40M (me) and 37F dated for 2 months until I broke it off due to different pet lifestyles. We talked about IF things would work out/moving in, how we would deal with a glaring pet incompatibility: I have 1 cat and prefer a low key chill home with at most 1 more pet. She has 2 big dogs, 6 cats, 1 rabbit.
Assuming everything else lines up with us (kids, politics, etc.), is this a straight out incompatibility regardless or do you think people can get adjusted to such a lifestyle? Would everything else lining up be grounds to look at all the “positives” (everything we are compatible with) and overlook/do my best with the “negatives” (her pet situation)?
I’ll add that we are both vegan and only date vegans, so our dating pool is extremely small as it is. So I’m trying to see if this is worth trying again assuming she’ll say yes to date again.
TL;DR dated for 2 months. She has 9 pets. I have 1. Everything else aligns (kids, politics etc.) Is this worth pursuing based on a big pet adjustment on my end if it would work out/moving in, or straight incompatibility from the start? Our dating pool is very small.
5 comments
Sooo how is the large number of pets such a problem for you considering you have a pet too? I mean I guess it can be a dealbreaker, you’re the one who decides this but sounds a bit odd to me.
Only you can decide if you could be happy with a house full of pets. The rule is, you need to find a path where both of you can truly be happy. Neither of you needs to get everything you want, but you both need to be happy and find it personally worthwhile. So, how strong is your preference to not live with so many pets? How does this affect you?
You could each have your own place and pets but this sounds so overwhelming short of having a petting zoo. All kidding aside it either works or doesn’t for each of you and you move on to find other vegans that are pet friendly and meet your dating requirements.
So, I’m a huge pet lover, but to me she seems to have quite a lot of pets, does she have a large home or perhaps a farm? How would your kitty be around all of her pets?
Did you spend time in her house and find it too chaotic? If not, maybe you should give it more of a chance?
Normally I would say the difference is an incompatibility and to let the relationship go, but the vegan thing does introduce complications. You may have to compromise more than usual to find someone due to your small dating pool. Also, your dating pool is probably more likely to have a large amount of pets.
If you wanted to date someone like this, you could talk about future compromises. Like when the pets pass away, is there a comfortable number for both of you? Maybe four pets?
Also the kind of pet matters – cats are pretty low maintenance pets so having four of them maybe isn’t that much harder or labour intensive than having one. Especially if they’re well trained.
Other compromises could be having a room or two where the pets don’t go, or training them to stay off the couches to reduce hair. Air purifiers to remove fur from the room.
Pet insurance could also help cover the costs and avoid large bills.
Having four cats is probably less work than having one dog – if she didn’t replace her dog when it passed away, could that work?
I think there’s ways you could make it work. It depends on where you live too; is it pretty easy to find vegans to date or are they pretty rare? You should base how much to compromise on that. Another question for yourself is, would you rather be single for the rest of your life than deal with all those animals? Why/why not?