Man wants to give fiancée a dogs-gone ultimatum
Q: My fiancée and I are mid-50s and experienced nasty divorces (mine’s ongoing) from long-term first marriages. We grew up together since Grade 1, like sister and brother.
After graduation, we stayed in-touch until 1987, when we each got married. We lost touch other than becoming Facebook friends in 2008.
Last May, six weeks after my ex and I separated, I opened Facebook and the only friend online at that time was my now-fiancée.
That day we talked on the phone for the first time in 31 years. Our relationship blossomed into the deepest, most soulful, loving relationship possible.
We live in different parts of the country, so the distance/time apart is difficult, but we got engaged last October and plan on a life together once I’m divorced.
We have only one problem — I’ve never wanted a dog. My fiancé is a dog lover. Her three dogs are around her 24-7, including at her workplace.
She kisses and snuggles them and is usually covered in dog hair (a huge turnoff for me). She loads them in her vehicle even for a five-minute errand.
She plans holidays around the dogs and they must be part of the celebration and invited inside or she won’t attend. She allows the dogs to sleep with her. They’re also always underfoot.
I love her dearly, but she says she will always want dogs, so it’s not as if there’ll be a future together without dogs.
I’ve searched the internet to find a way to compromise so that the dogs don’t ruin our relationship.
She feels it’s a huge compromise on her part when I don’t allow the dogs in my house. When she visits me, they’re kept in the heated attached garage. When I visit her, she does wash her bed sheets and locks the dogs out of the bedroom but she’s “not OK with that.”
I find the dogs a huge time/energy/ resource commitment not only 24-7, but for as long as we’re together. Even if she cleans up after the dogs and they stay out of the house, they’ll limit what she and I do together as a couple and become my dependants too. But I know that if I give her an ultimatum of, it’s the dogs or me, she’ll choose the dogs over me. I’m at the stage in life where I’m looking forward to independence of dependants. Are we Doomed?
A: Yes, if both of you see “compromise” only as a tit-for-tat exchange.
Instead, deal with the emotions involved. If your love for each other and desire to live together is so strong, you need a bigger picture of what really is “give and take.”
Understand that dogs have been her support system through an unhappy marriage. If she had kids, they’re grown and gone. She dislikes loneliness, loves being needed. They became her closest companions.
You had your own ways (not shared here) of dealing with an unhappy marriage. Think how you’d have managed if someone or something prevented you from whatever served as your support system.
How to get past this emotional divide? Not through magic answers, but rather from couples’ counselling together to understand and embrace each other’s deep-rooted needs.
It’s not about dogs-or-no-dogs, but about what she wants to feel from you and what you want to feel from her.
A professional therapist can guide you through that crucial discovery, and then the answers will become apparent, perhaps in stages, but you’ll know when it feels right. Ellie’s tip of the day
On big issues, compromise is more than tit-for-tat, but rather about emotional giving and receiving. EXPERT ADVICE. IN YOUR INBOX: Sign up for the Star’s advice newsletter, get the latest on relationships, etiquette and more.