Finally found an amazing man except for one thing...
PRIN3017 - Oct 19 2017 at 05:43
I am looking for advice about my relationship with my partner. We have been together 12 months, we do not live together, we love each other and I think he is a great person and I can see a future together. However, there is one problem. He has a pet cat which he is completely obsessed with, to the point it is affecting our relationship and making me miserable. The cat is not friendly at all so I can not interact with it as it will hiss or try to bite me. A few examples of my partners behavior include of a night he will insist on leaving the doors open so the cat can come in and out, the problem with this is he has huge swarms of insects at his house and they eat me alive! So I ask him to at least please shut the fly screen doors, he gets upset about this. I have a little dog who grabbed one of his cats toys (a small role of cardboard easily replaced!) I didnt realize what it was and she was playing with it & chewed one end a little, my partner got extremely upset, took it off her storming out of the room! Then on another occasion we had friends visiting and he insisted on bringing his cat in from outside which is fine, but really if it was me I would have got the cat in after our friends left. The cat freaked out at the site of our friends scratched my partner fell to the floor (which was awful) then bolted to the bedroom. My partner then went and got some food for it and gave it to the cat in our bedroom which I didnt realize until we went to bed. The smell was horrible & I was angry because it was completely unnecessary! The cat didn't and wouldn't eat until it calmed down & our friends left & then it would have gone out to where its food is usually kept. I questioned my partner on why he insisted on doing this and his response was the cat always gets fed when he comes in from outside and he got annoyed and shut down. I just do not understand his behavior! I love animals and believe their welfare & care is important but the way he treats this cat is just beyond. I really do not know what to do or how to approach the subject with him. I know there is no way I could move in with him until I figure out a way to do something about the this. Ultimately I just wish he would be a little more relaxed and easy going about his cat and not so completely obsessed with it to the point it is affecting our relationship. Any advice you could please provide would be greatly appreciated, I am completely at a loss.
Agree completely, was about to basically say the same as Susiedqq. And I can see passive-aggressiveness going on in there, too. He *knows* insect bites are a problem to you. He *knows* the cat's constant hostility toward you means it makes you feel uncomfortable too much of the time. Screen doors, schreen schmoors - why on earth hasn't he just more quickly and simply installed a cat-flap? Why not ask you first if you mind that the bedroom's going to reek of cat food? See what I mean?
Yep, he's avoiding having to get both feet into the hot bathwater with you, alright, using the cat as his barrier. He may or may not be aware of this behaviour of his or why. But who cares when it makes you feel you hold LESS VALUE TO HIM THAN A MERE PET! How incredibly insulting. He knows this cat is interfering with the happiness and progress of the relationship; how could he not.
Maybe when he treated you like this you should have yowled, scratched him, and then run and bolted yourself into the one and only bathroom, eh. ;-p
There again, maybe having a cat for company 'saved his life' after his last relationship, to the extent where he thinks keeping the cat sweet is nowadays a matter of emotional survival 'just in case' you end up doing (whatever it was) the same?
Still, the upshot is, quote, 'there is no way you could move in with him *until*' and, if he *is* too dependent on the animal and loath to switch that allegiance 'in case you...', then (duuh) all he's doing is creating a self-fulfilling negative prophesy, isn't he.
What's this 'moving in *WITH HIM*', anyway? Whose idea was it that any moving-in should involve you into his place rather than find a new place that's equally yours?
Is this a mere doorway issue I see before me?