Relationships with Non-raw

I hope this is posted on the right board, if not please let me know where I should go.

I posted a while back on the health board about my boyfriend who took on a 100% raw diet in the past year and lost a frightening amount of weight. Thankfully, he is slowly, very slowly, gaining weight back and eating more regularly!!! Every meal and ounce of muscle gained is a victory in my book. :-)

My question is to those of you who have been raw for a while and are with non-raw significant others.

I am not raw. I eat anywhere from 50-80% raw depending on how I feel and the season (summer is higher), and the remainder of my diet is organic whole foods. I do eat fish/chicken/red meat a few times a year, so i can’t call myself a vegetarian in good conscience. I have no interest in going 100% raw or 100% vegan/vegetarian. I like variety and variety likes me!

I’m concerned about where our relationship (over two years together) is heading. Food and exploring spirituality is now the center of his life. This is all well, but I am getting tossed to the side. When I voice my concerns, the answer is always the same: this is my life now. I want to be supportive by all means, but I feel wounded. I also am having fear issues…that this diet will move him away from me (I have heard many raw foodists say that non-raw people become repulsive). I can say that since going raw, his desire to be intimate with me has lessened. He used to be “rabid” for lack of a better word, and now, I feel like I’m more a friend than anything. He has even told me that the fact that I do not share his enthusiasm and interests is difficult for him. He feels like we have nothing left to talk about. I guess I don’t understand. I support his decisions, but we have always had diverse interests. I am a painfully moderate person by nature. He is not. We used to be able to talk about nothing and enjoy ourselves. Now that doesn’t seem to be enough for him. (Of course, we talked/talk about real things too! I’m just making the point that simply sharing time and our minds with each other apart from an agenda used to be enjoyable). He is caught up in a way of thinking, a philosophy, that puts the self before all others…and emphasizes that what feels good is good and vice versa (I recognize that this is not a raw thing). I can understand that to a degree, but I was raised from the point of view that while you love yourself and treat your body as a temple, you also put your loved ones on the same plane and at times a higher plane. We are each other’s keepers. Life does not always feel good, and we all face troubles that require us to struggle, fight, work things out, and in the end it is all worth it. He flatly disagrees. If this were a sentiment I could trace, I would be less frightened. But before all this, he treated me better than any man I’d ever known.

For those of you who have experienced this transition to raw while being with a, non-raw person, please shed some light on what I can do to support our relationship and make it stronger and more deeply intimate. I’m especially curious about those of you who had “spiritul awakenings” during this time. I do not want to walk away. I love him. I just want to understand and move us back to a solid foundation, while still respecting his lifestyle choices.

Comments

  • SuasoriaSuasoria Raw Newbie

    If I recall your previous posts, it was fairly clear that he has an eating disorder or at least some unhealthy and obsessive behaviors.

    A spiritual seeker who is constantly in a state of inner struggle and striving can also show this kind of obsessive behavior, jumping from Indian Guru to Sufi Saint to New Age Healer. You seem to have managed the obsessive food behavior so perhaps the same techniques will work with these new challenges?

    But I’m afraid what follows isn’t really a positive thought.

    He’s changed, and one of the ways he’s changed is he’s become very selfish. He’s no longer treating you well, so the fact that he once did is growing irrelevant. You’re already losing him, and that’s okay, because he’s no longer the person he was when he cared about you. He’s told you “this is my life now.” There’s no “our life” and there’s no “you and this are my life.”

    My DH has also been a “seeker” for ten years or so (not related to diet) but he’s conscious that his spiritual path helps him become a better friend, partner, husband, lover, human being. This seems to be lost on your man somehow. What the heck is he in it for, if it’s not to be a better, more compassionate, loving person?

  • zinfandelzinfandel Raw Newbie

    For someone who becomes very deeply involved in spirituality, it is very important they feel supported, not just tolerated. I am having difficulty w. my non-raw boyfriend. I feel kind of lonely with respect to cooking (or lack or it), and I also feel like he doesn’t accept or acknowledge the depth of some of my feelings. Feelings on love and life and god.

    He may be being selfish, it’s hard to tell from this post though I wouldn’t rule it out.

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