Dear Stormy,
I’ve been with my boyfriend for two years. Last month he sat me down and said it’s him or the dog. Not because my dog bit him or ruined anything — my dog, Prince, is a 40-pound mutt who sleeps 18 hours a day and once got scared by his own fart. My boyfriend says Prince “takes up too much space” and “comes first” and that I “don’t prioritize the relationship.”
I haven’t answered him yet. Part of me wonders if he’s right and I’m being a bad girlfriend. The other part of me wants to throw a shoe at him. Help.
— Torn Between Two Leashes in Tucson
Dear Torn,
Let me get this straight. A man walked into your home — your home, where your dog lives, where your dog has lived longer than this man has mattered — and issued an ultimatum to a woman about a dog who is afraid of his own gastrointestinal events. And you’re wondering if you’re the problem.
You are not the problem. The problem is a man who looked at a sleeping rescue mutt and saw competition. That’s not a relationship. That’s a hostage negotiation with worse hair.
Here’s the thing about ultimatums. They’re not about what they ask for. They’re about what they test. He’s not asking you to rehome a dog. He’s asking: Will you fold when I push? Will you give up something you love to prove you love me? And the answer he’s hoping for is yes — because if you’ll hand over the dog, you’ll hand over the friends next, then the boundaries, then the parts of yourself you haven’t even met yet.
I’ve seen this movie. It doesn’t end with a walk on the beach. It ends with you sitting in a quiet apartment that smells like nothing and wondering when you became someone you don’t recognize.
The Treat Test: Would this man stay with you if someone held bacon over the decision? He’s asking you to prove your love by abandoning someone who has never once made you choose. Prince wouldn’t make you choose. He doesn’t even choose between the couch and the floor — he just occupies both. That’s the kind of loyalty you should be measuring people against.
Keep the dog. Lose the boyfriend. And when he asks why, tell him a border collie in another time zone said his emotional intelligence is outperformed daily by a fart-fearing mutt who doesn’t know his own name on Wednesdays.
He’ll figure it out. Or he won’t. Either way, Prince stays.
— Your friend in the dark
Stormy’s Ruling: If he can’t share your heart with a sleeping dog, he was never going to share it with a whole human life.
From the page to the trail
