tl;dr: my boyfriend who never had pets casually said I'm abusing my cats, and then doubled down on the statement when I asked him why he would say that. I think I'm a good pet owner. I want to know how I can approach a conversation with him because it's hard to convince someone who thinks you're abusive that you're not. I want to show him what normal cat ownership looks like.
New account because my post history is too revealing.
I have two cats. They're my world. I've had cats all my life, and my boyfriend has never had pets. I'm not posting this to get reassurance that I don't abuse my cats. If I was abusive and needed people to defend me, I could just lie about how I treat them. I KNOW I'm not abusive and never would be. I also don't want to collect zingers to put down my boyfriend. I want help making my boyfriend understand me. This accusation has torn me apart because I would never abuse anyone I love and I don't know how I can ever have a future or children with my boyfriend if he thinks I'm capable of abusing a defenseless animal. The person I love most has accused me of something I would never want to him to imagine I'm capable of. If anyone knows how to talk to a non-pet person who doesn't understand pets well, especially cats, please help.
My cats are 1.5 years old, a boy and a girl from the same stray litter my neighbor found. I've been dating my bf for 1 year.
In the past few months I've been bringing the cats to his place more because I started staying with him 3ish days a week, and he started taking more of an interest in them. I was happy and he's good with them although his petting technique is imperfect. He started to criticize the way I handle them, saying stuff like "she doesn't like it when you hold her like that" or "this is how you wiggle his toy, you're not doing it right." I never minded. He was taking an interest, and him having his own relationship with the kitties was something I saw as a good sign.
A couple weeks ago though, I was holding my girl cat while she was struggling to get down. I only held her for 30 seconds. She didn't scratch me, she was just wiggling hard. I always intended to put her down after she got truly fed up, but I was still hanging on for a few seconds when he told me to put her down. I did and she hid under the bed but in a non-urgent trot, not a terrified sprint (she came out a couple minutes later and went right up to me).
I said "poor baby" and he said "yeah poor baby, having an abusive mom."
This was said jokingly but I didn't like it so I asked him not to say stuff like that lightly, and he said "well you are kind of abusive to them." I got mad, we argued, I cried, and he doubled down and said he was seriously worried about the way I treat my cats and that I'm an abusive pet owner. I forced him to give me all the reasons he would accuse me of animal abuse.
He said:
- They run away from me. This is not really true. Most of my interactions are the cats aren't with my boyfriend but he's seen enough to know this isn't true. They greet me at the door every day. They sleep in my bed. I pet them when they're feeling cuddly. The extent of running away is if the boy is in a playful mood, when I get up from e.g. the couch he'll bounce away like Tigger. If I chase him he'll keep running away, and I do that once in a blue moon. No more often than 2-3x per month I'll chase him around the room for a few minutes. If I don't chase him and I follow him calmly, he'll come right up to me after a few seconds. It's not fear that makes him run when I get up, it's exuberance, and I think that's clear to anyone who understands cats. Every time I've chased him he hides under the bed and comes out a minute later. He isn't traumatized, there is no fear in his body language.
- I hold them when they don't want me to. This is true. They're young and they want to play all the time, they'll only cuddle when they're sleepy. I still pick them up daily and hold them. They differ slightly but usually I can get ~20 seconds before they start struggling. I'll hold on for another 10 seconds or so and then let them go. I think it's important for them to be accustomed to being handled.
Side note--I think that he doesn't understand what true distress looks like. When you're really freaking out a cat they'll puff up, hiss, bite, and scratch deliberately and then when they're able to they'll hide for a significant amount of time. My cats will just wriggle until I let them go but then they'll stay right next to me. Like, they're not thrilled to be held, but not scared and not furious.
3) When I said he should be careful throwing around a serious term like abuse, he said I sounded guilty. I was crying but it was out of frustration and not guilt.
4) I verbally abuse them. I call them stupid, dummy, fatty. No response to this, it's true but they don't understand English so idc, it's affectionate.
5) They run when I yell so that must mean I hit them. I've NEVER hit my cats. If they're on the counter or getting into something bad I'll yell or run into the room fast if they don't respond to the yell. They'll run away and hide for a minute and then come out. No hard feelings. I tried to tell him, they respond to the yell by itself. I never had to combine that with physical violence to get a response. If I holler and run at them while they know they're being bad they'll act "guilty" by stopping what they're doing and running off. It's not like they need me to smack them to know what yelling means. They understand yelling=no, I haven't even had to get a spray bottle because the reaction is so quick and they never stay afraid of me after.
I want him to understand that if they run away and then come right back, or if they struggle out of my grasp, it's not because they're scared of me because that's not how scared cats act. That's how cats who want to be independent or don't want to cuddle right now act. And they straight up don't like being held but I have to be able to handle them so I'm acclimating them. They're wonderful kitties, they've never scratched me on purpose. They only ever scratched me when they were playing, and that was mostly in the first 6 months of their lives.
I love my cats and I love my boyfriend. I haven't spoken to him much since he said that I was abusive. Both of my parents were abusive to me (physically and emotionally) and he said his weren't, so maybe he doesn't know what throwing around a word like that can do.
I know I should just communicate with him but the problem is knowing what to say. I've been sad for the past couple weeks but I think I've recently discovered that I'm more angry than sad. I feel like he said something very serious that he doesn't know anything about and he should weigh his words more if he's going to say something with so much gravity.
I don't know how to convince him that everything I do is well within the bounds of normal cat ownership. I hang out with these guys all day every day, I feed them treats, I taught them to sit, I play with them as much as I can, we sleep together every night, and I know they trust and love me. They're shy around strangers cuz they're COVID kitties and even slightly shy with my boyfriend, but they treat me like their personal stepping stool whenever they want. They're all over me when I'm lying on my couch and that's the way I like it. It frustrates me that he thinks they're unhappy because I know cats well and they're not. The only change I could make is playing with them more but it's hard with work and being tired. They're not stressed and they're not scared of me, they're happy healthy beautiful young cats. This is really messing with my head, I hate being accused of something that I didn't do and don't feel I can defend myself against.
What can I do? I have a couple friends with cats and I could show him their cats if they'll invite us over, and maybe he'll see our interactions are normal. Other than that I'm at a loss.
Submitted January 07, 2022 at 12:31AM by Dangerous-Mention-41 https://ift.tt/31Cj5lQ
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