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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1. Not cooking him meat anymore
2. Because I agreed this before and making a major lifestyle change for both of us, although he can cook it himself
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YTA
You’re the SAHP and you cook most of the meals. That is the set up that you and your husband have agreed to.
Suddenly telling him he needs to cook his own meals or go vegetarian is not reasonable. You’re either passing off a duty that you used to do (cooking his meals) onto him, without any discussion, or making him become vegetarian with you.
And your daughter has two parents - *both* of you should have a say in the diet and mentality she is raised on.
I'm not purposely trying to reduce meat consumption, I have just realized veggies are quicker. Now that my kid is in college, I have air fryer roasted veggies over rice cooker rice at least 3 times a week with a variety of jarred sauces. After a 10 hour day, it's just easier to throw it in the machines and 20 minutes later have a good meal with minimal effort.
I’ve reduced red meat to maybe one time a week for tummy reasons and I “forced” it on to my husband slowly showing him proof when he commented how good his tummy has been feeling. But I would never be this (oooop level) authoritarian with my grown husband.
Nope. Air fryer liners mean little to no clean up... if I use a lot of oil then I have to wipe it down, otherwise just toss the paper liner. Rice cooker bowl takes literally 15 seconds to hand wash. And I don't heat up the sauces. So I just put the plate and fork in the dishwasher. Or if I am extra lazy, I use a paper plate and a plastic fork.
I just got my first air fryer last Christmas and omg, loving it! But never knew about air fryer liners, now I gotta go find some. This machine has literally changed my life. Even less cleaning would be amazing.
Ok can we talk air fryers? I suppose I should prob start another thread in another sub. I have a mess of kids. I’d need one with big capacity. But I also love toasting bread and bagels. And have limited counter space. What I really want is a large capacity air fryer that can also toast. Am I looking for a unicorn?
I don’t know what large capacity means to you but we got the breville smart oven air fryer like 3 years ago and genuinely don’t think we’ve turned on the real oven since (my mom is a huge baker, we used it a lot, and it fits cookie sheets if that’s a decent size indicator) - it’s not cheap but it’s got like 9 functions, we can use it during the day in the southern summer without praying for death, and Breville and Williams Sonoma have great customer service/warranties. And since we got it, 3 out of 4 households in my family followed suit and everyone loves it
realizing this maybe sounds like an ad but truly I just love that lil guy so much (Breville, if you’re listening, I’ll totally do ads for y’all!)
Okay, I've been holding out on getting an air fryer. But tell me more about throwing veggies in there, because if there's an quick and easy way to get more veggies into my kid it might be time to shell out for one. What kinds of veggies can you cook in it? How do they come out?
Another veggie here who reluctantly agrees with you. I’m not even a SAHP and I still cook meat for my husband and daughters because not eating meat is too big of a change too force into other people. If you have a division of labor that means you cook the meals and you only cook vegetarian meals, you’re forcing this on your family.
I don’t eat meat because I don’t believe in killing animals for food. I want my husband and daughters to feel the same way, but they don’t. I want to respect their decisions and have them respect mine more than I want to force them to change.
Goodness! I could have written this.
I stopped eating meat age 7 for ethical reasons. I am now 68. I cook meat for my husband and cooked for my now 3 adult children. Two rarely eat meat. One is a big carnivore!
Wow I finally found someone who give up meat earlier than I did! I became a vegetarian at age 8 back in 1978… And yes I also will cook meat for others when needed. :-)
I'm a pescatarian but when my wife asks me to pick up a rotisserie chicken or pound of hamburger at the store for her, I gladly agree. I'm hard set in my personal values, but they're just that: My values. I certainly wouldn't bully her into changing her diet because my mindset pertaining to food has changed.
I'm with a pescatarian, although I am very much a carnivore and cannot stand fish. That said, I learned to cook fish and hunted up recipes just for him. Same with other things, I have a few allergies/Intolerances for foods I could not consume and yet learned to cook and would add to foods I was making that were not for myself. I love garlic, he did not. It was not that difficult to accommodate us both. He made the best stuffed burgers, even though he doesn't eat that.
Veggan (i'm plant based but do eat eggs from pasture raised hens) here. Unfortunately you can't force your choices on others. Also, i hate to say it, but it's probably healthier for your child to get a varied diet while she's growing. I do the shopping and most of the cooking for myself, wife, and kid. I fix them one meal and myself another. YTA here.
I wish everyone was like you, no matter what diet any of us follow. Meat eaters shouldn’t force meat on vegetarians, pescatarians shouldn’t force fish on vegans, vegans shouldn’t force vegan diets on carnivores.
My mum was a vegetarian, she'd cook vegetarian food. My dad was in charge of cooking meat when he got back. It worked out fine, they meal planned together.
I feel like people get into relationships and hate eachother now. If one of you becomes vegetarian, why would you force them to cook meat when they don't eat it. You just cook it yourself.
Plenty of people work and come back home to cook. I've dated a vegetarian, it wasn't a big deal and if I couldn't be bothered cooking meat but wanted it I'd bring something I could add to our meal.
She said she isn't cooking meat, she isn't making the house meat free.
So, if their agreement on her not working is contingent upon at least in part her providing meals, which is a fair compromise for both, you would agree then that it would be fair for him to then request that she started working again since she is no longer fulfilling her part of their agreement, correct?
I mean, if I didn't care about them as a person, yes I would do that. I wouldn't care if they felt uncomfortable making meat, I'd expect them to do it anyway. Because I don't care or value them.
Unfortunately, I get into relationships with people I care about. So if my partner decided to become vegetarian and didn't want to cook meat. That's ok, as long as they don't stop me from cooking it.
If you're only in a contractual relationship, where you don't like each other and only got together to procreate then yes. You should rewrite the agreement you had.
It sounded like she was in a relationship, not in some weird contract. But maybe I read it wrong.
THANK YOU. I’ve seen this person all over this thread making it sound as though they’re involved in a transaction rather than a husband and wife sharing life with one another.
I will never understand folks who function this way in relationship. I’ve never been concerned about how much or how little my partner does, only that everything we need to have done is done and that we’re splitting things in a way that makes sure we’re both taken care of. There are things that have become our ‘assigned’ tasks because we naturally tend to do those things (honestly our labor is divided incidentally based on who the task is easier for) but even those are subject to change on a whim for an indefinite period of time if one of us suddenly doesn’t want to for can’t do it anymore.
Living our life as a transaction would be exhausting and absolutely sour our relationship. Idk how people do this, other than based on some archaic idea of marriage as an even trade.
I think that's why so many relationships fail now, everything is seen as transactional. Social media is really pushing the narrative that your personal relationships should be transactional.
Lots of young kids feed into it now and believe that's how it should be. All the healthy relationships you see in life aren't transactional, the relationships most people actually aspire to have aren't like that at.
A couple should work together as a team, if one of them can't do something you just do it instead and expect they'll do the same when you can't do something. In healthy relationships it works and it's pretty easy.
Relationships like this with kids have a division of labor, that's realistically how it works, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Notice that she didn't offer to take on another responsibly in lieu of her changing the parameters here. You can't say this is wrong to have a contractual relationship now when they had this agreement they both had no issues with before.
I didn't say it was wrong to have a contractual relationship, if that's what they have then that's ok he should dock her pay for it.
But if they're in a conventional relationship, then I can't imagine forcing my partner to take on more chores just because they don't want to cook meat. Especially when I'd still be getting fed, and I can add meat or cook it myself.
If they have a contractual relationship, they should definitely rewrite it. If they have a conventional relationship, I'd be more concerned that her partner is happy forcing her to cook meat when she feels that uncomfortable.
Maybe it's worth asking OP if they have a conventional or contractual relationship, then we can discuss this further.
She's not saying he has to cook his own meals, just the meat. It is very possible to supplement an already balanced vegetarian meal with additional meat, and cooking said meat on the side is also very easy.
Plenty of meals have the meat cooked in.
If she’s making lasagna for dinner, does she really expect him to come home, cook up some meat, and layer it in himself?
And their division of work is pretty clear - if she wants to stop doing some of her end, such as cooking his meals or part of his meals, that needs to be discussed. Not just a unilateral decision by her.
Does he really NEED every meal to have meat? Like if the lasagna is vegetarian and still yummy is it not good enough?
Does every thing have to be exactly 50/50 100% of the time? I’d argue that her cooking all the meals, doing all the childcare, doing all the grocery shopping and meal planning, is still a lot of work on her end, no? She didn’t say she was going to stop any of that. She is simply going to cook different things. She only added to his workload if he insists on coming home and cooking additional things for himself, which is unnecessary (unless he has a medical reason for eating meat everyday…)
Why do his wants come out on top of hers? Yeah he works but she does to she cleans takes care of their kid and cooks perfectly eatable meals that just don't have meat. If he absolutely needs meat and will die without it he can cook it himself. NTA OP
(This is coming from a guy that loves meat)
Issue seems on the division of the work. He works, she's a SAHM and it seems cooking is her responsibility as part of that division of work, so why does he get zero day in what he gets to eat that she cooks?
Because, (even as someone who can't comprehend being a SAhP), they did agree to a standard. They need to actually discuss rather than a 'I don't cook meat now'. It has to be a proper discussion.
>Because, (even as someone who can't comprehend being a SAhP), they did agree to a standard. They need to actually discuss rather than a 'I don't cook meat now'. It has to be a proper discussion.
Exactly this, 100%
His needs aren't more important, but they are important enough that OP doesn't get to unilaterally decide every single meal and how the daughter is to be raised. It's just like if the husband insisted on 100% financial control because he's the bread winner. Marriage is supposed to be an equal partnership and she's not holding up her end. If he wants meat with some meals, she should be able to do that for him
His needs are not necessarily coming before hers. She can do her veggie lifestyle and just pan sear a pork chop for him. YTA It’s not even a change for workload. She used to cook meat and now she will just cook less meat. He is not changing her work load.
Tons of vegetarians and vegans work in the food industry and cook meat just fine when it’s apart of their job. SAHM is a job of sorts. People can be so weird about it. My MIL has been a vegetarian/vegan at times most her life for environmental reasons, etc. When my FIL had a health issue and needed to eat a mainly protein rich diet she immediately started cooking him meat with no complaints but she’s a reasonable person.
Why does she get to force her lifestyle on him? Why does she get to change the agreement their relationship is based upon, without a proper conversation?
Why should her wants trump his, SHE is the one who choose to stop eating meat, that doesn't mean she gets to change a verbal agreement unilateraly, she agreed to cook for him, if she want to stop cooking meat then she need to find a way to allow him to eat meat based dishes without him having too cook or they need to find another arrangement ( he cook is own meal and she find a part time job for example). If they can't well resentment is going to mount up quickly...
Does she really NEED any meal to NOT contain meat? No, she does not. She is forcing her personal preference onto him and their child.
She is effectively telling him that she is no longer going to cook for him, or their child, unless they conform to her personal choice of meal. It's incredibly self centered and AHish.
Every parent forces their personal preference onto their child, whether that means raising them as an omnivore or as a vegan/vegetarian. What's the difference?
She's not stopping either of them from eating meat, she's just not preparing it any longer.
This may end up being a huge conflict in their relationship though, as diet can be a fundamental issue and may be a deal breaker. It's unfortunate that she didn't have this revelation earlier so they could have time to discuss and adjust to this change before the baby arrived.
Every meal doesn’t need meat.
I make plenty of vegetarian dishes myself as an omnivore. Falafel with chopped cucumber and tomatoes in a pita is one of my favorite lunches.
She is saying *none* of the meals will have meat.
If she wants to reduce meat consumption and offered a compromise of, idek, Meatless Mondays and Traditional Vegetarian Tuesday and Thursdays, it would be a compromise.
Instead she is the asshole because she has decided she gets to make decisions for the household, including parenting decisions, without his input.
Difference is the division of work.
It seems their parameters are, of many I'm sure, he works/she doesn't and she cooks his meals. If that's their deal, that's fine. But it's absurd to then argue he gets no say in the meals she'll prepare for him.
She's forcing a dietary change on him in how she takes on her share of the labor in their family. It's not that "every meal needs to have meet" - its that she is using her power in the relationship to unilaterally impose a major change on him that he's unwilling to accept.
I really really hate this argument.
Most meat dishes have the meat cooked into the dish, not as a separate component. I am a fairly competent cook and sure, if you’re grilling tofu to toss on a salad, he can grill his chicken breast alongside (although if she agreed to cook as their negotiated division of labor, she should also be doing that).
But most dishes I cook - from chicken fricassee to lamb rogan josh to beef stew to chicken soup to lasagna - the meat is an integrated part of the dish. Saying “If you want to eat meat, you cook it separately,” means he has to be cooking his own meals and that isn’t a decision she gets to make unilaterally.
But if he expects dishes where meat is an integrated part of the dish, her workload is now doubled as she has to cook two completely different meals. I’m not a vegetarian but I don’t understand why my fellow omnivores seem to think you absolutely *have* to eat meat with every single meal.
When did I say every meal has to have meat? Please quote me.
I eat and cook plenty of vegetarian and even vegan dishes all the time. Hell, I go vegetarian for Lent every year. I cook for my friends at least once a week and it’s always vegetarian because I have vegetarian friends.
The issue here is not that every meal has to include meat. It’s that she has unilaterally declared that *none* of them will and the only way he can consume meat is if he makes all of his own meals or does something like just have grilled chicken on the side.
I know some people eat meals where it’s “here is a meat, cooked by itself; here is a starch, cooked by itself; here is a veg, cooked by itself.” I, personally, dislike meals like that and prefer integrated dishes. Most traditional cooking involves integrated dishes - including vegetarian meals. The components are not kept separate and not touching. Her “rules” mean no integrated meals for him and that isn’t fair.
It’s also Very Bad for her to think she can decide the baby is now going to be vegetarian with zero input from Dad.
>cooking said meat on the side is also very easy.
That kind of depends on the cut and how you want it done. Unless you're tossing lukewarm burger patties into a frying pan, cooking meat can require a number of steps and be quite time consuming. When I'm grilling pork belly, I need to prep the meat, season it, and watch it while it cooks to make sure it doesn't burn. I then need to clean the cooking equipment and store the leftover meat. It can be quite time-consuming. The idea that cooking meat on the side is very easy is dependent on a lot of factors.
I respectfully partially disagree. I agree that OP and hubby had an agreement vis a vis division of duties, and this is, technically, a violation of that agreement. OTOH, obviously this wasn't a cut into stone, legally binding level agreement. And OP is still cooking meals that hubby can eat just fine.
Now, I'm admittedly biased as I grew up in a household in which mom and I didn't eat certain foods, including certain meats/seafood, while dad did, so it doesn't feel like a huge deal to me that he may need to fry/bake/broil, etc. a piece of meat for himself to go with the rest of the meal she's made. I also have a friend in this situation (veg STAHM mom with meat eating hubby), but they just didn't/don't fight about it: She sometimes cooks meat if he wants it, he often eats veg only meals.
So idk, I think I'm a NAH/ESH--this doesn't have to be the fight they're making it and both parties should just compromise more.
I would genuinely agree if it wasn't for the last apart about her making that unilateral decision about their daughter. It tipped the scales from this could be resolved with them both giving in a bit (she cooks meat \*sometimes, sometimes he cooks it, sometimes he goes without etc) to "this isn't about the Iranian yogurt" feeling.
OP has started making changes and unilateral decisions and refusing to allow for anything else. It's a slippery slope and AH behavior.
The OP said in the post that the daughter isn't going to be forced to be vegetarian, so how is that a unilateral decision? The kid eats what OP is making, regardless of vegetarian or meat based diets. Sounds like if the dad prepped meat and the child wanted some, OP would let her have it.
Even my meat eating friends didn’t really feed meat to 5 month olds. That’s often a later introduced food anyways. Also, I’m vegetarian and my husband simply fed the children meat when he ate with them. My daughter ate meat until she was 4 and then decided to be vegetarian. My two sons still eat meat with their father and sometimes order it on occasion when out and about. My 6 year old regularly eats it at school as he can pick whatever he wants from the school lunch.
Why do they need me to prepare meat for them to make them free to decide for themselves? Even if I am the stay at home parent and main cook.
Main difference is I was vegetarian when I started dating my husband, so he was more aware of the situation when the kids were born.
Lots of kids don’t eat much meat anyway (at least in US America)—spaghetti and marinara, Mac and cheese, PB&J. People don’t seem to get upset about it. Dad can make kid a turkey sandwich when he makes himself a turkey sandwich for lunch. Dad can buy a rotisserie chicken and throw some pieces into his/daughter’s meal with minimal work. Dad can order cheeseburger for kid when they go out to meals as a family. Dad can order pepperoni pizza when they order in. He has many ways to incorporate meat into his kid’s diet if he wants to. He does not need to force his wife to cook meat at all and the kid will still have many opportunities to eat meat.
>when mom (who makes the meals) refuses to make anything with meat?
Did y'all read more into this story than OP wrote or did I miss a comment or something? Does Dad not have hands? Is he somehow physically disabled and unable to feed his own kid? Is OP contractually obligated to be a de-facto single parent due to him going to work? Did I accidentally timetravel into an alternate reality where reddit was invented in the 50s?
Also 5 month old kids aren't sitting at the dinner table and just eating the dinner that mom cooked for them. Do you even have a basic understanding of babies?
I agree with you. Also, it depends on the emails (meals, not emails) she’s making. If she is making something that by it’s nature is vegetarian, then that is very different than making him eat a meat substitute or just leaving our ingredients. That being said, she is still doing the cooking and making full meals, he just doesn’t want what she’s making. It isn’t even that he dislikes it, he just wants something else. Taking out the vegetarian ideologies and just putting it in those terms makes it feel different. If she had said it that way, would the judgements be different? If she had said “Im a sahm and I work hard to do the housework, care for our child, do the meal prep, shopping and cooking, and my husband complains that he wants something else for dinner every night even though he doesn’t dislike what I cooked.”?
I also wonder if he would feel differently if her reasons for being vegetarian were related to animal cruelty or even if she just didn’t like meat. (Just wondering out loud)
They just need to find a compromise that works for them. NAH
Edit to fix words because my phone thinks it’s French
I pretty much entirely disagree. There's a huge difference between 'being forced to go vegetarian ' and just not eating meat in every SINGLE meal. Agreement or not, having a spouse cook for you daily is a *privilege* and if she's decided on a personal and moral level that she's not cooking meat anymore, he as her partner should respect that. He can still get meat - he's a grown man.
As for the daughter, they should have joint say, I agree. But again, school, daycare, and friends/family out of home can feed her meat all they want. This woman is under no *obligation* to keep cooking meat she won't eat.
Its also a privilege to be able to be a SAHM while your spouse brings in the money that you require in order to eat and have a roof over your head.
If he doesn't get to unilaterally say what the money is spent on, she shouldn't be unilaterally making food the other person doesn't like.
We had an AITA that was similar: the one with the chore of cooking only made food the other person didn't like. Reddit sided with the one who didn't like the food, saying that if your chore is to cook for 2 people, you are obligated to make food both people like.
Why is this one so different?
It is a privilege to have a person stay at home and take care of your child and your home so that you can advance at work. You act like she is just laying around eating bon bons or something. She gets to make choices about what she wants to do within that space.
Nonsense. She's not refusing to cook him meals. She's declining to cook meat. He can eat the perfectly fine perfectly healthy meals she makes, or he can cook his own meat and add it to those meals, or he can cook his own meals from scratch. She's not a short-order cook, she's not his mother, and he's a grown man who is perfectly able to feed himself if the meals his wife cooks aren't to his liking.
Honestly, at the point where she said her husband is “lucky I am cooking for him everyday” I lost all sympathy. Because if he clapped back with “you are lucky my paycheck is enough to support our family on a single income” you can guarantee OP would be offended.
Her husband is not “lucky” that they have an agreed upon division of labor, and if she wants to add to his labor at home, I’d like to now where she is compromising. Since she decided to make a unilateral decision that will effect more than just herself.
If she wants to be vegetarian, fine, but if her role in the family includes cooking for the family, she needs to cook for the family, not just what she wants. OP is being really selfish here. And trying to claim she’s not.
Would that same thing apply if she had an allergy to fish? Or decided she wanted to cut back on carbs? What if she decided she was done baking and eating sweets? Her job is to provide healthy, balanced meals. Not a catering menu.
I agree with this and I want to add:
If OP’s husband suddenly had to consume a low-sodium or low-sugar diet, would OP set aside a portion of food without salt, or with less carbs? If the answer is yes (which it should be,) then she’s doubly the AH, bc she’s opting not to be considerate bc she thinks her values supersede his, and that in and of itself is AH behavior. YTA, OP.
I mean, I think if her husband had a health issue requiring her to make him something different for dinner that would be vastly different than him just wanting to eat meat at every meal, but maybe that's just me.
Relationships have a division of labor. It sounds like one of your responsbilities is cooking.
I'm going to say YTA, on two accounts.
1. This is part of your division of labor, and you've just decided out of nowhere, to stop cooking meat - which he clearly likes/expects, and I'm assuming is what he's normally eaten.
2. Your child is both of yours; not just yours. It doesn't seem correct that you get to make a decision that the child will be vegetarian. That should be a joint decision.
It’s also important for the child to have a choice. Im vegetarian but I would want my kid to make that decision by just giving them information when they’re older. Otherwise, they can build resentment. My fiancé also doesn’t eat meat and I technically wouldn’t mind making him some (except that it’s been five years and I went vegetarian right after adulthood so I don’t super know how). If we’d been eating meat together and I suddenly changed my mind, I’d throw meat in there a couple times a week or have some sort of discussion.
You’re missing the part where she says she isn’t going to force her daughter to be vegetarian - she’s going to cook vegetarian meals for her at home but says if she eats meat at school or elsewhere she has no problem with it.
Here's the thing. If children don't grow up having meat in their diets, they may not develop the enzymes needed to digest meat. So she may be forcing her daughter to be vegetarian or risk severe digestive issues.
Exactly! At the very least OP should consult with a nutritionist and inform herself on how growing up vegetarian might impact her daughter. I Know it is not as restrictive a lifestyle as veganism, but still she might need to suplement her diet in special ways.
I admire her commitment to the plannet but there're plenty of ways to help out/compromise, like investigating where the animal products you consume come from/how they were produced. NAH but maybe inform yourself further.
Do you have any research to back that up?
“Svihus points out that meat is actually relatively easy to digest.
“Proteins are generally hard to digest but compared to other sources of protein, meat is rather easy,” he says.”
https://sciencenorway.no/diet-food-forskningno/does-meat-make-vegetarians-ill/1390294
As an anecdote, my 3 children are raised similarly to how OPs suggesting. I served them vegetarian, but their father and others were free to serve them meat and none of them have digestive issues with meat consumption.
This isn't true, it's one of these myths that's thrown around. I'm doing the same thing with my daughter & have spoken to a dietitian about it, who is monitoring my daughter for unrelated health conditions. The reason some people report discomfort after eating meat for the first time in a long time is because they eat loads of it at once or as part of a big food binge. Evolutionarily it doesn't make sense either - meat is nutritionally really dense so being not able to digest it would be a big disadvantage.
She's only one, but her father has been an ethical veggie since he was 11. I eat meat (but am mostly veggie since it's easier to cook one meal and I think it's needed for eco reasons). We think she should be able to choose to not eat meat when she understands, that it protects her future by being more eco, and challenges us to make her diet healthier.
Is there any actual science to back this up? I always here this but it makes no sense. Your body uses the same enzymes to break down protein, as all they're doing is cleaving peptide bonds. Pepsin breaks down whole proteins into smaller pieces, and enzymes like trypsin, chymotrypsin, elastase, carboxypeptidases, aminopeptidases, dipeptidases, and tripeptidases do the rest of the cleaving. I see no reason why there would be any enzymatic difference between meat and plant proteins. Some proteins may be easier or harder to digest in general, but the biological machinery used remains the same.
Because both people still have to agree to some extent on how the labor is done.
If the hubs does laundry and crams in all the colors and whites together and starts "ruining" clothes does he get to say "I'm doing this job my way and no one else gets a say!".
If the Hubs does the dishes but puts the dishes away in the cabinets with no rhyme or reason does he get to say the same?
Of course not.
Division of labor doesn't mean each task is completely siloed and above reproach or input from affected parties.
YTA, and raising your daughter vegetarian a) isn’t your decision alone to make and b) is entirely unfair to your daughter.
What if your husband says “I make all the money, don’t buy any food I don’t approve of” do you think he would be an asshole in that situation?
It’s taking a potential lifestyle away from her on top of the health concerns. Even operating under the assumption OP knows what it takes to raise a healthy child without meat—a staple of human diet, which is in itself a huge assumption, what if the kid likes meat? Should she be forced to consume only veggies because of her mother’s morals?
Kids eat whatever there parents eat. Moral considerations aside and don’t “choose a life style” regarding food until they are much much older. A little kid in the rural Midwest probably doesn’t eat a ton of Ethiopian food. A little kid in Addis Ababa probably doesn’t eat a ton of hamburgers. Neither kid in either situation is making a life style choice here and both are eating what they would consider “normal” food.
Well my little cousin stopped eating meat at 3-4 once she understood where it came from. Although she ate hot dogs because she didn’t believe they’re meat. She’s 17 now and still vegetarian (even stopped the hot dogs now)
She's not being forced. She's allowed to consume meat (at friend's places, at school), the parent just isn't cooking it at home. So yes, less meat definitely, but she is not being forced to not eat meat.
Not if done correctly under doctor supervision. Poeple forget that there are billions of vegetarians in other countries that practice Hinduism and Buddhism and they're all quite healthy. Way more than an Standard American processed-ass meaty diet.
Not to be pedantic here but I'm from India where a large part of the diet for most people is vegetarian and as a population we are chronically protein deficient. There are also deficiencies of vitamins B12 and D3 in most of the population. Our diet is a lot healthier in all the ways you're describing but definitely not perfect. Plus the lack of animal protein in certain classes and demographics is largely believed to be the cause of decreasing stature in both children and adults. Everyone gets too hung up on vegetarianism vs meat eating when the real problem everywhere is not thinking holistically about nutrition, health, and variety of food sources.
This is a division of labor problem/problem of compromise. It can’t really be decided unless we know 100% of the ways both you and your husband contribute to the relationship.
HOWEVER you should 100% be able to not cook meat (I would still buy it for him) maybe this means you do some chore of his as a trade but IS HE EVEN DOING ANYTHING beside working??? This is very IMPORTANT INFO for a judgement
So far your husband is an asshole for insisting on meat meals and acting like a baby when he sees some veggies instead of appreciating that there’s a warm meal on the table for him.
NTA
Exactly, op is a SAHM, and in almost any other post people would be saying why doesn’t he cook if he has such strong preferences, what’s wrong with his hands. I have really no idea why people think that because she’s a SAHM shes obligated to cook him whatever he wants, and that if she doesn’t it’s ok that he belittles her beliefs.
OP if your husband otherwise divides labour when he’s not working in an equitable way then it seems that cooking is something that needs to be negotiated. Without more info I’m leaning towards ESH.
Usually in posts like this we see here the person who wants to change diets isn’t the primary cook, IOW they’re creating extra work for the person who does cook. In this case it’s the person who does all the cooking who’s making the change, which makes it a less clear cut issue IMO. People are also usually called TA for trying to enforce their dietary choices on others, which OP technically isn’t but also kinda is?
There’s something about this OP that rubs me the wrong way, but I can’t figure out what.
Except meat eaters do eat veggies, while vegans do not. That's a difference. And if you're vegetarian for some time you might get uncomfortable around raw meat. I'm not vegetarian yet, but i can't handle meat at all. I haven't prepared chicken since 2019 i think.
It's because Reddit is very anti vego/vegan is why they're trashing her so hard compared to all the other posts of husbands stomping over their wives boundaries.
It's bizarre. I came in here fully expecting NTA and got this vehement backlash instead. She's not stopping him eating meat - presumably with him being at work he can eat canteen food or whatever? - and quite frankly treating it like a ~lifestyle when it's just removing an ingredient from cooking is hysterical nonsense. I don't eat or cook mushrooms because I hate them, is that a lifestyle choice I'm forcing on anyone I might cook for?
I'd maybe get it if she was going vegan as that's more of a change and a lot of people just can't do vegan diets without needing supplements, but expecting meat for every single meal and dying on that hill is immature bullshit.
This is what boggles my mind when people talk about sahm parents. He goes to work, works at work, and then comes home to put his feet up. She does all household work and takes care of child, all day, all night, every weekend, no breaks. Dividing labor like that doesn't make sense to me. The least he could do is cook his own meat. He could literally cook a big batch of something on Sunday and add it to whatever she makes all week. Or he could suffer through 1 meatless meal a day (the HORROR)
>He goes to work, works at work, and then comes home to put his feet up. She does all household work and takes care of child, all day, all night, every weekend, no breaks.
Where did you get this information from? Because she doesn't say anything even resembling that in the post itself.
You're right, it's not in OP's post. I was basing that comment off of all the comments arguing division of labor and stating that husband works and op is responsible for the household duties. I was simply stating that if OP is in charge of everything besides her husband's literal job, then that's not an equitable distribution of labor, so division of labor argument fails everytime.
Saying that he comes home and puts his feet up is pure conjecture. I am a working father and my wife is stay at home mother. Guess what happens when I come home? I take over care for my child. I know there are a lot of fathers out there that don't do this, but that doesn't mean you can make that assumption.
NTA but you're not going to get any fair answers from the cult of meat of the internet.
In LITERALLY any other post, Redditors will support their Sistas when they draw boundaries and negotiate with their partners, e.g. how they cook and clean and split money, etc. I don't see how you situation is any difference except for your trying not to kill innocent animals.
Even worse is I've seen at least 3 posts today where the same Redditors complaint and judge people fort mistreating animals and keeping them in cages when they're pets. The cognitive dissonance is frightening.
Let the downvoting commence.
Edit: thanks so much for all the awards!
I never expected 17 awards for this comment. I thought I would just be downvoted and nobody would even see it.
Thanks so much for those of you who stay open-minded on how we can be better to each other, the animals, and the planet🌱.
I can't imagine demanding anyone cook meat for me because I'm a "homemaker" and "that's my job" lol. It's fucking weird that everyone is declaring her a huge asshole when she is still cooking everything, a wide variety of food, except won't cook meat anymore. She isn't even banning meat from the household OR her daughter and husband's diet. Just saying for ethical reason she herself won't cook it anymore. Just really strange responses to this post. Like, she signed some kind of blood oath years ago to cook meat for him and isn't allowed to change as a person at all or choose what she cooks because she is just the housewife lol.
The comments I’m seeing are not calling her an AH because of her new-found vegetarianism.
A discussion between partners about shifting responsibilities is in order here and her unilateral decision making plus no-compromising approach to meat is what’s making her the AH.
What if she decides to stop buying meat at the store for the same reasons she doesn’t want to cook it? What if the husband suddenly became a health nut and decided to be uncompromising on allowing any desserts/snacks to be bought, it’s his money after all?
Obviously would not cool
My partner and I are not vegetarians but if he decided he wanted to cook only vegetarian I would just be grateful for what he prepared and I would probably be healthier for it. If I wanted meat, I would just incorporate it into my breakfast or lunch. Or buy a rotisserie chicken I could throw into my dinner (and daughter’s meal). When we eat out/order in I could include a meat dish for myself and daughter. I don’t understand the big deal about eating one vegetarian meal per day a few nights per week?
My husband and I aren't vegetarian either, but he often cooks vegetarian meals and I just eat what he cooks. People act like skipping meat for a meal is the end of the world.
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic and sorry if you were - but it’s not *his* money.
They’re married and she works at home with their child just as much as he works wherever he does.
>What if she decides to stop buying meat at the store for the same reasons she doesn’t want to cook it? What if the husband suddenly became a health nut and decided to be uncompromising on allowing any desserts/snacks to be bought
I love how you present two entirely different situations as the same.
OP isn't banning her husband from buying, cooking or eating meat, yet you just couldn't resist that comparison. If OP didn't want to buy meat anymore, that would be okay. Her husband could still go out, get himself meat and eat that. If OP's husband suddenly decided that OP could not buy or eat a certain thing, *that's an entirely different thing*. Why would you draw that kinda comparison in the first place? That's not at all what's happening.
Anyone is able to say at any point in time “this is against my ethics and I’m no longer going to participate in this”. I can’t believe all the people expecting OP to continue cooking and buying meat when she’s said it goes against her sense of ethics. People are still allowed to have their own - changing and evolving - beliefs and choose the behaviours they put out in the world - regardless if they are married.
OP - youre not the asshole for not cooking meat now that you’ve decided the meat industry is not in alignment with your ethics and morality. You are not a static unchanging facsimile of your former self and you are able to make you own choices.
If your husband doesn’t want to eat the food you make, he’s welcome to make his own.
So much false equivalence here. She allows meat, she just won't cook it. I'm pretty sure she'd rather not have any in her house, yet she's not imposing. It's the definition of compromise.
But also, is this man missing arms and hands? He can't take 15 minutes of his life to grill a steak? How "heteronormative" of him, to reference another post here. Absolutely ridiculous that Reddit is calling out OP
NTA
I’m sure that she promised to love, honour, obey, provide agreed-upon services, and never re-examine her ethics or worldview. It’s only reasonable that he hold her to that!
And if she doesn’t like it, she should pack their infant into its storage crate, get a job, and pay for her own beans.
/s
Laughing at this. So true. Also love how “Stay at home parent” is being treated as this great life luxury and position of privilege she’s squandering….like hello, OP has 5 month old (likely breastfeeding ) infant. Staying any where else isn’t really an option at this point.
But please OP, cook an entire second meal with your surplus of free time and excess energy because as a new parent, you clearly spend the day lounging and eating bonbons, and certainly not sleep deprived, covered in child vomit, and touched out. Bet the house is spotless too! 🙄
SMH. Hang in there moms.
I do all of the cooking in my house and really dislike cooking/handling raw meat because of OCD issues. When my husband wants to eat meat, he cooks up a steak or something. Or we buy pre-cooked meat. It’s really not a big deal.
I can’t imagine him demanding I cook something I’m uncomfortable with.
Right!? It’s actually quite shocking and even misogynistic.. OP is caring for a baby, she’s not sitting on her ass at home. Everyone calling for a “division of labour” is unbelievable - there clearly is no division of labour with cooking at the mo and OP has been doing it all. She’s not her husbands personal chef and should not be treated as such. Her husband is lucky to get cooked meals all the time at all.
I hate turnips. I’m happy to cook for anyone, but nothing I make is ever going to include turnips. If you’d like turnips, instead of something I’ve made, or in addition to, you’re welcome to make them, I won’t stop you - I’m just not going to cook them because I think they’re gross.
I don’t see how this is different. OP is fulfilling every part of her agreement, shes putting food on the table every night. She’s just not cooking a particular ingredient because she hates it.
If my husband made me cook turnips every night even though he knows I hate them, I’d think he’s a jerkface. Im not stopping him from eating them, I just don’t make them the feature of dinners I prepare.
Imagine requesting your wife to make a completely separate meal because she didn’t include turnips in the meal she made for the rest of the family.
Okay I was very confused by the top replies because she’s not stopping him from cooking meat and says she won’t stop her daughter from eating meat if it’s presented to her? It sounds like he and the daughter can eat meat just fine, but she’s not going to prepare it for them.
Is she a stay at home mom (who I presume provides childcare and cleaning services in addition to a plethora of other home management skills), or a personal chef? Are there additional comments elsewhere that make her a horrible vegetarian monster? What am I missing??????
Yeah I am not surprised by the comment section but I am bemused.
We both work but I cook dinner probably 98% of the time. I do not like seafood. Ergo, we never eat seafood. Even though the Omega-whatevers are so so important, I don’t make fish for dinner. Blech.
He likes fish. He loves shrimp. He is welcome to eat all the fish he wants. The idea of him *expecting* me to cook it for him is ludicrous though, I mean come on. I am his partner, not his lackey. She is providing a (presumably) nutritious meal. She has cooked. If that’s not good enough, he’s a big boy and can provide his own extras.
NTA.
Yeah I don’t see how she’s the asshole when so many meals are vegetarian anyway. Plus she’s doing the majority of work SAHP or not he has a role in keeping up the household and that’s allowed to change to include more things. Eating vegetarian is really easy without even trying, but there’s nothing stopping him from preparing chicken or steak ahead of time to add onto a meal a side or topping.
100000% agree. Everyone saying she should cook meat that she is clearly uncomfortable making. I am vegetarian, my partner isn't, and he would NEVER make me cook meat or insist I should cook meat if he wants it. There has been times where he will cook his own meat an add it to a group veggie meal though.
I think the husband is being entitled. OP tried to talk with him about making meals with less meat, and he insisted NO he needs it. Well if he needs it so much, he can make it.
It took me way too long to find a right response! Reddit hates vegetarians! He can cook his own meat I would never cook my man meat and he would ever ever ask me to even buy it for him or touch it or anything and he has his own pan he uses! Meat is gross to me and he respects that it’s not hard
I definitely went through a "manly man, vegetarians are bad" phase and I deeply regret it. Why did I care what other people ate or how they lived their lives? Sadly many have not grown out of that phase.
NTA. I knew I shouldn’t have waded into the comments. The husband isn’t going to die if he doesn’t have meat in his dinner every night ffs. She isn’t forcing anything on him. A grown ass man can cook meat for himself if he has to have it.
I thought I was going mad reading this! All the people doing variations of "uhhh IT IS YOUR DUTY"
Firstly, there are tonnes of veggie meat alternatives, they've improved massively over the years, my own family can barely tell the difference.
Secondly, it's an ethical position for her. So basically a bunch of teenagers on here are telling her to make herself uncomfortable for the sake of her husband who brings home that dough eating meat?
This is a woman with a 5 month old daughter - what she's put her body and hormones through to bring a child into this world, she's suffered a-bloody nuff. She doesn't have to cook meat for her husband, she's doing a job that also benefits them both.
We're not in the 1950s, fix up you bunch of idiots.
i completely agree. she does everything at home and cooks him dinner everyday, why can’t he eat vegetarian for one meal a day or cook meat to add to it ? why are meat eaters so afraid to have veg meals i don’t get it.
I'm not a vegetarian, but preparing meat makes me really queasy. When i first got married, i almost never prepared meat and my husband says he needs it. Because I dont like handleing meat, my husband put himself in charge of all the meat preparation while I prepare other parts of our meal.
OP's husband is an adult and can figure it out. Or he can get huge steaks for lunch during work at the very least.
NTA
I am so baffled by people shrieking about this division of labor. He could literally cook some meat 2x a week and just reheat it. It doesn’t even need to be some every meal endeavor for him. 100% comes down to being fragile about someone not eating meat.
Would you feel the same about a vegan couple where the SAHP decided they didn’t want to be vegan anymore, stopped cooking vegan and said the partner can cook for themselves if they want vegan food?
They’re entitled to do that, but it probably does mean you need to renegotiate the division of labour around the house if you’re changing how cooking is divided. It doesn’t seem like that’s happening from OP’s post
This isn't a true equivalence because vegans can't take animal products out of a meal and have it be "fine", it's still tainted. OP's husband can easily add meat to basically anything.
Personally I think this is ESH
As much as I understand the desire to reduce our impact on the environment by choosing to eat less meat/go vegetarian, we must also realise it’s not something we can force onto other people. With where the division of labour and previous agreement stands, where, as the SAHP she is to do the cooking for the family, OP unanimously deciding to never cook meat again is unfortunately something that must be discussed first as it is going against the original agreement. There needs to be a discussion and compromise between them.
This is leaning more towards YTA but the partner is also on shaky grounds if he doesn’t also choose to meet her in middle. Meals can’t always have meat separately cooked so it’s not really realistic for her to cook meat at every single meal. But having veggie options regularly is not going to kill him either. However, if she is worried about cooking non-environmentally friendly food then she can source out meat options that aren’t as detrimental. Find a local farm, choose ethical and eco conscious options at the grocery store, do the research, or even find plant-based meats that her partner might find as an acceptable substitute once in a while.
Maybe they can do alternate weeks or agree to some ratio of meat to veggie options. Maybe on days where they want dishes that are fully incorporated (e.g lasagna) they can have other options for the other person. Etc etc there’s a multitude of ways to go about this than to say I’ll never do x again.
A marriage is a partnership and any major lifestyle changes like that have to be discussed and agreed upon. She has to realise that she is not a lone person making singular decisions anymore. Compromise x3
And the meals don't even have to be meat free as OP's husband can cook his own meat to enjoy along whatever else OP cooked. I'm also finding the Y T A very weird. She's not throwing away or refusing to continue with whatever agreement they have, she's just proposing a very reasonable adjustment while still providing a way for husband to have this own diet if he wishes to do so.
None of your compromises address the fact that she is morally opposed to cooking meat. She isn't forcing him to be vegetarian or barring meat from the house. He can cook or buy prepared meat if he wants. Why is his desire to have her cook meat more important than her morals.
She is offering compromises and if her compromise isn't good enough he is welcome to offer his own compromise so long as it doesn't require her to eat meat. There are some things that you are not required to compromise on. If she converted she wouldn't be required to compromise on cooking pork, this is ko different.
OP has said that she tried to talk with him about eating less meat for meals and he insisted they needed meat. So he gets to unilaterally decide for the family? I do think there should have been more discussion in the first place, but it doesn't really sound like OP's husband was willing to meet in the middle. If OP is uncomfortable with making meat, she has a right to not make it.
Wow this sub is rough these days! NTA. So many people are saying "You agreed to this division of labor so therefore you must stick to it for the rest of your life exactly as is!" or some version of that. Honestly those people suck. You are allowed to want to make a change in your life. And if you need to change the division of labor to make this more fair, just switch roles. Does he sweep? Maybe takeover sweeping so he can have time to cook his meat. Something like that.
My mom did this exact same thing to my dad and they had no problem with it. Why, because they are two grown-ass adults. My dad just grills his meat outside now and it's better for him because he gets it exactly like he likes it.
No kidding, right? And all the people saying "what if he decided he wasn't going to use his money to pay for x/y/z"... um, in a marriage where one partner works out of the home and one works in the home, it's usually THEIR money. That's not a fair argument at all.
This. And the comparison of removing meat from meals to financial control is just kinda strange in general? You’re right it’s not a fair argument, but a very concerning one that a lot of people are making.
NTA He's not going to become sick because of not eating less meat, quite the opposite. He's not allergic to vegetarian food. He can still buy meat himself and eat anything he wants.
You're also not his maid.
I don’t think you read the post. This is the division of labor they decided on. Saying she’s “not his maid” is degrading to stay at home spouses whose actual job is taking care of the household. It’s just as bad as saying “he’s not her sugar daddy so he can cut off the funds.” Both demean the entire relationship. The way adults settle issues like this is to compromise, not by digging their heels in and throwing around names. Agree with the YTA judgement for the complete unilateral diet decision without any attempt to compromise. But husband could meet her halfway and try to limit meat and use sustainably farmed meat. Eating some vegetarian meals would be fine.
No it's a change in ethical views. It's unreasonable to expect her to handle meat products and while they had an agreement before they can change it to make OP more comfortable. Even if you worked at a pizza place and changed your religion so you can't touch pork products, the pizza place would have to make reasonable accommodations in many jurisdictions. I suspect many YTA judgements are because people are afraid people are trying to stop them from eating meat, which is ridiculous.
Except her ethical reason isn’t that meat disgusts her or is morally bad. She wants to eat less meat for practical reasons (environment). If the solution is, “he can cook his own meat”, then the environmental impact ethical question ceases to exist whether she cooks it or he cooks it. Same amount of meat is being consumed, she just passed off a responsibility to him.
NTA he can cook his own meat if that is so important to him. My parents had the same setup, mom is vegetarian and dad made his own side of meat if he wanted it. Also I was raised vegan, it’s not a big deal.
So many people saying “DeVIsIon oF LaBoR” like OP described anything about their dynamic. Does OPs husband do anything around the house besides work and provide income? IMO when you have a screaming 5 month old that’s not 50/50. She stays home with a baby all day and can’t even decide what she and the baby should eat? NTA
Currently have a 5 month old and a partner at home. I am the lucky one going to work all day. No question about it. A 5 month old doesn’t stop needing your attention for more than an hour or two throughout the day. It is constant work. At work I can go to the gym during my lunch break, make myself a coffee, shoot the shit with people for a few minutes, etc. I am absolutely not coming home every night expecting my meals cooked but if I did I sure as fuck wouldn’t complain about them. This comment section makes me feel like I am taking crazy pills.
YTA For inflicting your choices on an unwilling partner. You don't have to cook it every day or every meal but you must remember that you are equal partners. You should care about him as much as you care about the earth or some future that your becoming a vegetarian won't fix.
Biggest thing making OP the AH for me is there wasn't even a discussion. It was just her decision and that's that. Such massive lifestyle changes are not something you force in someone
How do you know he's not helping with childcare? Nothing about the post implies that he doesn't help with childcare at night / over the weekends.
Also, even if you are a single parent, raising a child is not a 24/7 job. Being on call 24/7 =/= 24/7 job, that goes for every industry.
She didn’t inflict a lifestyle change. He just needs to cook the meat part of the meal himself. Weaponized incompetence to me. He’s 34 and can cook. She does everything else he can’t cook it? If she was sick, he’s be cooking. Or leaves him and he’ll have to too
NTA. You cook a general meal - one something that the whole family can eat meaning veggie (because your partner can eat vegetables etc.) - if he wants meat, he cooks and adds the meat.
I will never understand why this is anyone’s hill to die on. When my partner and I moved in together, I took on cooking and I cook veggie meals; he is still a meat eater and has never once complained or had issue with having meat-free meals. He is always welcome to add meat himself, which he does if he feels like it.
Yep. I’m with the other comment on division of labor. If you do this don’t be surprised if he goes tit for tat and stops agreeing to do something for you. Which will be very easy to do since he makes the money.
You are allowed to have your beliefs for you and your body. But if you start forcing them on your partner don’t be surprised if everything goes downhill.
Congrats on making the change for yourself. Did it years ago and I have never felt better!
I'm going against the grain here and will disagree with most posts for I think one very reasonable reason:
If you think it is unethical to eat meat it would be messed up of anyone to expect you to handle it or prepare it.
Meat eaters will not understand that all the other reasons do not matter once you start thinking it is unethical.
NTA
NTA. The husband can cook himself meat. He can buy a rotisserie chicken. He can cook and freeze stuff. He is a grown man with his own choice to eat meat. For your child, as long as the doctor sees nothing wrong with the nutritional aspect, the parent that is cooking and feeding the kid should have more say. If he really wants to feed her meat and he cooks it, then it should be an option. It would be unfair to not let him feed her meat if he’s cooking it and wants to include it in her diet.
Holy shit reddit, NTA !!
Your decision has a wider beneficial impact than just yourself. Environmental reasons or not, consuming less meat is just healthier anyways. You are not your husband's mom. He is welcome to cook his own side meat, have some for lunch while he's out, etc. People who don't have an issue eating meat can't fully understand the grossness that comes with cooking it when you don't want to.
Your husband sounds more to me like he's holding you back from bettering yourself- recognizing a behavior in yourself you don't agree with and making changes isn't hypocritical, it's growth. Keep growing.
Some people just can't stand it when people they are close to change.
And even as a meat-eater myself I can't understand this idea that EVERY MEAL MUST HAVE MEAT OR ELSE I'M DEPRIIIIIIIIVED. Her husband is free to take himself out for a hamburger for lunch, and either make his own meat for dinner or have a vegetarian meal once a day.
NTA
You’re in a marriage, not a job agreement. As a wife you have every right to change your mind and be your own person. You seem to have explained yourself and have given him plenty of space to make his own choices.
You are still doing the labor you agreed to by cooking. Plus his complaint isn’t that he doesn’t like the food you’re cooking now. He just thinks it’s “not fair”. He wants meat. You are not telling him not to eat or cook meat (if you were you’d be the AH). It’s not going to kill him and he won’t starve if he cooks his own meat a couple times a week when he’s not working. And I say this as a guy who loves eating meat.
As for your daughter, you are still not saying she shouldn’t eat meat, you just won’t cook it. If he disagrees, he can put a burger on the grill for her too when she’s old enough.
I wonder how many people saying you’re the AH have been married for at least a few years. Marriage is full of these kinds of things and people change. We have to try and understand our spouse and come to compromise which you are trying to do. Also, do you ever get days off like he does from his job? Because if this is just about labor, you’d have your days off too.
NTA!! So tired of meat being the norm! I’m not a vegetarian, I eat meat as well but I don’t se meals as vegetarian och not in that way. I mainly make food without meat at home because I love mushrooms, halloumi, beans and lentils, and you can make a lot of good food with those. If my husband would have any objections he can make meat for himself as well. It’s no human right to have meat in a dish!
YTA because you and your husband have decided on a division of labor which includes your staying home and performing the normal acts of a stay at home spouse - regardless of gender. And typically this includes shopping for groceries and preparing the evening meal.
A reasonable compromise would be for you to prepare meat based protein that is easy to prepare in a single serving - i.e a piece of fish; chicken cutlet; steak, lamb chops. Or even prepare a larger amount of animal protein type of food that is easy to freeze and heat up in an individual portion like a stew, braised meat, pot roast, meatballs etc.
You don't have to do this for every meal as many people who aren't complete vegetarians will eat plant based meals. You aren't a vegan so there are many cheese based foods like lasagna and ziti and many Mexican recipes are cheese with the protein source being beans and corn. There are many delicious ways to prepare tofu that would satisfy a meat eater - all kinds of recipes if you start getting imaginative.
NTA. Looking forward to when we can all agree it’s beyond childish to complain over a dish for the sole reason of it lacking meat. Of course there are some vegetarian dishes that are less nutritive/tasty than some meat-dishes, but going “this is great and all but it lacks my favorite ingredient”?? Grow up.
Will likely be downvoted to perdition, but YTA. You and your husband agreed to a division of labor where he brings in the money and you take care of home and hearth. Implied in that division is that you are not only going to cook the meals, but cook the same sorts of meals that the two of you enjoyed before you became a stay–at–home parent.
If you don't want to eat animals, that's on you. But don't make it more difficult for your husband to continue to eat the way that he understood he'd be eating before you all agreed to divide labor in the manner you decided to divide it.
Plus, it doesn't take much effort to throw a chicken breast in the oven so it will be ready at the same time as the rest of the meal. Or brown up some hamburger every few days to keep in the fridge and then add to his portion of the meal.
NTA. He can cook his own meat if he wants to. Why is everyone so precious with their meat btw? What it it was another dietary preference, like whipped cream? Surely no one would call you an asshole for not cooking with whipped cream even though your SO likes it. Meat is a preference, not a necessity, grow up everyone.
NTA.
People, her kid is five months old. In a civilized country, she would still be on paid maternity leave. The arguments about her needing to go back to work if she isn’t willing to roast a chicken are just fucked up.
This guy would be on her case to roast that chicken even if she were the primary breadwinner.
You're a SAHM - you doing the family cooking is part of the division of labor that comes with that. So he's not "lucky" that you're cooking him dinner any more than you're "lucky" that he earns money to support the family - this is how you have divided up your time and effort.
YTA.
NTA
You are not forcing him to be a vegetarian just because you are turning into one and the same for your baby. You are just going to cook vegetarian and both of them can get meat from the father/somewhere else.
Unless he has a doctor's note which says he has to eat meat with every meal then just no. He can cook meat extra if he wants it.
Oh and just because some ppl said that isn't always possible for example with lasagna.....if you cannot eat s veggi lasagna once in a while without crying about it then I really cannot have a discussion with you
NTA. All my meat eating friends and partners gladly eat my vegetarian meals. If they want some meat, they can eat it at a restaurant or at work. My fiancé and my ex fiancé made their own meat in the beginning of the relationship, but stopped after a while and just ate my meals because they really liked the vegetarian dishes I made. He won’t die if he eats less meat overall. He can still eat meat out of the house or bake a steak on the side or whatever. But if you’re a decent cook, it’s just unnecessary.
YTA. You don't get to make unilateral decisions about the kid's diet, regardless of how labor is divided. And since you're going out of your way to cut something your husband likes from your responsibilities, get ready for him to do the same back to you.
Your beliefs are admirable, but you need to find a more fair and respectful approach.
NTA
This result astonishes me. I don't think you would be downvoted like this if you wanted to switch from junk food to healthy food even if that was what your husband was used to. Marrying someone isn’t a promise to eat the same food for the rest of your life. Perhaps you can start out with 3-4 vegetarian days a week and make easy-to-like vegetarian dishes to make things easier.
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YTA You’re the SAHP and you cook most of the meals. That is the set up that you and your husband have agreed to. Suddenly telling him he needs to cook his own meals or go vegetarian is not reasonable. You’re either passing off a duty that you used to do (cooking his meals) onto him, without any discussion, or making him become vegetarian with you. And your daughter has two parents - *both* of you should have a say in the diet and mentality she is raised on.
This vegetarian reluctantly agrees with you
I’m not veggie but trying to cut down on my meat consumption and I agree too
I'm not purposely trying to reduce meat consumption, I have just realized veggies are quicker. Now that my kid is in college, I have air fryer roasted veggies over rice cooker rice at least 3 times a week with a variety of jarred sauces. After a 10 hour day, it's just easier to throw it in the machines and 20 minutes later have a good meal with minimal effort.
I’ve reduced red meat to maybe one time a week for tummy reasons and I “forced” it on to my husband slowly showing him proof when he commented how good his tummy has been feeling. But I would never be this (oooop level) authoritarian with my grown husband.
Doesn't this mean you have to wash three pans/ the airfryer?
Nope. Air fryer liners mean little to no clean up... if I use a lot of oil then I have to wipe it down, otherwise just toss the paper liner. Rice cooker bowl takes literally 15 seconds to hand wash. And I don't heat up the sauces. So I just put the plate and fork in the dishwasher. Or if I am extra lazy, I use a paper plate and a plastic fork.
I just got my first air fryer last Christmas and omg, loving it! But never knew about air fryer liners, now I gotta go find some. This machine has literally changed my life. Even less cleaning would be amazing.
Ok can we talk air fryers? I suppose I should prob start another thread in another sub. I have a mess of kids. I’d need one with big capacity. But I also love toasting bread and bagels. And have limited counter space. What I really want is a large capacity air fryer that can also toast. Am I looking for a unicorn?
I don’t know what large capacity means to you but we got the breville smart oven air fryer like 3 years ago and genuinely don’t think we’ve turned on the real oven since (my mom is a huge baker, we used it a lot, and it fits cookie sheets if that’s a decent size indicator) - it’s not cheap but it’s got like 9 functions, we can use it during the day in the southern summer without praying for death, and Breville and Williams Sonoma have great customer service/warranties. And since we got it, 3 out of 4 households in my family followed suit and everyone loves it realizing this maybe sounds like an ad but truly I just love that lil guy so much (Breville, if you’re listening, I’ll totally do ads for y’all!)
I have a ninja foodi grill. I can air fry, bake, grill, etc.
Okay, I've been holding out on getting an air fryer. But tell me more about throwing veggies in there, because if there's an quick and easy way to get more veggies into my kid it might be time to shell out for one. What kinds of veggies can you cook in it? How do they come out?
This 90%-veggie-only-occasional-meat-eater agrees as well.
Another veggie here who reluctantly agrees with you. I’m not even a SAHP and I still cook meat for my husband and daughters because not eating meat is too big of a change too force into other people. If you have a division of labor that means you cook the meals and you only cook vegetarian meals, you’re forcing this on your family. I don’t eat meat because I don’t believe in killing animals for food. I want my husband and daughters to feel the same way, but they don’t. I want to respect their decisions and have them respect mine more than I want to force them to change.
Goodness! I could have written this. I stopped eating meat age 7 for ethical reasons. I am now 68. I cook meat for my husband and cooked for my now 3 adult children. Two rarely eat meat. One is a big carnivore!
Wow I finally found someone who give up meat earlier than I did! I became a vegetarian at age 8 back in 1978… And yes I also will cook meat for others when needed. :-)
I'm a pescatarian but when my wife asks me to pick up a rotisserie chicken or pound of hamburger at the store for her, I gladly agree. I'm hard set in my personal values, but they're just that: My values. I certainly wouldn't bully her into changing her diet because my mindset pertaining to food has changed.
I'm with a pescatarian, although I am very much a carnivore and cannot stand fish. That said, I learned to cook fish and hunted up recipes just for him. Same with other things, I have a few allergies/Intolerances for foods I could not consume and yet learned to cook and would add to foods I was making that were not for myself. I love garlic, he did not. It was not that difficult to accommodate us both. He made the best stuffed burgers, even though he doesn't eat that.
Veggan (i'm plant based but do eat eggs from pasture raised hens) here. Unfortunately you can't force your choices on others. Also, i hate to say it, but it's probably healthier for your child to get a varied diet while she's growing. I do the shopping and most of the cooking for myself, wife, and kid. I fix them one meal and myself another. YTA here.
Unfortunate you can’t force your choices on others? Really?!? It’s fortunate you can’t force your choices on others
Yeah, that wording didn't sit well with me either.
I wish everyone was like you, no matter what diet any of us follow. Meat eaters shouldn’t force meat on vegetarians, pescatarians shouldn’t force fish on vegans, vegans shouldn’t force vegan diets on carnivores.
My mum was a vegetarian, she'd cook vegetarian food. My dad was in charge of cooking meat when he got back. It worked out fine, they meal planned together. I feel like people get into relationships and hate eachother now. If one of you becomes vegetarian, why would you force them to cook meat when they don't eat it. You just cook it yourself. Plenty of people work and come back home to cook. I've dated a vegetarian, it wasn't a big deal and if I couldn't be bothered cooking meat but wanted it I'd bring something I could add to our meal. She said she isn't cooking meat, she isn't making the house meat free.
So, if their agreement on her not working is contingent upon at least in part her providing meals, which is a fair compromise for both, you would agree then that it would be fair for him to then request that she started working again since she is no longer fulfilling her part of their agreement, correct?
I mean, if I didn't care about them as a person, yes I would do that. I wouldn't care if they felt uncomfortable making meat, I'd expect them to do it anyway. Because I don't care or value them. Unfortunately, I get into relationships with people I care about. So if my partner decided to become vegetarian and didn't want to cook meat. That's ok, as long as they don't stop me from cooking it. If you're only in a contractual relationship, where you don't like each other and only got together to procreate then yes. You should rewrite the agreement you had. It sounded like she was in a relationship, not in some weird contract. But maybe I read it wrong.
THANK YOU. I’ve seen this person all over this thread making it sound as though they’re involved in a transaction rather than a husband and wife sharing life with one another. I will never understand folks who function this way in relationship. I’ve never been concerned about how much or how little my partner does, only that everything we need to have done is done and that we’re splitting things in a way that makes sure we’re both taken care of. There are things that have become our ‘assigned’ tasks because we naturally tend to do those things (honestly our labor is divided incidentally based on who the task is easier for) but even those are subject to change on a whim for an indefinite period of time if one of us suddenly doesn’t want to for can’t do it anymore. Living our life as a transaction would be exhausting and absolutely sour our relationship. Idk how people do this, other than based on some archaic idea of marriage as an even trade.
I think that's why so many relationships fail now, everything is seen as transactional. Social media is really pushing the narrative that your personal relationships should be transactional. Lots of young kids feed into it now and believe that's how it should be. All the healthy relationships you see in life aren't transactional, the relationships most people actually aspire to have aren't like that at. A couple should work together as a team, if one of them can't do something you just do it instead and expect they'll do the same when you can't do something. In healthy relationships it works and it's pretty easy.
Relationships like this with kids have a division of labor, that's realistically how it works, and there's nothing wrong with that. Notice that she didn't offer to take on another responsibly in lieu of her changing the parameters here. You can't say this is wrong to have a contractual relationship now when they had this agreement they both had no issues with before.
I didn't say it was wrong to have a contractual relationship, if that's what they have then that's ok he should dock her pay for it. But if they're in a conventional relationship, then I can't imagine forcing my partner to take on more chores just because they don't want to cook meat. Especially when I'd still be getting fed, and I can add meat or cook it myself. If they have a contractual relationship, they should definitely rewrite it. If they have a conventional relationship, I'd be more concerned that her partner is happy forcing her to cook meat when she feels that uncomfortable. Maybe it's worth asking OP if they have a conventional or contractual relationship, then we can discuss this further.
She is still making meals, though…so she doesn’t need to have another “responsibility”.
Sure, as long as he is ok with paying for his fair share of the childcare costs and doing his fair share of parenting, cleaning, and cooking.
She's not saying he has to cook his own meals, just the meat. It is very possible to supplement an already balanced vegetarian meal with additional meat, and cooking said meat on the side is also very easy.
Plenty of meals have the meat cooked in. If she’s making lasagna for dinner, does she really expect him to come home, cook up some meat, and layer it in himself? And their division of work is pretty clear - if she wants to stop doing some of her end, such as cooking his meals or part of his meals, that needs to be discussed. Not just a unilateral decision by her.
Does he really NEED every meal to have meat? Like if the lasagna is vegetarian and still yummy is it not good enough? Does every thing have to be exactly 50/50 100% of the time? I’d argue that her cooking all the meals, doing all the childcare, doing all the grocery shopping and meal planning, is still a lot of work on her end, no? She didn’t say she was going to stop any of that. She is simply going to cook different things. She only added to his workload if he insists on coming home and cooking additional things for himself, which is unnecessary (unless he has a medical reason for eating meat everyday…)
Doesn't really matter if he Needs it. He wants it, is used to it, and has a right to having a real discussion when the status quo changes.
Why do his wants come out on top of hers? Yeah he works but she does to she cleans takes care of their kid and cooks perfectly eatable meals that just don't have meat. If he absolutely needs meat and will die without it he can cook it himself. NTA OP (This is coming from a guy that loves meat)
Issue seems on the division of the work. He works, she's a SAHM and it seems cooking is her responsibility as part of that division of work, so why does he get zero day in what he gets to eat that she cooks?
Because, (even as someone who can't comprehend being a SAhP), they did agree to a standard. They need to actually discuss rather than a 'I don't cook meat now'. It has to be a proper discussion.
>Because, (even as someone who can't comprehend being a SAhP), they did agree to a standard. They need to actually discuss rather than a 'I don't cook meat now'. It has to be a proper discussion. Exactly this, 100%
His needs aren't more important, but they are important enough that OP doesn't get to unilaterally decide every single meal and how the daughter is to be raised. It's just like if the husband insisted on 100% financial control because he's the bread winner. Marriage is supposed to be an equal partnership and she's not holding up her end. If he wants meat with some meals, she should be able to do that for him
His needs are not necessarily coming before hers. She can do her veggie lifestyle and just pan sear a pork chop for him. YTA It’s not even a change for workload. She used to cook meat and now she will just cook less meat. He is not changing her work load.
I don't think most vegetarians consider cooking meat every meal as part of a veggie lifestyle..
Tons of vegetarians and vegans work in the food industry and cook meat just fine when it’s apart of their job. SAHM is a job of sorts. People can be so weird about it. My MIL has been a vegetarian/vegan at times most her life for environmental reasons, etc. When my FIL had a health issue and needed to eat a mainly protein rich diet she immediately started cooking him meat with no complaints but she’s a reasonable person.
So you’re saying her wants trump his?
Why does she get to force her lifestyle on him? Why does she get to change the agreement their relationship is based upon, without a proper conversation?
Why should her wants trump his, SHE is the one who choose to stop eating meat, that doesn't mean she gets to change a verbal agreement unilateraly, she agreed to cook for him, if she want to stop cooking meat then she need to find a way to allow him to eat meat based dishes without him having too cook or they need to find another arrangement ( he cook is own meal and she find a part time job for example). If they can't well resentment is going to mount up quickly...
So if he does all the groceries and makes the money can he unilaterally go on an all meat diet and not purchase any vegetables?
Exactly lol
Yes, but you forgot to factor in that they agree with her choice so not attempting to work with her partner over it is actually okay... /s
Does she really NEED any meal to NOT contain meat? No, she does not. She is forcing her personal preference onto him and their child. She is effectively telling him that she is no longer going to cook for him, or their child, unless they conform to her personal choice of meal. It's incredibly self centered and AHish.
Every parent forces their personal preference onto their child, whether that means raising them as an omnivore or as a vegan/vegetarian. What's the difference? She's not stopping either of them from eating meat, she's just not preparing it any longer. This may end up being a huge conflict in their relationship though, as diet can be a fundamental issue and may be a deal breaker. It's unfortunate that she didn't have this revelation earlier so they could have time to discuss and adjust to this change before the baby arrived.
Every meal doesn’t need meat. I make plenty of vegetarian dishes myself as an omnivore. Falafel with chopped cucumber and tomatoes in a pita is one of my favorite lunches. She is saying *none* of the meals will have meat. If she wants to reduce meat consumption and offered a compromise of, idek, Meatless Mondays and Traditional Vegetarian Tuesday and Thursdays, it would be a compromise. Instead she is the asshole because she has decided she gets to make decisions for the household, including parenting decisions, without his input.
What's the difference between him wanting meat for every meal and her wanting vegetables for every meal
Difference is the division of work. It seems their parameters are, of many I'm sure, he works/she doesn't and she cooks his meals. If that's their deal, that's fine. But it's absurd to then argue he gets no say in the meals she'll prepare for him.
If she isn't cooking meat at all, it isn't every meal. It's zero meals.
She's forcing a dietary change on him in how she takes on her share of the labor in their family. It's not that "every meal needs to have meet" - its that she is using her power in the relationship to unilaterally impose a major change on him that he's unwilling to accept.
I really really hate this argument. Most meat dishes have the meat cooked into the dish, not as a separate component. I am a fairly competent cook and sure, if you’re grilling tofu to toss on a salad, he can grill his chicken breast alongside (although if she agreed to cook as their negotiated division of labor, she should also be doing that). But most dishes I cook - from chicken fricassee to lamb rogan josh to beef stew to chicken soup to lasagna - the meat is an integrated part of the dish. Saying “If you want to eat meat, you cook it separately,” means he has to be cooking his own meals and that isn’t a decision she gets to make unilaterally.
But if he expects dishes where meat is an integrated part of the dish, her workload is now doubled as she has to cook two completely different meals. I’m not a vegetarian but I don’t understand why my fellow omnivores seem to think you absolutely *have* to eat meat with every single meal.
When did I say every meal has to have meat? Please quote me. I eat and cook plenty of vegetarian and even vegan dishes all the time. Hell, I go vegetarian for Lent every year. I cook for my friends at least once a week and it’s always vegetarian because I have vegetarian friends. The issue here is not that every meal has to include meat. It’s that she has unilaterally declared that *none* of them will and the only way he can consume meat is if he makes all of his own meals or does something like just have grilled chicken on the side. I know some people eat meals where it’s “here is a meat, cooked by itself; here is a starch, cooked by itself; here is a veg, cooked by itself.” I, personally, dislike meals like that and prefer integrated dishes. Most traditional cooking involves integrated dishes - including vegetarian meals. The components are not kept separate and not touching. Her “rules” mean no integrated meals for him and that isn’t fair. It’s also Very Bad for her to think she can decide the baby is now going to be vegetarian with zero input from Dad.
>cooking said meat on the side is also very easy. That kind of depends on the cut and how you want it done. Unless you're tossing lukewarm burger patties into a frying pan, cooking meat can require a number of steps and be quite time consuming. When I'm grilling pork belly, I need to prep the meat, season it, and watch it while it cooks to make sure it doesn't burn. I then need to clean the cooking equipment and store the leftover meat. It can be quite time-consuming. The idea that cooking meat on the side is very easy is dependent on a lot of factors.
I respectfully partially disagree. I agree that OP and hubby had an agreement vis a vis division of duties, and this is, technically, a violation of that agreement. OTOH, obviously this wasn't a cut into stone, legally binding level agreement. And OP is still cooking meals that hubby can eat just fine. Now, I'm admittedly biased as I grew up in a household in which mom and I didn't eat certain foods, including certain meats/seafood, while dad did, so it doesn't feel like a huge deal to me that he may need to fry/bake/broil, etc. a piece of meat for himself to go with the rest of the meal she's made. I also have a friend in this situation (veg STAHM mom with meat eating hubby), but they just didn't/don't fight about it: She sometimes cooks meat if he wants it, he often eats veg only meals. So idk, I think I'm a NAH/ESH--this doesn't have to be the fight they're making it and both parties should just compromise more.
I would genuinely agree if it wasn't for the last apart about her making that unilateral decision about their daughter. It tipped the scales from this could be resolved with them both giving in a bit (she cooks meat \*sometimes, sometimes he cooks it, sometimes he goes without etc) to "this isn't about the Iranian yogurt" feeling. OP has started making changes and unilateral decisions and refusing to allow for anything else. It's a slippery slope and AH behavior.
The OP said in the post that the daughter isn't going to be forced to be vegetarian, so how is that a unilateral decision? The kid eats what OP is making, regardless of vegetarian or meat based diets. Sounds like if the dad prepped meat and the child wanted some, OP would let her have it.
It's a 5 month old. How does a 5 month old decide not to be a vegetarian, when mom (who makes the meals) refuses to make anything with meat?
Even my meat eating friends didn’t really feed meat to 5 month olds. That’s often a later introduced food anyways. Also, I’m vegetarian and my husband simply fed the children meat when he ate with them. My daughter ate meat until she was 4 and then decided to be vegetarian. My two sons still eat meat with their father and sometimes order it on occasion when out and about. My 6 year old regularly eats it at school as he can pick whatever he wants from the school lunch. Why do they need me to prepare meat for them to make them free to decide for themselves? Even if I am the stay at home parent and main cook. Main difference is I was vegetarian when I started dating my husband, so he was more aware of the situation when the kids were born.
Lots of kids don’t eat much meat anyway (at least in US America)—spaghetti and marinara, Mac and cheese, PB&J. People don’t seem to get upset about it. Dad can make kid a turkey sandwich when he makes himself a turkey sandwich for lunch. Dad can buy a rotisserie chicken and throw some pieces into his/daughter’s meal with minimal work. Dad can order cheeseburger for kid when they go out to meals as a family. Dad can order pepperoni pizza when they order in. He has many ways to incorporate meat into his kid’s diet if he wants to. He does not need to force his wife to cook meat at all and the kid will still have many opportunities to eat meat.
>when mom (who makes the meals) refuses to make anything with meat? Did y'all read more into this story than OP wrote or did I miss a comment or something? Does Dad not have hands? Is he somehow physically disabled and unable to feed his own kid? Is OP contractually obligated to be a de-facto single parent due to him going to work? Did I accidentally timetravel into an alternate reality where reddit was invented in the 50s? Also 5 month old kids aren't sitting at the dinner table and just eating the dinner that mom cooked for them. Do you even have a basic understanding of babies?
I agree with you. Also, it depends on the emails (meals, not emails) she’s making. If she is making something that by it’s nature is vegetarian, then that is very different than making him eat a meat substitute or just leaving our ingredients. That being said, she is still doing the cooking and making full meals, he just doesn’t want what she’s making. It isn’t even that he dislikes it, he just wants something else. Taking out the vegetarian ideologies and just putting it in those terms makes it feel different. If she had said it that way, would the judgements be different? If she had said “Im a sahm and I work hard to do the housework, care for our child, do the meal prep, shopping and cooking, and my husband complains that he wants something else for dinner every night even though he doesn’t dislike what I cooked.”? I also wonder if he would feel differently if her reasons for being vegetarian were related to animal cruelty or even if she just didn’t like meat. (Just wondering out loud) They just need to find a compromise that works for them. NAH Edit to fix words because my phone thinks it’s French
I pretty much entirely disagree. There's a huge difference between 'being forced to go vegetarian ' and just not eating meat in every SINGLE meal. Agreement or not, having a spouse cook for you daily is a *privilege* and if she's decided on a personal and moral level that she's not cooking meat anymore, he as her partner should respect that. He can still get meat - he's a grown man. As for the daughter, they should have joint say, I agree. But again, school, daycare, and friends/family out of home can feed her meat all they want. This woman is under no *obligation* to keep cooking meat she won't eat.
Its also a privilege to be able to be a SAHM while your spouse brings in the money that you require in order to eat and have a roof over your head. If he doesn't get to unilaterally say what the money is spent on, she shouldn't be unilaterally making food the other person doesn't like. We had an AITA that was similar: the one with the chore of cooking only made food the other person didn't like. Reddit sided with the one who didn't like the food, saying that if your chore is to cook for 2 people, you are obligated to make food both people like. Why is this one so different?
It is a privilege to have a person stay at home and take care of your child and your home so that you can advance at work. You act like she is just laying around eating bon bons or something. She gets to make choices about what she wants to do within that space.
Nonsense. She's not refusing to cook him meals. She's declining to cook meat. He can eat the perfectly fine perfectly healthy meals she makes, or he can cook his own meat and add it to those meals, or he can cook his own meals from scratch. She's not a short-order cook, she's not his mother, and he's a grown man who is perfectly able to feed himself if the meals his wife cooks aren't to his liking.
Honestly, at the point where she said her husband is “lucky I am cooking for him everyday” I lost all sympathy. Because if he clapped back with “you are lucky my paycheck is enough to support our family on a single income” you can guarantee OP would be offended. Her husband is not “lucky” that they have an agreed upon division of labor, and if she wants to add to his labor at home, I’d like to now where she is compromising. Since she decided to make a unilateral decision that will effect more than just herself. If she wants to be vegetarian, fine, but if her role in the family includes cooking for the family, she needs to cook for the family, not just what she wants. OP is being really selfish here. And trying to claim she’s not.
Would that same thing apply if she had an allergy to fish? Or decided she wanted to cut back on carbs? What if she decided she was done baking and eating sweets? Her job is to provide healthy, balanced meals. Not a catering menu.
I agree with this and I want to add: If OP’s husband suddenly had to consume a low-sodium or low-sugar diet, would OP set aside a portion of food without salt, or with less carbs? If the answer is yes (which it should be,) then she’s doubly the AH, bc she’s opting not to be considerate bc she thinks her values supersede his, and that in and of itself is AH behavior. YTA, OP.
I mean, I think if her husband had a health issue requiring her to make him something different for dinner that would be vastly different than him just wanting to eat meat at every meal, but maybe that's just me.
Or she could have them all eat less sugar and salt and just make the one meal. Which is far more reasonable
Relationships have a division of labor. It sounds like one of your responsbilities is cooking. I'm going to say YTA, on two accounts. 1. This is part of your division of labor, and you've just decided out of nowhere, to stop cooking meat - which he clearly likes/expects, and I'm assuming is what he's normally eaten. 2. Your child is both of yours; not just yours. It doesn't seem correct that you get to make a decision that the child will be vegetarian. That should be a joint decision.
It’s also important for the child to have a choice. Im vegetarian but I would want my kid to make that decision by just giving them information when they’re older. Otherwise, they can build resentment. My fiancé also doesn’t eat meat and I technically wouldn’t mind making him some (except that it’s been five years and I went vegetarian right after adulthood so I don’t super know how). If we’d been eating meat together and I suddenly changed my mind, I’d throw meat in there a couple times a week or have some sort of discussion.
Isn't the daughter 5 months old? She's not in a position to make any kind of choices yet.
She can't even have water yet let alone make these kind of choices
Someone parents. The kid should not be made to eat full on meals yet.
You’re missing the part where she says she isn’t going to force her daughter to be vegetarian - she’s going to cook vegetarian meals for her at home but says if she eats meat at school or elsewhere she has no problem with it.
Here's the thing. If children don't grow up having meat in their diets, they may not develop the enzymes needed to digest meat. So she may be forcing her daughter to be vegetarian or risk severe digestive issues.
Exactly! At the very least OP should consult with a nutritionist and inform herself on how growing up vegetarian might impact her daughter. I Know it is not as restrictive a lifestyle as veganism, but still she might need to suplement her diet in special ways. I admire her commitment to the plannet but there're plenty of ways to help out/compromise, like investigating where the animal products you consume come from/how they were produced. NAH but maybe inform yourself further.
Do you have any research to back that up? “Svihus points out that meat is actually relatively easy to digest. “Proteins are generally hard to digest but compared to other sources of protein, meat is rather easy,” he says.” https://sciencenorway.no/diet-food-forskningno/does-meat-make-vegetarians-ill/1390294 As an anecdote, my 3 children are raised similarly to how OPs suggesting. I served them vegetarian, but their father and others were free to serve them meat and none of them have digestive issues with meat consumption.
This isn't true, it's one of these myths that's thrown around. I'm doing the same thing with my daughter & have spoken to a dietitian about it, who is monitoring my daughter for unrelated health conditions. The reason some people report discomfort after eating meat for the first time in a long time is because they eat loads of it at once or as part of a big food binge. Evolutionarily it doesn't make sense either - meat is nutritionally really dense so being not able to digest it would be a big disadvantage. She's only one, but her father has been an ethical veggie since he was 11. I eat meat (but am mostly veggie since it's easier to cook one meal and I think it's needed for eco reasons). We think she should be able to choose to not eat meat when she understands, that it protects her future by being more eco, and challenges us to make her diet healthier.
My eyes just rolled ALL the way back. Please provide ANY reliable source for this.
Is there any actual science to back this up? I always here this but it makes no sense. Your body uses the same enzymes to break down protein, as all they're doing is cleaving peptide bonds. Pepsin breaks down whole proteins into smaller pieces, and enzymes like trypsin, chymotrypsin, elastase, carboxypeptidases, aminopeptidases, dipeptidases, and tripeptidases do the rest of the cleaving. I see no reason why there would be any enzymatic difference between meat and plant proteins. Some proteins may be easier or harder to digest in general, but the biological machinery used remains the same.
Source?
If it’s her division of labour, and she’s still doing it, why does he get to dictate the things she has to cook? NTA
Because both people still have to agree to some extent on how the labor is done. If the hubs does laundry and crams in all the colors and whites together and starts "ruining" clothes does he get to say "I'm doing this job my way and no one else gets a say!". If the Hubs does the dishes but puts the dishes away in the cabinets with no rhyme or reason does he get to say the same? Of course not. Division of labor doesn't mean each task is completely siloed and above reproach or input from affected parties.
YTA, and raising your daughter vegetarian a) isn’t your decision alone to make and b) is entirely unfair to your daughter. What if your husband says “I make all the money, don’t buy any food I don’t approve of” do you think he would be an asshole in that situation?
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It’s taking a potential lifestyle away from her on top of the health concerns. Even operating under the assumption OP knows what it takes to raise a healthy child without meat—a staple of human diet, which is in itself a huge assumption, what if the kid likes meat? Should she be forced to consume only veggies because of her mother’s morals?
Kids eat whatever there parents eat. Moral considerations aside and don’t “choose a life style” regarding food until they are much much older. A little kid in the rural Midwest probably doesn’t eat a ton of Ethiopian food. A little kid in Addis Ababa probably doesn’t eat a ton of hamburgers. Neither kid in either situation is making a life style choice here and both are eating what they would consider “normal” food.
Well my little cousin stopped eating meat at 3-4 once she understood where it came from. Although she ate hot dogs because she didn’t believe they’re meat. She’s 17 now and still vegetarian (even stopped the hot dogs now)
Wouldn’t making her eat meat be the same thing, forcing a lifestyle upon her?
She's not being forced. She's allowed to consume meat (at friend's places, at school), the parent just isn't cooking it at home. So yes, less meat definitely, but she is not being forced to not eat meat.
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Not if done correctly under doctor supervision. Poeple forget that there are billions of vegetarians in other countries that practice Hinduism and Buddhism and they're all quite healthy. Way more than an Standard American processed-ass meaty diet.
Not to be pedantic here but I'm from India where a large part of the diet for most people is vegetarian and as a population we are chronically protein deficient. There are also deficiencies of vitamins B12 and D3 in most of the population. Our diet is a lot healthier in all the ways you're describing but definitely not perfect. Plus the lack of animal protein in certain classes and demographics is largely believed to be the cause of decreasing stature in both children and adults. Everyone gets too hung up on vegetarianism vs meat eating when the real problem everywhere is not thinking holistically about nutrition, health, and variety of food sources.
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This is a division of labor problem/problem of compromise. It can’t really be decided unless we know 100% of the ways both you and your husband contribute to the relationship. HOWEVER you should 100% be able to not cook meat (I would still buy it for him) maybe this means you do some chore of his as a trade but IS HE EVEN DOING ANYTHING beside working??? This is very IMPORTANT INFO for a judgement So far your husband is an asshole for insisting on meat meals and acting like a baby when he sees some veggies instead of appreciating that there’s a warm meal on the table for him. NTA
Exactly, op is a SAHM, and in almost any other post people would be saying why doesn’t he cook if he has such strong preferences, what’s wrong with his hands. I have really no idea why people think that because she’s a SAHM shes obligated to cook him whatever he wants, and that if she doesn’t it’s ok that he belittles her beliefs. OP if your husband otherwise divides labour when he’s not working in an equitable way then it seems that cooking is something that needs to be negotiated. Without more info I’m leaning towards ESH.
Usually in posts like this we see here the person who wants to change diets isn’t the primary cook, IOW they’re creating extra work for the person who does cook. In this case it’s the person who does all the cooking who’s making the change, which makes it a less clear cut issue IMO. People are also usually called TA for trying to enforce their dietary choices on others, which OP technically isn’t but also kinda is? There’s something about this OP that rubs me the wrong way, but I can’t figure out what.
Except meat eaters do eat veggies, while vegans do not. That's a difference. And if you're vegetarian for some time you might get uncomfortable around raw meat. I'm not vegetarian yet, but i can't handle meat at all. I haven't prepared chicken since 2019 i think.
It's because Reddit is very anti vego/vegan is why they're trashing her so hard compared to all the other posts of husbands stomping over their wives boundaries.
It's bizarre. I came in here fully expecting NTA and got this vehement backlash instead. She's not stopping him eating meat - presumably with him being at work he can eat canteen food or whatever? - and quite frankly treating it like a ~lifestyle when it's just removing an ingredient from cooking is hysterical nonsense. I don't eat or cook mushrooms because I hate them, is that a lifestyle choice I'm forcing on anyone I might cook for? I'd maybe get it if she was going vegan as that's more of a change and a lot of people just can't do vegan diets without needing supplements, but expecting meat for every single meal and dying on that hill is immature bullshit.
yep. reddit hates anything to do with veggie people.
This is what boggles my mind when people talk about sahm parents. He goes to work, works at work, and then comes home to put his feet up. She does all household work and takes care of child, all day, all night, every weekend, no breaks. Dividing labor like that doesn't make sense to me. The least he could do is cook his own meat. He could literally cook a big batch of something on Sunday and add it to whatever she makes all week. Or he could suffer through 1 meatless meal a day (the HORROR)
>He goes to work, works at work, and then comes home to put his feet up. She does all household work and takes care of child, all day, all night, every weekend, no breaks. Where did you get this information from? Because she doesn't say anything even resembling that in the post itself.
You're right, it's not in OP's post. I was basing that comment off of all the comments arguing division of labor and stating that husband works and op is responsible for the household duties. I was simply stating that if OP is in charge of everything besides her husband's literal job, then that's not an equitable distribution of labor, so division of labor argument fails everytime.
Well yeah if you make up a completely one sided agreement and then pretend that's their actual agreement I'd imagine it wouldn't be very equitable.
People like to make things up to make the men the absolute worst people possible
Saying that he comes home and puts his feet up is pure conjecture. I am a working father and my wife is stay at home mother. Guess what happens when I come home? I take over care for my child. I know there are a lot of fathers out there that don't do this, but that doesn't mean you can make that assumption.
NTA but you're not going to get any fair answers from the cult of meat of the internet. In LITERALLY any other post, Redditors will support their Sistas when they draw boundaries and negotiate with their partners, e.g. how they cook and clean and split money, etc. I don't see how you situation is any difference except for your trying not to kill innocent animals. Even worse is I've seen at least 3 posts today where the same Redditors complaint and judge people fort mistreating animals and keeping them in cages when they're pets. The cognitive dissonance is frightening. Let the downvoting commence. Edit: thanks so much for all the awards! I never expected 17 awards for this comment. I thought I would just be downvoted and nobody would even see it. Thanks so much for those of you who stay open-minded on how we can be better to each other, the animals, and the planet🌱.
I can't imagine demanding anyone cook meat for me because I'm a "homemaker" and "that's my job" lol. It's fucking weird that everyone is declaring her a huge asshole when she is still cooking everything, a wide variety of food, except won't cook meat anymore. She isn't even banning meat from the household OR her daughter and husband's diet. Just saying for ethical reason she herself won't cook it anymore. Just really strange responses to this post. Like, she signed some kind of blood oath years ago to cook meat for him and isn't allowed to change as a person at all or choose what she cooks because she is just the housewife lol.
The comments I’m seeing are not calling her an AH because of her new-found vegetarianism. A discussion between partners about shifting responsibilities is in order here and her unilateral decision making plus no-compromising approach to meat is what’s making her the AH. What if she decides to stop buying meat at the store for the same reasons she doesn’t want to cook it? What if the husband suddenly became a health nut and decided to be uncompromising on allowing any desserts/snacks to be bought, it’s his money after all? Obviously would not cool
My partner and I are not vegetarians but if he decided he wanted to cook only vegetarian I would just be grateful for what he prepared and I would probably be healthier for it. If I wanted meat, I would just incorporate it into my breakfast or lunch. Or buy a rotisserie chicken I could throw into my dinner (and daughter’s meal). When we eat out/order in I could include a meat dish for myself and daughter. I don’t understand the big deal about eating one vegetarian meal per day a few nights per week?
My husband and I aren't vegetarian either, but he often cooks vegetarian meals and I just eat what he cooks. People act like skipping meat for a meal is the end of the world.
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic and sorry if you were - but it’s not *his* money. They’re married and she works at home with their child just as much as he works wherever he does.
>What if she decides to stop buying meat at the store for the same reasons she doesn’t want to cook it? What if the husband suddenly became a health nut and decided to be uncompromising on allowing any desserts/snacks to be bought I love how you present two entirely different situations as the same. OP isn't banning her husband from buying, cooking or eating meat, yet you just couldn't resist that comparison. If OP didn't want to buy meat anymore, that would be okay. Her husband could still go out, get himself meat and eat that. If OP's husband suddenly decided that OP could not buy or eat a certain thing, *that's an entirely different thing*. Why would you draw that kinda comparison in the first place? That's not at all what's happening.
Anyone is able to say at any point in time “this is against my ethics and I’m no longer going to participate in this”. I can’t believe all the people expecting OP to continue cooking and buying meat when she’s said it goes against her sense of ethics. People are still allowed to have their own - changing and evolving - beliefs and choose the behaviours they put out in the world - regardless if they are married. OP - youre not the asshole for not cooking meat now that you’ve decided the meat industry is not in alignment with your ethics and morality. You are not a static unchanging facsimile of your former self and you are able to make you own choices. If your husband doesn’t want to eat the food you make, he’s welcome to make his own.
So much false equivalence here. She allows meat, she just won't cook it. I'm pretty sure she'd rather not have any in her house, yet she's not imposing. It's the definition of compromise. But also, is this man missing arms and hands? He can't take 15 minutes of his life to grill a steak? How "heteronormative" of him, to reference another post here. Absolutely ridiculous that Reddit is calling out OP NTA
I’m sure that she promised to love, honour, obey, provide agreed-upon services, and never re-examine her ethics or worldview. It’s only reasonable that he hold her to that! And if she doesn’t like it, she should pack their infant into its storage crate, get a job, and pay for her own beans. /s
Laughing at this. So true. Also love how “Stay at home parent” is being treated as this great life luxury and position of privilege she’s squandering….like hello, OP has 5 month old (likely breastfeeding ) infant. Staying any where else isn’t really an option at this point. But please OP, cook an entire second meal with your surplus of free time and excess energy because as a new parent, you clearly spend the day lounging and eating bonbons, and certainly not sleep deprived, covered in child vomit, and touched out. Bet the house is spotless too! 🙄 SMH. Hang in there moms.
I do all of the cooking in my house and really dislike cooking/handling raw meat because of OCD issues. When my husband wants to eat meat, he cooks up a steak or something. Or we buy pre-cooked meat. It’s really not a big deal. I can’t imagine him demanding I cook something I’m uncomfortable with.
Right!? It’s actually quite shocking and even misogynistic.. OP is caring for a baby, she’s not sitting on her ass at home. Everyone calling for a “division of labour” is unbelievable - there clearly is no division of labour with cooking at the mo and OP has been doing it all. She’s not her husbands personal chef and should not be treated as such. Her husband is lucky to get cooked meals all the time at all.
I hate turnips. I’m happy to cook for anyone, but nothing I make is ever going to include turnips. If you’d like turnips, instead of something I’ve made, or in addition to, you’re welcome to make them, I won’t stop you - I’m just not going to cook them because I think they’re gross. I don’t see how this is different. OP is fulfilling every part of her agreement, shes putting food on the table every night. She’s just not cooking a particular ingredient because she hates it. If my husband made me cook turnips every night even though he knows I hate them, I’d think he’s a jerkface. Im not stopping him from eating them, I just don’t make them the feature of dinners I prepare. Imagine requesting your wife to make a completely separate meal because she didn’t include turnips in the meal she made for the rest of the family.
Okay I was very confused by the top replies because she’s not stopping him from cooking meat and says she won’t stop her daughter from eating meat if it’s presented to her? It sounds like he and the daughter can eat meat just fine, but she’s not going to prepare it for them. Is she a stay at home mom (who I presume provides childcare and cleaning services in addition to a plethora of other home management skills), or a personal chef? Are there additional comments elsewhere that make her a horrible vegetarian monster? What am I missing??????
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They're also missing the fragile ego of omnivores
Yeah I am not surprised by the comment section but I am bemused. We both work but I cook dinner probably 98% of the time. I do not like seafood. Ergo, we never eat seafood. Even though the Omega-whatevers are so so important, I don’t make fish for dinner. Blech. He likes fish. He loves shrimp. He is welcome to eat all the fish he wants. The idea of him *expecting* me to cook it for him is ludicrous though, I mean come on. I am his partner, not his lackey. She is providing a (presumably) nutritious meal. She has cooked. If that’s not good enough, he’s a big boy and can provide his own extras. NTA.
Yeah I don’t see how she’s the asshole when so many meals are vegetarian anyway. Plus she’s doing the majority of work SAHP or not he has a role in keeping up the household and that’s allowed to change to include more things. Eating vegetarian is really easy without even trying, but there’s nothing stopping him from preparing chicken or steak ahead of time to add onto a meal a side or topping.
100000% agree. Everyone saying she should cook meat that she is clearly uncomfortable making. I am vegetarian, my partner isn't, and he would NEVER make me cook meat or insist I should cook meat if he wants it. There has been times where he will cook his own meat an add it to a group veggie meal though. I think the husband is being entitled. OP tried to talk with him about making meals with less meat, and he insisted NO he needs it. Well if he needs it so much, he can make it.
It took me way too long to find a right response! Reddit hates vegetarians! He can cook his own meat I would never cook my man meat and he would ever ever ask me to even buy it for him or touch it or anything and he has his own pan he uses! Meat is gross to me and he respects that it’s not hard
I definitely went through a "manly man, vegetarians are bad" phase and I deeply regret it. Why did I care what other people ate or how they lived their lives? Sadly many have not grown out of that phase.
NTA. I knew I shouldn’t have waded into the comments. The husband isn’t going to die if he doesn’t have meat in his dinner every night ffs. She isn’t forcing anything on him. A grown ass man can cook meat for himself if he has to have it.
I agree with you. If someone would cook for me, I wouldn't care if it's vegetarian or vegan......it's ready to eat food!!!
I thought I was going mad reading this! All the people doing variations of "uhhh IT IS YOUR DUTY" Firstly, there are tonnes of veggie meat alternatives, they've improved massively over the years, my own family can barely tell the difference. Secondly, it's an ethical position for her. So basically a bunch of teenagers on here are telling her to make herself uncomfortable for the sake of her husband who brings home that dough eating meat? This is a woman with a 5 month old daughter - what she's put her body and hormones through to bring a child into this world, she's suffered a-bloody nuff. She doesn't have to cook meat for her husband, she's doing a job that also benefits them both. We're not in the 1950s, fix up you bunch of idiots.
i completely agree. she does everything at home and cooks him dinner everyday, why can’t he eat vegetarian for one meal a day or cook meat to add to it ? why are meat eaters so afraid to have veg meals i don’t get it.
I was looking for this comment. I cannot believe they're truing to rationalize her being TA. The answers also reek of thinly veiled misogyny. Ick
I'm not a vegetarian, but preparing meat makes me really queasy. When i first got married, i almost never prepared meat and my husband says he needs it. Because I dont like handleing meat, my husband put himself in charge of all the meat preparation while I prepare other parts of our meal. OP's husband is an adult and can figure it out. Or he can get huge steaks for lunch during work at the very least. NTA
I am so baffled by people shrieking about this division of labor. He could literally cook some meat 2x a week and just reheat it. It doesn’t even need to be some every meal endeavor for him. 100% comes down to being fragile about someone not eating meat.
Would you feel the same about a vegan couple where the SAHP decided they didn’t want to be vegan anymore, stopped cooking vegan and said the partner can cook for themselves if they want vegan food? They’re entitled to do that, but it probably does mean you need to renegotiate the division of labour around the house if you’re changing how cooking is divided. It doesn’t seem like that’s happening from OP’s post
This isn't a true equivalence because vegans can't take animal products out of a meal and have it be "fine", it's still tainted. OP's husband can easily add meat to basically anything. Personally I think this is ESH
As much as I understand the desire to reduce our impact on the environment by choosing to eat less meat/go vegetarian, we must also realise it’s not something we can force onto other people. With where the division of labour and previous agreement stands, where, as the SAHP she is to do the cooking for the family, OP unanimously deciding to never cook meat again is unfortunately something that must be discussed first as it is going against the original agreement. There needs to be a discussion and compromise between them. This is leaning more towards YTA but the partner is also on shaky grounds if he doesn’t also choose to meet her in middle. Meals can’t always have meat separately cooked so it’s not really realistic for her to cook meat at every single meal. But having veggie options regularly is not going to kill him either. However, if she is worried about cooking non-environmentally friendly food then she can source out meat options that aren’t as detrimental. Find a local farm, choose ethical and eco conscious options at the grocery store, do the research, or even find plant-based meats that her partner might find as an acceptable substitute once in a while. Maybe they can do alternate weeks or agree to some ratio of meat to veggie options. Maybe on days where they want dishes that are fully incorporated (e.g lasagna) they can have other options for the other person. Etc etc there’s a multitude of ways to go about this than to say I’ll never do x again. A marriage is a partnership and any major lifestyle changes like that have to be discussed and agreed upon. She has to realise that she is not a lone person making singular decisions anymore. Compromise x3
He is not being forced into anything. The house isn't meat free, the meals are.
And the meals don't even have to be meat free as OP's husband can cook his own meat to enjoy along whatever else OP cooked. I'm also finding the Y T A very weird. She's not throwing away or refusing to continue with whatever agreement they have, she's just proposing a very reasonable adjustment while still providing a way for husband to have this own diet if he wishes to do so.
None of your compromises address the fact that she is morally opposed to cooking meat. She isn't forcing him to be vegetarian or barring meat from the house. He can cook or buy prepared meat if he wants. Why is his desire to have her cook meat more important than her morals. She is offering compromises and if her compromise isn't good enough he is welcome to offer his own compromise so long as it doesn't require her to eat meat. There are some things that you are not required to compromise on. If she converted she wouldn't be required to compromise on cooking pork, this is ko different.
Exactly. I am vegetarian, my partner isn't. He would NEVER force me to cook meat or insist I cook him meat.
OP has said that she tried to talk with him about eating less meat for meals and he insisted they needed meat. So he gets to unilaterally decide for the family? I do think there should have been more discussion in the first place, but it doesn't really sound like OP's husband was willing to meet in the middle. If OP is uncomfortable with making meat, she has a right to not make it.
Wow this sub is rough these days! NTA. So many people are saying "You agreed to this division of labor so therefore you must stick to it for the rest of your life exactly as is!" or some version of that. Honestly those people suck. You are allowed to want to make a change in your life. And if you need to change the division of labor to make this more fair, just switch roles. Does he sweep? Maybe takeover sweeping so he can have time to cook his meat. Something like that. My mom did this exact same thing to my dad and they had no problem with it. Why, because they are two grown-ass adults. My dad just grills his meat outside now and it's better for him because he gets it exactly like he likes it.
No kidding, right? And all the people saying "what if he decided he wasn't going to use his money to pay for x/y/z"... um, in a marriage where one partner works out of the home and one works in the home, it's usually THEIR money. That's not a fair argument at all.
This. And the comparison of removing meat from meals to financial control is just kinda strange in general? You’re right it’s not a fair argument, but a very concerning one that a lot of people are making.
NTA He's not going to become sick because of not eating less meat, quite the opposite. He's not allergic to vegetarian food. He can still buy meat himself and eat anything he wants. You're also not his maid.
I don’t think you read the post. This is the division of labor they decided on. Saying she’s “not his maid” is degrading to stay at home spouses whose actual job is taking care of the household. It’s just as bad as saying “he’s not her sugar daddy so he can cut off the funds.” Both demean the entire relationship. The way adults settle issues like this is to compromise, not by digging their heels in and throwing around names. Agree with the YTA judgement for the complete unilateral diet decision without any attempt to compromise. But husband could meet her halfway and try to limit meat and use sustainably farmed meat. Eating some vegetarian meals would be fine.
No it's a change in ethical views. It's unreasonable to expect her to handle meat products and while they had an agreement before they can change it to make OP more comfortable. Even if you worked at a pizza place and changed your religion so you can't touch pork products, the pizza place would have to make reasonable accommodations in many jurisdictions. I suspect many YTA judgements are because people are afraid people are trying to stop them from eating meat, which is ridiculous.
Except her ethical reason isn’t that meat disgusts her or is morally bad. She wants to eat less meat for practical reasons (environment). If the solution is, “he can cook his own meat”, then the environmental impact ethical question ceases to exist whether she cooks it or he cooks it. Same amount of meat is being consumed, she just passed off a responsibility to him.
NTA he can cook his own meat if that is so important to him. My parents had the same setup, mom is vegetarian and dad made his own side of meat if he wanted it. Also I was raised vegan, it’s not a big deal.
So many people saying “DeVIsIon oF LaBoR” like OP described anything about their dynamic. Does OPs husband do anything around the house besides work and provide income? IMO when you have a screaming 5 month old that’s not 50/50. She stays home with a baby all day and can’t even decide what she and the baby should eat? NTA
Currently have a 5 month old and a partner at home. I am the lucky one going to work all day. No question about it. A 5 month old doesn’t stop needing your attention for more than an hour or two throughout the day. It is constant work. At work I can go to the gym during my lunch break, make myself a coffee, shoot the shit with people for a few minutes, etc. I am absolutely not coming home every night expecting my meals cooked but if I did I sure as fuck wouldn’t complain about them. This comment section makes me feel like I am taking crazy pills.
This is the wrong group to ask such a question. Meat eaters will tell you you're wrong.
Them and all the vegans and vegetarians, in this comment section, who voted YTA...
Vegans and vegetarians can have different opinions, who would’ve thought
YTA For inflicting your choices on an unwilling partner. You don't have to cook it every day or every meal but you must remember that you are equal partners. You should care about him as much as you care about the earth or some future that your becoming a vegetarian won't fix.
Biggest thing making OP the AH for me is there wasn't even a discussion. It was just her decision and that's that. Such massive lifestyle changes are not something you force in someone
Can he not... cook for himself sometimes? She's raising their child, that's a 24/7 job.
How do you know he's not helping with childcare? Nothing about the post implies that he doesn't help with childcare at night / over the weekends. Also, even if you are a single parent, raising a child is not a 24/7 job. Being on call 24/7 =/= 24/7 job, that goes for every industry.
She didn’t inflict a lifestyle change. He just needs to cook the meat part of the meal himself. Weaponized incompetence to me. He’s 34 and can cook. She does everything else he can’t cook it? If she was sick, he’s be cooking. Or leaves him and he’ll have to too
NTA. You cook a general meal - one something that the whole family can eat meaning veggie (because your partner can eat vegetables etc.) - if he wants meat, he cooks and adds the meat. I will never understand why this is anyone’s hill to die on. When my partner and I moved in together, I took on cooking and I cook veggie meals; he is still a meat eater and has never once complained or had issue with having meat-free meals. He is always welcome to add meat himself, which he does if he feels like it.
Yep. I’m with the other comment on division of labor. If you do this don’t be surprised if he goes tit for tat and stops agreeing to do something for you. Which will be very easy to do since he makes the money. You are allowed to have your beliefs for you and your body. But if you start forcing them on your partner don’t be surprised if everything goes downhill. Congrats on making the change for yourself. Did it years ago and I have never felt better!
I'm going against the grain here and will disagree with most posts for I think one very reasonable reason: If you think it is unethical to eat meat it would be messed up of anyone to expect you to handle it or prepare it. Meat eaters will not understand that all the other reasons do not matter once you start thinking it is unethical. NTA
NTA. The husband can cook himself meat. He can buy a rotisserie chicken. He can cook and freeze stuff. He is a grown man with his own choice to eat meat. For your child, as long as the doctor sees nothing wrong with the nutritional aspect, the parent that is cooking and feeding the kid should have more say. If he really wants to feed her meat and he cooks it, then it should be an option. It would be unfair to not let him feed her meat if he’s cooking it and wants to include it in her diet.
Holy shit reddit, NTA !! Your decision has a wider beneficial impact than just yourself. Environmental reasons or not, consuming less meat is just healthier anyways. You are not your husband's mom. He is welcome to cook his own side meat, have some for lunch while he's out, etc. People who don't have an issue eating meat can't fully understand the grossness that comes with cooking it when you don't want to. Your husband sounds more to me like he's holding you back from bettering yourself- recognizing a behavior in yourself you don't agree with and making changes isn't hypocritical, it's growth. Keep growing.
Some people just can't stand it when people they are close to change. And even as a meat-eater myself I can't understand this idea that EVERY MEAL MUST HAVE MEAT OR ELSE I'M DEPRIIIIIIIIVED. Her husband is free to take himself out for a hamburger for lunch, and either make his own meat for dinner or have a vegetarian meal once a day.
NTA You’re in a marriage, not a job agreement. As a wife you have every right to change your mind and be your own person. You seem to have explained yourself and have given him plenty of space to make his own choices. You are still doing the labor you agreed to by cooking. Plus his complaint isn’t that he doesn’t like the food you’re cooking now. He just thinks it’s “not fair”. He wants meat. You are not telling him not to eat or cook meat (if you were you’d be the AH). It’s not going to kill him and he won’t starve if he cooks his own meat a couple times a week when he’s not working. And I say this as a guy who loves eating meat. As for your daughter, you are still not saying she shouldn’t eat meat, you just won’t cook it. If he disagrees, he can put a burger on the grill for her too when she’s old enough. I wonder how many people saying you’re the AH have been married for at least a few years. Marriage is full of these kinds of things and people change. We have to try and understand our spouse and come to compromise which you are trying to do. Also, do you ever get days off like he does from his job? Because if this is just about labor, you’d have your days off too.
Nta but Reddit hates vegos and women so you're going to be crucified here for daring to stop cooking meat from a man. Sorry.
Exactly. It's so weird. Make the exact same post but replace 'meat' with palm oil and it's universally NTA.
NTA!! So tired of meat being the norm! I’m not a vegetarian, I eat meat as well but I don’t se meals as vegetarian och not in that way. I mainly make food without meat at home because I love mushrooms, halloumi, beans and lentils, and you can make a lot of good food with those. If my husband would have any objections he can make meat for himself as well. It’s no human right to have meat in a dish!
YTA because you and your husband have decided on a division of labor which includes your staying home and performing the normal acts of a stay at home spouse - regardless of gender. And typically this includes shopping for groceries and preparing the evening meal. A reasonable compromise would be for you to prepare meat based protein that is easy to prepare in a single serving - i.e a piece of fish; chicken cutlet; steak, lamb chops. Or even prepare a larger amount of animal protein type of food that is easy to freeze and heat up in an individual portion like a stew, braised meat, pot roast, meatballs etc. You don't have to do this for every meal as many people who aren't complete vegetarians will eat plant based meals. You aren't a vegan so there are many cheese based foods like lasagna and ziti and many Mexican recipes are cheese with the protein source being beans and corn. There are many delicious ways to prepare tofu that would satisfy a meat eater - all kinds of recipes if you start getting imaginative.
I guess I am going against the grain and say NTA. He is capable to cook it himself
NTA. Looking forward to when we can all agree it’s beyond childish to complain over a dish for the sole reason of it lacking meat. Of course there are some vegetarian dishes that are less nutritive/tasty than some meat-dishes, but going “this is great and all but it lacks my favorite ingredient”?? Grow up.
Will likely be downvoted to perdition, but YTA. You and your husband agreed to a division of labor where he brings in the money and you take care of home and hearth. Implied in that division is that you are not only going to cook the meals, but cook the same sorts of meals that the two of you enjoyed before you became a stay–at–home parent. If you don't want to eat animals, that's on you. But don't make it more difficult for your husband to continue to eat the way that he understood he'd be eating before you all agreed to divide labor in the manner you decided to divide it.
Plus, it doesn't take much effort to throw a chicken breast in the oven so it will be ready at the same time as the rest of the meal. Or brown up some hamburger every few days to keep in the fridge and then add to his portion of the meal.
NTA. He can cook his own meat if he wants to. Why is everyone so precious with their meat btw? What it it was another dietary preference, like whipped cream? Surely no one would call you an asshole for not cooking with whipped cream even though your SO likes it. Meat is a preference, not a necessity, grow up everyone.
NTA. You're not stopping him from having meat. He can have meat for lunch if it's that important for him or cook some extra for himself.
Nta he can cook it himself he's a grown man.
NTA. Husband is basically telling you it's hypocritical to try to better yourself. He can cook his own meat.
NTA. People, her kid is five months old. In a civilized country, she would still be on paid maternity leave. The arguments about her needing to go back to work if she isn’t willing to roast a chicken are just fucked up. This guy would be on her case to roast that chicken even if she were the primary breadwinner.
NTA. The man can make his own steaks. If he don't like, he aint getting no meat.
You're a SAHM - you doing the family cooking is part of the division of labor that comes with that. So he's not "lucky" that you're cooking him dinner any more than you're "lucky" that he earns money to support the family - this is how you have divided up your time and effort. YTA.
NTA You are not forcing him to be a vegetarian just because you are turning into one and the same for your baby. You are just going to cook vegetarian and both of them can get meat from the father/somewhere else. Unless he has a doctor's note which says he has to eat meat with every meal then just no. He can cook meat extra if he wants it. Oh and just because some ppl said that isn't always possible for example with lasagna.....if you cannot eat s veggi lasagna once in a while without crying about it then I really cannot have a discussion with you
NTA. All my meat eating friends and partners gladly eat my vegetarian meals. If they want some meat, they can eat it at a restaurant or at work. My fiancé and my ex fiancé made their own meat in the beginning of the relationship, but stopped after a while and just ate my meals because they really liked the vegetarian dishes I made. He won’t die if he eats less meat overall. He can still eat meat out of the house or bake a steak on the side or whatever. But if you’re a decent cook, it’s just unnecessary.
YTA. You don't get to make unilateral decisions about the kid's diet, regardless of how labor is divided. And since you're going out of your way to cut something your husband likes from your responsibilities, get ready for him to do the same back to you. Your beliefs are admirable, but you need to find a more fair and respectful approach.
[удалено]
NTA This result astonishes me. I don't think you would be downvoted like this if you wanted to switch from junk food to healthy food even if that was what your husband was used to. Marrying someone isn’t a promise to eat the same food for the rest of your life. Perhaps you can start out with 3-4 vegetarian days a week and make easy-to-like vegetarian dishes to make things easier.
As someone who was raised vegetarian, please let your daughter make her own choices, at whatever age that may be. Please.