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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Disastrous_Plastic10 on 2023-08-21 14:29:30.

I (36F) have been with my boyfriend “David” (44M) for 2 years and we recently decided to take the next step and have me move in with him and his son “Ben” (13M). I’ve only been moved in for about 3 weeks now. This is the first real friction I’ve had with either of them.

The issue is that Ben has a very sweet, shy dog, Zoro (~75lb GSD mix) and I have 2 cats (a youngish friendly orange named Ump and my old lady calico, Daisy). Ump has decided he loves the dog and would like to be his BFF immediately and unfortunately, it turns out poor Zoro is terrified of the cats. We did do slow introductions at first but we took Zoro’s avoidance of the initial cat room/doors/gates as disinterest so we thought it would be fine to let them mingle and then we saw what was really happening.

Daisy seems pleased with Zoro’s fear of her, to be honest… she doesn’t go out of her way to bother him; she’s 16 & uninterested but she certainly liked how fast he would get out of her way. You can see it in her lil sashay. But she ignores him otherwise.

Sweet Ump tried to approach him twice with happy tail and head bumps and Zoro booked it out of the room in terror. We scaled back the introductions again and set up a tall gate on the landing to keep them all separated on different floors for now.

In my mind, there’s no problems here. Zoro is afraid, yes but neither Ump nor Daisy is being aggressive or antagonistic towards him. We just need to go more slowly and give him time to adjust to an entirely new type of creature and he’ll be okay. In fact, I’m positive once he realizes Ump is soft, warm & safe, he’ll want to cuddle too. But everything will be fine soon; no one needs to be punished or corrected here. No one did anything wrong. It’s a just matter of patience

Ben is upset that Zoro is upset and David is upset that Ben is upset. They’ve worked each other up into a tizzy about how “this isn’t working!!” and finding a “solution” right now. Their “solutions” have included: keeping Ump & Daisy locked in one room permanently so Zoro can’t see them through the gate, “training” the cats to not go near/look at the dog via spraying/loud noises & rehoming Ump.

Obviously none of these are acceptable to me and I have refused all of them, saying I’d rather move back out than punish my cats for existing. I’m definitely not giving away my cat for being too friendly. David got really upset when I said I’d move out and said it would be choosing my cats over him & his son which would be the end of our relationship. which I don’t want but I’m not going to appease such an over the top reaction & I’m disappointed in how he’s handling this.

Am I the asshole? Am I crazy? I feel like it’s an extreme, ridiculous overreaction (from David; I expect the black & white thinking from Ben) to such a mild situation that I think will resolve itself very shortly but everyone I talk to in my life is like “well that’s his kids feelings, what do you expect?” And I feel like I’m losing my mind here.