Stepfather always guilt tripping about the family dog

[FlowersAndShit]

I moved out of the family home almost a year ago. The family dog spent all of his time with me and I adore him. Stepdad started a new job after 20 years of being unemployed and is now constantly nagging and guilt tripping me about the dog since I moved out.

The dog is 7 and spends 8-9 hours a day alone. I live a 20 minute walk away and a few times I've gone to dogsit as I don't work due to anxiety/depression. I don't want to do it anymore because it's no longer my home, and I don't want to sit there for 3 plus hours.

Stepdad is now always guilt tripping me saying that he will have to put the dog to sleep or re-home him because he's on his own all the time. Stepdad owns the dog but loves to blackmail me emotionally, even when I got a cat which meant I couldn't look after the dog for 2 weeks whilst he and my mum go on holiday.

He's ringing me a few times a week now, nagging me and when I say no he starts getting aggressive and swearing which pisses me off. He brings up the fact that he takes me to appointments, but I can't be expected to dogsit throughout the week, I want my own life.

I struggle with depression and the guilt is making me feel worse. AIBU?

[Gabilan]

The dog, in the nicest possible way, doesn't care that you have MH issues. It just wants a walk.

Trust me on this, the dog knows. It won't perceive it in the same way, but it will know. All of my animals (horses, dogs, cats*) have been and are better at reading my mood than I am. In fact they've taught me about my depression because they can spot the signs that I'm going downhill before I know.

Dogs are very interesting animals. Wild dogs in a pack will look after an injured dog - bringing it food when it can't hunt for itself. That dog knows and cares that the OP is ill although as I said, it won't see it in the same way that a human would.

*OK, the cats understand my mood but whether they're bothered is harder to gauge.

[FlowersAndShit]

Stepdad wouldn't let me keep the dog. He's very highly strung (staffie) and would probably torment/kill the cat.

[LoveBoursin]

shamont animals sometimes also teach compassion and caring for someone else than you.
Just a shame that you can't transfer your compassion and caring from dogs to proper human beings :(
And being English doesn't make you any less able to feel compassion and care for another human being. That's a very poor excuse.

Flowers what you see on this thread is exactly what your sd is trying to do with you. Making you feel guilty to not look aftetr a dog THAT ISN'T YOURS because you didn't buy it, nor did you take the decision to have one. The fact you were the one to look after it when you were at home doesn't make it yours, nor does it make your responsibility.

However, what is very important in this case is to see everyone attitude towards you and look and take their behaviour for what it is.
You do NOT have to do as you are told and do everything that your sd is telling asking you to do. You do NOT have to accept his bullying attitude.
You have the right to live your life your own way, not to the tune of your parents because it suits them, even if it doesn't suit you.

[LoveBoursin]

xpost.

So in effect, you have to do as your sd is saying because ... that's what he wants?
he doesn't want to have the dog. He doesn't want you to have a cat because you have to be able to look after it if they want you to. He wants you to be at their house to look after that dog.
All that very much look like the case of an owner of the dog asking for people to do as he wants in the name of the dog.

Also I wanted to ask all those people saying 'oh poor dog. He must miss you.'
When your own dcs will be older and will move house to live their own life, would you expect your dcs to live close by to be able to take the dog out for a walk because poor dog is going to miss them otherwise. Or would you expect the dog to adapt to that, the same way that you, as the parents, are going to adapt?
Seriously, you can not ask adults to organise their life around an animal that isn't theirs (If the dog was the OP, then surely her sd would act as if he was the owner, dictating where the dog lives would he?)

[Gabilan]

He's very highly strung (staffie) and would probably torment/kill the cat

I can understand you not wanting to leave a staffie with a cat because of their jaw strength. However, staffies are not by nature highly strung. If it is anxious, it may well be because of the way it's being treated.

I had several terriers when I was a teenager - they could be demanding, if not exactly highly strung. They were completely over-ruled by a very small and even more demanding cat. They would sleep together in a big happy pile, until the cat had had enough and told them so.

[dejarderoncar]

Hard to have MH isssues I agree. But also hard to be a family member of someone with MH issues, who is painting you in whatever way they experience you, but inevitably through the distorted prism of their MH issues, which may be a very one sided and disorted picture. I have had experience of this.

So therefore we don't really know what SD has said, how he has said it, or what he wants OP to do. Only how she has interpreted it.

I don't feel she has come on here to listen to advice and maybe try to put it into practise, but to vent her issues.

When the sympathy of the thread seems to veer more towards the poor fucking dog, she drip feed another little bit of information. "Oh but I am agrophobic", "Oh but the dog (which I adored and cared for for seven years) is boisterous" This OP will "Oh but" until the cows come home.

She does not "adore" the dog, or she would try to find a solution. Then saying that she might as well let SD come and fetch her so she can sit in his house all day and not feel guilty, is a PA way to both manipulate the reactions on this thread, and possibly the reactions of SD. I think this is a two way game being played.

Unfortunately poor MH can made some people incredibly self centred, manipulative and selfish, and very lacking in insight. And basic personality makes people with MH respond differently to the same illness. I have worked professionally in the field of MH. And sitting at home looking at four walls may make the OP feel in control of her agrophobia, but it is never going to help her resolve anything.

Not everyone with MH issues is selfish, please don't think I am saying that - and best wishes and congratulations to the PP who takes her kids to school every day despite her illness, because she does "adore" them and puts their welfare first.


And while all this shit is going on, the poor dog suffers in the middle of it, But that doesn't matter while some human can trump all with "MH"

[dejarderoncar]

Also OP said she does want to have the dog but wicked SD won't let her. Then later says she doesn't want to have the dog, even as a solution to her problem, because of the cat and her agrophobia (sp). I just don't get it..sorry

[dejarderoncar]

Also nowhere in her OP does she say that she can't walk to the family house to dogsit, she says she doesn't want to. I have to leave this thread now, it's just reminding me too much of how manipulative some people with MH can be, and then how everyone comes flocking in to say "poor you, of course you can't be expected to....behave like a compassionate human being towards a suffering creature"

[magoria]

He is still being emotionally abusive to you.

You need to disconnect.

If the dog gets re-homed that is for the best. It is not your fault nor your problem.

Do not get drawn back in.

Just say no and do not discuss.

[ComeonSummer1]

Let the fog be re homed op.

None of you care about it do you. Not really.

[LoveBoursin]

dejar she also say that there are days when she cant leave the house at all. How is she going to go to the 'family' home if she can't face going out, let alone taking the dog for a walk??

And again if she can't leave her house, how could she look after said dog?

And finally, you are forgetting that her stepdad does NOT want her to have the dog....

[LoveBoursin]

I find it really interesting how some posters just ick the bits that fit their story and forget abut the other bits that don't fit their story.

As for people with MH being manipulative .... Or lacking of compassion.... It seems to me that a lot of posters here are the ones who are lacking of compassion. Not the OP who is being emotionally abused.

[NNalreadyinuse]

Whether she loves the dog or not is almost irrelevant - it isn't hers and she jas no obligation to look after it every day just because her sd thinks she ought to! If it was hers, she would have every right to just take it, irrespective of whether her sd says she can or not.

[FlowersAndShit]

dejar I don't think you could be any more offensive or condescending if you tried.

Thank you to everyone else for the advice. I'm going to suck it up and dogsit as and when needed because right now, I don't have much of a choice.

[Sunnybitch]

Ok, the cats understand my mood but whether they're bothered is harder to gauge
Gabilan you can bet your ass they most certainly are not...as long as you are there to be slave to them they won't give a hoot

[Chocolatteaddict1]

op is getting a hard time here.

Just by going off this thread I can see she is unwell and her step dad is abusive.

The dog isn't hers.

Op you need to get this bloke out of your life he sounds hidious. He is effectively controlling you and pulling you back to the 'family' home.

I think you need to start looking at going NC with him for your own MH. Why is you mum not sticking up for you ?

YANBU

[Greyhorses]

I moved out of the family home and still went back every day to check on the family dog as nobody was around, because at the end of the day the dogs wellbeing was more important than my own and if I didn't I knew the dog would suffer. I couldnt have sat at home knowing the dog was miserable on its own and there was something I could do.

I would let him rehome it or take it yourself and then you don't have to have contact with him any more.

[Chocolatteaddict1]

Well that's very admirable and selfless grey but you can't expect everyone to live their life like you do.

op is not well and has her own issues. She can not rehome the dog as her step dad won't allow it. He is using the dog as a way of still controlling her after she has moved out. She has NO say over the dog at all.

[Gabilan]

But Sunny one of the cats is on my lap now, looking sooo cute. Are you saying it's just because I'm a source of warmth

[Sunnybitch]

I'm afraid so Gabilan

[Gabilan]

But, but. She's fluffy. And cute.

Although now I think of it, she was less cute at 5 o'clock this morning when dive bombing the bed in search of breakfast.

[ClarenceTheLion]

If you mean you have no choice because you need your stepdad to take you places and pick things up for you, in that case yes, it's nice to return favours if you're able - especially if you're not doing anything else.

As far as the dog goes, if both parents are working full time, they can afford a dog walker.

[Greyhorses]

Sorry chocolate, to me the post reads that it is OPs dog. She has cared for it everyday for years and the dog thinks of OP as its owner and she has now walked away from it, hence the stepdad pressuring the OP to come back and care for her dog. In all fairness she dosent work so an hour out of the day isn't much to ask.

Regardless, it's better off with someone who can be arsed!

[ridemesideways]

He's controlling you. This isn't about the dog. You need to cease all contact as this is abuse.

[dejarderoncar]

flowersandshit talk about proving a point. You be a martyr if that's what you want.


love I repeat, the OP did not say in her OP that she can't look after the dog, but that she doesn't want to. She then gives various contradictory reasons.

She could look after the dog on days when she can leave the house, love (real love, not adoration) is a great motivator. Walking and animals can play a great part in many peoples recovery from, or coping better with MH, as they can stimulate positive chemicals (serotonins I think) in the brain.

I am not forgetting that OP says that SD doesn't want her to have the dog. She seems incàpable both practically and emotionally, of looking after it at the moment. However she did previously say she wanted the dog, and then that she didn't want it, irrespective of what SD said or didn't say.


I took particular care to say that I was not referring to ALL people suffering from mental ill health. In fact I specifically mentioned a PP with similar problems who is acting very differently.

Bleeding hearts never helped anybody.