I hear you and agree, but damn, that’d be a tough one, wouldn’t it?
Wouldn’t be a tough one for me at all. Sorry. Quite frankly, my cats lives are worth more to me than the lives of 99.9% of the people on this planet.
Well, not really. If you read the OP closely he hasn’t even asked her to marry him. He has simply informed her that there is a reason he hasn’t asked and explained himself. She wants time to think about it and he says sure. He even regrets not having considered it sooner so he doesn’t sound all that domineering to me.
Me, I’d put down the kid and the dog. That’s how compromise works in relationships - neither partner gets exactly what they want just some half-assed approximation of it. Happily ever after.
Assuming that the kid couldn’t get over her fear of dogs then there is no way I’d get married. True a person is more important then a dog but my ability to own a dog or have friends or family that own dogs is more important then a kid. I could never take the kid to her grandparent’s house or any of my friends houses to play with their kids. Given up my dog, probably; giving up my friends and family, never.
On the other hand if this phobia is curable then why not wait until she’s over it and then get married. If it is currable I don’t see why another year with a good therapist wouldn’t do the job which is a very reasonable engagement heck even three years isn’t unreasonable.
“I could never take the kid to her grandparent’s house or any of my friends houses to play with their kids.”
Which could also be the case if the child had serious immunity issues or any number of other possibilities.
It wouldnt mean you had to give up friends and family, only that some options would be restricted or you’d see friends and family without the child.
Otara
April is not her child, she is the child of a man she’s dating. That is the question posed in the OP. However, if the situation were the same, and it were my child, again, that’s a simplistic and silly answer. That of it being an either/or situation that is.
You’re acting as if that was even discussed in the OP’s initial question. Where did I, or anyone say that it was okay for her to simply marry him while planning on moving the dog in without any prior discussion etc.? I believe that is what is called a “strawman”.
The situation is whether or not she’ll marry him. And FTR, I raised two children to adulthood, and am a grandparent, as well as a pet owner, so it’s not as if I don’t know kids, life priorities, and so on, and haven’t faced difficult decisions courtesy of the school of hard knocks.
Definition of the kid “HAS TO come first” does not HAVE TO mean carte blanche banishment of the pet in question. The child CAN still come first and a compromise can be made without sacrificing the child’s basic rights and also without having to get rid of the dog. OR, the woman can simply decide not to marry him. Child’s rights are also intact in that case.
It’s pretty obvious you only read a few tiny little things out of my post. Where did I, or any other posters voting for keeping the dog, say that the child would have to be forced to be alone with, or even interact with the dog, if and until she was ready (and not without proper therapy etc) if the couple decided to go ahead with the marriage with the option of keeping the dog? You act as if there are no choices other than either “get rid of the dog” or “throw traumatized child into snake pit with the VERY DOG THAT ATTACKED HER OMG!!!111”. When in reality, what I stated was anything but, and in fact, mentioned engineering controls for keeping them apart if that was necessary.
A dog is not a thing you have. A dog is part of who you are. Humans and dogs have co-evolved and were, until the advent of Internet-ordered pizza delivery, co-dependent. And we still need dogs to bark when the delivery guy knocks, so we know it’s time to get up from the Internet.
People (and here I exclude obvious dumbasses and sociopaths as people of no account) bond with dogs and become a pack. “Dogs are adaptable,” you say…well, so are children.
Asking Susan to give up her dog is demanding that she deny part of herself.
But the projected scenario would rule out all future canines as well, so it doesn’t matter that she’s found suitable canines in the past. A part of her personality is going to be sheared off.
Phobias are by definition irrational. Though this one has a traceable source, it’s not rational any more than fearing all human beings because a bully attacked you in third grade – and demanding that other human beings be removed from the family before you move in.
No chance at all, unless Susan is scrubbed clean of all scent molecules. Our dogs went NUTS when a neighbor, whom they had seldom met when he lived downstairs, returned two years later. They had had little contact with him in the first place, but they remembered him instantly once they got a whiff.
First of all I wouldn’t kill my cats to save Sarah Palin’s life. One of my kids, yes–but probably no, since I can’t imagine a believable scenario where the two things would correlate.
However, marriage is weird. You get two people who get along fabulously and everything is going well, and the next step is marriage. What is going to happen in marriage that isn’t happening as a couple? What is each person getting that s/he wouldn’t be getting without marriage?
And if you analyze it, the answer is that marriage gives you nothing but always takes something away. In Susan’s case here, her dog. In Edmund’s case, what is he giving up?
I think that’s really big of you to be willing to sacrifice one of your children so we can have Caribou Barbie in our lives. Thank you, true patriot.
:p:D
I’ve had this conversation with potential S.O.s before, about my cats.
I am a cat person (I also love dogs, but don’t actually own one right now). Having pets around the house, usually two or more, is the way I grew up, and is a lifestyle I maintain by choice as an adult. I get that my cats are not people, and in a life-or-death situation I’d choose a person over a cat. But having pets around makes me happy. In the times that I have not had pets, due to roomate allergies, my overall contentment levels were reduced. Asking me to go without pets is like asking me to stop listening to music, or stop stretching in the morning. Without a damn good reason, I’m just going to tell you to buzz off.
Putting myself in Susan’s position, I’ve had the cat (dog) for the better part of a decade, which is a helluva lot longer than I’ve known Edward. I made a commitment as an owner and caretaker when I got my pet, and it’s not like trading in my coupe for a sedan to accommodate his daughter. I will be less happy than otherwise giving up my dog (assuming I could bring myself to do so in the first place, which is not a good bet), will probably resent Edward and/or Abby for it, and the emotional climate in the family will be affected. If he’s not willing to push his daughter a little and give me hope that we can at least try to make Abby and Pearl get along, then our priorities are too different.
If I’m Susan, I tell Edward that my dog is key to my happiness. So we can continue to live separately, or we can consider marriage if we can help April, via therapy, get over her fear of dogs. Something that will serve her in any case.
I’d offer to take the dog.
sigh
i just went thru something similar to this, therefore i’m coming down firmly on the side of the pet.
should the occasion ever come again, i’m going to refuse an offer of marriage if the proposed fiancé is allergic to cats. i know, i know. it’s a cat. i don’t care. i can’t and won’t do that again.
because – let’s call him bd – was allergic when i said yes, i agreed (reluctantly) to find someone to take my cats: a foster mom for maggie, and the divemaster (a former so) took turk for me.
to his credit, bd did try the shots, pills, etc. beforehand, so it’s not like it was an ultimatum from him. far from it.
despite all that, frankly, i was miserable the entire time without my cats. altho i loved bd dearly, i missed those silly beasts more than i could say. when he broke the engagement - after telling me we were going to sell his house and move back to my condo (which was a bit of a ruse. on the plus side, bd did pay to move me back home, so it wasn’t all bad.) - that very night i went and got maggie from her foster mom and brought her home. then when i told the divemaster what had happened, he gave turk back to me.
bottom line: i don’t ever want to go through something like that again and at this point in my life, it just became a dealbreaker for me.
Chances are, the BF and his child will outlive the dog. I would refuse the marry and remain in my own house, continuing to date seriously, until the dog dies from whatever natural causes. At that point, assuming the relationship is all well and good, re-enter discussions about marriage.
I don’t actually believe in marriage per se, so walking down the aisle or having a piece of paper from either a religious institution or from the government has no bearing for me on the commitment level of my relationships. Marriage is 99.9% in your head, IMO; you are either committed to the relationship or you are not. So it would not be important to me to be married just to advance the relationship to the next level. Seems like a pointless formality to me. Especially because the scenario in question involves two people for whom making babies will probably not be a major priority. Not having kids together makes marriage even more unnecessary to me.
So I think I’d sort of be nonplussed about the proposal in the first place; I wouldn’t think much of turning it down IF that wasn’t a dealbreaker for the guy. If it’s very important to the guy to be married, then we want very different things in life and aren’t right for each other in the first place.
:snerk: I should edit!
The child is 6. What she needs comes first. IT’S A FUCKING DOG; the kid is more important! Yes, she needs to outgrow the fear but SHE’S SIX. It’s gonna take a while - sheesh, it’s only been 2 years since she was attacked!
That Susan needs to “think about it” should be a BIG red flag to Ed. I can understand sadness at having to give up a pet - but a dog vs. the man she loves? Not a hard choice.
Kudos to the imaginary Ed for putting his little girl first!
I tell Susan she has to decide which is more important to her, the man or the dog. There’s nothing wrong with her choosing the dog , but she’s got to pick one or the other, and it’s really not fair to anyone to let things go another year or two in the hopes that the girl will get over her phobia . She might, or she might not. And then it’s just the same situation, with two more years invested in the relationship. She and Edmund are equally entitled to have dealbreakers, and for everything that one might say about Edmund forcing Susan to choose , that’s a two way street. The fact that he won’t marry her unless she gives up the dog is no different that her not marrying him unless she can keep the dog. And although the child’s needs should come first to Edmund, Susan hasn’t even met her and can’t possibly have any attachment to her as an individual.
If I were Susan , I don’t know what I would do. It would depend on the man and whether I thought I would regret giving up him or the dog more. The one thing I know I wouldn’t do if was Susan is marry a man who was willing to bring his dog-phobic child to live in a house with a Rottweiler. Because if his desire to marry me is more important than his daughter’s need to feel comfortable in her home, I will suspect his desires will always take precedence over mine. (and no, it is not his desire to have me get rid of the dog.It is his responsibility to provide his daughter with a place to live where she feels safe- which means no dogs in this case. It is his desire to marry me and presumably to share a house with both me and his daughter)
DAMNIT Diosa beat me to it.
Besides which, and in addition to what HnS says above, marriage, in the best of times is tough and takes a HELL of a lot of sacrifice, compromise and hard work. Starting off a marriage with such a painful sacrifice for the “good of the marriage” or whatever, is not the best idea. So she gives her dog away, and finds out six months down the road that the part of his personality that wanted her to give the dog away is only the tip of the iceberg re who HE really is.
Since Susan is Edmund’s older sister, I’d say ANY talk of marriage is highly inappropriate.
To say nothing of bed-breaking sex.
Snerk!