My family and boyfriend against veganism

Question

Hello! I really need some advice or someone to talk to. I´m currently vegetarian and transitioning into being vegan. I feel very happy if I eat vegan for a whole day. I  live with my boyfriend who eats meat, eggs, and dairy. He had some difficulties with me being vegetarian but he understood my point of view. Now when I learned more about veganism I wanted to do it for myself/animals and planet. When my boyfriend found out he started yelling at me. He is mostly using arguments that I´ve seen non-vegans use against vegans such as "but cars kill millions of people every year" or "animals were put on this planet for us" and so on.... He is also religious so he had argumentations in that area too. I´m not religious but I always respected his beliefs. We had a fight about being vegan and he said I´m brainwashed and have veganism as my religion and I´m thinking only emotionally and not rationally. He said I should read research papers about the benefits of dairy and eggs and educate myself more in the other direction too than just on what vegans say... well basically it was like hour fight where we didn´t agree and he was saying things to completely reverse what I was saying... 

It just left me heartbroken....
Did any of you had second thoughts of going vegan? Do you have maybe also experience with something like this? Iwould be grateful for any help and advice.
Thank you x

Vegan_Elf · Answer

Merry Meet sweetheart. 

I did not have second thoughts about going vegan. The Partner I was with when I transitioned to vegan is a meat eater & wears leather. Luckily they were & still are supportive about me going & being vegan. 


There are afew things on the internet about faith and veganism, The Vegan Society posted an article in their website titled "Should Christians be Vegan?", I also watched a video on YouTube of a Wiccan Vlogger talking about wicca ect & she said that a lot of wiccans and pagans she knew are veggie and vegan. So if your partner tries using his faith as an excuse to condone his meat eating then you can tell him that people have interpreted their faiths a little differently then others. 


Hope this has been some help. Feel free to message me if you have any further questions. 

Blessed Be! X x

marlicious · Answer

Tell him that thinking emotionally is not essentially bad- how else could you feel empathy? You could try other arguments such as the environment/climate factor.

teska_skac · Answer

Vegan_Elf  thank you for your advice. I thought he will be supportive too or at least respecting my decision because I do the same for him. I will look into some more info. Thank you.

teska_skac · Answer

Hello marlicious thank you for your advice. I tried bringing up the environment/climate change, it was no help. Even though he has seen cowspiracy nothing changed. When I told him about also trying to help the environment by reducing it at least for starters by being vegan he said it doesn´t matter because it´s not gonna change and it´s too late anyway. At least it´s better to be trying to do something than do nothing. With the emotional and rational thinking, he then was making up things like "if you have a gun and you have to kill a human or a rabbit what will you do?" Things that will never happen....

mshelene · Answer

He is not educated on research on veganism or meat. If you look at the research on research based sites such as the NutritionFacts website then you will see the research clearly shows that meat and dairy are not healthy. They are acidic and your body pulls minerals out of your bones to combat that acidity. The countries with the most dairy consumption has the most hip bone fractures. And also the animal agriculture industry causes more environmental damage than cars. Even the United Nations recommends that people go vegan for the planet. As for eggs, they contain choline which transforms into toxic TMAO in the body which promotes heart disease and cancer. And research shows eggs significantly increase plaque in the carotid arteries leading to the brain. Look at the research on the site I mentioned. Also the book How Not To Die.

BreakfastKlutz · Answer

Find a better boyfriend, at the moment you risk continuing to exploit animals for the rest of your life just for the sake of a relationship. You only have one life, but there will likely be other loves. We should not allow ourselves to be held back morally by others.

Swift. · Answer

I agree with verbosity, don't change who you are for someone else, you should be loved by someone who loves you for who you are. If you force yourself to consume flesh just to be with someone you will end up resenting them for the rest of your life,

Selonyx · Answer

Sounds exactly how my parents are, they think I’m brainwashed and told me constantly I need meat and dairy in my life otherwise I can’t function properly as a human, got to the point where they would ridicule me and make fun of and just be down right abusive. 

I cut them out of my life four months ago and haven’t heard from them since the stress gone from my life feels so much better, so try again to sit down with him and let him know how you feel about everything and if he continues maybe move on if it’s just painful

herwin · Answer

Seems like its turning into an abusive relation with little space or freedom for you. Maybe he needs time or maybe its time to move on. Dump him before he dumps you.

herwin · Answer

Seems like its turning into an abusive relation with little space or freedom for you. Maybe he needs time or maybe its time to move on. Dump him before he dumps you.be glad you are not married with him or have children with him.

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