Jealous of the cat

[conuly]

DEAR ABBY: My husband loves our cat too much. He buys Miss Kitty special treats, pets her, talks nicely to her, plants quick kisses on the top of her head and lets her sit on his lap while he watches TV for hours. It's like I'm nonexistent. I wish he would be that nice to me.

He's a good provider and, when we are away from the house, I have his full attention. I'm resenting this queen of our home. What should I do? I'd like to take her back to the animal shelter. It was my sorry idea to adopt her. -- IN SECOND PLACE

DEAR SECOND PLACE: My first suggestion is to find reasons to spend more time with your husband away from the house. The second would be to adopt a dog. And if you do, make sure YOU are the one who feeds and walks it, unless your husband has such an affinity for pets that adopting another one isn't worth the risk.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearabby/s-2357057

Comments

[conuly]

The letter isn't that interesting, and Abby's advice sucks, but I thought we'd get a better quality of comment than over at arcamax and uexpress where it's all "you selfish narcisstic self absorbed witch, you should be returned to the shelter, be grateful he's not seeing prostitutes".

Like, obviously the problem here isn't that her husband loves their pet cat, the problem is that she feels neglected. (And the words "he's a good provider" in a letter always, always, always make me think that this is all their marriage is based on and LW is only just now realizing that that just isn't enough for their marriage.)

Getting a dog won't solve that problem, nor will spending more time with hubby away from the house. She needs to talk to her husband about her needs and consider either individual or marital counseling or a divorce, depending on whether or not the problem is solvable. Neither of them is necessarily a bad person - but this might be a sign that their marriage has been more like platonic roommates who share expenses for a long time.

[minoanmiss]

You are absolutely right. But/and I feel bad for the cat. It's not her fault.

And I admit to being a little cross with the LW for wanting to take the cat back to the shelter because the cat and her husband get along so well. Will depriving an animal of a happy home and the husband of his pet actually improve the LW's relationship with her husband? I hope she means she "wants to" in the sense of "I know it would be a bad idea to do this but it's my emotional response" rather than "this is the plan I've come up with."

[conuly]

Usually I assume the LW is worse than they sound. In this case, I think they're a smidge better and don't honestly plan on returning the cat to the shelter.

[cynthia1960]

+1000

[conuly]

Making a second comment because this is a second type of response:

Many years ago, when my niece Eva was in between kindy and 1st grade, we got a new cat, our first in many years. She was pregnant when she walked into our house, and those kittens were adorbs. Still have one of them, plus Mama.

I love cats so much. SO MUCH, guys. And one day my other niece, Ana, said that I was much nicer to the cats than I was to the kids. I always hugged them, and kissed them, and called them sweet names and told them how pretty they were, and I never told them what to do and I always gave them what they wanted. (I mean, all they wanted was cat food, but still.) As you can imagine, I felt bad when I heard that, and the next day I made sure to spontaneously hug Ana and call them my sweetheart and they punched me. Like, just out of nowhere. They weren't a very touch-feely child.

And I said "But... I thought this is what you wanted! You just said I was so nice to the cats because I hug them all the time!"

Lesson learned. Don't hug my nieces without checking first. OMG, never again.

[sathari]

That literally had me laughing out loud. Thank you for that.

[conuly]

No probs. You'll be glad to know that Ana has outgrown reflexive punching.

[sathari]

Yes, that's a good thing!

[minoanmiss]

Oh no!

(*helpless giggling*)

[ashbet]

Hahahah!! Sorry for the punching, but that is a great story! <3

[rosefox]

Surely "while he watches TV for hours" is a substantial part of the issue here!

[conuly]

One would think.

[ioplokon]

Is this an old letter? I feel like 'spend more time outside the home' is even more useless advice than normal right now.

[mommy]

I'm reminded of the "jealous of the baby" letters that periodically make an appearance. The problem isn't the husband's relationship with the cat.

[lemonsharks]

This reminds me of the woman who posted to some relationship subreddit a while ago with, "I don't like the way my boyfriend treats his cat" ... And it turned out that her boyfriend petted the cat, was gentle with the cat, and didn't like getting up when the cat was On Him. Pretty standard cat person stuff.