Food, Relationship - and Dealing with Differences

by Sammy
(India)

Hi,

I am in relation with a guy for about 2 years. We are from different castes, so our food habits differ. I never thought food will become a major issue in our love relationship.
Recently I have been having lots of arguments with my love over this. He wants me to change my food habits to his. I should mention that he is a meat eating person and I am not. We have had this discussion in the beginning of our relation, and I told him that I will start eating meat for his sake.

Now he says that it has been nearly 2 years and I never showed interest in eating meat. I am actually very scared to eat meat (because I never even touched it before). I told him this now and before, but he does not want to listen. After a long argument, what he said is that he does not want to tell me to eat again and again, he expects me eat, cook, learn.

Another thing is we live in different cities, so I live alone in my city and I never dare to go out and get meat all by myself. Also, if my friends knew about it, it would not be a very pleasant situation.

I do not understand as he says that he does not like forcing me to eat meat and on the other hand, he says that he does not like it if we are to eat different items when we start living together. He wants his wife to cook and eat meat with him. I know that it will take a lot of time to actually be prepared mentally and then start cooking and eating. But, he does not understand.

All this is really making me feel very upset. I request you to please give me an advice about what I should do. In the course of these arguments, he was saying some unpleasant things to me, which makes me wonder if I have change myself in more than one way so that he likes me. This feeling is not what I expected from my love life. I always wanted someone who will accept me as I am and will not try to change me. I told him this 2 years back and he said that he always give priority to my wishes in my life. Now, has he changed?

He also has some habits which I don't like and when I tell him, he gives me some reason or says that once we are married, he will stop those habits. I feel that he wants me to listen to him and be an ideal Indian wife, whereas he doesn't want to listen or change his habits for me.

Am I making a mistake? Am I viewing a some problem with a magnifying glass and spoiling my relation? Please help me. I can't even tell my feelings to a friend as no one knows about my love affair. My boyfriend wanted to keep it as a secret except he has told many of his friends and he gets mad at me if I want to tell any of my friends.

I am looking forward to your valuable reply.

Thank you in advance for your help.

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Hello Sammy,

What advice to give? First, love relationships are difficult for the majority of people. Some people are very easy to be with and/or get together with people very easy to be with. Most of us have a lot of struggles, especially after the beginning.

I heard 2 main things from you: the first had to do with your not eating meat; the second, with his holding on to his habits.

Re eating meat. It sounds as if you have no people who can help you with this – friends who eat meat, who could introduce you, for example, to curry with a little meat in it; or soup with a little meat in it. It also sounds as if he has not been helpful in this way.

My question here: why not? Have you refused to try anything with any meat in it? Or has he not been interested in helping you, bit by bit?

If you live alone, it would be easiest for you to try the tiniest bit of meat – there are loads of recipes online, etc. You could most likely buy something in a can. The hard thing might be for you to buy something with meat in it without anyone you know finding out. (I don’t know your situation.)

I wonder: do you have a fundamental reluctance to actually touch, cook or eat meat? Or do you just need some help?

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Re eating meat. A funny thing about this, Sammy, is that I don’t eat meat, stopped eating it long ago as I wasn’t comfortable doing it, felt bad for the animals who died so I could eat them. But here I’m trying to get into your situation: you seem to need someone who could guide you into eating meat.

One suggestion: you could look online, maybe for a group that is dealing with your situation. There are so many groups online.

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The biggest thing I heard from you: 2 people having a hard time figuring out how to live together well.

It sounds as if there are things he wants from you (ways he wants you to change so you do things his way), and that these are things he does not want to give (ways you would like him to change that you see he is very unlikely to change).

The question that comes into my head: can you each accept the other staying as he or she is? Can you live with the differences? Can you live with him being the way he is? Can he live with you being the way you are?

In North America, half the marriages end in divorce – and way over half of all relationships end. People tend not to be good at working out differences, at managing to keep feeling loving and close. I see this as one of the biggest challenges of this time.

So my big question: do the 2 of you think you can find a way to keep on feeling close and loving? Or will your staying different be an ever bigger obstacle?

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