Man branded 'abusive' for secretly switching vegan girlfriend's soy milk for dairy

A man has been met with fury after admitting he tricked his vegan girlfriend into drinking dairy milk.

In a now-deleted Reddit thread, the 24-year-old explained to fellow users his girlfriend, 26, follows an animal-free diet because it “cleared up her skin”.

Frustrated by the impact this had on their mealtimes, the man decided to unwittingly experiment on his girlfriend by switching her soya milk for a dairy version.

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“She’s a great cook but sometimes a man just needs some mac and cheese with cut up hot dogs,” he reasoned.

“So I thought I would prove to her that the whole “dairy gives me acne” thing is in her head.”

He explains how he switched his girlfriend’s soy creamer – a product used as a substitute for dairy milk – for his standard dairy version, pouring the dairy into the soy container so she wouldn’t notice.

However, his plot came unstuck when his girlfriend started developing acne again, compelling her to wear makeup “both in and out of the house” in order to cover up.

“Last night I saw her barefaced for the first time in a while and it is BAD. Like insects about to hatch out of her face bad,” he added.

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While the man admitted he felt “bad” about the incident, he tried to justify his actions by claiming: “I was doing it for her own good!”.

However, Reddit users weren’t buying the man’s explanation, with several branded him “abusive” for what he did.

One wrote: What you did was abuse. If you're TRULY sorry and TRULY care about your girlfriend, you'll come clean and let her make the decision of whether you deEarserve forgiveness and whether she wants to stay with you.”

Another added: “This is incredibly abusive behaviour. You have NO right whatsoever to decide you know what's better for her health than she does.”

Several people deemed this behaviour to be an example of “gaslighting”.

“This is super abusive. It's gaslighting,” one person commented.

“You are a manipulative gaslighting dick who would rather be right than honest,” another user wrote.

Gaslighting is a dangerous form of control and manipulation in a relationship and should be counted as a form of emotional abuse, matrimonial consultant and relationship expert Sheela Mackintosh-Stewart told Yahoo UK last year.

Earlier this year, a woman sparked another important conversation about emotional abuse after her powerful rejection letter to an employer went viral.