Separation because of dog: dog love as a relationship problem

If it wasn't for Lilly, Beate would have long since had a new love. But Lilly, the little French bulldog, is in every photo that Beate posts on Facebook. Sometimes she looks at the sunset, sometimes she proudly wears her new collar, sometimes she poses with her bulldog friends on a walk in the woods, and Beate always looks at her in love. Any man who looks at her profile before going on a date will find that the most important place in her life has been taken. Beate has been single for four years now. She has no idea why that is.

Many owners do not even notice how important their dog is in their lives – until a new partner appears. The internet forums are full of stories of the frustration of those newly in love who find a shepherd mix in their friend's bed. "I have to go to sleep the way the dog likes it," writes one. "If he wants to lie in the middle of the bed, then he'll do that too, if I move and the dog therefore runs from the bed to the couch, she'll snap right away."
As I read this, I thought of the drama of my friend Hanno, who five years after his divorce had finally found a woman he was enthusiastic about. And then his dog died of old age, and Hanno was convinced that he had died of grief because of his new girlfriend. He indirectly blamed her, and because Hanno felt that she wasn't taking him seriously in his grief, he ended this relationship three months later.

The most abstruse varieties of dog love

For twelve years I've been on the city's dog meadows and during many, many walks – dog people are communicative – I've heard of the most abstruse variations of dog love and their often toxic effects on the partner. It's always about jealousy: the hurt that another being is more important, one on which you can't even get revenge, because a Jack Russell doesn't have a car whose tires can be punctured. I think now that a love has to be stable in order to withstand a dog; if she is already in a crisis and the dog is supposed to fill an emotional hole, it acts like a fire accelerator.

When the dog comes first

I first realized this when my collar dog Sam was a young dog. We went to a dog club and a colleague of the club was surprised that everyone asked her how her husband was doing with the torn ligament. "People pretend the world is going to end just because Matthias can't perform for a few weeks. I mean, we're not talking about Queeny here!" – "Exactly," agreed a friend, "with dogs it's completely different – don't romp, just leash, physiotherapy, that's mega-stress."

The dog in first place, the partner hobbling behind. I was new to the dog scene and found it bizarre that the welfare of your animal could be found to be as important as that of your husband; that one could even make comparisons of this kind, because what did love for animals and human beings have to do with one another? Of course, I adored my dog ​​too, I'd always wanted a collie, and there it was, and there were moments when I felt a lot of tenderness for Sam, but more in a buddy way.

Escape from reality through cuddling rituals

I never wanted to be like the people who bring their dog to bed with a half-hour cuddling ritual while my partner turns off the light upstairs in the bedroom. In a study by the University of Bonn, for which around 2,800 dog owners were surveyed (so far the only one who has dealt with the topic so broadly), 35 percent of all dog owners stated that they had a closer relationship with their four-legged friend than with a human . That doesn't mean that they neglect this person for it; often the dog is simply the only creature there. But it means that something is changing: the togetherness gets four paws.

Rather, there is the desire for a being that belongs firmly to you, that you can look after, perhaps also the idea of ​​being unconditionally loved and adored by a dog. Dogs make it easy for their humans with their loyalty, their ability to bond, their clear signals. The dog grunts contentedly when it is petted, or it just walks away when it is not comfortable. That would be an affront among people and an occasion for at least one very exhausting evening. My friend Martina once told me that her husband gets jealous if she pats her dog for too long. Therefore she takes a brush and disguises her care as grooming. Sometimes her husband sits down and says: Give me a stroke. "But that's the problem," she says. "For him, caressing is usually the prelude to sex, there is always an intention behind it. If I don't want to, he'll be disappointed and the mood plummets. With Lucy, I don't have to explain anything, it's just the easiest way to be close . "

The dog – an emotional compensator?

Every dog ​​owner is familiar with such conflicts, and the truth is that they don't always only involve the other dog. Most people don't talk about what the dog is doing with their relationship, it's embarrassing, intimate, complicated. It starts quite harmlessly: The dog should enrich life, at least that's how you imagine it: As a couple or family you go for wonderful walks in beautiful places, romp with the dog across meadows, you get closer to nature and cuddle up in the evening together on the sofa. The dog is something like the extension of the harmony zone to another living being. Because relationships need a third thing: something external, projects, plans. Something that you share and that connects, through which you sense that there is a we. Dogs are made for this, the ideal relationship builders.

Love in the sense of: care, attention, responsibility, also longing and closeness. Everything that carries you through everyday life, ensures inner peace, helps to find peace. Sam is now an old man who delegates more and more tasks to his collie roommate Fee, who moved in with us seven years ago. The time and attention my husband and I give to the dogs has doubled with the second dog, and there are moments when we seriously wonder whether we are as ambitiously working on our relationship as we are on the welfare of the dogs . If we're being completely honest: no. But we were lucky – something that you can't assess beforehand because you don't know each other as a dog owner – that we both wanted the same thing: a buddy and roommate, no emotional compensator.

Dog love welds together

When we brought Sam over to us, we thought you had to give a dog a lot of space so that it could develop. Of course it went wrong. Sam did what he wanted, and when we called him he laughed and ran off. It became our joint project, we had to somehow get him to cooperate. We went to dog school, attended courses. When we sent Sam to an education camp for a week, we cried together into the pillows in the evenings, worried that the dog might be touched too hard. When we finally got it back unharmed, we hugged each other with happiness.

Dogs do that with relationships too: They weld together. I have friends who have no children and who talk about dogs, husbands and themselves as families. That irritates me, but actually it's just one variant of the many current family models. The relationship with the dog is actually like that with a young child, it is loving and caring, and the dog remains in need for a lifetime. This creates a sense of responsibility that challenges and inspires a couple.

Separation or dog?

Sometimes the dog can also be an indicator of whether a new love has a chance. A friend, in a fresh but still fragile relationship with a man, was only able to make the right decision in favor of him on the day when he – actually someone who prefers to avoid dogs – cooked a pot of rice for her gastrointestinal dog . And went for a walk with her, despite the diarrhea. He was holding a knotted doggie bag when he returned. She thought that was true love.

When Sam was a rebellious young male, her dog trainer asked Meike Dinklage, when she last did something independently of the dog and only with her husband. When there was no answer, she took Sam with her and sent them to the cinema.