Dear Prudence: Animal Rescue Girlfriend

[minoanmiss]

I have been dating my girlfriend for three years. She is wonderful, intelligent, caring, and independent. I love her more than anything and hope to spend the rest of my life with her. I am committed to working through any difficulties with her, but I am having a horrible personal failing in one area of conflict: my girlfriend rescues animals. She is a registered foster with a local non-profit and also rescues any critter she finds in need. She has eight cats and three dogs, and a virtual menagerie of other animals has passed through her house (hawk, baby raccoon, injured mice, injured birds, livestock, etc).

Her house is organized chaos, full of “clean” dirt and dust bunnies, although no pet smells or anything unsanitary. I can’t handle the animals messing with anything or moving anything out of place, and she is nonplussed at my intolerance. Anytime our schedule changes because of an animal need or emergency rescue, I feel a simmering resentment building in my body. When I’m at work and find lingering animal hair on my clothing, I borderline seethe. We can’t vacation, do anything spur of the moment, or plan events without planning for the animals. I feel like a total asshole because a large part of me wants to tell her to drive away when she sees an animal in need and let it be someone else’s problem. I know that rescues are full, shelters have ridiculous kill rates, and that if she doesn’t help it is likely that no one else will. But I can’t stop the visceral negative reaction I feel because of the annoyance and chaos of sharing my life with animals.

When I have brought it up, my girlfriend looks at me like I’m a monster for prioritizing my own comfort over the (often, literal) life of an animal in need. We both have our own homes, and we split time, but because I don’t like the animals in my house, my girlfriend always cuts her time short. She is willing to compromise and bring dog crates, walk them on leashes etc., but she draws the line at compromising care, and I feel like an even bigger asshole because I just can’t jive with her well-behaved dogs loose in my house. I want all the animals outside, all the time, no matter what. This is such an intrinsic part of who she is, and I know it would absolutely crush her if I ever drew a line in the sand or set an ultimatum of “me or the animals”. Plus, I have no doubt she would not choose me in that scenario. Animal rescue is like a moral compulsion for her, one that I conceptually admire, but that I do not support in practice. Why can’t I get over this?

— Definitely Not My Circus

You can’t get over this because you’re just not an animal person in the way your girlfriend is. And that’s OK. Her love for animals and accompanying lifestyle is OK too! I am sad to say I think you’ve discovered through your time dating that you’re just not compatible. I know it’s hard, because we’re used to hearing about relationship clashes that have to do with infidelity or ambition or different approaches to family, but not seeing eye-to-eye when it comes to animals is a big deal, too. You are going to be even more resentful than you are now if you end up living together, and there’s not really room for any more compromise here—a request to leave animals outside or skip an emergency rescue of just one dog will feel cruel to her, and she’ll end up having contempt for you. Don’t even consider an ultimatum. Just gently tell her that you’ve thought about it and you don’t want to ask her to change, but you don’t see a future in which you’re both happy.—JDH

From: Help! I Can’t Stand All the Animals My Girlfriend Is Constantly “Rescuing.” (Dec. 18, 2021).

Comments

[ambyr]

Oh my god break up. Break up two years and eleven months ago.

I am a pet person. My partner is not; he likes animals well enough, but he can't deal with the messes they make. We live in separate houses. It can work. But you know what my partner has never, not once done? Expressed even the slightest resentment that part of my schedule will always center around making sure my pets have care. He even regularly make my life easier by stopping by my house to feed and check on my pets when I'm busy or out of town, as long as he doesn't have to have them in his house. That's what compromise between "being an animal person" and "not being an animal person" looks like. Not . . . whatever this is.

[ashbet]

Thiiiiiis. Not everyone has to live together, but people who do need to share values about these things!!

(My cats are nonnegotiable for me.)

[mrissa]

Absolutely this. Other people exist. Go date them, LW. Honestly what did he hope the advice columnist was going to do here?

[melannen]

Break up, but also, get some kind of therapy before you find another girlfriend, because having different opinions about pets is the kind of thing that can just happen, but "I feel a simmering resentment building in my body any time we are not 100% about me" is something you need fixed before you try to date anybody.

[cimorene]

+1

[purlewe]

This

[conuly]

If you "cannot handle" your partner's pets, and constantly seethe with simmering resentment, jeez, do yourself a favor and find somebody else. Like, why are you even with this person?

[liv]

Yeah, I'm kinda this LW. My partners are not as extreme as his girlfriend, they don't usually rescue random strays and wild animals. But they do have a bit of a menagerie and simply making sure all these creatures are all fed and appropriately supervised does sometimes restrict the kinds of plans we can make. I am not as grumpy as LW, I broadly accept that keeping pets is a demanding hobby I happen not to share, and we don't live together so I'm only exposed to the mess and chaos in small doses. But I do sometimes resent my stuff getting destroyed, or cleaning up poop even occasionally, and I really quite dislike the ways the medium sized dog in particular shows affection, such as jumping on me, licking me, and sometimes play-biting. And I don't like the emotional stress when short-lived animals die (that's a big reason why I would never get a pet, probably more so than the mess).

[minoanmiss]

I hear you (ironically this icon came up when I hit 'random'). I posted this because I found it interesting because I could see myself both falling in love with someone so dedicated to helping and loving animals for their goodhearted strength of purpose and yet getting really tired of the practicalities of that dedication, the poop and pee and being jumped on and so on.