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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2024-11-15 05:01:02+00:00.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/TooManyPetzz

My girlfriend [24 F] wanted ANOTHER pet and I [27 M] said NO.

Original Post  Dec 3, 2015

I am trying to keep this as anonymous as possible… Here we go:

My girlfriend LOVES animals. She is a legal secretary as her job and also works as a small animals specialist on the side. She’s worked as a small animals specialist for four years, and after getting her “real job” decided to keep her other job FOR FUN. At home we have two dogs and two cats. All are her pets.

Her jobs are highly demanding and when she isn’t working, she’s in the den organizing huge dog adoption events. Every four or five months she manages to bring about sixty dogs up from high kill shelters around the US and finds every dog a home. And I think that’s a cool thing she does but she literally stays up until 3 am planning flights and managing people to get the dogs securely to the holding center and ect… And then wakes up at 6 am and goes to work until 5 pm and then goes to her other job until 10 pm and comes home and repeats the process. On her days off she is taking her dogs to the park or going on hikes. She lavishes her pets with new beds and the best food and when she is working she has the dogs go to day-care ECT! As you can see, her days are FILLED with animals and I feel like I’m not even apart of this relationship. When she isn’t with animals she’s reading or doing her own thing… We’ve been out to dinner together maybe twice in the past month.

She isn’t distance or rude, she always let’s me in on what she’s doing and asks if I want to help or asks if I want to go to the park with her or on a hike but I don’t want to because it’s always about the animals and not me.

Anyway, last night before we went to bed she said she was thinking about getting a tree frog to put in the den because she really like the “calming presence” they give off. I just think that is the straw that broke the camel’s back because I told her that’s insane. I told her I’m tired of all the animal stuff she’s involved in. I told her she needs to grow up. And I told her absolutely NO to the tree frog idea. At first she was quiet but then she said something about how animals are her passion and what she does isn’t stupid and she’ll never get tired of animals and that I have my own hobbies too that she doesn’t think are stupid and childish. She then said that tree frogs and close to nothing maintance wise and they’re just pretty. Then she started getting upset and cried and left the room and when I woke up I found her asleep on the living room floor with the dogs.

It’s not like we’re being overrun with animals but the amount of them in my life is aggravating. She even brings random lizards home and nurses them back to health. Isn’t this all a little insane? She’s always loved animals but now that she makes a substantial amount of money she does more than ever. I don’t get it. Now she wants another animal to fawn over and spend hundreds of dollars on each week?? No! I guess I’m just venting for the most part.

I feel bad for the way she feels but I still think the time she invests in animals is insane and since she’s in a relationship with me she should act like it.

tl;dr: girlfriend is obsessed with animals and makes no time for our own relationship.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

simplelogicss

Why would you tell her to grow up? She’s is grown up and yes animals are her hobby. She makes time for her hobby. I think you’re just resentful because you aren’t spending time with her. She has a right to be upset with what you said.

Why don’t you sit her down and just explain you think her hobby is great but it’s time consuming. You would like to spend more time with her and do other things besides doing something animal related. Think of some activities you both haven’t experience and not related to your hobbies. Create a hobby you both can do that way you can set some time for it every week.

OOP (heavily downvoted)

I told her to grow up because she’s spending thousands of dollars on dogs to fly them from to-and-fro when she could be using that money on homeless children, I mean, if she was that determined to donate (or give away) her money.

cursethedarkenss

I was with you up until this statement. Who the hell are you to decide what charities are important? There are millions of charities in the US. Is every single one that you don’t agree with wrong? Are you the only person in the world who gets to decide what is important?

Your basic issue with your girlfriend is that she doesn’t have enough time for you. That’s a perfectly rational reason to break up. But to try to tear down her work that she is so passionate about just makes you look like an immature ass.

fluffybunnybutts

Then you’d be writing about how your gf is too focused on homeless children and still doesn’t pay attention to you.

OOP

No. I see the point in donating money to homeless children and actually doing something about it is even cooler. I honestly don’t understand why she needs to dedicate so much time to animals.

Update  Dec 4, 2015 (1 day later)

After reading comment after comment about how I didn’t support my girlfriend or care about her passions, I started to see where I was wrong. I do care about her passions. I, personally, am burnt out of animal care. I should of communicated that better besides blowing up on her. I still, no matter how many protesting comments I get, will never understand why she donates so much money to JUST animals and not anything else. That was why I told her to grow up. That, and I think her passion for animals is childish. Sort of in the way that kids love fairies or mermaids. I feel like it’s a phase she never grew out of. I love dogs too but her deep love of animals is something I looked over because she always had good jobs and she is very pretty. I think a lot of people were misguided in calling me a “douchebag” simply because I missed spending time with my girlfriend. No, I am not jealous of lizards. I think it’s absurd to come home and find her bandaging up some lizard’s foot, or open up my fridge to find a tub of mealworms to give said lizard. I’ve always, always loved how dedicated she was to things. Whatever she’s doing, she’s giving 100%. I just wish she directed that passion to things that really, really matter. Helping animals is nice and all but it’s not really changing the world.

However I am still deeply in love with the beautiful, sensitive, loving girl I met five years ago, and all the comments made it clear that I was being rude to her. So I wrote her up an apology letter and went to the nearest pet store to get her a tree frog. I got the tank and lamp and even crickets. I set up the whole tank in the den where she wanted it and named the tree frog Jinx. I thought my apology and me buying the tree frog would help her see I care and that her passions are cool.

Anyway. I waited for Jessica to get home and finally when she did, I told her to go look in the den. She seemed upset still and said, “thank you for the tree frog. I actually bought one before I got off work and had a friend set up the tank for me. It’s in my car, I’m gonna go get it. Thank you”

She brought the tank in and asked if we could talk for a little bit in our room because she had some things on her mind. She said she didn’t want to jump to conclusions but our relationship wasn’t “heading in the direction she wanted” and maybe I should find someone more suited to what I like, maybe a more quieter, less busy life. I explained to her that I love her deeply I just want her to tone down her animal life and she said she can’t because it’s not only her passion but all the money she makes from being an animal specialist goes to the animals for adoption, vet care, housing and money to the people who foster the animals when she can’t. She said if she “toned anything back” she would lose a huge part of her and I thought she was being extreme. I told her I loved her and if that’s her choice. She said she loved me too but my actions showed I can’t and wont support her. She then referred to many times in our past when I refused to show up to her adoption events and most memorable for her was when I wasn’t there when she was accepting an award. It all became very clear that she didn’t want to be with me anymore and once again she was choosing animals over me. I accepted it and told her to live her life as she pleases. I told her that I thought she should give money to homeless children too and she said, “um, sure… Do you know any organizations I could help with?” But I didn’t have any suggestions and I was already angry and felt like she was giving me a slap to my face. She said that I was missing the point. We ended the conversation shortly after that with us splitting up and her saying there are things in life that I don’t understand, a…

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