Dear Queenie,
For the past 17 years I’ve been married to this person. I’ve been with him through really tough times. Now I don’t know what has happened with us.
For the past four years we’ve been having a lot of trouble, but we fought it. Two years ago we finally bought a house in a beautiful location, which is St. John’s Estate.
When we first came to live there the place was a mess. Since our budget was limited I decided to clean up the mess. We always had dogs, but the places we used to live were very big. Now in St. John’s we have limited space.
My husband has become obsessed with dogs, and the whole of St. John’s stinks of goat, dog, cow and horse s..t. We had a big dog before we moved to St. John’s, which I didn’t like at all, because I am a very clean person and I am quite possessed in having everything up to date.
I told my husband I didn’t want any more dogs and my husband decided that no matter what I think or feel he was going to get a new dog. Do you think that my husband, knowing the type of person that I am, should bring another dog to our home? And do you think that my husband should give preference to a dog instead of me?
I told him that he had to choose the dog or me, and one of the reasons I told him he has to choose is because he gets up in the morning, goes to his work and leaves the filth all over the place and comes back 6:00pm, and there is nowhere I can sit in my garden because my neighbors both work, have three dogs tied up in their back yard and the smell is knocking you down and when you sit in front it’s also killing you.
Since I want the dog to leave, my husband wants a divorce.
Queenie, what should I do?—Safe marriage
Dear Safe marriage,
Knowing the kind of person your husband is and how he feels about dogs, it was foolish of you to try to force him to choose between you and the dog. Now you will have to choose whether you would rather put up with the dog or lose your husband.
However, I think some kind of compromise is in order here. If he wants the dog to stay, your husband should make more of an effort to clean up after it. It is not difficult to throw a shovelful of sand or dirt over the dog’s droppings every day, and that will cut down on the smell and let the droppings enrich the soil in your garden at the same time.
There is not much you can do about the smell from the neighbours’ dogs, except talk it over with them and hope they will cooperate.
You might consider marriage counselling for the other problems you and your husband are having. I suspect that the dog is not the major bone of contention, but only the last straw. Perhaps if you can work out some of the other issues, the dog won’t trouble you so much.
