Unless the two of you met at an organic free-range food compound or an all-you-can-eat fried buffet, chances are pretty good that the eating styles of yourself and your spouse when you came into your marriage were different. You may not agree on the types of food you like, or even whether to eat out or at home.
Aside from being short order cooks and making different meals or stocking food in separate refrigerators, how do you manage one household with two different approaches to meals?
Here are some of the experiences of having two different eating styles, based on couples that I know personally. Where do you think you fall in? How can you do better at merging your eating habits.
Very often you come into a situation where one person is the healthier eater. You have one spouse who’s freezer is filled with frozen corn dogs, frozen pizza and frozen Hungry Man meals, while the other has lean chicken, salads, fruit and tofu. What usually happens is that the healthy eater gets compromised here. After all, it is hard to sit there eating some grilled fish when your spouse is chowing down a bacon cheeseburger. This is what happened to one couple I know. Fast forward six years later. The spouse with the healthier eating style has gained twelve pounds, and their kids won’t eat anything that doesn’t come from a fast food joint or a freezer. Now however, the couple is working on better eating habits together.
In another marriage (without kids) the couple has created an “every man for themselves” mentality when it comes to eating. They do make arrangements to go out to eat together on occasion, but mostly they make and eat their meals at different times, never sitting down together. “It gets a bit lonely,” one of the spouses told me, although they continue in the arrangement because it causes few disputes.
For our third couple, they made the decision that whomever takes on the cooking also gets to decide what to make, compromising for allergies and strong dislikes. While every meal isn’t a complete hit, the arrangement works well for them, and they have adapted their eating styles to meet somewhere in the middle. They also have children, who sometimes take over some of the cooking as well.
Did you have to merge your eating habits?
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog, caring for little ones in the Baby Blog and now relationships in the Marriage Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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