My husband [30m] HATES my [25f] cat (married and living together for 6 months). What do I do? I'm at my wit's end.

Good for you for sticking to your morals! I also refuse to declaw my cats. Nail caps too are out of the question. My solution is to work around it. They never do anything out of malice, punishing them would be like punishing a toddler just for wanting to be close to you. Play with their paws when the claws come out. When they're doing something obnoxious, I redirect their attention. I don't have nice furniture, I have functional furniture. I love my cats and accept everything about them that makes them cats. If someone isn't prepared to deal with their inborn behaviors, they shouldn't have one, imo. This is your husband's issue, most likely. He had 1 expectation of what having a cat was like and turns out, it's not the reality he's faced with now and he can't handle it.

Your situation reminds me of mine. I had cats before marrying my husband. Him not accepting them would have been a dealbreaker for me. But one request he had was that they not sleep with us. I didn't mind so much that my sleep quality was lessened somewhat by their presence but he did, so out they went. They were upset about it for the first week or so, but they've accepted it now. One still whines occasionally, but that's because whining is her favorite thing to do. I would suggest earplugs. I can't vouch for this idea personally, but I know there's repellent mats and sprays that you could place in front of your door as well.

About the declawing, I would do everything I can to make your husband understand just how cruel it is. Show him the procedure, show him the after effects, show him how it can severely alter the animal's quality of life. If he gets all this information and is still in favor of it, then... what you do with that is up to you. It would be unacceptable to me. Honestly, it sounds like he just doesn't like cats all that much and doesn't want to live with one he has to be minorly inconvenienced by. It sucks you had to get married before you found this out.

/r/relationships Thread