DP being horrible towards my DCat

[Yasmin98]

DP and I don’t live with each other but he stays over a couple nights a week.

Recently, he has been making increasingly rude comments about my DCat and when I challenge him he just says ‘she’s a cat, she doesn’t have feelings’.

He really isn’t a pet person which is fine but I would expect him to treat mine with respect.

Has anyone had a similar situation and found a solution? I am reluctant to move him in full time unless his attitude changes.

I once started a new relationship and soon after got a kitten. I naturally spent lots of my time looking after / playing with / socialising my kitten. New bf must have felt jealous as he began complaining about the kitten and demanding that I shut kitten out of the bedroom! This obviously didn’t happen. Luckily that relationship ended and my next (and current) bf has always had a wonderful relationship with my cats. I think it’s important for a partner to be compatible with all members of the family, which can include children and pets!

You can tell how many of us are animal lovers, going by these responses. Hope you take it on board OP. Men are ten a penny, compared to our pets.

Cat will be offended if not called dear cat. Don’t be callous.

Never trust a person is unkind to animals !

Very true, you can't trust this person.

Definitely a red flag! What kind of person is unkind to anyone/anything on purpose! Get rid and find yourself a lovely kind partner. He’ll only get worse

True!

I’m not really a pet person but I wouldn’t, in a million years, be rude about a partner’s, especially knowing how much people love their pets. I’d say this is a red flag. He’s showing he doesn’t care if he hurts you.

My DH used to dislike my cat. Fair enough because my cat is an arsehole and bites. However he put the effort in to get to know the cat and they bonded. I did explain you need to read the cat's cues so you can avoid being bitten but it took a while to get the hang of that. Does your cat bite? If not, there is no reason for him to be horrible about her. If he's being horrible TO her then that's different and a lot worse.

Off he fucks…

LTB. Cats don’t have feeling? Like, WTF??

What are the cues? This stuff fascinates me.

I'm not really a cat person but he'd be shown the door for behaviour like that. I certainly wouldn't be moving him in.

Thanks all, these replies are reassuring and make me realise I need to give him a clear ultimatum.

Yep, I don’t trust people who don’t like animals, so far I’ve been right to not trust them.

😆 🤣

I sometimes say to my cat that he is fat. He is because my partner gives him treats like fresh tuna and chicken and my partner says I shouldn't tell him he's fat. Am I cruel and do I hurt the cat's feelings? I doubt it otherwise he wouldn't come to me for (ample) belly rubs (the cat not my partner)

Hopefully he's not mistreating the cat but if it's threats like "I'm going to kick that cat if it does that again" and not joking things like I would say "you are so fluffy you'd make a nice pair of slippers" then I'd dump him.

I'd break up over something like this. It would make me worry how he might treat the cat when I'm not around.

Cat will be fine, unless you shout it in its face with a mean look.

What do you mean by “rude comments”? I say mean things in jest to animals (“hello, stinky, you smell like garbage”, “oh no, the food’s run out, that means we have to give you away”), because they can’t understand and don’t have feelings about it, and it’s part of the joy of being around animals.

Cruel.

It is things like, if DCat gets in my way again I’m going to kick her like a football.

It depends to some extent on the cat, but look out for the tail twitching/swishing as that's usually a sign the cat is reaching its tolerance limit. Ears back is another sign of a pissed off cat.

Generally if they have had enough of being petted they will just jump up and go somewhere else, though. It's if you are restraining them, say to give a pill or flea treatment, that they are likely to lash out because obviously they don't understand 'it's for their own good'!

Whiny, needy, resentful behaviour.

Bloody hell. He'd be out the door before he could blink if he said that in my house.