It’s my dog, not our dog

[Bieder]

My wife and I live in separate houses - I live in the countryside and she lives in the city. A couple of years into our marriage I decided to buy a puppy because I always wanted a dog and I have the space and the time now. I brought the dog up, trained him etc. and he’s with me all of the time apart from the odd week when I go on a business trip (2-3 times a year), and then my wife looks after him at her place. My wife loves the dog and indulges him which can sometimes lead to a bit of conflict as I feel she undermines his training. But I’m petty happy to trust her with him and glad they get on so well. So this isn’t the issue.
The issue we had an argument about recently is that she stated he was “our” dog, and I corrected her, insisting he was mine. She got quite upset about that and said because we’re married we share everything, and hence the dog is our dog. I love my dog very much and invested so much time in bringing him up well and looking after him. He has a great, happy life with me in the countryside. I regard him as my dog and I don’t like it that she simply assumes there is this joint responsibility and custodianship. I find it hard to see the issue from her point of view. AIBU?

Not a living situation I would envy, and extremely bizarre when you are a married couple. People question it, not because they are envious but because it's ODD!

Also, many people can't afford to keep 2 separate homes going... And many people wouldn't want to. It's crazy to do that when you are a married couple and should be sharing a home...

And where the fuck do the children go? Do they stay one half of the week at one house and the other half in the other house? Utterly. Batshit. 😜 And a really bad example of a marriage, to show to any children you might have .

Do any children you have (or may have in the future) have to keep to your rules of 'what goes where' too. And is your DH's chip pan and war memorabilia so offensive to you? As i said. Utterly. Batshit.

His dog actually did turn our hob on. Our house filled with gas and all four of us (including my, then, 8 week old DD) were taken to hospital by ambulance. The knobs aren’t removable unfortunately - but we can cut the supply so we did that until we moved house.

I'm amazed at the number of people of here who can't understand that people live different lives to them. Married people living apart is not unheard of, and doesn't mean that their marriage is lesser than yours. I wonder if you are all so closed minded in respect to anyone else who doesn't conform to all of society's norms.

@Bieder My wife and I live in different houses (different countries, in fact). We have two dogs, and one lives with each of us. We would both say that one is very much my dog, and the other is very much her dog. They spend 95% of their time with just one or other of us, and we separately pay for all of their costs. But they are also both 'our' dogs. I think the dog is yours, but I think it is nice that your wife thinks he's both of yours.

I'm amazed at the number of people of here who can't understand that people live different lives to them.

I'm not, unfortunately. Nor surprised at the devotees to convention telling other couples how they 'should' be living.

For me that's filed strictly under the category of 'other people's business'. Ie. precisely none of mine.

I will put you in the VERY rude category then 😄

Unbelievably judgemental and offensive comment. Wow.

The dog is yours. My mum and dad live together but they have separate dogs. It is odd but it’s the way it is round there. They’re even segregated into different living spaces.

If its YOUR dog then why arent YOU paying to board your dog instead of expecting your wife to care for it for free while your gone?

Our dog is our dog though they usually have someone they think of as their number one best person or surrogate parent. So it's not so much that she's my dog but that I am her mum.

I'm glad you sorted this with your wife OP. I've just read the full thread and I think the big take away from this is why you were so triggered by it.

You mention that you have a fear of commitment, and that you are worried a week with your wife will undo training you've done. A week of good care (with somebody your dog knows and trusts) whilst you are away from your dog is so important (and fun for your dog) and you do need to chill out a bit about the training being undone, it won't happen in a week and it is not really the priority when it comes to you going away.

I work with dogs and there are dogs that I've been working with for 12/18 months plus, and their families jokingly call me their (the dog's) step-mum. I'm not their owner and claim no ownership to them, but really care about the dogs and have good relationships with them. Having that trusting connection with other people is so important and you need to relax about things.

I think perhaps you need to self reflect about your issues with letting go of control, and commitment issues, which is what this post highlights to me.

Hope this comes across as I mean it to.

Well, not really any more weird than the rest of your set up.

Because the point of marriage is 2 separate people joining together to become 1 single family unit. This may or may not involve children, pets and living together but you are a single unit. Your pet is yours together jointly as it belongs to your family unit. To me it’s bizarre you think differently. Now sure if you split, the dog would go to you I would have thought as you are the primary caregiver, but until that point he belongs to you both. Also you don’t pay for his care, you both do out of your joint matrimonial assets. Nothing belongs to you separately unless you have a prenup (and even that may not count!) Why get married if you wanted to live separate lives?

I’m howling at some of these replies and honestly wondering if these people ever owned dogs. My partner and I got together with a dog a piece, I walked, fed looked after both as did he, my dog never really became his and his was definitely never mine. A couple of times a year the wife gets the dog and he spends 95% of his time with it, it’s his dog! If she wants a dog maybe she could living somewhere dog friendly and doing the work 😱🤣

Just dont go buying any new bathroom scales....

TBH I wouldn't mind having a pied a terre in the countryside near a beach where I could walk my husband's dog, she is very much his dog, when she came to stay. And I could go and visit him in his house in town and vice versa.

She's our dog when she's with us - but still very much his - and she spends most days with her grandparents, who happily introduce her to people as their dog. We are all her pack.

It sounds like this has worked out well for you OP....enjoy your dog.

You’re absolutely right, and thanks for taking the time to respond. I am overly anxious about the dog and that something might happen to him (the first year or so of his life I even had very frequent nightmares of him getting lost or killed) - that might also play into it.

You sound more attached to the dog than your wife. I hope she gets her own pet and says it’s hers only.

I’m howling at some of these replies and honestly wondering if these people ever owned dogs.

I'm wondering if they've met any people, beyond the ten that live in their village.

@Bieder the first thing that popped into my head is whether you’re an only child OP?

I didn’t assume that you were a man, @Bieder , but lots of posters will if you don’t specify, and refer to your partner as she. MN tends to be harsher on males than females, so if they assume you’re a man you’ll get more judgemental responses, especially if your setup (ie living apart whilst married) is non-traditional.

I don’t know how long you’ve been married, but from what you’ve said here I wonder whether your motivation for getting married was to demonstrate commitment to the relationship (even though you don’t want to live together), rather than to merge your lives at the fundamental “everything we have, we share” level that many people see marriage? Maybe some of your discomfort is coming from the fact that your wife calling your dog “our dog” makes you anxious that she is of the “marriage means that everything in our lives is shared and merged” attitude, and that potential loss of self/autonomy is scary?

Well, "we" (as in my teenage daughter and I) have a dog and I find the OP totally bizarre. He is "our" family dog even though I paid for him and do almost al the caring for him. I absolutely love it when he's snuggled up to my daughter on the sofa and that he loves her just as much as he loves me and I would hate for him to be just "my" dog. But then I love my daughter and we're a family, of which our dog is a member.

I thought my parents are the only couple in the world that are married but can't and don't live together in the same house. If you expect her to take care of the dog when you are away, you have to share ownership.

I haven’t read every post so apologies if this is repeating what has already been said. Please try not to be jealous of your DW’s relationship with the dog being more fun. Our dog loves DH and I equally I would say but she gets very different things from each of us. That may be different because we do live together but DH is her playmate for the games and stuff while I am the one she snuggles up to on the sofa and likes to follow around doing scent training with. I expect your dog may be the same, you each offer something wonderful.

I was married until quite recently, and we got two dogs while we were together and they were both very definitely both my dogs. When we split there was no question about who the dogs would live with. (I somehow ended up with both cats as well though, and those WERE 'ours' until it turned out they were also mine too, because he refused to take them). The dogs choose their owner anyway, as much as it's the other way round, and mine obviously both saw me as 'their person' and not my husband, probably because of all the emotional energy I put into them, and the fact that I did all the walking - and eventually, replaced my husband in my bed with them (although they're on it rather than in it!).

It's your dog, OP.

I mean, I've always said dogs are kind of like babies. I am also default parent to my children, birthed them, spent 9 months solely with them, work part time to look after them, feed them, cloth them, teach them, play with them, you get the jist. My husband is really only default parent when I'm very rarely not around, but they are still OUR children. I know it's not exactly the same but even with kids usually one person puts in substantially more time and energy etc but doesn't make them less the other person's?