Gay couple's cat changed loyalty from one to the other and the loser is bummed

One member of a gay couple is bummed out because one of their cats has change loyalties from him to his partner. He doesn't know why. There was a time when this cat spent a lot of time sitting on his lap and snuggling up to him when he went to bed. He greet him when he came back from work. At that time his boyfriend wasn't living with him and when his boyfriend (BF) tried to curl up with this cat, the cat rejected the BF and went back to him.

Gay couple's cat changed loyalty from one to the other and the loser is bummed. Image: MikeB

Now his boyfriend is living with him things have changed and the reason is this in my view. He says that:

"My boyfriend doesn't work from home, but works substantially less than I do, so he's home all day with them and I'm home in the evenings."

That must be the reason, surely? His boyfriend now lives with him and is at home a lot more than he is and therefore he has the time to bond with this cat who has changed loyalties.

I don't think that there can be any other reasonable reason. They share the work in terms of maintaining the cat so there's no big difference there. The difference is in the amount of contact with this cat. This is obviously vital to forming a trusting relationship.

He did nothing wrong. It is just that cats take a somewhat mercenary approach to whom they appear to be friends with. I don't think it is so much about friendship but about the cat getting what they can out of the relationship which means sitting on the boyfriend's lap and keeping warm. And the reassurances of a cuddle. And being fed when asked. All these interactions add up to bond building.

And while that is being created, it is bound to loosen the bond between him which existed before his boyfriend moved in.

On that basis, the lesson of the story is that you can't really create a great friendship and relationship with a cat companion if you are out at work all day and then after work you go to the pub for a drink and come home at 10 o'clock in the evening. That's just not going to work in my opinion.

In fact, it will stress out the cat if there is nobody else living in the property. They'll be alone all the time. That's bound to be stressful. I can remember my ex-wife doing exactly that. When we were married, we had two cats and I took the female and she took the male on divorce which was a bad idea-in retrospect. I think one of us (me!) should have taken both of them as they were siblings and they got along.

She lived in a flat and she was the kind of person who would go out in the evening drinking and smoking. She'd leave the boy cat in her flat all day and all evening until late I suspect. Pretty bad. She wondered why he defecated on her bed! No surprise there. He was stressed and he was scent marking to try and reassure himself. Her bed was a 'scent soaker' in Jackson Galaxy's words. It smelt of her. That was the place to deposit his faeces as it merged their scents.

It is common sense but you have got to be around and I don't think a domestic cat should be left alone for more than half a day at a time which is a tough rule I agree but it doesn't work properly unless you are there for them.

My boyfriend doesn't like my new cat, so I have to give him away

What does the title mean to you?  Maybe your interpretation of the title tells us a bit about you.  It will be nice to gather some statistics about people's interpretation of the title.  You may guess that in this instance the girlfriend gave away her boyfriend and kept her cat.  Just for completeness of information, the lady's is cat is a ginger tabby-and-white and here is:

I have a sneaking suspicion that if a woman's boyfriend didn't like her new cat then 90% of the time they would keep their cat and get rid of their boyfriend.  However, there is a middle ground and that is to convert the boyfriend to like cats.  That can be done and it has been done.  For example, you can tell your boyfriend that your cat loves him.  This may at least make your boyfriend get to know your cat.  It may be better than that.  Your boyfriend might get to understand cats and when he does there is a very good chance that he will learn to like them.

A lot of the time, if a man dislikes cats it is because he does not know them.  He may have preconceived ideas about them. He may have unjustified prejudices gleaned from the Internet.  There is a lot of misrepresentation on the Internet about the domestic cat.  Then of course there is this macho culture.  But that said, a lot of women like men who like cats.  It's a bit of a turn on it seems to me.  So a man, even for that reason alone, should learn to like cats and he can do that by understanding them thoroughly.  If you understand cats you could argue that it is impossible to dislike them.

It is quite possible that on occasions a boyfriend will become jealous of his girlfriend's cat.