How do vegetarian and meat eating couples work when they live together?

Question

Do they eat separate meals? Do they make sacrifices for each other? Who cooks, the meat eater or the vegetarian?

I don't ask this as a general question, I want to know personal experiences.

Answer 1

When I was vegetarian and married to a meat eater, I did most of the cooking.  I don't cook meat and this was something he knew up-front.  When he wanted meat, he'd cook it himself and add it to whatever I was making.  Often we'd do something like burger night, where I'd cook a boca burger and he'd barbecue a beef burger.  It worked just fine (unfortunately other aspects of the relationship didn't!)

More recently, as a vegan, I was in a long-term live-in relationship with a meat eater.  Again, he knew going in that I wouldn't cook foods I had a moral objection to.  He cooked meat very infrequently and eventually became a vegetarian at home, prefering to just eat what I cooked (and sometimes adding cheese to it.)  He got his meat "fix" when we went out to lunch or dinner.  We've since parted and he's on his own, asking me for recipes and recommendations for vegetarian cookbooks.

My sister is vegetarian and is married to a meat eater.  My sister can barely boil water, so in their relationship hubby does 90% of the cooking (she's got a good man there.)  He usually cooks vegetarian because it's easier for them to plan a single meal, although he barbecues a fair amount and she'll do something simple like a veggie burger or "chick'n" patty on those nights.

(To the first answerer, if you really love someone, you respect their ethical choices and you don't expect them to violate deeply held beliefs just to make you happy.)

Answer 2

If they really love each other, the meat-eating person would eat vegetables, or the vegetarian would eat meat to make the other person happy.

Answer 3

I have noticed it doesn't work just dating each other! My last boyfriend didn't like that I was always trying to make him cut out meat when we were together... So I refused to kiss him. He eventually broke up with me because of it. I will never date a meat-eater again. I don't know if that helps you at all. Sorry if it doesn't.

Answer 4

I'm 14, but already know I'm not going to marry a flesh eater. IMO, I could never be that close and intimate with someone who didn't share my morlas.

Answer 5

i would never marry someone who wasnt a vegetarian or vegan. i would refuse to kiss a person who allowed dead animal carcasses into thier body

i am 13, no experience really with the marriage stuff, havent even had a date yet and this is why

Answer 6

I'm a vegetarian as well as one daughter and my husband and three of my children are not. We either all eat vegetarian - like taco night we use Boca crumbles instead of meat. Sometimes we cook meat but my daughter and I won't eat it. I do cook meat. Maybe it's because I've only been a vegetarian for a couple of years. I hope that the rest of my family will convert but I feel like they need to when they're ready on their own.

Answer 7

I've been with my boyfriend for 4 years and we've been living together for the last 2. I'm a vegetarian and he eats meat. I was a vegetarian when we met. I did not plan on changing and neither did he, which is fine. Since I am a vegetarian for health reasons rather than religious or moral I don't have problem cooking meat. When we eat together we take turns cooking for the most part. We have things like pizza half and half, pasta dishes, rice and veggies, and other dished that meat can be cooked on the side and added after. We also cook on the grill, one side meat, one veggies, tofu, veggie burgers, etc. It works well.

I'm not sure why you're wondering about this, but as with all things in a relationship it's about compromise and understanding. If you're focused on doing those well, different diets and many other differences, won't matter.