Beast Mode: I Want a Dog, but My Husband Refuses. Should I Just Do It?

[minoanmiss]

I consider myself a feminist, and the idea that I need his permission really, really irks me.

My husband and I have been together for 20 years. I grew up with a menagerie of pets, and he didn’t have any. (His mother hates animals.) Today we have two cats, though I desperately want a dog. We both work full time, but I permanently work from home so I would provide 100 percent of the care (as I do for the cats—I don’t mind; I’m the animal caretaker). He’s ambivalent about the cats, but he says we can absolutely not get a dog. He says they are too messy, smelly, and expensive, and he gets angry when I bring it up. But really … those are not good reasons to me to not adopt a dog! We have a huge property and both work in the tech industry, where we make good salaries. I’ve wanted a dog for 20 years and have never been able to get one, but Hubby spends freely on his incredibly expensive hobby. Is my marriage doomed? Is there any way to convince him to “let” me get a dog? (By the way, I know pets are generally a family decision that should be unanimous, but I consider myself a modern feminist, and the idea that I need my husband’s permission for anything really, really irks me.)

Is there any hope? I want a dog in my life, and I’d like to keep my husband too. My family says I should just get the dog and let the chips fall where they may. Please help me convince him that a dog is not the end of the world!

—Living in a Dog-Less Marriage

Dear Living in a Dog-Less Marriage,

Humans didn’t always like dogs. According to one widely believed theory, history’s greatest friendship began thousands of years ago when packs of relatively docile wolves began loitering near hunter-gatherer camps to nosh on the leftovers and trash. These proto-pups realized this strategy was far easier than hunting, and so the species began its millennia-long effort to enter our good graces. Wolves evolved into dogs, and nature’s supreme suck-ups now live inside our houses and eat specially formulated food that we invented just for them. Playing the long game worked.

Nevertheless, some Homo sapiens, like your husband, have managed to resist dogs’ charm offensive. You may find it annoying, but you should be happy he’s doing this now and not thousands of years ago. If he had been one of those hunter-gatherers hanging around the campfire, he might have chased away those affable wolves and changed the course of human and canine history forever. Who knows, we could all be snuggling with our domesticated possums right now.

Your husband could become enchanted by the dog, but the opposite response is also possible.

I sympathize with your frustrations. You feel you are being denied something we both believe is great. The companionship that a pooch provides is special, and it’s hard for dog lovers to understand why some people wouldn’t want that in their lives. Hell, even the Grinch had a dog. But I don’t think your husband is a petty monster who lives in a cave and steals presents from the little wormlike mutants in Whoville. (Unless that’s the expensive hobby you allude to in your email.) Getting a dog is a big deal, and I imagine he’s more concerned about the general threat of change than the animal itself.

The “get a dog and let the chips fall where they may” strategy is pretty common. There’s even an entire Reddit page dedicated to dads who were once reluctant to get pets but are now helpless puddles of doting adoration. It’s insanely cute! Still, it’s a risky tack to take. A dog should be a source of joy, not resentment. You have the right to make this decision yourself, but the pup is going to have to live with everyone in your household no matter what. If this is going to drive a wedge between you and your husband, please think hard about that possibility—and about the furry wedge’s own well-being before you do it.

Your husband could become enchanted by the dog and turn into one of those adorable Reddit dads. But the opposite response is also possible. What matters most is that you are 100 percent confident that you can keep and care for the dog no matter the situation—and that any situation, including one that damages your marriage—is worth it.

You want me to convince your husband that getting a dog won’t be the end of the world, but I can’t do that. Only a dog can help accomplish this, which brings us to a potential solution. Shelters and rescue agencies are always looking for families to foster their animals. It’s still a lot of responsibility, but it might be easier to persuade your husband to give this a try because it is by definition temporary. (Though it can become permanent if you want it to be.) Think of it as a compromise with an option to convince.

This is not the simplest answer, especially with children or cats (make sure the shelter knows about them, by the way!). But at the very least, it’s a great way to help animals in need. With any luck, one of them might be able to turn your husband into a gushing dog lover, just like the rest of us.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Huh. You think -- well, I can't talk about what others think, but you think I think she's selfish because she wants a dog? No, I don't. I think she's selfish because she wants justification to bring a dog into her and her husband's shared home despite his express wish not to live with a dog. And I reacted strongly because I can definitely imagine how I'd feel if the people I live with brought a dog home one day. I would not be happy.

[staranise]

You're not the only one coming out against the LW. Several people below you have talked about having no sympathy for the LW. That makes it pretty natural to come back with a tack that is sympathetic to the LW.

If you take the dog off the table, there's still a relationship dynamic of "I feel like he gets everything he wants and my needs are constantly being stifled", and the LW may want a way to fix that other than divorcing the dude and adopting a labrador.

[minoanmiss]

... but the dog is pretty much the whole issue; a discussion about any hobby that doesn't involve a living, shedding, bounding, pooping creature is a very different discussion. Discussing "I feel like he gets everything he wants and my needs are constantly being stifled" is very different than discussing "how can I force him to love a dog he says he doesn't want?"

This reminds me of a fight a friend of mine and I had over a movie that I liked despite its sexism and she hated because of its sexism. We had a fight over it because she thought, aghast, that I approved of its sexism, and I flailed around until I could get across that I liked the universe and could see ways it wouldn't have to be as sexist as portrayed. You and beable find her desire to have a dog reasonable and more, so you're seeing those of us who disagree with her as disagreeing with her desire to have a dog, as disagreeing with the concept of dogs as good things. But meanwhile, I know I personally don't want to live with a dog and I have gotten grief from people over that, and it seems that there are some other commenters here who are pretty sure they'd be displeased if someone forced them to live with a dog, so from what I can see what we disagree with the LW on is not her liking of dogs or her wanting equality in her marriage, but her plan to somehow convince or even force her husband to live with a dog.

[staranise]

No, I disagree with your perception of my position. Honestly, I'm not even a dog person.

I'm not actually seeing this as a discussion about the dog. I frequently find that people who aren't good at emotions don't frame their problems in emotional terms; they find a concrete surrogate. I'm reading this as fundamentally emotional; "I want something my husband won't let me have, and I feel this is unfair." In clinical terms, there is the "presenting problem", the thing the person says it is about, and then there's the actual problem.

So if the question is "Dog or no?" none of the answers really solve the problem. The real problem is hovering around, "How much should my feelings of happiness or unhappiness matter to my husband? How much should his feelings of happiness or unhappiness matter to me? Is it fair to devolve into this tit-for-tat squabble where I make him miserable and justify it by saying he made me miserable first?"

In which case "No dog" kind of works out to... "Just live with being unhappy and be the bigger person." "Yes dog" is like... "Make him miserable too."

So I think a bigger answer should be plucking out things like "Okay yeah, it is messed up that there's tons of money to spend on stuff he wants but not on stuff you want" and "just how angry is "angry"? and hell, maybe even "If it's been 20 years and this is still making your miserable, it's okay to divorce someone for not being a pet person." Not some middle-of-the-road stuff about "Well I'm not saying 'get a dog' but what if you did just get a dog..."

[torachan]

We don't actually know that the husband spends a lot on his hobbies and the LW never gets to spend money on herself. She only brings it up in terms of the dog, which since it is a living being is not something one person in a household can just unilateraly decide they want to spend their money on. It's not an equal situation and we know nothing about how she spends her money in other regards.

[staranise]

He says, "Hubby spends freely on his incredibly expensive hobby" and one of his big reasons not to get a dog is, "It's too expensive." Which really comes across to me as, "I am 'not allowed' to spend money on stuff I like but he is."

[torachan]

Sure, it's a possibility. But we don't actually know, because the only thing the LW says she wants to spend money on is a dog. Which is not the same as a hobby.

[minoanmiss]

I thought he might have been throwing out reasons and trying to see if one would stick, because his "I don't want to live with a dog" was insufficient to convince the LW. OTOH, comparing that to his expensive hobby does make the "a dog's too expensive" bit at least somewhat hypocritical, and of course there are many ways to interpret/provide frameworks for what people say.

[minoanmiss]

Oh, ok. I see this as a discussion about the dog, you see it on a whole other level. That makes sense. I would agree with you on the overarching discussion you describe, but that's not what I see in this particular letter. I think everyone here agrees that people shouldn't be forced to live with dogs, though, right?

[lilysea]

I think everyone here agrees that people shouldn't be forced to live with dogs, though, right?

Agreed with certain specific exceptions for service dogs:

for example

sibling under 18 needs a guide dog; other sibling under 18 dislikes dogs, both siblings live in the same house with parents.

or college dormitory room mate needs a guide dog; other college room-mate dislikes dogs but is not allergic. [Although ideally the college should try to find a room mate who does not dislike dogs]

[minoanmiss]

Well, yes. I should have said so explicitly.

[minoanmiss]

Appended to my previous reply, or rather, what I should have said as well if I hadn't been in a rush:

I find the further level that you elucidated to be really interesting, as that is a common and awful dynamic in our society, but I don't think those of us who are saying we're unsympathetic to the LW are saying "she should shut up about feeling unfulfilled in her marriage" or "it's wrong to want a dog", but instead are saying, "don't spring a dog on someone who doesn't want a dog, we disagree with you that doing so is justified or would have a good outcome." Our lack of sympathy is only concerning that one question.

There is potentially a lot of stuff about gender dynamics, marriage, equality, etc, to be discussed as another thread, but for me, and for several of the commenters here I think, my opinion on this situation only concerns whether or not to get the dog.

[shirou]

I sympathize with you on the argument with your friend. People seem to naturally make issues bipolar, for or against, and taking a third position is incredibly difficult. Whenever I try it, invariably somebody conflates my position with one of the poles.

FWIW I agree with everything you've said here. I also did not read the bit about the husband's spending as the central issue since it's half a sentence, which the LW throws on the mounting heap of reasons why she should be able to trample an important boundary. If there is an imbalance in LW and husband's financial freedom, that's a significant but separate problem from the dog.

[minoanmiss]

Oh goodness, thanks. :)

[cereta]

But he doesn't get everything he wants. It seems pretty clear that he didn't want pets period, and lo, they have two cats.

The problem here is similar to the question of having kids. It's a zero sum game. You either have pets or you don't. I honestly wonder what, if any, conversations they had about this before they got married.

I sympathize with her desire for something she can't have. Who doesn't? There's a reason "Story of an Hour" often strikes a chord with women that it doesn't with men. But the way she's painting this, as it being so unfair that he doesn't want something living in their house, something she's known since they married he doesn't like, sets my teeth on edge, in no small part because I don't like being around dogs, and I've dealt with the, "but everyone loves dogs!" crowd before. If my spouse came home one day with a dog on the theory that I'd warm up to it, I'd be furious. I wouldn't even bring home a third kitten without his agreement, and we both adore cats.