to not want to speak to this person again despite him being my hisband's best friend?

[catlady123]

Have namechanged for this, I usually post in a different part of MN. I wanted people’s views on something that has upset me terribly and whether I am being unreasonable, as my husband thinks.

My husband has a best friend who is/was also a good friend of mine. He was over for dinner last night. I mentioned to him in the course of conversation that I am struggling emotionally with the fact that my fragile, old cat has become quite incontinent and I am wondering whether she should be put down at some point as she is soiling the house several times a day and I have a toddler. I have had this cat for over 17 years, through thick and thin in my life and this would be huge thing for me. I mentioned that I had thought of possible asking the vet to come to the house to do the deed without distressing her in any way, but also that I am far from coming to a decision on this yet.

His comment was that I should not do that but should take her a few hours drive away from home and then just let her out into the wild and “let nature take its course”. I was so shocked by this that I could not speak for a while, I then became very upset and refused to have dinner with him, going upstairs to bed instead. I later told my husband that I do not want anything to do with this friend again and that animal cruelty is something I cannot tolerate. I was absolutely shocked that the friend could think that I would take my beloved old cat and do this to her.

My husband’s view was that I was very rude to his friend, that I am being ridiculous, and that “everyone is entitled to their opinion”, although he himself would not actually do this to the cat. This caused a huge fight which has gone on much of the night. I don’t know what to say now. My husband tells me his friend will apologise for what he said. I can’t see that an apology would make any difference, he still thought that such cruelty was OK and that I would do something like this, how can apology for having expressed the opinion change that?

[TheBigJessie]

Come, come Hatty. You're piquing my interest now. Is it that you don't have any lines beyond which you feel a duty to object, or simply that your bar is in a different place from mine?

[MadonnaKebab]

Dumping a cat is not "allowing it to find a quiet place to die"
If a cat is ready to do that, I'm sure there are a few places under bushes in OP's garden, under the beds, in the airing cupboard (our late lamented old mog) that it could find
Instead It is exposing the poor old animal to a bewildering and stressful end
I don't think she is over-reacting

[Crowler]

What the OP's husband's friend did & drowning an entire litter of kittens less one sounds dissimilar.

[HattyJack]

BigJessie I think you and the OP - and especially whomsoever it was that though the views of DPs friend were grounds to divorce DP - are hugely over-reacting to what seems to have been a genuine, if ill-advised, suggestion.

If the friend had said "Why don't I just reverse my car over the mangy old bag of fleas" then I can understand the OP reacting as she did as it would clearly have been insensitive.

Perhaps the friend just thought - if he anthropomorphised the cat's thoughts at all - that a final thought of "I wonder where my human friend is? Gosh I'm tired, I'll wait under this bush, they'll be back soon ..." might be a better last though than "Why am I in here again? God, I hate it here. That person that prods at me is here. Why has he got a big syringe? My human friend won't let him poke me with that will she...?"

The cat is old an frail. That's sad. But it's not acceptable to rant and rage until people agree with you, especially on something that is morally debatable. It's not like he was suggesting that genocide was a good idea. Calm and considered discussion is fine. Forcing people to 'agree' is not.

I'd have been mildly annoyed by the suggestion and laughed it off - and perhaps explained why it wasn't right for me or the cat if he pressed the issue. You and the OP would choose to make a scene. Is that our bars being in different places?

[TheBigJessie]

GamerChick How kind of you! However, I suspect the only misrepresentation made was that I left out "if necessary". The vast, vast majority of the time, it wouldn't be necessary in modern Britain. But if necessary, I would.

Oddly enough, people don't cross the road to avoid me. My husband and I have been together for ten years, and unless he radically changes personality and becomes violent or similar, I do not envisage myself launching a divorce petition. But in that situation, I'm sure a judge wouldn't laugh. I'm still not sure why my marriage is material to the discussion, but hey-ho.

curlew that is kind of the point. The world changes. We now see one as radically awful. Once we didn't. That social change, like so many others, has occurred within a human lifetime. More will happen.

[sarascompact]

" especially whomsoever it was that though the views of DPs friend were grounds to divorce DP - are hugely over-reacting"



Now come on, you know that wasn't what was actually said. You're re-writing history, HattyJack.

What was said was that if the husband in the OP were married to the writer of the comment there would be questions put to him and consideration made about his own response to the situation and his acceptance of his friend's remark as if it's an okay thing to say or believe. Nowhere was it said that there were grounds for divorce because of the views of his friend.

[Thepowerof3]

Is this for real!

[kali110]

Jessie i would happily be your friends. I have three strays now, but even when i had no pets i would have been disgusted by those comments.
I wouldn't have liked your grandmother though!

[TheBigJessie]

^
The cat is old an frail. That's sad. But it's not acceptable to rant and rage until people agree with you, especially on something that is morally debatable. It's not like he was suggesting that genocide was a good idea. Calm and considered discussion is fine. Forcing people to 'agree' is not.^

I'd have been mildly annoyed by the suggestion and laughed it off - and perhaps explained why it wasn't right for me or the cat if he pressed the issue. You and the OP would choose to make a scene. Is that our bars being in different places?

I don't know, but I'd like to thank you for the thoughtful post. Especially as it enables me to ask how you would deal with someone justifying genocide, which is something I've been genuinely wondering, because I've dealt with it twice.

[gamerchick]

I must apologise Jesse.. It was actually saras post I was remembering about how the husband responded in that situation.

[HattyJack]

Ah right, so if your OH's friend said something you didn't like and your OH thought you over-reacted when you huffed off for the night in response to one ill-judged but well-meaning comment, you'd re-consider the whole marriage, sarascompact?

That's a much more balanced repsonse. I see now ...

[Thepowerof3]

Fucking hell

[HattyJack]

I wouldn't rant and make them agree with me, I'd debate with them. Quietly quietly catchee monkey, or whatever the phrase is. I wouldn't disappear or storm off - I'd be polite without being friendly. I'd probably remain on speaking terms so I had the opportunity to talk them around, and also because, if they were a friend, presumably I would find their company agreeable aside from the whol genocide thing. I can't really imagine being friendly with someone who secretly thought genocide was a good idea, apart from perhaps religious people who defend their god for some genocide or other in their holy book, and even then I'd have second thoughts if I thought they really believe it.

What did they say, and how did you react?

[Thepowerof3]

What about saying 'No that's cruel' and leave it at that, I can't believe this thread

[catlady123]

Just to clarify my P0V regarding my marriage: that is not an issue, we had a horredous fight and are both enormously upset by that, and both feel we have reason to feel angry with the other, but its not about the marriage being in jepoardy! That was never the issue. (My husband is not a cat person and does not share my anthropomorphised attachment to the cat, but he knows it well and accepts it as part of me). The issue was really more about negotiating the freindship with the friend and whether I could feel the same about him again.

[TheBigJessie]

kali Don't blame you. As you might imagine, I didn't like her much either! One of the problems with her was that she played favourites. She did it with her children, her grandchildren (I actually got the position of favourite grandchild due to geographical location so it's not just sour grapes talking here) and her pets.

[Thepowerof3]

I'm talking about the cat in the woods and not genocide btw

[catlady123]

PS I don't know how he reacted as I stormed off (unreasonably, as has been pointed out). I so wish I had dealt with this differently and my actual behaviour was all wrong, but the question was really wheteher, in the end, I can maintain a friendship with someone who not only thinks that doing such a cruel thing to my cat would be an acceptable thing, but that I would actually consider doing such a thing.

[Thepowerof3]

Does he have a cat?

[EsTutMirLeid]

You don't feel you can maintain a friendship with him for saying this really? You are being melodramatic.

[QuintessentialOldDear]

I think the issue is rather can you continue a friendship when you have embarrassed yourself so tremendously.

But, I think you need to bite the bullet here.

To give you an idea, my sister fully expects her old ginger tom, Federico, to go crawl under a bush when it is his time. Despite his old age, he sometimes disappears for days on end, out hunting we presume, and my sister will go out and check shrubbery and bushes to be on the safe side.

She lives in an area with lots of stray cats (Spain) that she feeds together with another few friends, and they have frequently found cats hiding under bushes ready to die, from injury or malnutrition, and they have taken them to the vets, or just home to love and nurture. It is the way of the cat...

[sarascompact]

Sigh.

"Ah right, so if your OH's friend said something you didn't like and your OH thought you over-reacted when you huffed off for the night in response to one ill-judged but well-meaning comment, you'd re-consider the whole marriage, sarascompact?"

again.

Ummm, no, that's not what I said either.

If my husband's friend said that, for example, all cricketers were gay, I wouldn't like it and my husband might think my response excessive but his saying so wouldn't give me cause to reconsider my marriage, HattyJack.

If my husband's friend was enough of a cunt to advocate dumping any ill, elderly cat to "let nature take its course", much less my own family cat, and my husband was enough of a cunt to describe my reaction to his friend's suggestion as "ridiculous" and to be more concerned about me appearing rude to the man who sat accepting my hospitality while advocating the slow, painful, deliberate death of my pet then I would be wondering what the fuck I'd married and whether I wanted to remain with such a man.

[Pawprint]

I'm sorry about your cat :( It's very hard to lose a pet.

I think this man was exceedingly insensitive and I would have been upset too. I think he was thoughtless. Having said that, not everyone understands the bond between pets and humans.

I remember my pet budgie was ill and my rather tactless SIL suggested I set her pet cat on him so it could kill him :(

[BeCool]

OP are you assuming that this person had cruel intentions when making that suggestion? Do you believe he was genuinely suggesting you do something really cruel/nasty to your beloved pet?

Was he just a bit thoughtless/clueless? And was his suggestion more from a mistaken belief that crawling under a bush to die might be something your cat might choose herself (given the opportunity) rather than seriously suggesting you should treat your cat cruelly?

or was his suggestion more "fuck paying vet bills, dump the old cat and leave her to die miserably and painfully on her own"?

The latter would show intentional cruelty, the first options would just show he was clueless/thoughtless and can't empathise with a cat - many people can't.

[MrsBeep]

www.rspca.org.uk/in-action/changingthelaw/whatwechanged/animalwelfareact

Point your DH's friend to the above link and tell him to read the act in full, then he would realise that it is animal cruelty what he suggested, and also illegal. I suspect he is ignorant, take the opportunity to educate him. I don't think you overreacted, I think you were emotional and stressed.