Dear Annie: LW feels entitled to 0 net parenting duties at the expense of wife's hobbies & interests

[lemonsharks]

Dear Annie: As a longtime reader, I want to say that I love your column. I am writing now to ask for your advice.

I have a wonderful marriage with someone I met when we were teenagers. We have a beautiful family with two boys and some pets, and almost everything is good. However, my wife becomes obsessed with causes at times, and for the past year or so, she is so intensely invested in feral cats. She got involved with a local group, and just about every day, sometimes twice a day, they go check their traps to see if a new cat has wandered in. They then have a relationship with a vet to rapidly spay/neuter the cats, and then our family and a few others foster them for a few days until it’s time to release.

I am the breadwinner, and I can’t tell you how much money has gone into spaying and neutering all these cats. She leaves me to cook for the kids when she checks the traps in the evenings, and the bottom line is that I don’t like having a part-time wife, and my kids are confused why Momma leaves for a few hours every night.

I have tried talking to her, but it just starts a fight since she claims I “hate animals” because I refuse to become a vegan as well. Plus, I feel like all sentient creatures have the right to their own choices, and by forcibly kidnapping and spaying these cats, they are taking their choices and natural rights away. Should I just hope to sweat this out and wait until she moves on to the next cause? I am open to counseling, but she isn’t. What would you suggest? -- Done With Cats

Dear Done With Cats: It’s not the cats that you are done with; it’s the feeling of being second fiddle to all of your wife’s causes. What your wife is doing is very admirable and important. Without organizations that trap, spay, neuter and release feral cats, cities would be overrun with them. What is not admirable is your wife’s distribution of time.

Bringing up the fact that you are the breadwinner and expect dinner on the table is a bit dated, but expecting a partner and mother of your children to be around and put the family as her priority is not. It is always important. It does sound like she is running from something, albeit running to a good cause -- but still running. Seek the help of a professional counselor for yourself to sort out why you two are having a hard time connecting.

Sometimes it’s easier to constantly stay busy and on the move to avoid sitting down for quality family time. As you progress in therapy, you will gain insights into approaching this subject without having it devolve into a fight, and she might even join you for counseling together.

Comments

[lemonsharks]

Ten bucks says Husbando would have the same exact problem if his wife worked weird hours as an on-call OBGYN. (Pregnancy and birth healthcare/medicine being one of the most underpaid and underrespected fields of medicine out there, with the same debt and much more bonkers hours than, say, dermatology.)

Edit: $20 says their relationship would not have survived Wife completing medical school, residency, and boards.

[minoanmiss]

I wouldn't bet against you.

Hey husband, Lincoln freed the slaves.

[lemonsharks]

I bet he's bitchy about Juneteenth being a bank holiday, too.

[ambyr]

Part-time wife.

Part-time wife.

I’m sorry, I can’t get past that enough to say anything coherent.

[lemonsharks]

I KNOW RIGHT. I WANT TO PUBT PUNT HIM INTO A VOLCANO.

[purlewe]

Oh very much this.

[sathari]

THIS. So much THIS.

[lemonsharks]

Also, everyone here knows my feelings about cats and omfg wife has put more good into the world by participating in TNR in her community for a few months than husband has put into he world in his entire freakin life.

Tbqh I think Wife would get a lot of meaningful bonding time with the kids in if she brought them along with her on cat rounds sometimes so they understand why Mom Has Weird Hours and it just becomes a part of life, although I and suspect that wife having hobbies is her specifically taking up space as an adult with her own interests and personality outside of Wife/Mommy/Homemaker.

LW can nuke some frozen burritos, watch some ding dang Sofia of Avalar, and shut the entire fuck up about having to parent his children as far as I am concerned.

[petrea_mitchell]

Tbqh I think Wife would get a lot of meaningful bonding time with the kids in if she brought them along with her on cat rounds sometimes so they understand why Mom Has Weird Hours and it just becomes a part of life

Yes! Also, it would not be at all a bad thing to educate the kids about community cat care.

[watersword]

"all sentient creatures have the right to their own choices"

This is making me call troll. Please tell me no one is actually comparing to TNR to any of the things this phrase evokes. (Insert obligatory PETA disclaimer.)

[lemonsharks]

That makes me think it's real because this was my mom's reasoning for not desexing our dogs.

There's also a particular strain of cis man that feels emasculated by the idea of domestic animals being desexed. (And a whole line of veterinary testicular implants for when they inevitably go whining, "but what about the balls! What will the guys think!" to their vets.)

[watersword]

Are you serious. I know you're serious, but what.

[minoanmiss]

NEUTICLES.

[minoanmiss]

The best day of my junior year in high school was the day my AP Bio teacher showed us a video he took of his dog's neutering. All the girls sat in the front of the room discussing the anatomy, taking notes, etc, while all the boys (who were truly obnoxious, sexist, racist, and in one case grabby teenage boys) sat in the back whimpering. BEST CLASS EVER.

[sathari]

*hearteyes* This is maybe the best thing I've read in ages. Definitely BEST CLASS EVER. :D :D :D

[thedivinegoat]

My fucking neighbour only gets Tom cats and refuses to neuter them. Before we got a dog, they used to come into our house and spray.

[lemonsharks]

I'm not a dog person but I am definitely a "befriend and neuter the neighbor's cats when they won't do it themselves" person.

Loose cats get into fights. Sometimes they get into fights with a trained veterinary professional and lose. Their balls.

[feldman]

Pretty sure the vegan thing came up as a counterpoint to his "you're violating the rights of feral cats".

I'm not a wide reader of advice columns; is it just me or has anyone else noticed a shift toward more "suck it up" advice aimed at women recently?

[shirou]

"Part-time wife." Wow. If LW weren't ridiculously sexist, I would say he is entitled to a discussion about division of labor, what jobs each partner is responsible for, and how they each are involving their kids in their lives. But I have a feeling he thinks his out-of-home employment should be his only responsibility, in which case I don't have any sympathy for him.

[cimorene]

Seriously, Annie? It's reasonable to expect your partner and co-parent to "be around and raise their children" more than "all the time except a few hours each evening"? So would it be reasonable of the wife to expect him to raise the children for the 40 hours a week he spends at work?!

[cimorene]

+ This type of complaint about cats - in defense of their masculinity and freedom to impregnate other cats I guess - is definitely a red flag, and I've definitely heard it before. But Annie gave it the amount of consideration it deserved, at least, which is none.

[conuly]

Plus, I feel like all sentient creatures have the right to their own choices, and by forcibly kidnapping and spaying these cats, they are taking their choices and natural rights away.

If he really believed that, I guess he'd be a vegan. No, he's just making up reasons why his wife should stop doing this.

[lemonsharks]

I suspect the conversation went something like this

Husband: all sentient creatures have the right to their own choices, and by forcibly kidnapping and spaying these cats, they are taking their choices and natural rights away

Wife: you are literally chowing down on a cheeseburger right now and you don't get much more into depriving animals of their "liberty" than eating them, you absolute hypocrite. Go nuke the kids a burrito while I check the traps.

[conuly]

I bet he's not even buying ethically raised* eggs and meat, either.

* I don't actually know what the term I'm looking for is, I mean "not factory farmed, the animals actually go outside and it's very small scale". I don't really *mean* "buying what you can afford is not ethical", but I'm lacking for another term.

[lemonsharks]

I get what you're getting at, no worries 😉

[minoanmiss]

Free range? Pasture farmed?

[conuly]

Free range just means they have a specific amount of space and aren't kept in cages. It doesn't mean that they go outside or eat a more natural diet or are kept in the sort of small scale barn that encourages healthy social relationships.

Pasture raised is supposed to mean they go outside etc but iirc it isn't standardized yet and also doesn't mean the other stuff.

[azurelunatic]

"taking their choices and natural rights away" is pretty rich from that dude, who is just pulling all the levers he thinks he has to get someone to agree with him that his wifey should stay in her lane.

Run further, wife.

[ashbet]

“What is not admirable is your wife’s distribution of time.”

SCREAMING, SO MUCH SCREAMING.

Why in the ABSOLUTE FUCK should he not parent for a couple of hours a day, when his wife is putting in both the time he’s at work AND undoubtedly being on-call parent for the rest of the hours she’s at home??

He complains about depriving ANIMALS of their “rights” to reproduce in an unsustainable manner, while dodging caring for his own children AND trying to deprive his wife of her autonomy.

(I fully support both community TNR and fostering home-able cats for placement, but even if it was a different cause or a hobby, his wife is entitled to leave the damn house on occasion.)