My (21m) girlfriend (21f) wanted me to accompany her to a dog therapy session, even though I didn’t want to go. I left after 15 minutes and now she’s very upset with me. Advice needed.

Me and my girl (both 21) are university students, dating for around 9 months and our respective apartment buildings are super close to campus. Our school has this thing where a bunch of people bring their dogs and students or whoever can come and play with them or pet them, it’s kind of like a dog therapy session. I guess it’s soothing or stress relieving, or something like that. Since we live so close to campus, sometimes these sessions take place in our apartment buildings in our theatre rooms.

Now I do not like dogs at all. When I was a kid I was attacked by a dog and I still have a large scar on my hip from when it bit me, and I’ve disliked them ever since, and I think that they’re smelly and shed too much hair but that’s besides the point. Anyways, since the beginning I’ve made this very much clear to her, cause she’s a dog person and I know that if I hid that from her it could potentially cause strife later. She understands and is okay with it. We have a common love for many other pets other than dogs.

On to the problem: Yesterday we had one of these such “dog therapy” sessions and it was in my apartment building which we happened to be in. She reeeeaaaally wanted to go. Now I didn’t want to go for a few reasons...

a) I had grocery shopping to do

b) I had homework and studying to do

c) she also had studying to do for a huge test she has on Wednesday that she’s been freaking out about for a while and I advised she study instead of go to this event

d) the aforementioned reasons that I don’t like dogs.

I said I don’t want to go cause of the aforementioned reasons, I said she can go on her own if she wants but I’d rather do the stuff I have to do. She got upset...which is another problem in itself. She’s very clingy/codependent and sometimes it rubs me the wrong way because she kind of can’t function if she’s away from me for any extended period of time. If I ever mention wanting to chill by myself for a bit then she takes it personally and gets super offended. This is kind of a big deal because I’m one of those people who needs to spend time with myself every once in a while to be sane, and I think she just doesn’t understand this no matter how much I explain that it’s not that I hate her or don’t want to see her. She begged me to go with her and I said okay, I’ll compromise and I’ll go but I’ll only stay for 15 minutes then I have to go do everything I said I have to do. She agreed.

So I went, I swallowed my mild (but very real) fear of dogs, I put up with the dogs trying to lick my face and shedding hair on me for 15 minutes, I didn’t say a single word of complaint at all. I left after 15 minutes like I said I would. She got super upset again and begged me to stay and I said I don’t want to, and left.

She ended up staying for around 2 and a half hours, she texted me that she didn’t appreciate what I did and that I should have been there to support her. But I don’t get it, support her through what? And we’re both adults, we both shit to do and lives to live. I didn’t say this to her but anyways long story short she went back to her place instead of coming back to mine and she hasn’t spoken to me or responded to my texts so far.

Could I have handled this better? Should I have just bit the bullet and dealt with my fear of dogs? Or are we just incompatible. I don’t know.

TLDR, gf wanted me to come pet some dogs and I didn’t want to, I went for 15 minutes and left afterwards and she was really upset afterwards. Also some codependency issues.

Submitted October 29, 2019 at 03:01PM by throwaway223290 https://ift.tt/2Nm684k