u/Azaleazaraa

I’ve been a vegetarian my entire life. When I was a toddler, my parents tried to introduce meat, but I physically couldn’t tolerate it and would throw it up. After consulting a pediatrician, they stopped trying. To this day, if I accidentally consume non-veg food, I suffer from severe GI issues.

Beyond the physical, I have this deep-seated visceral repulsion to meat and fish. The smell of it cooking is nauseating, and honestly, in my mind, the idea of eating it feels as unthinkable and disgusting as eating a cadaver. I know that sounds very extreme, but it’s the only way I can accurately describe the level of "internal disgust" I feel.

Luckily I’ve mostly been in bubbles where friends and family are veg/vegan, so I haven’t had to deal with this daily. While I can handle being around meat at work or out for an hour or two, I’m struggling with how to integrate this into a long-term relationship. I feel like I’m limiting myself by only dating vegetarians, and I want to be more open.

However, I’m terrified of two things:

1. Resenting myself if I try to "tough it out" in a non-veg household and fail.

2)A partner resenting me because they feel they have to give up something they love to be with me.

I have never and would never force a partner to change for me, but I don't know how to navigate the middle ground.

My questions for the community:For those with extreme sensory aversions, how do you handle your partner cooking or storing meat in a shared home?What are some reasonable "middle ground" boundaries I can set? How can I explain this to a new partner early on so they understand it’s a physical/psychological boundary and not me being "controlling" or "extreme"?

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for taking the time to read/answer my problem.

(TL;DR: I have a lifelong, physical and psychological repulsion to meat/fish that makes me nauseous. I want to be open to dating non-vegetarians but don't know how to manage the sensory triggers or set fair boundaries without causing resentment.)

So a little backstory for context:

I’ve been vegetarian all my life. My parents tried to feed me non-veg food when I was a toddler but I couldn’t tolerate it and would just throw it up. So my parents stopped trying to force me to eat non-veg stuff after consulting a pediatrician. Even now if I eat non-veg things by accident I get severe GI issues. The smell of meat/fish cooking is nauseating to me, sometimes even boiled eggs is really bad. I’m just thoroughly repulsed by fish/meat to the point where the only analogy I can come up with to describe it is that in my twisted mind it’s as disgusting to me as eating human flesh. I get that’s super extreme but in my mind they’re equally repulsive.

I’ve been really lucky in that my closest friends and family have turned out to be vegetarians or vegans for the most part so I’ve never had to deal with with meat/fish exposure on a daily level. I’m fine with people eating non-veg stuff at work or when we go out but I feel like this is because I only have to deal with it for an hour or two and for the most part I just try to ignore it or not look at it cause I don’t wanna make my friends/colleagues uncomfortable.

But this has seriously affected my relationships. Whenever I explain this situation to my partners or their family I feel like I come across as somewhat crazy/extremist. I would never and have never forced anyone to change their dietary preferences for me or my beliefs. I feel like I’m seriously limiting my self by only looking for vegetarian/vegan partners. So I want to be more open. But at the same time I’m having a hard time adjusting to non-veg environments. I feel like if I tell a partner I’ll adjust and if I fail to tolerate non-veg I’ll grow to resent myself for choosing that path. And I feel like if another person decides to go veg for me they’ll end up becoming resentful overtime because they’ve given up something they like.

Is there a way for me to become more tolerant to non-veg environments?

Any ideas on how to become less sensitive to meat/fish?

Would it be possible for someone like me to date an omni?

If anyone has any advice please share, I’d really appreciate it.