Show caption ‘There was a lot of loss in your letter for both of you.’ Illustration: Lo Cole/The Guardian Ask Annalisa Barbieri My partner has turned vegan and I am seething about it You may not want to cook or eat together, but let him know how you feel without making his choices seem invalid, says Annalisa Barbieri Annalisa Barbieri Fri 1 Feb 2019 15.00 GMT Share on Facebook

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My partner of 20 years decided last year that he wanted to try a vegan diet. He had just turned 50 and had suffered the loss of his estranged father, so he had reasons enough to evaluate his life. There are worse problems than a vegan partner, but I am not handling it well. I go through periods of avoiding eating and cooking with him. I don’t want to offend him, and I don’t want him to offend me. I don’t believe veganism is a good choice for personal or planetary health, and I feel healthier on a low-carb diet; we both realise we are not going to persuade each other to change diets.

He has lost lots of weight and looks great, and is happy with his choice. But I feel sad that he may never cook another delicious chicken dinner for me, and I am seething underneath that he immerses himself in vegan “propaganda” and has withdrawn from the family culinary traditions. To be fair, I lack a love for beans and avoid starch, so he isn’t left with much choice except withdrawal.

Following his bereavement and period of grieving, he hasn’t been as easy to live with, and we are also dealing with the ups and downs of our teenage children. I really miss connecting over a good dinner and wish he would go back to being an omnivore.

Food is incredibly emotive and can unite and divide. It can therefore be tricky if family members eat different foods, but it’s usually a logistical problem. No less an issue, but this also seems emotional and personal. It’s almost as if you don’t know who your husband is any more. I am presuming he will no longer prepare any food that is not vegan. What do the children eat? Does this put the burden of cooking on to you?

There was a lot of loss in your letter for both of you. Your partner’s father has died and, while the death of an estranged parent hardly affects some, with others it can go deep. This can be because, with the demise of that parent goes any hope of ever repairing the relationship. The sadness some adult children feel in these situations can take them by surprise.

In what ways wasn’t your husband “as easy to live with” after his father’s death? I also noted you said “period of grieving”, as if you feel it should be a finite amount of time – it’s not.

And then there’s you; you feel you’ve lost your husband and some of the things you shared, and that must be hard for you. I understand about the communion in cooking and eating together, but you seem to see his veganism as an assault on your relationship, and you’ve both withdrawn. Were things really OK before this, for both of you? It sounds as if he is determined to do this, but you sound as if you are determined to hate it, and that tells me more about your relationship than your shopping list.

When people aren’t happy, they tend to look for differences between them to justify their unhappiness, and ignore what unites them; when happy, they celebrate the similarities and ignore areas of conflict. What you both need to do is look at where your likes and interests intersect, however vanishingly small that feels, and concentrate on expanding these things.

This is a seismic shift for you in the kitchen, but veganism isn’t – or doesn’t have to be – all starch and beans. There are some amazing cookbooks now, with recipes that even hardened meat-eaters find exciting, which could give you some culinary crossover.

But before you get there: food is just one aspect of your relationship. I wonder if your husband discussed this with you, or just did it and you feel left behind. How do you communicate usually? Is this the last straw, or a new way of him behaving? What else do you have in common? What are his attributes? You mentioned nothing else about him.

You may not feel you can cook or eat together at the moment, but can you start a conversation that lets him know how you feel, without making his choices feel invalid and small? In the interests of moving forward, you may need to be more open-minded about his decisions. The use of the word “propaganda” was rather telling: there is a lot of propaganda about all aspects of consumerism.

Any readers who have experience of this, do write in or post about how you bridged this gap: are there any cookbooks you recommend?.

• Send your problem to annalisa.barbieri@mac.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.