There are a lot of things you need to think about before adopting a dog — especially a puppy. Even if you're doing a great thing and rescuing a pup from a shelter, you need to think about whether or not your home is prepared for a new addition. Puppies and babies share a lot in common. They're both cute, but they can also be unpredictable at times.
A woman on Reddit with the username of PleaseIWantToBreathe made a post a few weeks back about a particular situation she was in. As a nurse, she's been extremely busy these days. But in her time off, she tries to spend it with her son and her daughter who are both school-aged.
She wrote:
“In January 2019, my son suddenly developed this strong desire to have a dog. He begged and begged for a puppy from my husband (35M). I protested against that because I had just found out that I was pregnant.”
However, her husband took a different approach.
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He said that the puppy would teach their son responsibility. And since his baby sister would be arriving soon, that was a good lesson to figure out. However, things didn't go as planned. And her husband's Xbox addiction played a big part.
"I was absolutely unconvinced but I had to give in eventually because my husband had already agreed and I didn't want to cause further fights," she said. Just this year, they had a little accident. The son forgot to close the back door, and their dog, Tippy, escaped.
"Our son first went to my husband for help, he refused to help him and said that it was his (my son's) responsibility to care for the [dog] and he has to do something about it himself," she wrote. "5 days ago, when our son told me in tears that 'dad won't look for Tippy', I talked to my husband, who said that it would teach our son some responsibility to take care of things in the future, which I found very callous since a dog is a living, sentient being and not a 'thing'. He was playing Xbox when I was talking to him as well. He also said he won't look for the dog or anything."
By not finding the dog, it could cause big problems for their son in the future. This was an accident, but it wasn't necessarily careless. Plus, her husband was going back on his word. So she did something that was a little extreme — she tried to throw out his Xbox. "Yesterday, after coming home at night, the first thing I did was unplug the Xbox console and controller and throw it in the trash can," she wrote.
"When I came back from work, he told me he had found his Xbox in the trash since the garbage truck hadn't arrived then," she said. "Now, he's being incredibly snarky, giving me the cold shoulder and he's angry because his controller isn't working. He also hasn't taken any measures to look for our dog and our mutual best friend called and said my reaction was incredibly childish."
Redditors agreed that her husband wasn't being very responsible. Their son was just 8 and obviously very upset that Tippy ran out of the house. "Girl it’s not a last straw, it’s a giant red flag," user violet_waves wrote. "These are not the actions of a man who loves or respects his family."
User crystalmayfield agreed that her husband's reactions were alarming. "I divorced my husband for less than that kind of behavior," she said. "He said yes to the dog as the adult he is responsible for his actions of letting your son have one. Which means he is the one responsible for that dog since it was his 'yes' and being he's not the one out every day working in this stressful environment we find ourselves in today."
This story, however, has a happy ending. Weeks after the disappearance of Tippy, PleaseIWantToBreathe came back to Reddit to update everyone on what happened next. "Tippy was found 2 miles away from our house, a day after I posted ads and posters on several platforms and websites," she said. "A kind lady living alone had found him near her street, starving and exhausted."
She made a point to thank the woman, saying that there ought to be more people out there who are just as kindhearted: "My son and Tippy are both ecstatic to be reunited, he takes care of him just like he did before, only now I have some time on my hands to help him as well. However, my son is still wary of his father and he'll likely remain so for a long time. Now he doesn't ask him for help at all."
That twist is pretty upsetting. This is a memory their son will hold for a long time. By refusing to help, he's lost faith that his dad will be there for him when he needs help. "As for my husband, he now treats Tippy as if he doesn't exist," she said. "He went and bought a new Xbox controller right after Tippy was brought back and now demands that I pay him for damaging his property."
She also mentioned something that people had pointed out in the comments. If he's so negligent toward the family dog, how is he with treating the children? She mentioned that she started noticing her young daughter getting diaper rashes. While it can be common for babies, usually there's a reason behind it. The biggest is that they're not being changed as often as they should be.
"He was changing them every 7 hours or so for those 5 days because he didn't think that they needed to be changed as much as before because she was now 6 months old," she wrote. "He had raised a son with me before, it's a ridiculous excuse." If anything, it sounds like he was too lazy to care.
While she had no issue updating on the state of Tippy, she didn't openly say whether or not she was planning on leaving her husband. These days, that's a reality that many couples are facing. They've come to realize they don't want to be together, but it almost seems impossible to leave or separate right now.
"Hire a nanny and fire the husband," user Livvyspeaks wrote. "Going by the sound of it, she’s practically a single mom already and the husband is dead weight." Since she mentioned being afraid to leave the baby at home with him anymore after all this, that sounds like a good solution.
Parenting is a job that requires all hands on deck — especially with a baby in the mix. It's a shame that this woman isn't getting any sort of help, especially when she's working long hours in a scary situation. While he also works, his job was cut down tremendously. He's a lawyer but is currently lacking clients. So there's no excuse for him.
While the original poster seems to know that she's in a bad situation, her tone reads in a forgiving way. If this is a new behavior for her husband, hopefully, it's something that counseling will solve. But if she's just seeing the light and he's always been so negligent to his family, perhaps it's best if they both move on.
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