All He Wanted Was Sympathy, LOL

susiestar

Roll With It
husband just came and told me he was going to take a nap. He told me that he wanted to sleep in this am, but the cat wouldn't let him.

It seems Capn was trying to get J to feed him and she ignored him. He scratched her (not something I will scold/punish him for because he ONLY does this when she is holding him and he is slipping or when he really needs something and she flat out will NOT give it to him. WHen J wants to not be scratched, she will stop picking him up and holding him in a precarious manner and she will stop making his beg and beg when he needs something. He doesn't ask for food unless his bowl has been empty for quite a few hours.) and she still refused to even glance at his bowl to see if it was empty.

So Cap'n went and just patted husband's face until he woke up.

husband has been fussing about the kids not feeding the cat (theoretically it is one of the kids' chores) for quite some time now. I used to be sympathetic and I used to get on the kids a LOT about this. husband? almost never says anything to them about this. He tells ME and expects me to make the kids comply. Um, no. Not happening. This is between husband, Cap'n and the kids. Cat strongly prefers husband to do all his things, but he does let the kids feed him and change his water and wll let thank you do the litter box. He own't use it if J or I do it, not until husband or thank you will stir it around. Talk about the chauvinist cat, lol.

I told husband that HE needed to sit both kids down and tell them flat out that if the cat is pestering them and they do not make sure he has clean food and water in clean dishes and a clean litter box, then they will get X consequence. If the cat wakes husband up because whatever kid is up/around that the kid (s) refused to even try to take care of, there will be a bigger consequence. I told him that I would back him up, but HE must be the one to tell the kids AND to enforce it. He also has to figure out what X consequence is.

Needless to say, he was rather disappointed by my reaction. He HATES it when he is asking for sympathy and he gets "it is time to stop this. You need to do ..." instead. I get tired of him complaining but not doing anything to fix it. He usually does come through though. I can only give sympathy so many times on a given issue, Know what I mean??
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Terry, it probably wouldn't be as effective coming from me. It took me quite a while to get frustrated enough and determined enough to hand his problems right back to him, to refuse to 'fix' them for him, and to insist that he actually address the problems. it would not be something that I could do that would help filx y'alls realtionship. He would just resent your 'crazy' friend and be even more determined to not do whatever I suggested.
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
You may recall that my quiet husband "took a stand" recently by deciding that Ace would remain with us and not move to Texas with easy child and family. husband insisted he "needed" "his dog". From that day on I no longer get up during the night to let Ace out. I no longer arrange Ace's trips for grooming or vet checks nor do I take responsibility for making sure the dog food bag is adequately full. husband and I have been married since 1976 and this is the first time I have completely put my foot down. He always supported my parenting but never took the initiative. He is a good man but it just was easier to "be in charge" all those years. I wish I had hunkered down years ago (and of course I won't let Ace suffer in any way) but I will be your head cheerleader if you need support. Hugs DDD
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
My cats gave up on anyone else and just bug ME. I wish I could get them to bug others... LOL!

As for your husband - too bad for him, eh? :biggrin:
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Needless to say, he was rather disappointed by my reaction. He HATES it when he is asking for sympathy and he gets "it is time to stop this. You need to do ..." instead. I get tired of him complaining but not doing anything to fix it
Suzie... are you sure that you didn't do a brain swap at some point?
The reason I'm asking is...
1) the "all I was looking for was sympathy" is a typical "female" thing, and
2) "fixing it" is a typical "male" thing
 

susiestar

Roll With It
We have always been this way. He is lousy at finding solutions, but is better now than he was 20 yrs ago when we married. Mostly because I wuold get so dang annoyed I could have choked him over something and he hates wehn people get upset, esp me. So he has come a long way. But esp with the kids, he wants to bring his problems to me and have me fix them like I am his mommy. Usually he gets very little sympathy and an "oh, well, that is difficult, isn't it?" reaction. Took a long time to learn that and it drives him nuts. As a kid his parents didn't really do any supervision of him, at least not that I can see in old stories from anyone. Heck, at 3 he took his 18 mo sister for a mile long walk to get candy from a family friend rather than napping. Took his mom 2 hrs to realize they were gone! They walked PAST her, less than 3 feet away, and out the front door and she never noticed. He used to put lighter fluid on his shoe soles and set them on fire and go running down the street on a regular basis.
 
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