need help finding compromise

I'm hoping someone can help me come up with a compromise to settle a dispute between myself and my husband.

First off I know this is stupid and irrational but I can't help how I feel. He wants a lobster for dinner. I won't let him bring one home and kill it in my kitchen.

My first thought was I'll buy you a frozen one. That doesn't work for him because it's just not the same once it's been frozen. My second thought was when we get our tax money I'll take you to a nice restaurant, you can pick a lobster out of their tank and boom fresh lobster dinner. He's willing to do that but says it doesn't fix the problem because it's not the same as him getting to fix it his way. Also we can't afford to go out to a fancy dinner every time he wants a lobster. So I called my aunt and she's willing to let him cook lobster at her house. That won't work because if he wants to cook it's in the comfort of his own home.

This has devolved into a huge deal to him. He thinks it's stupid I don't want a living feeling being killed in my home. His argument is "You eat meat. What do you think the cow died of old age?" I tell him "No and if in order to have meat we had to bring the cow home and slaughter it we'd be vegetarians." He also thinks it's stupid because I don't have a problem with hunting and he says it's the same thing as buying his lobster at the store and bringing it home to kill. I just don't see it that way. If I go hunting I kill it in the woods, thank it for giving it's life for my sustenance, dress it and take the meat home. I don't subdue it then kill it in my home so it's spirit can be trapped there.

Anybody else been in this argument? Any suggestions?

I can see your side to a point. I don't buy into the spirit being trapped into the house part. What I object to is the lobster being boiled alive! I think that's absolutely CRUEL and horrible. I've never eaten lobster because of that and I probably never will. I also don't hunt -- so I can't see your reasoning between the lobster & the deer.

I probably would object to the lobster being boiled alived in my home too. Why not let him cook in on the grill out in the garage -- he can always put a pan on the grill. It gets plenty hot, so it ought to cook just fine out there and you wouldn't have to watch it and it wouldn't be "in the house." Just a thought.

Hope things work out. Best of luck. Hugs, Lee

If you can get past the trapped spirit part, you could let him cook it in your absence, maybe visit your aunt? If there's no way around the trapped spirit, shouldn't there be a way to free it? Would it help to perform the same ritual that you use when hunting?
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I'm sorry, Idk if I'm helping at all. I'm trying here, but having a hard time understanding. Btw, crustaceans (sp) FREAK ME OUT BIG TIME, so I wouldn't want to be in my home the same time as 1 anyway.
Goodluck, hope you come to an agreement that works for both of you.

Leed thank you and I hadn't even thought of the grill. Yes I think the manner in which it dies is excruciating and that is part of my problem. I just don't like things being killed in my home period. I even make him take bugs outside to be killed.

Trippin thank you for the advice. It's not really the spirit so much as the death and the type of death. I mean being boiled alive is a pretty horrific death. Even if I wasn't home I wouldn't like it. I guess I phrased it badly by saying it's spirit is trapped. Really what's an angry lobster spirit gonna do? I just don't want the aura that violent death puts out in my house.

I'll ask today and see if he'd be content to grill the poor thing. Maybe get his turkey fryer out and see if he can boil it in that way out in the yard when I'm not there.

Im a vegetarian but understand completely what you're saying &, I think, feeling. I have no argument with my hunting friends who respect the animals they hunt & kill & eat. I can't kill animals (have tried) & so chose to become a vegetarian.

The manner of death & the executor's relation to it & to the sacrifice is key, which is I think your point. I'm sorry your husband doesn't get it. You are wise to seek some compromise that doesn't demand understanding.

The grill seems workable, since the heat would be sufficient, but the animal would still need to be killed first. Perhaps electrocution would be the most simple and humane?

Best wishes.

Well, perhaps you can have your husband kill the lobster outside of the home first and then just cook it in the boiling water. Just find out how to kill a lobster as quickly as possible to be humane.

I dont like the boiling of live lobsters either, and I don't like harming living things at all. I cant even be around when my husband cooks lobster. And I could never raise animals for meat either, they would all end up becoming pets with names.

Open Eyes

I don't know how to answer his objections to doing the lobster any way other than the way he wants. I'm not crazy about lobster even though I do enjoy it occasionally, but I have never done the pick your lobster out of the tank thing. The boiling alive just seems kind of cruel.

I probably sound like the world's biggest hypocrite given my user name. We very rarely buy beef because I keep the freezer full of venison. It may sound kind of strange, but the first thing I do when I track a deer and arrive at its side is apologize. I say thank you for the meat to feed my family. Just something I started doing on my own years ago. Not totally sure why I started doing it, but it seems a little like the old Native American practice of thanking the spirit of the animal.

I am not sure why it's a big deal to him, but I am also not sure why it's a big deal to you. And the question I think you have to ask yourself is "Is having a 'kill free zone' worth losing my husband?"

Edited to add:

And instead of just dropping the lobster into boiling water, you could try the "knife between the eyes" kill, which is more like the abattoir's treatment of cattle.

Thank you to everyone that answered. When I got home from work this morning the situation rapidly went to hell in a handbasket. It doesn't happen often but he triggered me and I just came unglued.

I found out there was no compromise to be had because he had to do it his way and I had to be there when he boiled it to prove (his words) "How stupid you're acting and how retarded what you're feeling is. It's a lobster the fact you care about a lobster and how it dies is literally the most idiotic thing ever in the history of stupid things. You'll see that you're wrong and I'm right." I grew up with that crap and I don't have to put up with it in my marriage. My temper is legendary in my family(which is saying something when you consider the source). He's never seen a full blown meltdown before so he's still processing it. I scheduled an appointment with his shrink for both of us. I figure we're going to need someone to mediate the situation once he's over his shock.

Oh goodness, he pushed your boundaries, he is learning a lesson here.

I hope you have calmed down now a bit. I hate the Lobster death by boiling too so I am in your corner.
(((Hugs)))
Open Eyes

I'm on the yours and the lobsters side here too. Im sorry it came to that. Hopefully the app will help. I'm sorry but what your husband said was just.... Not right.

((((((((Raindropvampire)))))))), I am so very sorry that all your focused attempts to keep this very thing from happening were totally roadblocked. What he did to you sounds to me like the emotional/psychological equivalent of throwing you, alive, into boiling water.

This man is abusing you, to the point of torture. Is this personal, or is he Mi? Is is a sadist in other ways?

* hugs galore sitting near *

Roadie

He's schizophrenic and has some other issues as well. He's not really sadistic but he can be verbally abusive. He was raised that you can say anything and as long as it's family or friends well then they have to forgive you. I've been around his family and this is how they all communicate. His family is full of mental illnesses/personality disorders and they all take the "I can't help my behavior I'm crazy!" attitude. They do whatever they want and if someone gets hurt well it's not their fault they can't help it. Right now we are(at his Pdoc's insistence) limiting contact with them. When he was a kid he got hit in the head with a hammer and had a pretty bad concussion from it.(one of hundreds of incidents) His dad threw a hammer because he got mad at something he was working on. The closest D got to an apology was "It's not my fault. I didn't see you. You shouldn't have been standing there." Nothing is ever their fault. It's always your fault because you made them mad, your fault because you were there or it just happened because they're crazy which makes it not their fault because you can't help being mentally ill.

Normally I cut him off at the first hateful thing he says and tell him "D! Think about your words is that how you talk to someone you love?" Usually he'll stop, think, apologize and then nicely rephrase what he was saying but this time.... I don't know. There was no derailing this and his crazy slammed head first into my crazy. Now that I have calmed down I'll try to talk to him in the morning. I want to apologize and explain what triggered me. I also plan on telling him I want to sign up for marriage counseling. We both have issues that we deal with which makes commuinication very tricky sometimes. I just can't believe all this over a lobster dinner. I mean there has to be something underlying it. Something anything deeper than a fricking lobster dinner.

Ok, this has blown into a lot bigger issue, one that I am not qualified to address. First, let me say that this bowhunter is firmly in yours and the lobster's corner. Second, he has blown the issue completely out of all proportion and turned it into a power struggle/battle of wills. There's something going on there way deeper than I am qualified to help with, as much as I would like to find a solution for you.

I am sorry that it seems to have come to what I was afraid it was coming to. Hopefully counseling will help you sort it all out.

Think we found most of the problem. Now just need to make it the Pdoc and hopefully it'll be ok.

Got home this morning apologized for my meltdown and explained what triggered me and why. I dug in and kept asking him was this about something else. I'm a bad person I totally forgot that it's 3 days from his last psychotic break. He's completely freaking out about losing it again and being put in the hospital. Plus he knows I'm completely stressed right now and worries that if he has another episode I'll leave. I tried to explain that last year he wasn't on meds and wasn't in regular therapy. Plus within 28 days we had to take my great uncle off life support, my aunt's husband was murdered, D had a huge blow-up with his sister, our car broke down, my mom had a slight mental break down and he and my brother were going at each other like rabid wolverines. That's a lot of stress and I personally think it led to his psychotic break. Right now he's asleep out in our car He wanted to come to work with me but at midnight I have to lock the doors and no one else can be in here. So he sat with me until 12, then took his night meds and went to lay down.

I feel so bad that I forgot about last year. He was in a coma for 5 days from all the crap he took. Then they kept him for another 23 until they were sure he was ok to be out. I'm a bad wife

Not, a bad wife, just trying to make it through life with a few more challenges than most people, just like the rest of us here. Hang in there.