I was wondering, for reasons that extends beyond mere curiosity ;-), how some Dopers who are vegetarian or vegan who have dated or been married to someone who is not - how those relationships have goen. I am not, of course, looking for any generalities, just personal experiences.
Depends on how strongly you feel about the vegetarianism and what it means to both partners.
I was a strict no meat of any sort vegetarian for 5 years, and the majority of that was no dairy products. Then i moved to Japan, where it is real tough to be a veg. I started including seafood in my diet. Married my carnivorous wife. I remained a vegetarian (although eating seafood) for 3 years of marriage.
It was a stressor in our marriage. My wife likes to cook and enjoys sharing her food. We lived in Hong Kong, where it is family style asian dining. You order dishes that are shared. Hong Kong also doesn’t have a lot of vegetables and restaurants do not really cater to vegetarians.
Anyhoo, my wife and I went through a real rocky time in our marriage. For the sake of our marriage, to show my willingness to sacrifice to work on our marriage, I started eating meat again. It removed a stressor that we had. It’s been 4 years, we still have some problems, but we are still together and generally speaking pretty happy.
I do wish that I was still a vegetarian for my own personal beliefs. It was not a direct causual relation between giving up vegetarianism and saving the marriage. I am sure that it helped. My wife did not even raise the issue, this was something that I volunteered on my own. At the end of the day, I decided that for me, helping my marriage survive was a lot more important than my long held vegetarian beliefs.
I’m a carnivore lovin’ vegetarian!
Granted, my sweet consumer-of-flesh is most damn reluctent meat eater I have ever seen. This man orders tofu at restraunts, even when there are many many other choices! We don’t eat meat at home. Neither one of us has any clue about how to cook it, and neither one of us wants to deal with the hassle and expense of cooking it. We get along fine- it is a non-issue, except for the fact that I won’t kiss him after he has just downed a bloody cheeseburger.
I know plenty of other vegetarian-carnivore relationships as well. Usually the carnivore eats mostly veggie at home and restricts the dead animial stuff to restraunts.
I went vegetarian 6 years ago and vegan 2 years ago. Meanwhile Mrs. Mojo keeps her meat consumption to low levels. My oldest daughter taught herself to bake cookies & stuff; she recently went to the library and found several vegan cookbooks (like Soy of Cooking) to bake cakes & things specially for me. Mrs. Mojo is also known on 3 continents as an excellent cook and she loves to cook and share food; fortunately she’s from South India where delicious vegetarian recipes abound, and I eat very well indeed.
In Hong Kong restaurants, you mean to tell me there’s no “Buddha Delight”? I’m badly disillusioned.
P.S. How do you say “Buddha Delight” in Cantonese and Mandarin?
Mr. Bobkitty is a vegetarian… he’s become MUCH easier to feed since the advent of fake meat products. Of course, this is a man who would still be eating peanut butter out of the jar with a knife for dinner if I hadn’t come along. He doesn’t care if I eat meat, as long as I keep the utensils and remains separate from his stuff. He does joke about it, things like pointing to a steak I’m cooking for dinner and asking the dogs if they want some cat, but it’s all good-natured. Overall a non-issue… I’ve gotten really good at reading labels- better than he is- and I make sure when we go out that he doesn’t wind up with something that has meat in it (‘Uh, no honey… you can’t order a chef salad. Trust me.’)
I did date a rabid vegetarian when I was in high school. He would bring a dog-eared copy of ‘Diet for a New America’ with him everywhere and would open it to various… unappetizing pictures during dinner. Finally, having had quite enough, I reached over the table at a restaurant, grabbed him by the back of the head, and shoved a piece of hamburger down his throat. We never had that discussion again.
I agree with China Guy… it depends on how strongly each partner feels about their respective eating habits. Mr. Bobkitty worked in a slaughterhouse and a chicken plant for a few years… I can understand why he’s reluctant to eat meat of any kind. I’m not insistent on being a meat-eater, I just like to get my teeth into things now and then. We get along fine. 
-BK
I’m a vegetarian, but Anniz is not. From my end, things are going well in the kitchen. When she makes dinner, she’ll either make an entirely vegetarian meal, or make one with meat dishes cooked separately.
Lucky duck!
[Homer Simpson]
mmmm … vindaloo!
[/Homer Simpson]