Human to Cat Relationship Timeline Profile

By “human to cat relationship timeline profile” (a mouthful) I mean how the relationship develops; becoming stronger or fading over its duration. I want to try and compare that with the same profile for human to human relationships. This might provide some insights into cat and human behavior.


Note: this is just a discussion post. It is a new idea and clearly will be open to criticism. That is fine. I don’t mind.


Although I can only speak for myself, I believe that in general, a relationship between a person and a cat grows and develops over the lifetime of the relationship, which usually ends in the death of the cat of old age, while it is known that the average length of a marriage is about 10 years. On that basis there is likely to be a steady decline from an initial high point.

Of course it is difficult to generalize but a typical good human to cat relationship can be represented by a graph that steadily goes up and then stops abruptly at the end, while the typical good human to human relationship starts at a high point and gradually declines and flattens out before ending at zero and even at a negative, reflecting heavy divorce proceedings.

Marriages (first marriage) lasts on average about 8-10 years in the USA and UK. Some years ago I read that the average marriage in the UK lasts 9.5 years. We can add about an average of 2 years of a relationship before divorce making about 11 years in total.

This is how I envisage the two relationships in terms of a graphic timeline…

Human to cat relationship timeline profile
Human to cat relationship timeline profile. By Michael

If I am more or less correct, you can see a stark difference. What is the reason for this difference? It really has to come down to the differences in behavior between the cat and the human.

These differences are discussed on the page about cats being nicer than people. In summary a cat’s behavior is more likely to contribute to building a lasting and ever more strong relationship because:

  • The cat accepts us as we are. The cat is accepting.
  • The cat is reliable, steady and predictable;
  • the cat does not try and change you;
  • the cat does not know how to behave in a mean and malicious way or play games with you;
  • the cat is just there, providing a quiet presence.

These are all constructive traits. Often human behavior becomes destructive to a relationship due to selfishly pursuing self-interest, blindly.

The best marriages; the marriages that last the longest are ones in which the parties make an effort to suppress their own interests and contribute to making the union work in the belief that in the long run pursuing the interests of the couple provides a better life than pursuing self-interest. In other words when a human behaves more like a cat 😉

3 thoughts on “Human to Cat Relationship Timeline Profile”

  1. The author of the best comment will receive an Amazon gift of their choice at Christmas! Please comment as they can add to the article and pass on your valuable experience.
  2. Mind bending statistics of human marriage and cat ownership relationships.I don’t know the statistics on marriage’s in India but as for me, content being a bachelor and living with my 2 pet cats and a parakeet.I once quoted,”Pets are non-judgmental” in their relationships with us humans while a human to human relationship is always judgmental, hence marriages tend to end up in divorce at times.I once got engaged and that was the closest i personally got to getting married.Seems “MARRIAGE” is not written in my destiny while living with pets was always my destiny !

    Reply
  3. Oh my gosh I always thought that to make a marriage work you have to just give eachother tons of space and pursue your own interests without expecting the other to have to like what your into or take part in it. Then you can stay together I think. If you suppress yourself for the greater good of the whole then you are Borg in Star Trek terms. I think that’s fairly wrong. I am not saying one shouldn’t compromise but it shouldn’t only be compromise. If you can at least be in a marriage where you both just do your things and enjoy eachothers company when you are together – which is what was happening when you fell in love, then why not keep it like that. The first thing a person does when they fall in love is they disrespect themselves, shortly followed by disrespecting the other. It cant work without respect …….etc bla bla

    This is not about humans! Its about cats! I just had a shower and Lilly likes to bite me when I come out the shower. I like that about here, it’s quirky. Maybe we are like a married couple 🙂 – I agree with Ruth’s succinct conclusion, “to part with a cat would be unthinkable”. I think your are right Michael, cata don’t try to change us, in the sense that they accept who we are, although they do ask for things and it’s good to listen and oblige where possible as long as it’s not going to be damaging for the cat (too much food for example). Actually, cats should change us in the sense that we should listen to them and try to give them what they need and we should adapt to them. The simple measurement for knowing when to and when not to do that, or when you are adapting enough is when your cat is happy and healthy and satisfied. Then you are doing just fine. The nicer thing about a cat is he or she will not ask more of you than what she needs to be happy and healthy. A human being however is a complex mess of shoulds and shouldn’ts and coulds and couldn’ts and a human might well just waste your energy pushing you to compromise and do things that don’t serve either of your needs.

    So the cat wins when it comes to sustainable co-existence.

    Reply
  4. When we’ve taken in a new kitten or cat it has felt very strange at first. Although I’ve loved every one immediately it has taken time to get to know them and them to know us.
    When we got Walter and Jozef within a month of each other, I looked at them at first and thought ‘I don’t know you two’
    We had Ebony at the time and she had already become family and it wasn’t long before Walt and Jo became family too, we all got to know each other and we bonded.
    Over the years we have become closer and closer until now 11 years later the thought of life without these two is almost unbearable.
    So yes I agree Michael, with a cat the loving relationship grows, but with a human, sometimes after a while it can grow no more and we realise we’d best be parted.
    But to part with a cat would be unthinkable!

    Reply

Leave a Comment

follow it link and logo