This woman and her husband moved into a new home two weeks ago. For the entire time they’ve been together (11 years), he’s wanted a dog.
While they already have a 4-year-old cat, they’ve never been able to get a dog because they’ve never had enough space.
The house they recently moved into is large and has a little backyard, so her husband thought it was a good time to buy a dog.
During their conversations, she attempted to persuade him to adopt a fully grown dog from a shelter rather than a puppy since there are tons of dogs in their area that need good homes.
She predicted that it would be an easier transition for them and their cat if the dog was older, but her husband wasn’t swayed. He was determined to get a purebred puppy.
Right now, she doesn’t have a job, and her husband is the sole breadwinner, which works well for them.
She does the housework and cleaning while searching for jobs. Because her husband earns a decent income, it’s not mandatory for her to work if she doesn’t want to, but she’d feel better mentally and emotionally if she was working.
Her husband has been supportive of her dreams and goals and wants her to feel fulfilled. He hopes that she’s able to find a career that she’s passionate about and do something other than be a stay-at-home wife, and she’s been working hard to find a job.
Over the years, she’s held jobs while her husband stayed home, but they switched roles a year ago. Three days ago, she and her husband went to pick up the puppy he purchased.
“Before this, I told him several times that I didn’t want a puppy and that if he bought one, he committed to assuming all the consequences that this entailed,” she said.
She warned her husband that because he was getting a puppy, they’d be kept awake throughout the night into the early mornings during the first several days while the puppy adjusted to its new environment, adding that as he trained the puppy and it got older, it would settle down and get accustomed to the routine. Yesterday was their second night with the puppy, and her husband had to work the following day.
“My husband told me that he was going to have to tell me to take care of the dog if it didn’t let him sleep because he had to work and I wasn’t doing anything important,” she explained.
His job is remote, and his workday starts at 9 a.m. She felt terrible that her husband minimized the cooking and chores she did all day.
Plus, she doesn’t believe that her views or what she wants should matter less just because she doesn’t work right now.
She doesn’t think she should be obligated to be up late with the puppy because she doesn’t have to wake up early for work the next day. Aside from housework, she also searches for jobs a lot throughout the day.
Now, she’s unsure if she’s an awful person for refusing to take care of the puppy so that her husband can sleep through the whole night.
She reflected on warning him in advance that the puppy would keep him awake late at night for a while until it was trained, and he’d have to face these ramifications.
“I also feel really guilty because I don’t want to have kids and thought that a dog was a good idea for him because of that reason,” she shared.
While she felt guilty that her husband was responsible for cleaning up after the puppy all night, she acknowledged that he chose to get the puppy in the first place, so he accepted all of the hard work that comes with dog ownership.
Throughout the day, she cleans up after the puppy and takes care of it, and she is content with the breed of dog her husband chose.
After picking up the puppy, she assured her husband that she’d help with training and added that she enjoys the puppy.
But she felt like it was unfair for her to be expected to wake up throughout the night to take care of it because she’d warned him ahead of time that his sleep would be disrupted for a while since he’d need to wake up to tend to the puppy.
What advice would you give her?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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