Hi Reddit!
So i have been in a very happy relationship for a year for my SO. We are in nearly every way made for eachother and I love her more than anything.
There is a but coming of course...
BUT she has 2 dogs, one patterdale terrier and one king Charles cavalier. When we first started dating these dogs were VERY difficult to handle. The king charls gets randomly really aggressive if he has food near him or if you loo him in the eye and the patterdale is very anxious and barks loads when you enter the house and when you leave. The king Charles also demands nearly constant attention and just barks at a wardrobe where his toys are seemingly indefinitely to obtain them. The patterdale is also very jealous of me, so when i kiss my SO he barks/cries... he also does the same if we have sex. This behaviour is fairly on and off, sometimes i go round and they are fairly alright and other days ( like today) they are as described above. The king charlse is the real problem, he has basically been over mothered ( i am sad to say) by my SO which means now he is a spoilt dog with 0 boundaries... he also i think has some brain issues, but i am not a doctor.
They also sleep in her bed and if she tried to put them downstairs they bark LITERALLY constantly. Like, we are talking non stop. She lives in a terrace house so she cannot just allow dogs to bark all night. So this basically means i cannot stay over when the dogs are there. She shares custody of these dogs with her ex which gives up 1-2 week breaks regularly which is great.. but i cant help feeling like i am working around the dogs schedule.
Now my SO is very apologetic about them and she really isnt fully to blame for this but there are things that are starting to cause problems for me. The main issue is the amount of sacrifice i feel like im making and not getting in return. So, my SO agreed to get training for a behaviorist but basically just gave up on if after a month or so as it was too expensive and the results were not working. So now whenever we talk about the dogs behavior its a fairly concise conversation outlining that i want things to get better and her saying she cant do anything about it. She doesnt like leaving them alone for too long so she can never come and stay at my house over night and i cant stay at hers because the dogs will just climb on me at 6 am! They have lived without boundaries for so long i dont think it can really improve, or maybe thats just my frustration talking.
She loves these dogs more than anything, including me. She told me at the beginning that they come as a package and i accept that. I also want to point out that actually they are very cute and i do love them but that isnt enough to excuse terrible behavior constantly.
I am not prepared to give up on this because of the dogs and also because i love this woman but i think things need to improve, Its very hard planning long term relationship stuff knowing i wont be able to share a bed with my partner until at least one of the dogs die. I also dont want to resent my partner for the behavior of her dogs.. sometimes I find myself thinking at night when i am worrying about all this that its her fault and i dont want to go down that road so i need to nip this in the bud.
Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this situation? I am literally out of ideas and would MASSIVELY appreciate some help from my fellow redditors!
Thanks in advance.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/adg1iw/dogs_and_relationships_help/
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