The Folks Around Us
Relationships can be complicated. Our relationships with others when we reach a point where we decide to go vegan get even more complicated. At first, new vegans often worry about finding products, identifying ingredients, the disappointment of limited options in so many restaurant menus, as well as about how they'll be perceived in social situations. This is especially true of new vegans who don't have any sort of established support system, whether in their face-to-face lives or in their online meanderings. Eventually, when things settle, it becomes clear that perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of being vegan isn't how others around us view us, but rather our own thoughts and feelings about our friends, families and others in our daily lives who aren't vegan. I always tell folks who ask that the hardest thing about going vegan is navigating through our relationships with non-vegan loved ones. It's alienating enough to walk around in a world where the majority of other humans view animal exploitation as normal; when you're interacting with people you love or like -- people who are closest to you -- that sense of alienation can feel overwhelming.
Sharing Spaces
It can be particularly hard-on-the-head when you're in a pre-existing relationship with a non-vegan. I was "lucky" in some ways (or so I thought). Shortly after my former spouse and I first got together, I became a vegetarian. We moved in together and -- since I loved to cook and he didn't -- I ended up preparing almost all of our meals, so he ate whatever I made and was happy. When we'd go out to eat together, just the two of us, he wouldn't eat meat. This was a decision he had made himself. After a few years I went vegan and, once again, he said that he was completely happy eating whatever I prepared (and using whichever other household products I selected to purchase). I really went out of my way to make sure that we had a wide range of tasty things on-hand, whether healthy or indulgent (or sometimes both concurrently). I bought cookbooks, lurked in vegan discussion forums, experimented with veganizing favourite or nostalgic dishes, etc. Going out to eat became rare since there were very few places in our tiny city at the time offering anything other than a garden salad or fries on their menus without a heap of animal ingredients. So nearly all of the meals we shared together -- or with guests we had over -- became plant-based.
Sharing Others' Spaces
The exceptions were when we gathered with family in their own homes. Even though I would always bring a couple of vegan-friendly dishes along, members of either of our families would sometimes make jokes about his "deprivation" and those were some of the few times I would see him loading his plate with meat and other animal products. It was those times that it hit me just how completely different our ethics were. Although it made life easier that he was happy (and insistent on) not consuming animal products at home, he was, ultimately, a non-vegan who thought nothing of consuming the bits and parts of other beings. This hadn't changed at all in our time together. It led to my dreading family gatherings which revolved around food. I would always end up feeling sad or anxious (or both). I began to resent him, not because I had any expectation that he would avoid eating animal products out of deference to me in those circumstances, but because it was a reminder that he still considered these animal products "food".
Involving Kiddos
I can't even imagine what it would have been like if we'd had kids involved. I've had vegan friends and acquaintances who've had offspring who've shared with me the unsolicited opinions and advice they'd received from non-vegan family and friends. I've read plenty of accounts of the challenges vegans with non-vegan partners have experienced when raising said offspring. Worse have been the accounts of the additional challenges in co-parenting after the dissolution of their relationships with their non-vegan partners (particularly if the dissolution was acrimonious). In hindsight, I'm often relieved that my ex and I didn't opt to have kids. I can't imagine having to spend years navigating parenthood and having to deal with others constantly trying to challenge or undermine any decisions we made concerning our kid, never mind not being on the same page about veganism, or even ending up co-parenting after parting ways and then dealing with being on different pages about everything. Dealing with others, in this sense, would have been exhausting.
On Managing Expectations
People sometimes insist that veganism "was too hard" because they couldn't get enough protein, always felt hungry, couldn't afford meat substitutes, lost weight/gained weight, that they hated having to cook, couldn't find enough plant-based options at restaurants or that they just couldn't find what they felt was a really satisfying plant-based cheese. I roll my eyes a little when I hear those things presented as if they somehow became insurmountable obstacles. Most of those issues seem so easily addressed and resolved with a bit of research and a bit of effort. When you weigh them against just dealing with the realization -- each and every day -- that we live in a world where animal exploitation continues to be the norm for those closest to us, they almost seem trivial. And while some folks may feel it's a struggle to manage their expectations concerning restaurant menus, it's an entirely different story doing so when navigating relationships with your non-vegan loved ones. While doing so for the former seems largely about inconvenience, doing so in the latter case is truly about survival. It's a necessity. How we go about doing so will vary from one vegan to another, but sooner or later, it needs to be hammered out.
