Eating beef in the house

[Frazzled252]

Partner is an atheist but was raised Hindu and is very aggressive about me eating beef. I have told him I will eat beef as it’s his belief not mine. I ate it in the house tonight and he has called me an a**ehole and is demanding I throw away the plate and cutlery I ate it on, yet he goes to many restaurants where they serve beef and eats on those plates. AIBU?

And that is totally fair enough.

But at the same time, others can decide that they don't want to share a home with someone who isn't able to accept their boundaries.

Sounds like the OP has made the right decision anyway. They clearly weren't compatible.

Put it on a paper plate.

Well it is, it is demanding compliance with cultural habits not deeply held religious beliefs (if it were that I’d be advising OP to ditch as well). It is a complete nonsense for an atheist who is supposed to rational to call their partner an arsehole for this. I have cultural beliefs and I know they are deeply engrained through conditioning rather than logical so I choose to ignore them, I don’t ask people to comply with them even when people doing those things make me feel uncomfortable because it’s a me problem not someone else problem. OP’s boyfriend wants someone who behaves like they are from the same culture/belief system without the rest of the baggage. This is an extremely unreasonable expectation.

You knew how your partner felt about eating beef in the house but showed no respect for his feelings.

He certainly over reacted, there’s no need to throw plates away but it’s good you’ve realised now as you’re clearly not right for each other. I have no idea why these things weren’t discussed before you moved in with each other.

It sounds like you don't both respect each other. There is no relationship without respect. Save the heart ache and just accept you are not compatible and maybe time to re think the relationship. This is a basic issue which should have been ironed out before you moved in together.

Beef is a trigger for him.
if it’s that important to you then by all means leave but I think YABU. Home should be a safe space for everyone.

I have a lot of respect for people who are vegetarian or vegan just because they want to be and if they're staying with me for example I just make all food veggie or vegan.

I do eat meat and would absolutely not be with someone who wouldn't let me eat meat in my own house. Whatever meat that is. In a work context I would respect people's religious sensibilities about certain meats/shellfish etc but I think it's a lot of nonsense (true also of many religious rules which seem biased against women).

I would not stop eating beef at home but would compromise on using a different plate if he was down amazing guy. But he called you an arsehole so I'm not sure he's worth tej sacrifice.

I think this sounds like an unhealthy relationship. Life can be better than this!

Give him a bit of space. He may be atheist but perhaps struggles with it, and this eating beef thing is part of his culture. I say compromise. If you're with him despite all of the initial difficulties, he must be worth it.

If my partner knawed on lumps of a dead cow I would be disgusted also, but they would not be my partner in the first place given such incompatibilities, how long have you been together and how often do you eat cow body parts ? Is this a new thing ?

I am vegetarian, I dislike people eating meat and hate the smell of it cooking. But my partner and I just do our thing. If he wants to eat meat, fine, he cooks it. If he doesn't want to cook, he eats what I make - which is 95% of the time because he's a lazy arse who hates cooking.

I don't think you're unreasonable OP because he doesn't believe in god. If he was strictly religious and still practiced then I'd probably would've just stuck to eating beef out the house. I don't like the aggressiveness and name-calling though, ugh.

I agree.

LTB.

He's not religiously observant, he's simply using this as a reason to bully and control.

Can he explain what he's got against beef? Does he have any evidence based reason for disliking this one type of meat?

So, if you were living with someone from another culture who wanted to eat dog in your shared home, you would be comfortable with that? Because it would be wrong to demand compliance with your cultural habits?

Intercultural relationships require mutual respect and compromise. If you don't want to make any compromises, then that kind of relationship probably wouldn't work for you. And that's fair enough.

Why should the op have to do that? If eating beef winds him up, he needs to get a grip

Too much of an imposition and the beginning of the end.

It's not about the beef anymore, it's the abuse that follows if you don't adhere to what he says. Yes, I would call name calling and demands to throw out your crockery abuse.
There's always going to be things we like & dislike but it's about respectfully communicating them.

Or shouldnt the partners be considerate right to eat whatever the hell they want and where and when they want it.

I love all these women who would go absolutely mental if their DH’s told them what they could or could not eat inside their own homes telling OP that she needs to bend on this. Just stop and think about it seriously, OP’s boyfriend is trying to get her to comply with an irrational cultural belief (lets be honest, a hangover of a religious belief whilst claiming to be an atheist) , what other irrational cultural beliefs will she be expected to comply with later? Sorry to say but if you give an inch on stuff like this you’ll give a mile on things that matter a lot more. what about OP’s cultural belief that beef is no different to chicken?

Why should she comply to save a relationship with someone who is incapable of even beginning to rationalise, understand and reject his own cultural conditioning as a ridiculous imposition on others. I would dump him on the basis that he is incapable of using basic logic alone.

We need to stop validating making women smaller to make space for men and what they want, all women and all men.

Because she loves him.

It's illegal to buy or sell dog meat but not beef.

Also, dogs are man's best friend, etc - cattle not so much.

Anyway he's atheist so he needs to get over himself.

The OP stated he was raised Hindu.
Even if he is no longer religious it would be difficult to go against that cultural upbringing were cows are simply not considered food. One of my friends was raised in a place were eating rabbits was common, whereas I had pet rabbits as a kid and I didn't know anyone that ate them, and certainly can't bring myself to eat them now and wouldn't want to live with someone who cooked and ate them - even if they had a special bunny plate to eat them from.

What about him loving her?

She's binned him off anyway, so problem solved.

If he feels that strongly about it he cannot be an atheist.
He needs to acknowledge that before you can have any kind of sensible conversation about it.