I am not the original poster. This is a repost of a situation written by another Redditor.

Originally written by u/iateababyduck in r/relationships

Me [24M] with my GF [23 F] together for 5 years. She is losing her mind because I ate balut (developing duck egg)

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3awu3g/me_24m_with_my_gf_23_f_together_for_5_years_she/

I've been with her quite a while and our relationship is excellent IMO. This is the biggest issue in our relationship yet.

I am Vietnamese, she is not. I usually eat balut every so often - it's not a weird food for other Southeast Asian countries either. For those that don't know, it's a developing duck egg (or fertilized duck egg). Basically, you are eating an unborn baby duck and whatever else is in the egg. Sounds weird, but I like it.

My GF is not vegetarian, hasn't expressed her desire to be so either. Everytime I've had balut, it's been as a snack at my family's house. She just hasn't been there every time we eat it as a family. Yesterday was the first time, when we visited my parent's house. My mom brings out the eggs, GF thinks it's just boiled egg, I peel it for her and freaks out when we tell her what it is.

She's absolutely PISSED at me, as if I committed the worst sin in the world. She compared it to eating dog. A big no-no in America, but present in SEA. I've had dog before (without my knowledge), and while I didn't enjoy the feeling, as I love dogs, I didn't panic like she did. Either way, she didn't eat any but is appalled as me eating it. My parents didn't react - they just kept eating (I don't think they care).

I'm very serious when I say she's appalled and upset at me. She says things like she can't believe I'd do such a thing, that I'm horrible for "supporting the dead-baby market," and I've stayed calm as best as I can, trying to calm her down as well, but a day later, she is still upset at me.

I have no idea how to handle this situation. Please give insight.

TL;DR: I ate balut, my girlfriend lost her shit. I'm worried it may actually lead to something VERY bad if I don't handle it correctly. Please help me CALM HER DOWN.

EDIT: Clarification. I don't care if she likes or hate it. I don't feel offended for my culture. I have no issue with it. I DO have an issue with her making me out to be the devil and not calmly discussing this with me.

^ Please stop telling me to be offended for my culture it's just a food no one in my family is considering her "culturally intolerant" okay thanks sorry

IMPORTANT EDIT: So just some more context for people:

1. This happened two days ago. We're still not on speaking terms. I have been giving her space at many people's request, with very few texts along the lines of "good night - talk to me whenever you're ready" and etc but I HAVE contacted her to speak to me. I have no idea where she truly stands on the issue.
2. I have NO issue with her disliking the food. It's a discernible baby duckling and it looks gross and I'm aware. She is allowed to hate it as much as she wants and I absolutely do not blame her for her revulsion, not ONE tiny bit. I DO have a very large issue for what she called me/her yelling at me, even if it were in a fit of rage. I don't blame her for being upset, either, as I didn't give her enough fair warning.
3. The DETAILS of what happened: My mom brings out the eggs, I grab one for her and as I'm peeling the egg, I say "by the way, this is balut - there's a baby duck" and she doesn't really react. I peel it all the way, and she looks at me with a very "what the fuck?" look on her face. I tell her right away she doesn't have to eat it, so she goes and chills to watch TV while I just snack with my family (she's still like 5 feet away since the TV is right there). THEN when I'm done, 10 minutes later, we go into my room and she's yelling at me like I killed the baby with my bare hands. She never touched the egg, if that matters.

Also TIL lamb is baby sheep.

EDIT TWO: [11AM CST] She's finally contacted me, saying she's OK now, but has to work so we'll be talking tonight. I can't text her on the job. I'm just going find a private place to speak with her. I texted her if she's still upset about the food or mad at me - no response so far.

EDIT THREE: She's off work early. We'll talk. I'll add an updated post once this gets off front page.

FINAL EDIT: There is an update that I have to wait to post due to rules. Not meant as a teaser but I feel somewhat numb. I'll upload it asap.

Relevant Comments:

• She saw the duckling and freaked out.
• It's disappointing but she's accepted pretty much all other aspects of my culture, so I'm not hurt.
• I don't think she's racist. i just think she doesn't approve of me eating dead baby animals.
• I hardly warned her. All I said was "oh by the way, this is balut (which she didn't know the definition of at the time)." Honest to god, I didn't think she'd react like this.
• A lot of people are agreeing that she's projecting on something else but I really cannot think of exactly what. But I'm not disagreeing.
• This is the first argument she's acted like this. We have definitely had other legitimate arguments and she has always been 95% rational, 5% emotional. We've been doing very fine up until this issue. "Legitimate" arguments include what she can/can't do in my home, finances, the future, etc.
• Just to add, she is not a stranger to "strange foods." Being together for 5 years, you bet we've taken her to dim sum - and many times. She's had tripe and she loves it. It's "eh" to chicken feet - but she knows what it is and knows its normal for many people. So I can't say it's culture shock - she's been seeing my culture for 5 years now.

[UPDATE] Me [24M] with my GF [23 F] together for 5 years. She is losing her mind because I ate balut (developing duck egg)

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3b12q0/update_me_24m_with_my_gf_23_f_together_for_5/

MODS: I posted this right after the original went off front page as per the rules but I can't do anything if the original pops back up to front page.

Original: Link TL;DR: I ate balut, she had a freak out, yelled at me and called me things like "baby killer", she doesn't speak to me for two days, I asked for help in this sub because she has NEVER acted this way before in any situation.

I finally spoke to my girlfriend. Here's everything that happened.

She got off work early because someone wasn't needed and asked to be the one to leave. We met up at my apartment, hug, and sit down. She does apologize first for how she acted and what she said, to my relief. I briefly told her I'd really not like to hear her call me those things regardless of the situation, and she agreed that she was out of line.

However, we moved on to the "why she acted the way she did" because I needed to know. She talked first. She asked for my sympathy, and I did, because I knew this was extremely odd of her to act out like this during a disagreement. We've disagreed before, but she's NEVER yelled at me like that or called me disgusting names even in previous arguments.

EDIT: I'm editing this paragraph because I did a terrible job at illustrating the whole abortion thing. Essentially GF found out her friend was pregnant after coming to her. Her friend asks GF what to do and GF says she should keep it. In the end, her friend wants to have an abortion. GF says she supports this. Overall my GF wishes her friend didn't have the abortion but continued to support her wholeheartedly.

Which brings me to find out she's at risk of infertility. But this is hard to talk about because she needs a followup appointment with her doctor before anything can be said. I won't discuss the specifics. I think it's still VERY possible that the infertility will not be a future problem. But the "risk" is there from my GF's health issue.

Back to the abortion issue, she was touchy because she was upset her friends situation allowed for a child and she decided not to go through with it. In the end, this just made her sadder at her infertility and continues to cry over how unfair life is.

At this point, I'm at a complete loss but am finally understanding why she freaked out at me. She saw the dead baby duckling inside the egg and lost her cool because 1) her friend is having an abortion instead of a child in the face of 2) her possible infertility. I'm at a complete fucking loss right now I don't even know what's going on anymore. This supposedly explains the "baby-killer" comment. Some of the comments are still not directly explained ("I'm supporting the dead baby market?") but I'm just going to pass it since I get the point.

This is so left-field. I didn't expect this at ALL. Apparently she meant to tell me that night what was going on but the balut happened first and she lost it. Talk about a bad coincidence, right...

For the next few hours we're discussing her health problems, trying to get over her friend's issue as there's nothing we can do about it anymore, and now she's completely calmed and we've moved on from that.

I did ask her true feelings on balut though, out of curiosity and when she was in a better mood. This one is a little more ... lighthearted? She says 1) she probably won't ever eat it but has no problem with me eating it. She does think it's weird - but so do lots of people. 2) She definitely did not mean to offend my culture - it was very irrelevant at the point. She stressed she doesn't mean anything against my culture for disliking balut either, which is fine. She talked about how she simply doesn't like how it involves a dead baby, which is too unsettling for her to deal with to eat. She doesn't have strong feelings otherwise, though.

For the next part... I'll mention we're NOT foodists, and pretty ignorant about food (aka we eat what's in front of us, we don't know the history behind it, and probably lack appreciation compared to most people - what's good is good to us). Anyways, I ask her if she can't eat balut, why does she eat lamb and veal? She asks me what I meant. I tell her that lamb is baby sheep and veal is baby cow.

She starts crying (not too hard, though) again. She didn't know. In fact, I actually didn't know until someone told me in the last post, too... so that's that. I asked her if she's going to boycott eating it (we're not ethical eaters). She says she doesn't know. Most likely not. I also told her to stay away from foie gras. She says ok. Also a LOT of people mentioned if she had an aversion to duck - and she said no.

TL;DR: GF admits she was highly irrational, didn't mean to offend my eating habits or my culture, is not being a hypocrite - instead I find out she may be infertile and her friend had an insensitive abortion that offended her and seeing the baby duck set her off big time. All is forgiven, but there's some new shit to deal with.

Also as far as discussions, let's keep it away from what we should do for her infertility/health issues as we are covered.

EDIT: Abortion brigade has arrived. Thank you for down voting comments that didn't even reference the abortion topic and were still constructive.

So some of you guys don't like my word choice. That's fine. Regardless, the situation is that GF's friend wants to abort, GF recently found out she may be infertile so she's not handling it as well as she should, all baby topics are sensitive, therapy is imminent. For those friendly people that don't like how I'm defending her - I mean FFS my girlfriend is going through health problems and infertility, I'm not going to revert the conversation to "Ok so your body is messing up but by the way about your friends abortion lets completely change the topic from you to her ." The issue at hand is her current health, not her political views, and therefore I'm going to focus on what's important.

Some of you guys are just as offended as she is. And to clarify, she and her friend are still on perfect terms. Some of you say GF was an ass for telling the friend not to go through with the abortion, I stress the friend came to her for her opinion and support and surprise: the friend got both. She didn't outright offend her friend and tell her to fuck off with the baby. Plus you guys are mean - GF is possibly infertile, friend gets abortion, GF is upset with jealousy(?). Like, GF is not the first one in that position. She can feel that way. Maybe calling it an insensitive abortion or saying she was offended were the wrong words to use. Way to be rational and pick that apart, though. You guys are sensitive

/u/J-squire put it better than I could've:

I am pro-choice. I think a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body and nobody can tell her what to do. I still think abortions are sad and it's a shame that there isn't a more reliable method of birth control that is readily available to any woman who wants it. AND I think that women who cavalierly disregard birth control to use abortions as a backup method are not good people.It doesn't sound like she was cruel to her friend, she just had a personal reaction to hearing a story. She thinks she's infertile and she's watching a pregnant woman stop what she wants so badly. She should probably talk to someone about what she's going through, but I don't think she's somehow not pro-choice because an abortion upset her.I'm pro-free speech, that doesn't mean I need to love everything that everyone says all the time. You can be pro-choice but still think someone made the wrong choice

Another edit: So people don't like how I said it was an insensitive abortion and she was offended. Clearly very poor word choice on my part. She relevance is that GF is very upset at this situation, a very "life just sucks and isn't fair' perspective, as her friend is having what she may not ever have - a baby. So her friend's situation is relevant to her just because it sucks to have it in-her-face like that. She is not speaking poorly of her friend, she and her friend are on great terms, and she is still supporting her friend through the whole ordeal (that already passed). Additionally, please stop assuming my girlfriend forced and shoved her opinion down the friend's throat because she has to be a bitch if she spoke her opinion. After speaking with GF more, yes the friend did specifically ask for her opinion about what she shouuld do. In the end, she decided an abortion was better suited. GF says that's absolutely fine. You guys are so sensitiiiiiive

​

Relevant Comments:

• We addressed the issue and agreed she was completely out of line. I had a serious issue and it's been resolved and given that she has never acted in this manner before, and given the situation, I don't feel too hesitant to let it slide this one time. I'm still acknowledging it wasn't okay.
• She told me that after her little episode, she didn't respond out of embarrassment (which wasn't a good reason) and to deal with her current issue at hand (infertility) privately - it wasn't because she was still seething with anger.
• People are assuming GF was being an ass to friend about the abortion - the assumption is running rampant and is clearly seen in a lot of the comments. GF is in a "life just sucks" mood to be it curtly and it just sucks seeing a good friend have what you can't and she expressed it to me. And people are focusing on the "she's literally the worst person in the world for thinking that way" train.
• Maybe I'm oversympathizing with her but she's going through an infertility crisis her friend seems to treat abortion with abandon I try to feed her dead babies = breakdown. It's not the worst logic out there. I'll just stress the infertility issue is a huge, huge, huge deal.