Partner wants a new dog, I don't: end of the relationship?

[nomorequinoa]

We've been together for 22 years. I'm 61, my DP's soon to be 60 and will be retiring in March 2023. I've freelanced from home for many years. DP works in IT as a contractor and has often worked abroad.

18 years ago we rescued our first dog, a young terrier. Soon after that DP took a 12-month contract in the Netherlands and I ended up looking after the dog for at least five days a week, with all the stress of training and caring for a young dog with behavioural issues. He'd come home for a couple of weekends each month and enjoy taking her on long walks, then be off again. Five years after that we mutually agreed to take on another rescue. I continued doing the lion's share of looking after them during the week. I loved them very much, but they were both quite challenging and they too often felt like a tie. Finding a reliable dog-sitter was always a challenge: I lost out on opportunities to go places and do things. The first dog died at 15 in 2017 and the younger one is about to turn 14 is just starting to look a bit stiff and doddery.

A week ago a friend of DP's asked if there was a chance of us rehoming a gorgeous terrier cross. The owners are divorcing and neither is in a position to take the dog. My DP went to see it without consulting me. It's clearly a sweet, much-loved pet and DP has as good as told them we will take it. Apparently he told them he'll just need to talk me round.

I don't want another dog once our current lovely old lad goes. I want us to be able to do all the things we've talked about doing in retirement without the stress of having to look after a dog. I want us to be able to take that three-month trip to South America we've talked about without the worry of dog care. I want to be able to take a last-minute trip away and do spontaneous things without having to factor in a dog. I don't want to have to continue putting on my boots and waterproofs and walking four miles in the cold and rain because the dog needs me to exercise him, as I've done for the last 18 years. I want a break from dog-care routine. DP says I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. He says the dog will be his, he'll walk it twice a day and take responsibility for it. I ask how he'll look after the dog when he's away on his sailing and cycling breaks with his brother and friends. He says he'll put it in kennels. We both know he'll expect me to look after the dog when he's away. He's working on the basis that I'll soften and give in, but I'm not going to. This is a hard, hard no from me.

I'd hoped he'd hear me and agree that once our current lovely boy has gone, we should be able to have at least a five-year break without a dog. Instead he's doubled down. We've never argued much, but in the last few days we've had some really hurtful rows that have made me see him in a new light. We've managed to work our way through things before, but this seems different.

AIBU? Has anyone else been through anything similar? I'd never imagined that it would be a dog that would end our relationship, but I think it might.

You say you've been good at negotiation together.

Really? Have you both made big compromises in the past? Or has conflict been resolved by your compromise?

My goodness he really does have your little retirement mapped out for you🙄.
He is extremely presumptuous.

I would suggest this dog issue has been a real blessing.

He sounds hugely self involved.
All his needs met and no doubt you nursing him too if the time came🙄.

Your plan for your retirement sounds extremely reasonable.

Me too! Is this a common thing?

I too find myself fantasising about living in a one-bedroom flat with minimal stuff. I wonder if it's something that happens to women at retirement age?

@nomorequinoa me too! A small open plan bungalow, with someone to come in to help keep the garden sorted, lots of spontaneous holidays, winters abroad in cheap, mild climate, peaceful parts of the world to just potter in.

I'm only 49 though 😕

Yes I think maybe this is a thing for women at around this age! As we're more likely to have been responsible for keeping the family home going, we long for the idea of a small minimalist flat that is easy to take care of.

Yes: I'm thinking whoop-de-doo, no more work, minimal chores, minimal routine. Time to relax and play.

He's thinking whoop-de-doo, once I'm not doing paid work I can help him out with the DIY and gardening. When he was working away a lot we employed someone to keep the garden basically under control.

Not the end but it will depend on how much he wants a dog and how much he expects you to do dog care wise versus him.

My dream is to have practically no “stuff” in my home, I like just a few nice things and no clutter…but we’re definitely not there yet with two teenagers and their sport equipment in the hall, products not properly put away in the bathroom ( I can always tell when DD’s been primping in there!) etc., etc. One day!🤞

"Yes I think maybe this is a thing for women at around this age! As we're more likely to have been responsible for keeping the family home going, we long for the idea of a small minimalist flat that is easy to take care of."

YES!!!! Do I want to spend my retirement cleaning, doing chores, DIY? NO!!!!!

Could you remove yourself from the house for let's say a month? A week in a b and b, a few days with friends etc.
That way he's having to deal with everything including your current dog without you.
The time away may focus his mind and make him realise the work involved looking after a dog on his own for an extended period of time. And it may just make him work out what's more important to have around - you or a dog.

It will also show him how serious you are about this and that you CAN live without him and won't hesitate to do drastic things if he's going to continue being so stubborn.
Maybe you should also imply you won't think twice about leaving a potentially controlling relationship, as this sounds like what it's verging on.

I take it you must have tried to rationalise with him by reminding him that for all these years he's been having his own way. Isn't it fair that you have your way for once?

Ultimately you need to decide how far you would push this to prove your point. If you can't or won't stand up to him, you're just going to have to accept he'll win every time and let him have his own way. But being so weak can store up future problems if ever you are at loggerheads again

I take it you must have tried to rationalise with him by reminding him that for all these years he's been having his own way.

It hasn't all been his own way. I've vetoed a number of projects he was offered that seemed too long and would have made it difficult for him to come home at least one weekend a month. Him working away was a compromise which we both agreed to because he could earn more that way and so could pay off our mortgage earlier. There was a period when both my parents were ailing (it turned out my dad was dying) where I went and lived with them for more than a month on a couple of occasions while he stayed home with the dog. This isn't a relationship where it's been his way or no way.

I don't want to play games by flouncing off and seeing how he manages. He'd be fine on his own.

Ultimately you need to decide how far you would push this to prove your point. If you can't or won't stand up to him, you're just going to have to accept he'll win every time and let him have his own way. But being so weak can store up future problems if ever you are at loggerheads again

I've made it quite clear that I will leave if he gets another dog. That's not being weak. Stop projecting your own stuff onto me.

Or has conflict been resolved by your compromise?

@GabriellaMontez

This ^

Yes I think maybe this is a thing for women at around this age

For me, in my sixties, it started when we cleared out DM's home to be rented out to help with her care home fees. They had moved around quite a bit, spent many years oversees so I did not anticipate any great effort required.

It still took us the best part of a month to clear everything. I knew what some of the things had meant to her. After giving away as much as we could manage, we used house clearance to complete the job. I still have a few boxes of photos in my loft which I promise myself I must really clear out.

I am determined to leave much less behind me. DH would cheerfully never throw away anything. Sigh.

Hopefully he will see sense Op as sounds like you have a good set up, so it would be a shame for him to insist on a dog and ruin things! Good luck!

No, he's agreed not to take certain jobs because I was concerned that he wouldn't get enough time off to come home occasionally. He'd just signed a new contract when it became clear that my parents had gone from coping to not coping and he dropped out of it so that he could stay at home and look after the two dogs we had then while I went to sort my mum and dad out. Stop making me out to be a doormat so that you can blame me.

It does seem like he sees retirement as things not changing apart from him not working rather than a new phase of like for both of you.

He can't understand why you don't want to be tired to the house and a dog 50% of the year whilst he does his thing 50% and you do yours the other 50%.

Yes, that really does sum it up. I suppose that's what he's been used to all these years. He goes and does his thing safe in the knowledge that house and dog(s) are being looked after.

By pure coincidence, my DH and I had a conversation yesterday about retirement plans. DH is 50 and hope to retire from his current (stressful) career and pursue his side business FT by 60. That takes planning so we're already discussing how to manage this. Anyway, it became clear that his vision of retirement is different from mine and the conversation got slightly heated! He clearly wants me to support his dreams (as I always have, tbh), but I'm not entirely willing to this time. Luckily, we've got a while to figure this out.

So, you're not alone, OP. Retirement is a major life change.

discussion is the key.

I remember a while ago my DP came out with the idea that when he retired I would join him playing golf on Wednesday mornings. It really hadn't occurred to him that
a) I already have a Wednesday morning commitment that I wouldn't want to loose
b) I can't stand golf.

It did get the discussion rolling however.

Interestingly my long term Wednesday morning commitment is with a group of woman, approx 10-15 years older than me so I'd heard all their moans and gripes about newly retired husbands and wasn't about to make the same mistakes.

I can't stand golf.

@DPotter Had he never noticed that you have zero interest in golf? Or did he think he could somehow convert you? 😂

Probably thought he could talk her round, like the ops dh did with the dog

@Cameleongirl and @longtompot

I have no idea what was going through his head. He knows I don't like golf - tried it, found it incredibly boring. He knows there is no way he could persuade me otherwise - that's why it was such a weird thing to say and more to the point believe. Men are a different species and are incomprehensible at time

I find this quite reassuring. I wonder when my DH is going to announce that he expects me to start road cycling?

It's a real shock, isn't it, when you realise that they really don't think about you as an autonomous individual with an inner life of your own — despite having sat for many hours over the last few years and listened and devised plans. He's stopped talking about the dog, so I think it's sunk in that I'm serious. Now I need to work out whether I really want to stick with someone who doesn't hear me or believe what I say.

"He'd just signed a new contract when it became clear that my parents had gone from coping to not coping and he dropped out of it so that he could stay at home and look after the two dogs we had then while I went to sort my mum and dad out."

I don't want to pile on, but it sounds as if you think this is him doing something nice for you when your parents needed you. But if you didn't have the dog, he could have stayed on the contract while you went to look after your parents, because there would have been no dog for you to look after. You were still in the situation where going to sort out your parents meant you had to metaphorically go "cap in hand" to him to ask him for a favor. It's nice that he did it, but if he hadn't, what would you have done? And how many things are there that you would have LIKED to do, that you haven't done, because he's living elsewhere while he works, and you are tied to the dogs at home, and you're afraid to ask for "too much" help from him because asking for what you should already have will be seen as grabby or greedy or needy?

Meanwhile, he wants to live in another country for work, he just does it. When he's in that other country for work, at the end of the workday, he just puts his feet up. Or he goes out to dinner. Or he goes to visit an old castle all day without having to find out if the dogs can come with him. Or whatever he wants.