Quote:
Originally Posted by tinyrabbit
My advice is to change how you express what you want to say, so you're telling her how you feel, and asking questions about how she feels. So the things you want to say would translate like this.
You sound like my dad becomes My dad did/was ___ and I can't help thinking of him when you do/are ___, which makes me feel ___.
Stop yelling at them becomes It makes me feel ___ when you raise your voice to the animals. I wish I knew how to stop this from happening.
You need to learn not to be so angry becomes I feel like the animals make you angry and that makes me sad for you and for them. What's going through your mind when that happens? What can I do to help? It upsets me to see you feeling so frustrated.
It also helps to suggest something to do, rather than something not to do. So for example you might say: Look how X animal responds when I do Y! Isn't that cute. That might come in handy when you're trying to do Z. If you yell at him/her, he just does X.
I also wonder if you maybe just need to split the jobs up differently. Okay, she doesn't want the workload for the cats. Can she do something else instead? I hate taking the trash out and my husband hates cleaning the toilet so we don't ever split those jobs between us, for example.
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Thanks, I will try those approaches... hoping I can remember them
As for splitting the load differently, she wanted the cats... I already do the majority of the work-load for all the animals and I am getting resentful at her lack of willingness to help. Neither of us likes to clean the cat boxes, so I try to get her to help me... she will do it once a month or so, but other times It's all up to me. I know we have a lot of critters, but we both brought them here, so I'd like to think we can both help with it all. As it is, I try to feed the dogs all the time because she gets all crazy doing it... I feed the cats because she forgets. I don't really ask for much with the reptiles because I know she doesn't much care for them, it's just the fuzzies that I want help with... I think I just need a place to vent about how I feel it's all unfair that I have to do all the work for them. And now that we live with my mom, I find myself being the one to take care of her animals also... that brings out grand total of furry kids up to 4 dogs and 5 cats... I wish they would at least help out with the training/consistency bit... The dogs listen to me because I am consistent in what I expect from them, and I hold them to it. Both mom & wife get frustrated and find it easier to just let them do whatever... which makes it harder for everyone in the long run. Any time I try to tell them this, they brush it off... Maybe with the wording you suggested, I will have a better response. My dogs used to be trained to not run out the door when it was open, now they scatter... :/ ugh... I think I also just need to vent out my frustrations in a journal or something so I can be a little more level-headed when I try to talk to them...