To clarify, the two cats my boyfriend had were never meant to be his “pets” as far as I knew when we first moved in together. He was taking care of them temporarily. One was the old geriatric cat he was taking care of for his mom while she saved to get her own place (that has been two years and she still hasn’t really put in effort to find herself an apartment- I think she is taking advantage/he is enabling her but that’s another post…). The other was the rescue cat he found right when we first started dating- it was badly injured and starving- he was only taking care of it while it healed from surgery and gained weight/got healthy…but then I guess he fell in love with the cat and what was supposed to be a foster became a pet.