So I (22F) and my girlfriend (20F) moved in together last year. We are both vegan and drink a lot of coffee with plant milk. There used to be only one brand we both enjoyed in coffee and it was rather expensive so she came up with the idea of buying a plant milk machine to make our own. I was on board with the idea. fast forward christmas: her mom gifts us said machine. i try it out at home and struggle, the milk always tastes watery. She tries it too and after a few tries it becomes edible, but has a weird aftertaste that I do not enjoy. She seems to be okay with it. For me however, it kind of ruied my morning coffee and cereal. We started buying the old milk again for everything but baking and cooking (all the stuff where it doesnt make a difference) And then we even found a cheaper alternative (it’s only half the price).
So we started buying that. Now a few days ago we ran out of the cheaper stuff unexpectedly and ended up buying the more expensive one because the store was out of the cheaper milk. Today I get up, have coffee and prepare a cereal with the milk we bought. She becomes irritated and suggests I use the self-made milk. I tell her it doesnt taste good. She’s like "even in cereal? I feel like there is so much milk going into cereal" and I’m like " yeah but I can’t change my taste buds". I got to the fridge nonetheless and look for the other milk, finding there is none. I tell her there is none and I’m not gonna make a new load right now. She gets upset. I ask her what’s going on and she reluctantly tells me that SHE would make new milk if she was in my position. I get upset and tell her that I didn’t expect that machine to make my life worse instead of better. I don’t understand the big deal about milk. I have one thing I enjoy in the morning and it is drinking coffee and eating cereal that actually tasts good. I feel that she’s always trying to min-max everyything, which can be great but some things are overdoing it, in my opinion. She ended up crying. We didn’t argue throwing names or getting louder, she just gets upset when someone is angry because she doesnt like confrontations. I ended up not comforting her for the first time in our relationship.
I think I might be the asshole because I could just throw my comfort out of the window, instead of having this stupid argument, maybe I should also care about our finances more in that regard, but I just do not feel like it’s a lot of money for the new milk. I’m just tired of optimizing everything sometimes, life is already difficult enough.
Am I the asshole?
(PS: This is such a stupid argument so kudos to anyone who reads this xD)
(PPS: If you’re gonna just make vegan jokes and tell me to just drink normal milk, go do something more useful with your life)
EDIT: We talked again and she told me that she feels like I abandoned the project of making hommade milk and left it for her to think about. It’s true that I didn’t make milk often and gave up on it after a few tries, I didn’t now what to change and I also didn’t have the energy to think about it but I will probably try to make some again.
“I could just throw my comfort out the window, instead of having this stupid argument”.
While understandable, this is genuinely not a good mindset. It leads to a dynamic where all your partner has to do is get upset and then she’ll get her way.
Also why should you comfort her? She was being rude and obnoxious and then gets upset because she doesn’t get her way. Sounds like a child throwing a tantrum.
You’re NTA. Your tastes are your own, no one gets to tell you what you should like.
I do wonder where the packaged milk went. Kind of funny that it disappeared when you were coincidentally out of the homemade stuf.
>she just gets upset when someone is angry because she doesnt like confrontations.
Then maybe she shouldn’t provoke a disagreement over something so silly.
I believe OP was saying that they went to look for the homemade milk and there was none, and they weren’t about to make a new batch.
Like, they were willing to drink the crappy milk to shut her up, but when they realized there wasn’t any left they understandably didn’t want to make more because they didn’t want to drink it in the first place, they just didn’t want an argument. But they ended up getting one anyway. – I assume the prepackaged milk was still in there.
NTA – just… buy two milks. label them. protect the peace.
NTA. You tried it and don’t like it for certain things. You found a cheaper alternative too. If she cared so much she’d be making it and having it.
You should not co mingle funds. Keep separate accounts. As long as you’re paying your fair share, she can’t complain what you buy for your coffee.
Is her needing comfort a tactic to get you to bend and comply with her? Because if so, that’s so toxic. You’re allowed to not follow her every command. If she can’t handle that then therapy or rethinking the dynamic should be in order.
I genuinely don’t think she weaponizes crying, she’s just very sensetive, always has been. One time she couln’t find me in a crowd at a protest and threw herself in my arms crying. Another time she accidentally spilled soup and cried. She’s just built close to the water I guess.
Additionally to the money issue she also mentioned that milk cartons are bad for the environment.. but I’m not taking that seriously while billionaires still fly in private jets
I love that, “built close to water”. That’s so cute!
Nta. If you honestly tried to get the machine to work and it doesn’t work for you there is nothing wrong with that. You found a way to use it that does work. Her getting upset is also fine but to fight/needing comfort over it might be hiding a bigger issue that needs to be figured out.
How much plant milk are you guys making?…
Anyway, NTA. However many cents you’re saving probably isn’t worth the ruined morning brew.
>because I could just throw my comfort out of the window, instead of having this stupid argument
Or -as an alternative- she could also grow up and not throw a tantrum over your food preference. NTA but this is truly really dumb. She likes what she likes, you like what you like, her argueing and crying over you preferring premade milk is just odd.
NTA. If it doesn’t taste good to you it doesn’t taste good to you.
You may want to keep working on it though because a lot of prepackaged nondairy milk is expensive and contains a lot of sugar.
What nut(s) are you using? If it’s almonds, are you for sure removing all of the skin? The skins are very bitter.
NTA. She’s asking you to live exactly how she does. That’s not reasonable. She’s not a major AH, just a little one. I bet you can get to the bottom of why she’s so emotional over you not liking homemade vegan milk.
I’m guessing the machine was expensive & she’s regretting “wasting” her Christmas present on it.
She says that she feels left alone with this project. Thank you for the comment btw, it’s a really empathetic one 🙂
NTA – You tried, but you can’t really force-change what you like. Some things we can adapt to, some things we can’t.
As for her ‘not liking confrontation’, I live with someone like this. They mistake the smallest disagreements/differences for ‘confrontation’, and will end up crying about it, talking about being upset by the ‘argument’ despite there having been no raised voices, and often no one was even angry (Honestly, the rest of us are more baffled than anything).