It's not so much about the vegetarianism as it is about the trust.
Each week, the inbox of our venerable advice columnist, Miss Information, is flooded with queries. And although she makes a valiant effort, she can't answer them all. To deal with the surplus, we've decided to turn to you. So, don your spectacles and help this woman out — give her advice in the comments below.
Dear Hooksexup,
My boyfriend and I are in our early twenties. We've been together almost four years, and we were friends before that. Lately, we've been struggling with a somewhat unconventional relationship problem turned trust issue — vegetarianism.
I've been a vegetarian for over ten years for a bunch of reasons, the most important one for me being my spirituality. I'm including this information as a back story; it isn't the issue itself. My boyfriend has been vegetarian for about seven years for the same reasons, and when we started to get serious, I made it clear to him that it was very important to me that I shared that lifestyle choice with my partner. He didn't feel as strongly about having a vegetarian partner, but it wasn't a big deal at the time because we were both vegetarian.
A few months ago, however, my boyfriend started eating meat. It started with a few cravings and some McDonald's, and after a few unpleasant conversations about our newfound difference in opinion, we came to an agreement: he wasn't going to eat meat around me or on days we were planning on seeing each other, and if our relationship were to get more serious (i.e., moving in together or getting engaged) he would stop eating meat altogether.
Unfortunately, he hasn't been keeping true to his word. While I can understand that things like this are often hard to keep track of, the part that bothers me is that he doesn't care when I (politely) point it out. He shows no regret for breaking a promise and no empathy for how that unHooksexups me when it comes to our overall trust. It's not that he's stupid and simply can't understand; he understands, but doesn't care that it bothers me when he backs out on our agreement.
Am I being unreasonable here? While vegetarianism might be an outlandish idea to most people, it isn't to either of us, so bearing that in mind, am I overreacting to his nonchalance about breaking a promise? Is this a larger, trust-related red flag?
— Veggie ISO Same
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