same thing" since it's so important to him, but you get to have the flavours you enjoy...

YANBU

Why would Person B want to force Person A to eat food they don't like, just because it's Person B's favourite food? Person A is not preventing Person B from eating that food, they just choose not to share it.

Personally I would happy to eat my favourite food while a companion ate something else. It would be off putting to see them picking at food they disliked to keep me happy.

Sorry guys out the phone down.

I am definitely vegetarian 🤣 and he doesn’t want me to eat meat occasionally, he is happy to scoff all the Chinese dishes himself, he just likes the feeling of us both ordering and eating it together.

It might be the Chinese’s around us, but none of them are great but tbh I just don’t really like it. It’s not the worst food ever but not something I want to spend £25 on. I think his family used to all get together for a Chinese so he likes the social aspect of it. I do occasionally eat my dishwater noodles with him but tbh I can’t be arsed a lot of the time!

He still has the hump this morning as he is now mourning the loss of a chicken ball 🙄 he isn’t usually odd and has kind of got on his high horse of ‘I compromise what I eat all the time for you’ mainly because I do 90% of the cooking and I cook vegetarian food. But I never mind if he wants to add meat to a dish I make or cook something else.

I think he may just be a secret Chinese food addict and it’s all now spilling out 🤣

YANBU for saying you "don't like Chinese food" given the vast range and variety of Chinese food, including vegetarian, there is. But your prerogative obviously.

Your partner is BVU (and really really weird) to think his enjoyment of a takeaway depends on you enjoying it too. I would be happy if my partner didn't like what I was ordering as there would be more for me. And more to the point it's just weird to insist another adult eats a food they don't want to eat.

Yeah that’s the weird bit for me. But apparently if I am not genuinely up for a Chinese at times (never going to happen) then it ruins the whole experience of the Chinese 🙄

he just likes the feeling of us both ordering and eating it together

This is weird. It's hardly a special bonding experience. I could just about understand going for a romantic restaurant meal or even cooking together but getting the same takeaway???

He’s being a dick, especially for whining about his chicken balls when nothing was preventing him from ordering Chinese.

Frankly if you are doing most of the cooking, on the one night you don’t cook you should be able to enjoy the meal.

It sounds like he has a point, though.

He regularly compromises what he eats because of your food preferences, is it really that unreasonable for him to expect you to compromise just occasionally to meet his food preferences?

In our family, we give and take for those we love. One persons preferences don't always dominate, we all get to choose the takeaway/meal plan etc from time to time. And we're all happy to sometimes eat something that's not our favourite, as we recognise that another time we get to eat our favorites, which may not be someone else's,

But then we generally prioritise eating together as a family and sharing food. It's a very important social thing for us.

Obviously, no one is expected to eat something they literally cannot stomach, but we expect everyone to eat "not their favourite" with good grace from time to time.

I am assuming he isn’t eating things he doesn’t like to fit in with op. He is just choosing what he does enjoy.

op he is being ridiculous! I can not stand Indian. I wouldn’t touch it. I order something else entirely or buy sushi.

I agree with him that it is much nicer to share a takeaway like Chinese or Indian. You get to try a wider range of different dishes. I prefer a takeaway with more than 2 people really. If you strongly disliked it, then obviously you shouldn't be made to eat it. But I think that if you just find it a bit dull and prefer others, but he really likes it, then you should include it in your mix of takeaways (you seem to have quite a lot!) from time to time. Just less often than others. There may well be other takeaways that he likes less, but he continues to order them because you really like them.

That's how it would work in our house anyway.

it come to a head tonight as he wanted a Chinese take away and I didn’t fancy it but suggested I would get something else. He said it’s not the same eating a takeaway alone. I kinda get that, but I would have got myself an Indian. (We would be eating at the table together just different food)

I’m always baffled by comments like this. What on earth does he think single people do?

For a lot of people it's a social and cultural thing to share food. I think for some people it's also just what they are used to - its a shared experience. For me it was normal growing up - at dinner time we all ate together and we all at the same thing. Some days one of us liked the food more that the others, but generally it evened out.

Remember never to go on holiday to China. It’s Chinese food for breakfast, dinner, and tea..

Do you think single people never have takeaways? Why can’t he just order more than he needs for one meal and eat the rest the next day, or the day after? That’s what I do!

Okay, so for OP to order a separate takeaway means a separate delivery fee. But it’s what, two or three quid? Surely better to “waste” £3 than to waste £20 worth of Chinese takeaway because the OP isn’t enjoying it?

This isn’t about money. This is about him being a manchild and stamping his feet because he’s decided “it’s not the saaaaaamme!” if they don’t both have a Chinese. He wants his own way, and sod it if that means making his wife miserable.

He sounds awful. There are takeaways we can’t eat well I can’t eat due to a health condition and my husband doesn’t ever act this way

I would assume that he is eating things that are "not his favourite/his choice" as a compromise to OP's restricted diet, (as he literally says that he compromises all the time) in order to share communal eating. And he is doing that frequently.

He's asking OP to return the favour occasionally and eat "not her favourite/his choice" from time time time.

That's quite reasonable.

Why does OP always get to choose her favourites and he never ever gets to choose his?

Shared eating is a valuable social activity.

Big difference between not being able to eat something due to health reasons, and just not being someone's favourite/preferred choice.

Unreasonable to expect someone to eat something that's going to make them ill, of course. Or indeed something that they absolute cannot stand.

Perfectly reasonable to expect an adult to suck up eating something that isn't their first choice every once in a while because it's someone else's favourite, and relationships are give and take.

Can you not just order Chinese for him, Indian for you? If you are picking them up then hopefully you can find 2 decent restaurants that are close; if not just make 2 deliveroo orders. Might be easier to coincide the timings if you pick them up and just let them know when you want to pick up. If we have food delivered then often we are split too - but if you are treating yourself to a takeaway then at least have what you really like!

@InSpainTheRain that's what the OP suggested and he rejected.

@mrsm43s he's not asking for compromise. He's not asking her to put up with it with good grace. That's not good enough. She has to actively want Chinese food and be excited to eat it.

And, again, to all those saying 'but sharing dishes is what makes it fun' - not when you're vegetarian and the other person isn't. They eat half the things I've chosen and offer nothing in exchange. Not my idea of fun.

This is just me and my thoughts, not telling anyone else what to do.

For us sitting down for a takeaway together is a thing we do as a couple. Complicating that with ordering from different place and food arriving at different times, meaning someone's food needs taking out of containers and left heating in the oven (drying out) so we could actually eat together would irritate me and take some of the pleasure from getting a takeaway away.

Add to that living with someone who chooses to restrict their diet + is fussy would annoy me both day to day and if they then enforce that restrictive eating on me because they say they can't find ANYTHING from a menu that they could eat/enjoy it would add to my irritation.

I eat takeaways that are not my first choice, or I wouldn't have if dh didn't want it. He'll do the same for me. We both know each others favourite food, but we would also never take the shine of someone elses meal by mentioning we were doing it grudgingly for them just this time.

To me that is the adult way to compromise. It doesn't sound like he want chinese every week, but when he does he wants it without all the complications or feeling that your are begrudging sacrificing yourself.

The risk of not at least compromising sometimes, without making a big deal of it, is resentment.

If this is a big issue in your relationship perhaps look at your compatibility as resentment over time only ever grows.

Obviously in these circumstances, you adjust the ratio of veggie to meat dishes so that there's plenty for both veggie and omnivore diets. It's not rocket science! And it does mean that there's more choice for everyone (including the veggie, as they can have more dishes between 2 than they would order for just one. )