Hi everyone,
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this, it really means a lot to me
My partner and I have been together for 2 1/2 years now, and while we've had some extreme ups and downs we've always managed to sort things out. This time I'm not sure if we will be able to, or even if we should.
I guess I should explain that we both love animals, and we both had a dog each in the beginning of our relationship. My Bella was the centre of my world and my best friend and his dog Olly is the same to him. It's part of what bought us together.
During a heated argument one day early in, my dog ran away and I've never been able to find her. I debated with myself at the time of the argument whether to stop and go after her or keep trying to sort things out with my partner. I put my partner and my relationship first and I feel like I paid the price by making a massive sacrifice and never seeing my best friend again. I was devastated and even saw a psychologist about it.
Now a couple of years on, I feel like a third wheel in a relationship with him and his dog Olly. He has joint custody of him with his ex-girlfriend and we have Olly from Thursday to Saturday. I have always known that the relationship they have is important and very special and I'm not trying to come between that but an incident that happened this week made me realise that no matter how important something is to me, the dog is always going to come first.
Let me explain: I'm at university so am very pushed for time, however I just got a new job and had to buy some clothes last week as I had nothing to wear. I had 2 hours free on Thursday evening and asked him if he would like to come with me to pick them out. We had been shopping for 1/2 an hour and i was trying on some pants when he said to me "can you please hurry, I'm bored (this was to be expected) and I don't want to leave Olly at home on his own". Needless to say, we left then (pantless) and I wore a pair of ill-fitting faded pants on my first day of work. I don't think I made a good impression.
There have been many occasions when the dog has held us back from doing things because he can't come and my partner doesn't want to leave him alone, and while it's frustrating normally I don't make a fuss. This time I snapped. There was something I needed to do, had limited time to do, and the dog was still more important. I made it very clear how I felt and how important it was, and I came out looking like a jealous girlfriend. He has said he doesn't want to be with me now, Olly is more important and I'm never going to win over him. He says he understands that I feel sacrificed my dog for our relationship but it was my decision. I've said that I don't want to be in a relationship where I always come second to a dog. I feel like I sacrificed so much for him and our relationship and sometimes I should come first. I don't expect it all the time, I understand Olly is important to him. We love each other so much but I'm not sure that is enough, I don't feel like this situation is fair and I'm not sure that I'm willing to be put in this situation again.
Have I done the wrong thing and am expecting too much? I'm so confused. I would really appreciate some feedback on this, e.g. what you would do in this situation, how would you react, etc.