Jealousy is a Ridiculous Thing

There isn't one woman out there who hasn't experienced it; the hot flush of barely controlled anger at the mere sight of the object in question. An off-hand comment by a loved one can spark the fury contained in all of us, and at the most inappropriate times the green eyed monster can spring out of the prison so carefully constructed and deliver the most infantile of comments. For most women, this behaviour comes about when their love discusses previous relationships, or a co-worker. It could be as innocent as a comment on a particular hairstyle, or noticing a dress on someone else. We don't want them to notice anyone but us and when they break that unspoken agreement, it's time to duel. But what happens when the person you're jealous of is a dog? 

I know, this sounds completely ludicrous. Before my husband and I married late last year, we were apart for almost a year. We had broken up because I had suspected him of cheating on me. Rather than ask him outright, because I wouldn't have believed him anyway, I chose to leave. I refused to speak to him and we quickly lost track of each other. 

We went our separate ways and continued on living; although we both pined for each other I wasn't going to contact him and he wanted to respect my decision by leaving me alone to work it out. Point is, during that year he adopted a dog. Not just any dog, but a Rottweiler-Pointer cross with a terrible temper. Guess she reminded him of me when he went to go see her. He took her home and began to retrain her, little things like how to not rip his hand off when he fed her. Important things. It took a lot of his time to finally gain her trust, and now she follows him wherever he goes. He also gauged his dates by the dog's reaction: if she responded negatively to the woman, he ended the date. The dog was his in-home wingman.

Then I came along, back into his life and determined to make this thing work. I met the dog, and once we established that I am the alpha female things were fine. As our relationship progressed, I began to see things that alerted me to the fact that maybe I wasn't the most important woman in my husband's life. She stroked his ego, whereas I did not. She runs to him every night when he gets home. She jumps up and down every time she sees him, and gets excited to go for walks because it's their alone time. I call out a hello when he gets home and stay out of the way because I know if I interfere, she will go mental and produce a whine so high-pitched it could crack glass. I wait until he finishes feeding her before I hug him.

My problem is that I feel as though I am second to her. Since she was there for him during his recovery from life-threatening surgery and I wasn't, I think she feels that she has a bigger claim on him. Sounds ridiculous, me fighting with a dog for the love and attention of my husband, right? How about this: she'll try to nudge me out of the way when my husband and I are sitting on the couch, and her nudge is enough to send an unsuspecting person flying. He thinks it's cute. I wear my bruises with quiet anger, knowing that as women our games are best played behind the scenes when no one is looking.

I realize that I invaded her space and took over. I know that she harbors some form of doggy resentment and that it manifests as purposeful ignoring of me. I can handle that. But when my husband starting calling us both the same pet name, I exploded. I told him exactly how I feel about the dog and he laughed at me. He thought it was cute that I felt second place to the dog. 

We'll see how cute it is when I start shitting in his boots and blaming the dog.