Programming Note: Thank you so much to everyone who commented and emailed and entrusted me with your secrets over the duration of my time as Aunt Acid. I had many more good questions than I could answer, especially for this last column. I will miss you.
Dear Aunty Acid,
A year ago My Former Roommate asked me to look after her cat as a temporary situation because she was depressed, recently diagnosed with skin cancer, and living with her mom who hates Kitty. As time went by with zero input from her and only one visit to see Kitty, I ended up getting very attached. Since I’ve had her I’ve been taking care of everything, from taking her on her first vet visit to finally getting her the worm medication she needed.
When we got into a fight about my attachment and her seemingly complete lack of care for Kitty, My Former Roommate told me her life was spiraling and that I should officially adopt Kitty, and if she were to get a place and a job it would be my choice to give Kitty up or not. I told her when the time came I would do what was best for Kitty and My Former Roommate. A week ago, MFR messaged me telling me that she wants Kitty back, that this was always a temporary situation, and that I don’t really have a choice. She’s telling me she has a job and her mom will be moving to Vietnam for two or three years.
I feel like I take better care of Kitty. MFR holds her until she growls and picks up and tosses her. I love Kitty so much it breaks my heart to give her back, but how am I supposed to say no when MFR has a house, a job, and says Kitty helps her deal with her depression? I’ve been crying at work and at home over this, and the idea of MFR feeling the same way makes me feel so guilty for even considering saying no. Where should I be putting the priority — with Kitty or My Former Roommate?
–Miss Moral Compass
Dear Compass,
You’ve found yourself in a sticky-sad situation as an unexpected byproduct of being a good friend and responsible person. That’s unfair. And now I’m going to ask you to do yet another hard thing. Although you are within your rights to keep Kitty—“possession is nine points of the law” and all that, plus YFR originally told you it was up to you—I think you should swallow hard, cry as much as you need to privately, and then give Kitty back with as much good grace as you can scrape together.
If you keep Kitty, that will hurt your former roommate, and it sounds like she has been having a tough enough time already. Telling her that you don’t trust her with her own cat would be a vote of No Confidence in her as a human being. Your friendship would almost certainly be over.
If you return Kitty, it will hurt you. But if you have to choose between hurting yourself and someone else, you choose hurting yourself. That’s what it means to be a grown-up. In this case it’s especially true, since you seem to be in a better position to cope with setbacks. Disappointment might not crush you, whereas it seems likely to make her start spiraling again.
Kitty’s welfare matters too, but although she seems like she’s more comfortable with you, none of the examples you mentioned—including some I had to edit out for length—made it clear she would be in actual danger in YFR’s care. Maybe YFR really has learned and grown, in part thanks to you. Maybe she will do better. She deserves that chance.
You could see this as your being punished for having your shit together. But you could also see it another way: you were rewarded for having your shit together by getting to form a deep and unexpected connection with an animal. Maybe the relationship with Kitty wasn’t Permanent Forever, but it mattered, to both of you. It made a difference. You discovered something about yourself, the real-life equivalent of that dream where you walk into a whole wing of your apartment you didn’t know was there. And if you keep lines of communication open with YFR, perhaps YFR will realize her own limitations and give Kitty back to you, for real this time.
Regardless, appreciate what you had, even if it was temporary. Indulge in self-care while you let yourself grieve. Praise yourself for being able to be there for both a person and an animal that needed you. And get yourself a pet. Not to be a stand-in for Kitty or as a band-aid for the Kitty-sized hole in your heart, but because you’ve shown yourself worthy, and you deserve the kind of devoted, unconditional love an animal can provide.
For the last couple of years we’ve known that my husband is low-key dying. His condition has an average life expectancy of 3-5 years, but there’s a long tail so it could be more like 10. He has intermittent crises (about one a year), any one of which could kill him, but assuming they don’t we’re looking a gradual decline over no more than a decade. In the meantime, he looks and feels pretty good. He’s working part-time in a great, flexible, supportive job; he’s even working out. He’s the primary caregiver for our kid (who’s in a great full-time preschool) due to my work schedule. We’ve made financial arrangements and moved to be closer to family so that we will have support now and after, and I know we will be fine. We’d like him to be around to see our kid grow up, but we have some time to make memories, take photos, etc. Our affairs are in order, and I realize that in that we are TREMENDOUSLY LUCKY.
My husband wants to live as normal a life, with as few people as possible knowing, for as long as possible. He’s private. He doesn’t want pity, or for people to feel weird around him. I understand. It’s really hard to ignore, though. The few people he’s okay with me discussing this with are…not super helpful. I feel stressed all the time when I think we’re not “making the most of our time left.” I get annoyed at him for not taking things easy, as he gets tired and then he gets crabby with our kid. I don’t want her to remember him that way. Basically, I don’t think we’re doing this the right way and he does. I guess it is his call, but I’m finding the uncertainty and secrecy really tough to deal with. And this could go on for a while! Years, potentially! Hopefully! I’d love to lean more on my family and our friends.
Does he need more therapy? Do I? We don’t really want to spend more of our finite time in yet more appointments. I don’t think we’re having a hard time coming to terms with the diagnosis or communicating, we just have different attitudes about sharing private information publicly. Any advice on encouraging people to be more open? On living in the moment without stressing about the future? On being more zen about shitty situations and stubborn men in general?
Let’s let Lin-Manuel Miranda speak first: “Let me tell you what I wish I’d known, when I was young and dreamed of glory: you have no control, who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” That refrain in Hamilton resonates because we want control. We’re desperate for it. The chronic, chaotic unfairness of life drives us to exert control over whatever we can, because the opposite, surrendering the illusion of control—what you may mean when you say “being more Zen”—means acknowledging that the universe is probably either a meaningless void or it’s working on a story whose arc is so long and complicated we can’t begin to fathom it, and many people find either prospect terrifying. Surrendering means leaning into the ambiguities and the contradictions. It means accepting mortality as the price we pay for getting to spend some time eating Pop-Tarts and listening to Prince.
It sounds like your husband’s not ready to give up his illusion of control. You say he’s private. He’s also probably scared and angry and sad and lots of other things it’s understandable to be when you’ve been told your life has an expiration date. (We all have expiration dates, but most of us are lucky enough not to know what ours are.) He wants to act like he’s the master of his fate, the captain of his soul, so that it will seem true, at least for a while longer.
What he doesn’t seem to get yet, though, is that this is not solely his tragedy. Once he bound his fate up with yours and your kid’s, he agreed that you three would pool your blessings and your misfortunes, your joy and your pain. His death will affect all of you. It’s affecting all of you already. And you need more support.
Tell him that. Tell him you understand his need to try to maintain a sense of normalcy for as long as possible but that you need more of an outlet, because the knowledge that he could die as soon as tomorrow or as late as when your child is in middle school is hard on you. Can you agree on a couple more people in whom you can confide, people who can be of more help to you, now and later on? Can he do that much for you, release his grip to that degree?
The larger issue is that you wish he weren’t gripping so tightly in general, and I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about that. It is his nature to grip tightly. And this is, mostly, his party. He gets to cry if he wants to, or rather, do his damnedest to keep everyone else from crying.
Focus on you. You’ve shown remarkable fortitude and practicality thus far. What can you do to make the next years easier on yourself? Can you see his strength in his stubbornness, courage in his desire to ignore the sword of Damocles dangling over his head? Can you respect his decisions even when you don’t agree with them?
And: can you release your own tight grip? You want to make the most of your limited time and also live in the moment. That’s a recipe for Failure Soufflé. (Take three heaping cups Expectations, two cups Pressure, two teaspoons Uncertainty, three tablespoons of Preschooler; fold in the wet ingredients [tears], and stir; then bake under Extreme Conditions for 1-10 years.) I’ve always thought “live every day as though it might be your last” is wretched advice; it makes a person desperate, shot through with adrenaline, and unlikely to contribute to their retirement accounts.
If it’s possible, try to act as though your husband has the full decade he might well have. That gives you a lot of time—not enough, but a lot. It enables your little family to breathe a little, to relax, to make decisions based on not scarcity but on abundance and appreciation. Even if you don’t then get the full complement of years, you’ll have enjoyed your days. Besides, you’re far less likely to regret decisions that come from a place of gratitude rather than fear. Eat some Pop-Tarts. Dance with your preschooler to Prince. Stop trying to make every moment count, and listen to what story the moments may have to tell.
Good luck to you, and to everyone.
Confidential to Lost in Space: Believe it or not, you’re doing everything right. (Just because something hurts doesn’t mean it’s wrong or not worth trying!) People talk about hearts being broken, but it can be more useful to think of your heart as a phoenix. In terrible moments, like the one you survived, your heart can burst into flames; but then, always, it’s born again from the ashes. Be patient with yourself, and be gentle with the scrawny, squawky baby bird in your chest. It will be strong again. It just needs time.
Note: Letters have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Aunt Acid, we will miss you. This a sad week.
I have to disagree about Kitty. FRM gave her up and doesn’t treat her well (throwing is not ok!). Her story is sad, but that doesn’t change the fact that she gave the writer the cat, and because of that the writer clearly formed an attachment she would not have done if she thought it was still temporary.
Not to mention the qualifier that she can take the cat back now because her mom will be out of the country for a couple of years. What happens when mom comes back? Cats live 15 years or more!
“If you return Kitty, it will hurt you. But if you have to choose between hurting yourself and someone else, you choose hurting yourself. That’s what it means to be a grown-up.”
Respectfully, I disagree. Many adult decisions do require you to make decisions that hurt somebody else in the short- or long-term, because you have an obligation to take care of yourself. I’d also say that if the letter-writer has any suspicion that her Former Roommate will abuse Kitty in any way, she should prevent that from happening.
Yep. If MFR had a good rapport with the cat I would maybe come down on Aunt Acid’s side, but “MFR holds her until she growls and picks up and tosses her” was the point where I was like “nah okay it’s your cat now, LW”
I disagree with that paragraph in general, but agree with the substance of the answer. Give the cat back. Stay friends with former roommate. Keep an eye on Kitty. “Tossing” the cat may be a gentle thing the cat dislikes, but isn’t harmed by, or it may be abuse. I don’t think there’s enough info here to tell.
But the cat is not yours. Fostering is tough. It means opening your home and your heart to an animal that will eventually leave you. I have fosters right now – they may be gone next week, or they may live with me until the end of my days. Either way, when they go, they will leave a big hole in my life. But it’s not my choice to make, and you knew what you were getting into. Hindsight is 20/20, I know, but giving Kitty back here is the right thing to do, and gives you the best chance at watching out for Kitty in the future if things go south with YFR again.
All well and good…but this is not a foster situation. Fosters provide temporary homes. Roommate advised the writer to “officially adopt” the cat, and nothing in the letter suggests that the Writer hasn’t done so. (I’m not sure how you “officially” hand over ownership of a cat; it’s not like they come with notarized Deeds or certificates). And the writer said in return: “I told her when the time came I would do what was best for Kitty and My Former Roommate.”
Based on what I’ve read, I do not believe that Roommate would be the better owner for this cat than the Writer, even if Roommate were in the best possible mental health. And furthermore, Writer owns this cat now, and has demonstrated herself to be a consistently better owner. Just keep it, Writer.
Also, I disagree with this: “Hindsight is 20/20, I know, but giving Kitty back here is the right thing to do, and gives you the best chance at watching out for Kitty in the future if things go south with YFR again.” There is no guarantee that Roommate won’t take this cat and disappear out of Writer’s life at any moment.
Yeah, I’d probably give the cat back, but I am literally waving my arms at my desk and mouthing “NO NO NO NO NO” at the idea that choosing to hurt yourself over others every time is part of being a “grown up.”
ETA: there is a lot of “do as I say, not as I do” here, so please consider me the person up to her knees in quicksand screaming at you that the narratives that encourage this mindset (so many of which seem to be directed at women, funny that) are a trap.
Mine’s ‘if you have to choose between hurting an animal and hurting a human, you choose hurting the human, because the animal rarely has any choice in the situation’.
Have to agree here. To me, LW officially adopted kitty when LW paid the vet bills, and administered the medication. If Roommate wants another cat, they can get another cat, but this one has landed in a good location with a loving owner. Let it go.
Also, strongly agree that hurting a human over hurting an animal is sound advice. The animal not only has no choice – it has legal rights to not be abused. Roommate does not have protection over simply getting their feelings hurt because they would like back an animal that they mistreated and passed along to someone else. THATS called being an adult. Making decisions and living with them.
This line gave me pause, too. Being a grown up seems to be more about having to make (and own) difficult choices anytime it comes down to hurting yourself or hurting someone else. Choosing to hurt yourself every time is only choosing to set yourself up for a lifetime of hurt.
I’ve done this a lot and. . .yeah. I really wish I hadn’t internalized the mindset that being a good person meant always taking the hit.
Definitely agree with you. Putting another person’s well-being/needs ahead of your own ALL THE TIME is absolutely not a healthy way to live.
But really, you are choosing between hurting yourself/hurting Kitty and hurting FMR . Yeah, maybe holding her too long or tossing her isn’t abuse, but Kitty’s quality of life is better when she lives with LW1, and that should be considered also. LW1, keep Kitty!!
Yeah I also gotta disagree on that cat one. MFR sounds like a shitty pet owner and shitty friend, and you don’t owe this to her at all. Also while I am all about treating others well, “But if you have to choose between hurting yourself and someone else, you choose hurting yourself. That’s what it means to be a grown-up.” is N O T a healthy or necessarily “grown-up” way to live. You are allowed to balance your needs with the needs of others, and to me the fact that the cat is also probably better off in your care tips the balance here to your continued ownership.
Yes, that statement is only true with a long and complicated set of qualifiers.
It reminds me of questions on personality tests: “Would you say that you prefer to work alone, or as part of a group?” “Would you say that you prefer to lead, or to follow?” “Which is better, cake or pie?”
Well, gee, that depends on the situation, Test.
Yes, the sentence about what it means to be a grown-up was problematic for me, mostly because I am someone who has a nasty habit of putting everyone else’s needs so far before my own that it can be actively harmful. I know that wasn’t AA’s intention, but the doormat part of my psyche was like, “oooh, look, confirmation! Now roll over again!” It has taken me a VERY long time to realize that choosing to (minorly, marginally) hurt someone else rather than myself was even an option.
I also have that tendency to privilege other people’s well-being over my own. I am completely okay with it insofar as I’m interacting with people who also tend to put others first.
Then there’s the rest of the time, in which case my sole satisfaction comes from having behaved in a way I wish were standard. That’s not nothing– I like being able to live with myself. But being able to live with myself doesn’t pay the rent, protect me from foreseeable heartbreak, or keep me from getting an STI from someone who treats their own right to unfettered sexual expression as more important than my health. Nor does it preserve relationships. It’s hard for me to continue liking and respecting someone if they capitalize on this part of me repeatedly and without acknowledgment (e.g., Recent Ex).
It is especially delightful when the other person, if I complain, blames me for not being a better self-advocate, when part of what that person liked so much about me was that I wasn’t a good self-advocate.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a Relationship Altruist. I don’t even, at a philosophical level, think there’s anything wrong with being a Relationship Randian. I just don’t think Relationship Altruists and Relationship Randians can be friends.
Hard, hard second to all of this. Do not return the cat to someone who didn’t take it to the vet, didn’t get it necessary medication, and treats it roughly. Having depression is an absolutely awful experience, but it doesn’t absolve someone from providing basic care for an animal.
ETA: Related to depression and the above: the most important lessons from my adulthood have been about how I frequently /shouldn’t/ choose to hurt myself emotionally. My self-preservation and self-care deserve the same careful weight and examination as the wants and needs of those around me.
I am not Lost in Space (I mean I’m kind of lost in space but I’m not the letter-writer) but that last bit just knocked the wind out of me. <3
Your heart is like a Phoenix has me weeping at my desk. <3<3<3
Re: Private Zen – second letter. I follow a blog by Jarem Sawatsky, who describes himself as:
I was a university professor, author, and researcher in peace and conflict studies until I was diagnosed with a fatal disease called Huntington’s Disease (HD). Now I am stumbling (literally) my way into learning about loving, letting go and living in the now. You can learn more about that journey on my blog Dancing with Elephants: A Beginners Guide to Losing Your Mind. His journey might be relevant to you and your husband; I find his words helpful. Strength to you – Rebekah
I know length is an issue, but I’d like to see the full list of things the letter-writer felt made former roommate a bad cat-owner. This reminds me of the Prudie letter from the other day with the dog and the sick mom — the devil is in the details.
The fact that the former roommate previously told the LW to officially adopt the cat makes me side more with the LW here. Whatever’s going on in your life, saying that and then pretending it never happened is pretty bad.
Right? There’s no “take-backs” for that sort of thing. I frankly don’t care how sad Former Roommate is now – part of being a grownup (if we’re going to talk about what makes one a grownup) is living with the occasionally irritating/saddening consequences of your decisions. This is especially true, in my opinion, if a dependent living creature is involved.
LW#2, I have BEEN THERE. My husband had a VERY SERIOUS MEDICAL ISSUE for approx. 10 years, and it has MIRACULOUSLY (and FRIGHTENINGLY) turned around, and I’m still not sure I know what to do with all my “pending widow-hood and single-mother-hood” feels. Here’s what I know.
1) when you have a heavy prognosis hanging over you, there’s a pre-grieving process that happens, probably for both of you. Talking to a grief counsellor now can be really helpful. (He may not want to – that’s ok. You can, still.)
2) Silence is ISOLATING. And it can make you feel like a freak, when that’s so completely not true. When we finally got to the point of telling people, many were shocked at first, but then… oh, then the stories came out. “My grandma had the same thing.” “I knew a kid in school who had…” “Just last year…” Once I started telling people, I felt SO MUCH LESS ALONE and SO MUCH LESS WIERD. Silence builds it up into this massive, unique thing, when likely it’s not. There are other people in your exact situation, if you can find them, and pretty much EVERYONE YOU EVER MEET has been touched by illness or death in one way or another.
3) You need a support network. And that doesn’t mean his family. They are in their own pre-grief. If you’re a person who just makes it work no matter what (hello!) STOP. Brainstorm all the things anyone could help you with. Even if you’re handing it all now. Brainstorm all the things you could “let slip” or hire out. Start practicing asking for help now. And make sure you have some people you can talk to who are less impacted by this, so that they can hear you.
I’m so sorry you’re in this situation. I send you many hugs.
Yeah, I’ve been in a similar situation as LW1, and that’s a big HELL NO from me.
In my situation, my housemate had rescued a kitten from the street, and he was pretty much half-wild as a young cat, and she would intermittently grab to cuddle him, or just ignore him altogether. The housemate moved out last March to live with her mom who didn’t like cats – with the promise to move back out as soon as possible, and to take the cat by the time my other housemate and I moved out (which we expected to happen within 2-3 months).
She then bailed on her last share of the utilities bill, blocked me on Facebook when I asked her about it, and has literally never asked about the cat nor offered money to pay for his needs. My other housemate later told me that this is the second cat she’s abandoned.
At this point, I’ve had my cat for more than a year, have changed his ownership on his microchip, and love him more than could possibly be reasonable. As far as I’m concerned, I am the one who has taken responsibility & care of him (and feed him very expensive organic food) when she hadn’t even bothered check to make sure we were able to keep him and that he wasn’t back out on the street. So yeah, if she comes back for him, I am pretty much not giving him back, ever.
(this is my little monster)
Behold: what a grown-up does.
Those are definitely Toes of Happiness.
oh gosh i was not prepared to be crying this much at work. thank goodness no one’s in the office.
Adding my voice firmly to the Team Keep the Cat camp- you adopted this cat, it is your cat, it is happy and healthy with you, and your responsibility is to keep it.
If you have any email/FB record of YFR encouraging you to adopt the cat, you should feel free to use it to counter the “always temporary” claim.
ALSO, I know this is maybe a fringe opinion, but I think with domestic animals we have a moral obligation to make their lives as healthy, happy, and positive as possible. We’re responsible for their very existence.
It may be a fringe opinion, but you are correct. What LW describes (tossing, etc) is not a situation where I would take the cat AWAY from it’s owner, but after a year, if the cat is happier, it stays with LW1.
My sister owned a cat in a situation where she couldn’t keep it, so it went to live with my mom. A few years later, she tried to move it to her new apt and the cat was super traumatized. Eventually, he had to go back to my mom’s house bc he was too unhappy. Kitty may be more adaptable than my sister’s cat was, maybe she would be fine, but it’s not unreasonable to take their feelings into consideration.
But if you have to choose between hurting yourself and someone else, you choose hurting yourself.
Keep the cat! It doesn’t sound like MFR is a very dependable cat custodian. If she’s so sure she needs a pet now–after unloading hers for what sounds like years–she can go to a shelter and get one; it’s not like cats needing homes are a scarce commodity. If she said, at one point, that her friend should “officially adopt” (something that’s not actually possible, but anyway) the cat, then the cat now belongs to the friend. I don’t see why the friend should have to give back an animal she’s loved and cared for all this time, just because her selfish, cat-throwing former roommate wants it back on a whim.
I suppose I do not need to add my voice to Team Keep The Cat… but I will anyway. I will not reiterate all of the excellent reasons that previous posters have listed. I have one additional observation: I am heartily sick to death of advice columnists automatically giving a pass to anyone who is described as having some form of depression/anxiety/mental illness. THAT is what is at heart here – AA quickly draws the contrast between the letter-writer (you have your shit together, congrats!) and her former roommate (she’s had a tough time! she deserves a second chance! not giving her the cat back is a vote of no confidence!) No. Should we be understanding, forgiving, helpful, kind, and accommodating to people who struggle? Absolutely. Should we “hurt ourselves” and/or risk the well-being of an innocent companion animal in order to (perhaps) make an irresponsible person FEEL BETTER (about themselves, or life, or just generally)? Oh hell no. No No No.
I particularly chafe at AA’s blithe assertion that the examples of the roommate’s behavior toward the kitty (not even including some that she edited out) are not sufficient to constitute “endangerment” to the cat. THAT’s the standard now? Not being attuned to (or not caring about) kitty’s obvious discomfort with her handling? Not taking kitty for veterinary care? Yes, there are plenty of shitty pet owners out there, and I suppose AA was thinking that former roommate is in the category of “not great, but reasonable,” in which case she should not be deprived of a pet. However, that is not a decent reason to upend this kitty’s life, who is now ensconced, happy, and well-cared-for. And the platitudes at the end about how the letter writer has proven herself “worthy” to get another cat were rage-inducing.
Letter writer, I suspect you are not reading all these comments, and this one is probably too long to be interesting. But here’s my advice: do what is best for Kitty. In this case that means keeping her, and, if necessary, sacrificing whatever friendship may remain with former roommate. You will both be better off.
“I am heartily sick to death of advice columnists automatically giving a pass to anyone who is described as having some form of depression/anxiety/mental illness.” Hear hear! AA’s response made no sense.
Everything about this comment is yes. Being depressed makes a lot of things infinitely harder to do, but it doesn’t mean getting a pass on being irresponsible or careless with the life of a dependent creature (which it sounds like YFR was, even if there was no malicious intent behind it), or on being mean or manipulative (and it sounds like there’s a touch of gaslighting going on on YFR’s part, with the “it was always supposed to be temporary!” despite several declarations to the contrary. The insistence that Kitty is important to her mental health also comes across to me as manipulative, given that YFR didn’t visit Kitty at all or otherwise behave like Kitty was more than an encumbrance she wasn’t capable of dealing with).
I spent the better part of two years so depressed I could barely pick myself up off the floor; most of what I remember from that period are long stretches of utter blankness, punctuated by days spent curled up in a trembling, paralyzed ball of sobbing agony so acute I wanted nothing more than to stop existing. I also, at that time, had two elderly cats with health issues who were desperately important to my shredded mental health, and a mother in whose house I was staying who was tolerant of, but mildly allergic to, said cats. It was made clear to me that the cats would not be taken away from me as long as I was able to do the work of managing their illnesses, but that there was no one else who was up for taking on that time drain/emotional labor, and if they got sick enough (or I was nonfunctional enough) that I wasn’t capable of caring for them, they’d have to be put down or given to someone who could deal with it. So I made sure they always had their food and medicine on time and took them to the vet whenever it was necessary, even if I spent the rest of the day lying on my bed like a dead thing. At one point, one of them needed a feeding tube – so, for as long as doing so could keep him feeling comfortable and content and comparatively healthy (which was about two months), I nursed him, even though it overwhelmed and exhausted me to the point where all I wanted to do was cry. When he stopped feeling okay and only wanted to be in one room in the house, I dragged a mattress in and slept there in case he took a turn for the worse and couldn’t climb the stairs to get me. And when each of them eventually got too sick for anything more to be done, I somehow squashed down my dread of phone conversations long enough to call around until I found a vet who’d come to the house, so I could have them put down at home while I held them, rather than subjecting them to another miserable car ride and leaving them to die in a strange place.
Kitty is the most vulnerable party here, and can’t advocate for herself; she deserves an owner who will advocate for her. What it comes down to is that LW is willing to do that, and YFR seems either unwilling or unable. Not giving Kitty back is not a punishment, the way revoking a license might be; it’s an acknowledgement that there’s a living creature in the equation whose welfare needs to be considered, and whose ability to lead a safe, happy, healthy life ought to outweigh the hurt feelings of an irresponsible friend.
(Also seconding/thirding/fourthing the resistance to the idea that being an adult means always putting everyone else’s welfare before your own. That kind of thinking is hugely damaging. I do think being an adult means considering the effect of your actions on other people before you act, and putting the needs of those who are less privileged or more vulnerable than you are before your own whenever you can; but I think it also means recognizing that most of the time, you are your only advocate, and if you want to be in a position to be kind and helpful and supportive of other people, you first must be in a position where you’re healthy and functioning well enough to take on concerns outside of keeping yourself alive and sane. Also, other people aren’t always in the right by merit of Not Being You.)
I’m glad I’m not alone in not agreeing with the advice about the cat. What really gave me pause is that the LW has been taking Kitty to the vet and making sure Kitty gets medication. Granted, we don’t have the details of how long the friend had Kitty first, but it sounds like all the responsibility end of owning Kitty has been on LW. Which makes Kitty LW’s cat.
I lived with a friend in college who adopted a cat. I was the one who fed the cat, cleaned its litterbox, and took the cat to the vet. So when I moved out, I took the cat. Pet ownership isn’t just about how strongly you love the animal.
The line about choosing to hurt yourself equaling adulthood, too. Man, I don’t know. I understand the spirit. But that seems awfully gendered to me.
I also had that same exact experience in college! Kitty is STILL with us, too, at age 19 1/2, and I just wonder if she would be had previous roommate kept her.
Man, I don’t know. I understand the spirit. But that seems awfully gendered to me.
Yeah, I read that line and was like WHAT SELF-RESPECTING LADY ADVICE COLUMNIST WOULD SAY THIS, and then I realized that the columnist is a fella, and I was like “Ahhhhhhhh yes, it all makes sense now”.
Which is not to say that I think all the advice is bad. The advice to the second letter-writer was amazing. But holy heck, “make sure you always hurt yourself before you hurt others” is good advice for absolutely no one, and especially not for the female half of humanity, which has been martyring itself on this cross — with terrible results — for most of recorded history.
“and then I realized that the columnist is a fella, and I was like ‘Ahhhhhhhh yes, it all makes sense now’. ”
The illustrator is. The columnist’s bio doesn’t have male pronouns.
Ahhhhh, my mistake!
Ester Bloom is indeed a lady advice columnist.
Shoot, my mistake! I only saw the illustrator’s bio.
Hearts are phoenixes. Thank you, Aunt Acid.
I’m pretty sure the moment I became a “grown-up” is when I realized I sometimes had to hurt other people to preserve my own health and sanity. Yikes!
ETA: to preserve my own health and sanity and cat companions who I love and am responsible for
I also disagree re: Kitty, but I’m commenting here right now to thank you for your services as Aunt Acid. You answered one of my Big Questions once in a way that was incredibly helpful to me and I appreciate it very much.
Agreed. You’ve been great, Aunt Acid.
“Where should I be putting the priority — with Kitty or my former roommate?”
I’m sorry, but — what is this formulation? “Should I show more consideration for the human being or the animal?”
I guess I do not have pets and animal welfare/environment stuff is not a *major* part of my ethics, so I realize there’s space for disagreement on this according to what people’s priorities are, but…a human being is a human being. A cat is not a human being. There’s not an equivalence. Aunt Acid’s right: don’t hurt your friend.
(There are also the other considerations: the letter and Aunt Acid’s response are fairly clear that it wouldn’t be a harmful, dangerous situation for the pet to be returned — I read the need for medication as arising after the cat passed into LW’s care, not that LW’s friend had denied her cat needed medication, for example.)
You’re right: cats are not human beings. But, they do deserve basic consideration for the health and well-being. I think many will disagree with you: there are occasions when the rights of the animal to a happy and healthy life SHOULD trump the tender feelings of human beings, and in my opinion, this is one of them. Law enforcement, animal welfare groups and bystanders often intervene for animals in cases of neglect or hoarding, for example. I also disagree that you can’t read MFR’s neglect into this sentence: “Since I’ve had her I’ve been taking care of everything, from taking her on her first vet visit to FINALLY getting her the worm medication she needed.” (all-caps added by me). It’s really telling that MFR has never offered to reimburse LW for her expenses on behalf of this cat, even as she wants it back.
Also: LW is dealing with a roommate, not a friend. Former Roommate is never described in the letter as a “friend,” a friendship is not on the line here. From my reading of the letter, I’d say that LW has warmer feelings for her cat than for her former roommate, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The friend has hurt herself by giving away her cat, which sounds like it was a reasonable and mature and wise decision. And yes, a cat is not a human being, which is why human beings need to be responsible for cats and any other domestic animals in their care.
LW,
Do not give away your cat. Kitty is your cat. Don’t let any of the details about how she came to you muddy that fact. You have been the sole caregiver for a year now. You paid Kitty’s bills and you bonded with her. She’s your cat, she’s important to you. And here is the thing: cats aren’t special or important until they’re yours. There is nothing about Kitty that sets her apart from any other cat your ex-roommate could bring into her home except how you feel about her.
There are loads of adoptable cats in this world. Ex-roommate should go and get another one. She tried with Kitty, and it wasn’t the right time for her to have a cat. Now that cat is happy in a stable home. You, LW have spent months establishing a bond and a significant amount of money to ensure the cat’s well-being.
If this were truly a foster situation, roommate would have offered compensation for the vet bills, even if she had to do it in installments. She would have asked for updates. She would have bought kibble.
Why disrupt LW’s situation when she (ex-roommate) can start fresh with a cat doesn’t yet have and very much needs a stable home? The shelters are full of them. Craigslist is full of them. This time of year, roommate can head down to Wal-Mart on Saturday mornings and there’s bound to be a family with a box of kittens out front sooner or later. The only reasons I can think of are petty (Kitty was *hers* first!), ugly (roommate made me feel bad about how I cared for Kitty, so now I’ll make her feel bad), and selfish (I want a cat, and since this one is the first to come to mind, I will have *this* cat).
I took in two cats as a foster during college. I told the girl giving them to me that she had one year to come and get them back. After that, they were my cats and she was absolutely not going to be getting them back. Stand firm. If ex-roommate really wants a cat, she’ll get one without making you give up yours.
Sorry Aunt Acid, as a cat foster and cat adopter, you missed the mark here.
-NotThatCatLady
Aunt Acid, you done fucked up. If the LW is the person taking the cat to the vet and giving it meds and loving on it and buying it fucking organic cat food, the LW is the cat’s owner. The former roommate can suck it. They abandoned the animal pure and simple and do not deserve to be a pet owner.
Roommate does not get a pass for having a mental illness. They are still responsible for their own actions. And you seem not to realize that an act (throwing the cat!) can be bad enough to warrant serious consequences (no more cat for you!) without being criminally bad.
I’m a pet owner with a mental health diagnosis and I volunteer in animal rescue and I have a LOT of feelings about this. And my feeling about your response is, this is very very wrong.
Not that I want to dogpile on AA, but I am also going to come down firmly on the side of LW keeping the cat.
I suffer from a mental illness, and there is the possibility that at some point it will incapacitate me to the point where I won’t be able to care for my cats. If I needed a temporary foster, you can bet your ass I would want visitation and updates and would pay for as much as possible, even if I could barely drag myself out of bed.
If weren’t able to do that, and emerged a year later and found my cats, who I love as though they are my children, had bonded with their carer and were happy in their home? I would be heartbroken, I would cry endlessly, but I would not force my cats to come live with me and disrupt their lives again. And this is from me as an excellent cat owner. I wouldn’t even think twice about it if I couldn’t take care of them.
LW has cared for this cat for a year, has bonded, and her friend has shown little to no interest in this cat during the care situation. In this situation, it is not LW who must be the adult – she has been the adult this entire year – it is the friend. Even if she suffers from a terrible mental illness.
I know and understand that cats are not human children, but nobody would ever dream of giving a child back to someone who had shown no interest and suddenly wanted the kid back for their own reasons. No, you would consider all of the parties involved, weighted heavily towards the kid, who has the least power.
This is the same thought pattern that one should give to any living creature. A cat isn’t a photo album or a beloved family heirloom. A cat is a living creature with the capacity to feel pain and shouldn’t be treated like some trinket that can be stored away and picked up at leisure.
Friend is a human being with the intelligence and capacity to understand and work through the discomfort that would come from not having this cat.
Kitty does not have the capacity to understand and adequately cope with being shunted from a loving home to an, at best, neglectful one.
LW would have to cope with both the pain of losing Kitty, and the worry that would come from giving away the cat to a less capable owner.
Take it down to simple math if you want. If Friend gets kitty, LW and Kitty both suffer. If LW keeps kitty, only Friend suffers. Perhaps Friend’s pain is magnified because of mental illness – I don’t believe it is enough to tip the scale. Being sick should come with some accommodations, absolutely. Being sick doesn’t mean you can be coddled out of being a responsible adult.
Frankly, in this situation, I cannot imagine any good reason for LW to give up the cat.
LW#2, I lost my mom to cancer when I was in high school after she had been sick for about 3.5 years. One of the things I miss the most are the ordinary days. They days where we got on each other’s nerves but still had a nice talk and a hug at the end of the day. The special events are also nice memories, but it’s the ordinary days that I’d love to go back to. Those are the days your child will remember and it sounds like both you and your husband are doing a good job of giving her those.
I hope you’re able to find the support you need.
Yeah, I read that line and was like WHAT SELF-RESPECTING LADY ADVICE COLUMNIST WOULD SAY THIS, and then I realized that the columnist is a fella, and I was like "Ahhhhhhhh yes, it all makes sense now".
Which is not to say that I think all the advice is bad. The advice to the second letter-writer was amazing. But holy heck, "make sure you always hurt yourself before you hurt others" is good advice for absolutely no one, and especially not for the female half of humanity, which has been martyring itself on this cross — with terrible results — for most of recorded history.
Ahhhhh, my mistake!
Shoot, my mistake! I only saw the illustrator's bio.
For LW#2, for what it’s worth. My father had an incurable, denerative disease that lasted several years. We all knew the awful way he was going to die, and how little time he likely had. My mother is very private and also doesn’t have many friends. She found solace in reading and contributing to sites and message boards about the disease, for people functioning as caregivers (for this disease in particular as well as for degenerative diseases in general), and probably more. She spent hours online every week. It kept her sane, and prepared, gave her coping strategies, and a community (actually more than one) that completely understood and was there for her. Perhaps something like this would help you too, in addition to the other suggestions made here.
In regards to LW1, it is very painful to give up an animal that you have grown to love. You know what else is painful? CANCER. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, what I meant to say is; BITCH HAS FUCKING CANCER. Give the cat back. I’m an atheist, but I think you all need to get to church.
Well, in that case, she could get people to help her former roommate take care of the cat’s needs — or do it for her entirely, since she seems unable and/or unwilling to do it herself. Cancer is indeed painful, but it doesn’t give anyone carte blanche to mistreat an animal, willfully or otherwise. Her situation sucks, but then again, so does the cat’s — just as much, if not more so. Even though the roommate is suffering, at least she (hopefully) has people who will love her, care for her and — if need be — create an end-of-life plan with her. The cat, if she goes back to her former owner, may not have such recourse. I do understand how lamentable the roommate’s predicament is, having lost at least one family member to cancer. Even so, the idea that human well-being > animal well-being — at all times, no matter what — is deeply, deeply disturbing and bothersome to me.
I don’t agree with the few people who say “It’s a cat” like it’s unimportant. It’s a beautiful living being who deserves comfort and happiness. If she loved the cat she would be happy to leave it with you, where it is settled-in and blissful.