Cat troubles...

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

Newbie from Seattle, WA here... Having completely messed up the cool acronyms

here (AS,ASD,NT...) I had to delete, fix and repost this cat trouble post - so

forgive me if you got this twice!

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Me and my wife are having a hard time with a number of things, and it's getting

worse. Rather than rambling about our life in general, I figured it could be

good to focus on a concrete, seemingly trivial issue regarding cats...

---- Basic facts (my version)

Me - male age 40, recently diagnosed with AS + ADHD. Creative professional.

Her - female age 38, NT, recently graduated PsyD, stay at home mom

Kid1 - male age 3 (soon), undiagnosed but strong possibility for ADHD, possibly

ASD too.

Kid2 - female age 11, gifted, lives with my ex wife most of time, undiagnosed

but possibly AS and ADD inattentive

---- Basic facts (her version)

Me - male age 40, recently misdiagnosed with AS (instead, im just gifted +

selfish, possibly some sensory processing disorder), however correctly diagnosed

with ADHD. Creative professional.

Her - female age 38, NT, recently graduated PsyD, stay at home mom

Kid - male age 3 (soon), shows no signs of autism, possibly gifted, active and

sensitive.

Kid2 - female age 11, gifted, lives with my ex wife most of the time,

undiagnosed but definitely AS.

The cat issue:

We've lived together as a couple for 4+ years. For the first 3 years, she had 2

cats that became ours. I really have a strong problem with sound sensitivity and

pet smells (urine, feces, their food...) to the point where it's something I

think about actively at all times. Chronic low level nausea would be present at

all times, and the cats would keep me up at night with their sounds (later both

the cats and the newborn baby combo made sleep almost impossible. As for odor, I

smell pets instantly in any house that has pets, even if they mostly stay

outdoors, and is instantly repulsed. Needless to say, I compromised pretty hard

for those 3 years (even though the cats were cared for properly, and were not

stinkier than typical in cat-owner-world.)

About 1.5 years ago we moved to a condo that didn't allow pets, so the cats were

reluctantly given to my mother in law at that point. I was very relieved, but

also understood my wife's misery with abandoning them. She often campaigned for

bringing the cats to live with us in the condo. I argued against it, for many

reasons. The cats eventually went missing from her mom's house (they were mostly

outdoors there) and are presumed dead.

We just bought a house together in a neighborhood full of pets and kids. My wife

now wants new cats.

My arguments for not getting cats:

- don't want to live in that smell again

- noise at night

- ADHD boy = cat(s) will get chased around the house a lot

- plenty of neighborhood cats that walk in to our yard regularly and are

friendly

Her arguments for getting cats:

- our son needs it for companionship/development/playmate (to give her a break

from being constant playmate for him during day)

- she doesn't want to continue to live without pets

- my discomfort with smells and sound are selfish/manageable, especially since I

don't have ASD.

- the misdiagnosis of ASD is making me imagine discomforts, retroactively

exaggerating suffering

- my daughter wants cats too

What say you? It may sound trivial, but this is a huge issue for both of us, so

any help, thoughts, ideas welcome!

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