Man Lets His Kids Eat Meat despite His Vegetarian Wife

A disgruntled man in his capacity as a father and as a husband wanted a broader perspective on a situation that arose in the household after his wife decided to quit eating meat.

A man in this mid-forties shared his current home situation with users of an online platform to get an outside view on the matter, mainly because he disagreed.

His wife decided to stop eating any form of meat, and it grew into a situation where she now demands that he and their children also stick to a vegetarian diet - irrespective of whether she is present or not.

Providing readers with the reason behind his wife's choice, he said that a documentary about the exploitation of animals at a slaughterhouse served as sufficient cause for her wanting to quit eating meat forever.

He felt supportive of her choice, and he even agreed to try cutting meat from his diet when she started insisting he follows suit. But the thing is, he doesn't want to stop eating meat, and neither do their children.

They have little choice in the food their mother gives them, but the children miss meat, and so does he. One day he took the kids to a restaurant, and they had fish and chips - just to dampen the craving, and they kept it secret. But his wife found the receipt in his car.

"My wife was very upset at me, and said I should not have gone behind her back, and that I should not be contradicting her to the kids," the man wrote. "I explained that I crave meat, and the kids do as well, and it is not fair to impose her choices on to us."

The meat missing man has no issue with his wife's choice, but he feels that she doesn't have the right to impose her beliefs on others, not even her own family, and netizens agreed, as one responded:

"Dietary choices that aren’t a medical requirement should be made by the person themselves, including children."

However, forum users also pointed out that going behind his wife's back and encouraging the children to keep secrets from their mother is not the best way to handle the situation.

Keeping secrets leads to the breakdown of communication and, therefore, relationships, and should not be encouraged in any way. However, the mother is also teaching her children that it is okay to force your will onto someone else, which it's definitely not either.

What would you advise the man to do? What would you do if someone tried to force you to abide by their beliefs? In a related story, a woman and her biological father's relationship became so bad that she felt like she had no choice but to sue him.