agonyaunt | (no subject)

My husband was carrying our 16-year-old dog outside for a walk when the dog flinched and fell out of his arms. Her back legs were paralyzed in the fall, and given her age, the prognosis is not good. My husband feels terrible. But he can also put things out of his mind, so I feel alone in my sorrow. I fluctuate between blaming him and saying mean things (“You gave our dog a death sentence”) and knowing it was an accident (“No one meant for this to happen”). How should I handle my resentment? We are the parents of two children under 3, and we’ve been together for 14 years — so we need to keep working as a team.

WIFE

It’s hard work to maintain a healthy relationship, so I commend you for noting the sour dynamic that has begun to infiltrate yours. (We can’t fix problems until we name them.) Still, nearly every pet owner I know — and parent, too — has a scary story about an accidental dereliction: “The dog’s collar broke away from its leash.” “And then the baby rolled off the sofa.” “I didn’t lock the stroller properly.” You probably have one, too. There is no such thing as perfect caregiving!

Now, you don’t describe your husband as careless, so let’s assume he isn’t. My hunch is that the huge responsibility of two young children and a senior dog has made you (understandably) anxious about things that might go wrong. And your husband’s accident heightened your fears. You may also need more time to process your feelings than he does. Nothing wrong with that!

Discuss this issue with a close friend or a therapist. I would spare your husband any more talk about the “death sentence” he imposed until you understand why you can’t yet forgive him for an accident. And keep working on it. It’s great that you’re focusing on this problem before it becomes a crisis.

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We very recently had to put down our beloved rescue poodle, Finn, because he was very old and at the end of his lifespan. He was 15 and had to be carried outside to potty, and also hand-fed.

The truth is that dogs do not live as long as humans. 15 years is the absolute maximum you can expect from a dog, and every month past that is a gift.

I understand that LW is grieving, but that does not change the fact that this dog was simply not long for this world. If LW cannot get their speech under control or, in time, their feelings then they'll need to take anger management or get therapy or something.

My husband feels terrible. But he can also put things out of his mind, so I feel alone in my sorrow.

This seems like the crux of the issue. Husband feels terrible but... doesn't feel terrible enough, in LW's eyes? Isn't obsessing over it? Isn't managing LW's feelings about it in addition to his own? And this is why LW is saying horrendous things like "you gave our dog a death sentence"? (WTF???)

I don't think there's enough here to fully analyze whatever issues exist in the relationship, but I suspect this isn't really about the dog. It sounds like it's about LW not being okay with the way Husband processes feelings in general, and reacting to that by lashing out and trying to make Husband feel as bad as LW does. Therapy sounds like a good start, or at least finding someone else with whom to process grief about the dog, because I really don't see how it's going to work to do that processing with the person who inadvertently caused the dog's death.

Yeah, my reaction to LW saying even ONE thing like that example, and it sounds like more, is so appalled... I mean that already sounds like a crisis to me: they need therapy DESPERATELY. What kind of person would say something like this in a situation like this? Not any emotionally okay and stable person. I've only ever heard this kind of lashing out in person from my mom and her siblings, so, survivors of childhood abuse with untreated PTSD because they refuse to believe they need therapy. And I don't honestly think anybody should stay with a partner who lashes out at them in this way like... EVER.

You took the words right off my fingers.

With aged humans the fall is sometimes due to the break and not the other way. Wonder if it could work that way in a situation like this. Probably not, though.

Not if Husband was carrying the dog as LW says in the letter.

But this was presumably not the first time the dog had been carried outside for a walk. The dog flinched at something - and it could be anything. His last few months, Finn flinched every time we walked into or out of a shadow. It's why I stopped taking him on walks at all and only brought him out to the backyard.

68 percent of elderly dogs have dementia, and in a lot of them that dementia is accompanied by fearfulness and anxiety. If the dog is sixteen years old, and has sharply declining mobility (hence the carrying), and is flinching at shadows, time is running out. They were going to have to make that call sooner or later, probably sooner.

I disagree-- I think the break COULD have preceded the fall, BECAUSE the dog was being carried. if the dog's spine was compromised by osteoporosis, the angle of the hold to carry it could have fractured the bone. My mother's german shepherd's spine was incredibly fragile by the end of her life.

That's about what I was thinking, but it seems as if the dog would have not only flinched but howled at the pain. But if she howled at falling anyway, it probably wouldn't have been super clear in everyone's remembrance exactly when she cried out, given all the to-do there undoubtedly was afterward.

A sixteen-year-old dog that already had to be carried outside? I do not think the LW's husband is to blame in any of this, and the LW needs to figure out where all these big blamey feelings are coming from and STOP saying things like "you gave our dog a death sentence" (!!!) when the dog was clearly already on borrowed time. It sounds like the dog had a lot of adverse elderly-dog health conditions like arthritis going on that were preventing the dog from walking outside independently!

The LW doesn't trust her husband, sounds like. Why? She needs to talk to a third party and work on counseling and insight. Otherwise the first time a kid whacks their head on the coffee table in front of her husband, she's going to lose her mind at him.

I could be projecting, but I think her anger at her husband has much more to do with the two kids under 3 than with the dog.

I'd bet $5 on that.

Someone not showing their feelings on the outside doesn’t automatically mean they aren’t having feelings. It’s entirely possible that LW’s husband feels so devastated and guilty that he’s dissociating away from his emotions or hiding them to avoid putting anything on LW. If either of those are the case, it makes LW’s sentiments even more horrendous.

However sad and guilty I might be about accidentally injuring my pet, I wouldn’t dream of telling someone about my feelings if I thought I was likely to hear “you’re right, it WAS totally your fault” from them. And if those are the types of feelings they need to talk about, I’m not the right person for them to talk to.

At the very least WIFE should look for a pet loss support group.