Any man who dictates to his woman, wife or girlfriend, that she can’t keep her cat is behaving extremely badly and foolishly. There may, on rare occasions, be a valid reason for his demand but I am writing about the untold numbers of occasions when a bullying sort of man simply wants his way with his woman and does not like cats. The sort of man I am writing about is the type who is prone to domestic violence of varying degrees against his girlfriend or wife.

Can a man who demands that his wife or girlfriend gets rid of her cat ever have a stable relationship with her? I can go wider and ask, is this man suited to any relationship with a woman?

It’s about attitude and the institution of marriage. I’ll presume that all man/woman living together relationship have the same rules whether married or not. The basic rules are acceptance, respect, trust, support and to make an effort to be constructive and not destructive.

Live-together relationships don’t just fall into place naturally without any thought, unless you are one of the lucky ones. Some couples do have highly successful, long term relationships without any thought given to how or why. They are successful because the people in the relationship naturally follow the rules of a successful relationship.

But a lot of people need to work at it a bit, or a lot. Elisa says that she has been told many times by acquaintances that they were told by their partner to get rid of their cat. This often results in the cat be placed at a cat shelter where being allowed to live is far from guaranteed.

The way I see it is that the woman should make it clear at the outset, before she gets hooked up, that she likes cats and looks after a cat and nothing he can say will change that. That is proactive. The reactive response is to do what Elisa did  – walk, leave the pain-in-the neck behind and keep your cat.

It is much more difficult in reality to do that than it is to write about it.

A man bullying his live-in girlfriend to get rid of her cat has not only disrespected her, he has ignored the fate of the cat. He is the sort of person who either ignores the emotions and sensibilities of the cat or lacks the education to apply his mind to it.

Even if the woman’s cat can be placed with a new home, the whole episode will be very difficult for the cat. As mentioned, relinquishing a cat to a shelter can end up with the loss of the cat’s life. Is the boyfriend ignoring that prospect? If so does a woman want to be associated with such as character? I hope not.

Of course, the problem cuts two ways. Some woman will also be unscrupulous enough to lack sensitivity towards their cat. They won’t be true cat lovers or really care for their cat. Some women will like a demanding and highly macho man who dominates them. These woman may have self-esteem problems and living with such a man will only make matters worse.

Above all, when a man tells a woman, “You can’t keep the cat!”, it is the cat who is a victim and the cat is an innocent victim stuck in the middle of unpleasant behavior between two humans who are meant to love each other.

My advice to women: check out a man’s character. At the very least he must respect you and your cat. He doesn’t even have to like cats to do that. If he fails the check, dump him.