After sleepless hours and constantly reassuring myself it will all be fine and the cats will accept it and my husband will see how happy I am and everyone will be happy… I realize that this is a lot of crap.

It wasn’t until we were talking with our couple’s therapist tonight that it came out that my husband really, really, really does not want a dog in the house. He can tolerate dogs, and even take some comfort in their company (when they are quiet and just lying beside you on the couch), but does not want one in his home. This means that, regardless of how happy I am, I believe that all he’ll see is how inconvenienced we are as a result of a dog being in our home and inconvenienced = unhappy husband. We came up with a lot of ways that I can get what I need from my husband when he’s home. Probably during my personal counseling session my doctor will try to help me come up with ways I can get what I need for myself as well.

However, I already loved the dog that was coming into my home, and feel much the same way I did when I got my period after a questionably-positive pregnancy test back when I was well and we were trying to have a baby 5 years ago. (It’s worse than having to go on disability leave and abandon my students because, honestly, a lot of those kids were being total jerks to me, personally.)  That space I made in my heart and nested and planned for is just going to go vacant. I will not have someone to drag out of their shell through patience, love, and understanding. I will not have a buddy to spend my days with. I will not have someone else for whom I have to take a walk and stay well (for my husband and my self and the rest of my family, I weigh pros and cons of any activity and accept the consequences in order to do things with him I may not feel up to).

I figure it’s for the best, because if a foster is easily frightened (like most) and my husband reacts to barking or accidents the way he reacts to our kitty Stewie shouting at night… well, it could do more harm than good. Maybe, one day when we have kids (or when we have empty nest syndrome) and a yard, the kids and I will be able to convince my husband to let me get a dog.

When it comes down to it, I want my husband to be happy and comfortable at home above all else. I guess it’s been long enough since he’s been comfortable, that he’s not really willing to accept this discomfort (which, to him, appears to be significant) for my potential happiness, if there’s any way that happiness could be achieved through other means, however elaborately multi-pronged and potentially exhausting they may be, as well as putting greater burdens upon him.

I already emailed the local person and said I cannot foster. I even stretched the truth:

I’m really very sorry, but after bringing our cats to the vet for their checkup and getting some disheartening news about each of them, and then going to see my doctor to find out my recent fibromyalgia flare-up was most likely due to a tear in my left shoulder blade/back muscle, I’m going to have to cancel my application to foster. Apparently I and my family are just not up to it.

Since there’s no going back, in honor of the dog I already loved and never met, here are a few LOLdoxies from ihasahotdog.com:

I’ve been feeling moody lately. It’s hard to explain to someone that loves me that I’m not depressed, because they’re too used to my varying levels of depression, but I’m truly not depressed.

I don’t feel hopeless and I don’t feel (completely) helpless.

I just feel frustrated because my progress in everything has slowed as though I’m trying to swim in caramel, and lonely because I have little contact with anyone other than my cats, husband, parents, and siblings (in order of amount of contact).

It will take time before people will want a tutor/advocate again; that’s just how the summer is.

It will take time to get the house the way I want it (because I can’t do much myself and I can’t ask my husband to do much more than help clean or move specified things and even then, it’s rarely on my timetable) and then, once the house is all tidy, it will take time and energy to keep it that way.

It will take time before I’m a weight I find at all acceptable.

It will take time before I can do exercises on my own, without a personal trainer, and even then it will take a while before I build up any normal level of strength or endurance.

It will take time before I’ll even have the option of fostering a dog, or before I meet anyone new.

As my favorite psychiatrist once told me, “Sometimes life just sucks.” So, if it gets you down, that doesn’t mean you’re depressed, it just means you’ve properly evaluated the situation and will just have to endure through the suckitude.

I’m starting to stress out over bringing a foster dog into my home, especially after reading “Dachshunds for Dummies”.

Today, the vet said it’s very possible the cats might get very stressed out. Although Leela handled it well, I don’t know if Stewie will. But I hope so.

My baby brother thinks it’s a mistake and will drain me.

What if it’s a destructive, stubborn dog that’s hard to housebreak and barks constantly?
What if it’s a sweetheart and just needs love and understanding and patience?
What if it’s both?

What if I don’t foster a dog? I’m pretty sure I’ll go insane over this summer, being alone all day with only having my husband for company most evenings and some days on the weekend. Even the cats are upstairs asleep all day and get very irritated if I try to engage them.

But I adore my kitties (they’re my babies!) and I would never, ever wish them a moment of harm unless there were a greater good that came of it… like an uncomfortable shot, or the potential for them and a doggie having a big cuddle all together.

I also need to continue to get better, and if fostering a dog drains me too much, I won’t be ready to work  2-4 hrs every day in the fall.

Decisions! They suck.

EDITED: Since writing this, this thought was firmly removed from rotation and I no longer feel as strongly.

Late at night, I get thoughts that swirl around and around in my head. My psychiatrist said it could be AD(H)D rather than OCD, but I really think it’s boredom. I don’t get my thoughts out very often and there are very few things to think about, or be bothered by that I can’t make a list and just deal with slowly-but-surely.

However, there has been one very familially-socially-destructive set of thoughts that is firmly in the rotation: my relatively new, negative feelings toward my sister-in-law.

It could be because she’s extremely attractive and fit (she’s always been in that popular “beautiful-and-intelligent-enough-and-very-hardworking-jock” group, as opposed to the “non-preppy-overly-bright-too-honors-student-enjoying-dorky-things-too-much-to-be-popular-regardless-of-attractiveness” group that her brother and I were in). It could be because she’s going into what is my family’s Family Business. But, honestly, I overlooked and/or embraced those things long ago. It’s mostly because one of the very things that defines her character is the very thing that I cannot comprehend or accept because it is the antithesis of what I feel we are all put on this Earth for. (No, she doesn’t kill kittens.) She’s extremely self-absorbed, often to the exclusion of all others, including her sibling, unless their thoughts/feelings/opinions/actions directly affect her.