My Fiance Is Driving Me Nuts And I Don't Know What To Do

My fiancé is upset with me also for wanting to get a 5th snake. She said she will keep delaying the set "date" if I keep buying animals. We constantly fight over spending my money on snake equipment and food. We were also supposed to get a Shiba Inu puppy for 2 years now and she tells me were not ready yet when my friend who works at a store who sells only dogs can get me one for almost free (yes i hate "puppy mills", but FREE is a good thing.) I think they just want us to conserve our money for the wedding, kids, and a nice house someday. But I do not see how getting a $200 snake that will live for 20+ years a bad investment. Oh well i may have to wait to get my male bumblebee :confusd:

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Originally Posted by iCandiBallPythons

There are tons of hot reptile girls out there so I would trade her in:thumbup:

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There are! I can't find any of them around me :( lol I hope everything works out for the op tho

After reading this it makes me want to send you a T for Christmas just to spite your fiancé. I know that isn't any help... Sorry

Relationships are a lot of compromise, but if it is something you really want to do she needs to be able to support you. My husband comes from a 1 pet family, and that is what he prefers, I on the other hand am critter crazy. We argued a bit while I was starting with the balls, and still do on occasion, even my Mom was against it. Now he understands how serious I am about this and we have spent a not insignificant amount of money getting started his main concern is when they will be self sufficient. He still doesn't understand and looking in a cage and reporting what he sees is about as far as he will go actually helping wise but because it makes me happy he let me go from 2 snakes to 19 in just over 2 years, and he knows that's not the end of it! My mom is really getting into it, although they can stay at my house she comes over for her snake kick, did the babies eat this week? who's breeding? What can you hatch out this year?

Anyway, sorry for the ramble, if its something important to you, as someone who loves you even if she doesn't see it she still needs to be considerate of what you want, and visa versa.

Your hobby crosses over with your job. How can she deny you the hobby that brings you so much happiness? That just seems so wrong.

Please understand there is a difference between loving and caring about someone and actually being a partner with someone. Key word here: PARTNER. You guys work together. If she is constantly manipulating you and is unsupportive of your love and profession, it is time to look elsewhere in my opinion.

There is a perfect person out there who will love and care for you no matter what. They will support your hobbies even if they are short lived. They won't make you feel guilty to get back at your, or fight with you when you are being reasonable. Sometimes it is very hard to decide if the person you care about is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. If you are anything like me (animal lover) then you probably don't have a stable future with someone who makes up excuse after excuse why you can't get a new animal.

I was in a long term (3.5 years) relationship with someone when I discovered my love for reptiles. I always loved animals, but this was shortly after I started college, so I had none of my own. One snake turned into 5 after a couple years. He finally admitted to me that he hated that I had so many animals. It was essentially over right then and there, even though there were months of fighting that ensued after this initial realization of his. It sucked. I felt like crap. I still loved and cared about him, but I knew I had no future with someone who doesn't care for animals.

It is my opinion that you should just move on. Some people just aren't meant to be together. That is okay! There is most definitely someone out there who will appreciate you for exactly what you are at this very moment. Don't let other opportunities for happiness slip past you by engaging in a long distance relationship with someone who suggest being single and hangs up on you when you say something they don't like. There is no reason to stay with someone who can bring your mood from super excited to frustrated and mad with a simple phone call. No one deserves to be unhappy like that! Especially when it comes from the person who is supposed to love you for the rest of your lives.


I have a lot of friends who are in failing and abusive relationships that have a really hard time letting go. It isn't easy. It hurts a lot, but once liberated you will see all that you have been missing. Don't let yourself get tied down. You only have one life to live so make it count.

So many people have had so many great points! Regardless of whatever else is going on in your fiance's head or in your relationship, I'm definitely seeing a communication problem. She says 10 snakes is the limit, she says you keeping the number of snakes the same is fine, but then she loses it when you're going to do what you both agreed to do? And with the dog, I believe I read that you both picked the apartment you're in currently to enable you to have a dog and now she doesn't want the dog?

For me, the bait-and-switch I see this as being really raises red flags. And combining that with the total shut-down of communication on the issue it is worrisome.

My husband isn't into snakes. Shoot, the poor man married me having no clue I liked them; and in all fairness, when we got married I had zero intention of housing them. Well, that changed and yet he's still around for the ride. I'll tell you right now I didn't make the introduction as well as I might have -- it never even entered my mind he might not like snakes! So there he is, safely ensconced in his computer chair, when his wife and the nine-year-old come home from Repticon bearing scaly things. I do believe his eyebrows shot into his hairline (and considering his hairline is migrating toward the back of his head somewhat, that's saying something). :oops:

Fortunately he likes them just fine, he simply doesn't share my younger son's and my growing passion for them. But what he does do is support our interest. He helped the first week we had our first snakes (Kenyan sand boas) with the f/t pinkies and feeding those to the snakes because I got all squeaky and freaked out over the dead rodents. He modified the shelving I found to hold our ball pythons' tubs so it was about 8" taller. He cut and painted wood "tub stands" to hold the tubs on the wire shelving when it became clear they needed a more solid base. He fed the ball pythons their first f/t meal (more of me squeaking over dead rodents -- it seems adding hair to them made me weird again :rolleyes:)... he's just good. He even praises me for my ability to get over being skeeved by the rodents and wielding the feeding tongs with amazing accuracy... and really, I'm 42, I shouldn't be squeaking over dead mice regardless, but he still tells me "good job, baby!"

He's not a pushover, though. He came in knowing we had cats and knowing he was allergic. He agreed to the addition of one more cat. And he has now been very clear that 3 cats is more than sufficient. And because he's my husband and I care about his comfort, all feline evidence to the contrary, I completely agree with him. The cats will slowly disappear by attrition. We're not rehoming them, but when in time they eventually pass away, we won't be replacing them.

Well, at least we won't replace them with cats. I've got my eyes on a Dumeril's boa...

;)

What I'm saying, though, is watch your fiance and see if this is a pattern of hers, the "okay, we'll do A with the pets!" "No, we're not going to do A with the pets...", etc. Considering your field and your stated interests when you entered the relationship (and the fact that she just played up her interest in her snake to impress you/ snare you), you can hardly be accused of changing the rules on her. She's in a career where she doesn't have much control over what happens when she's on patrol, so I can see her wanting home to be a place where things are as she expects them to be. That's fine. But she needs to be clear about her expectations and not keep changing them up.

You both have to be able to live with each other. If there are things you find out about each other that are dealbreakers, then you both might be wise to look elsewhere.

I find it a little bit funny that my parents support my hobby more than my partner does. :rolleyes: I call my mother to talk about it and she encourages me to get another...especially if I want to breed. lol.

The animal issue is a serious one for me. I've talked to her about it before. I told her that she needed to realize that animals were always going to be a part of my life and that they are one of my greatest passions. She loves that I'm so passionate about them, and that they mean so much to me, but yet tries to control how many animals I can have. If she paid for half of everything regarding the animals, I would be much more understanding. Something as simple as, "I don't think we can afford another pet right now honey.", would more than suffice if that were the case. But it isn't. I pay for everything animal related, save for the occasional box of cat litter. (She keeps claiming our cat as "hers", so I pushed her to start helping more with her financially if she wanted to claim her and she did.) But where the snakes and any other pet is concerned, the cost of keeping them is mine alone. As is the care. While it's probably a good thing that she limits me to a certain extent ( I could see myself having quite a few more snakes by now if it weren't for her...lol), I don't like it when she goes back and forth like she does. And yes, we did move into our current apartment soley for the reason that we wanted to get a dog. That was a mutually understood fact. I just wish she would be up front with me and not get so mad about silly things like rehoming one snake in favor of another. :rolleyes:

I have noticed some of these red flags over the years and sometimes I wonder if we should go through with getting married or not. Hopefully we can work on our issues and get through it, because being engaged, I feel like I owe her that. Definitely more so than I would if we were simply dating. While I know there is nothing binding about an engagement, I feel that any person you are willing to make that level of commitment to deserves even more respect than your average significant other. We live together too, so it would not be as simple as "Hey this isn't working for such and such reasons. I think we should see other people." But many of my friends have expressed concern on many an occasion over the years, and its silly things like this over the boa that really get me thinking about where our future is really going. Our families being invested in our relationship, in addition to the amount of time we have spent together, doesn't make things any easier either.

I feel like I'm already compromising by accepting this "long-distance relationship" that I most certainly did not sign up for and essentially had no say in. She could have just as easily found a temporary job by our house instead of in another city, four hours away, while waiting for the hiring procedures to complete. I suppose we will just have to see where we stand come the end of our lease in July. I would like to work things out if possible so that we can both be happy, but that's not going to happen without shared effort.

Anyway, I really appreciate all the great advice guys. :) Trying to talk it out seems like the best course of action.

And Chris...maybe next Christmas. ;)

Well...first thing to remember is that you're only 22. I'm not sure how old your fiance is but--you guys are young to be thinking about marriage, not to say you shouldn't do it, but you guys are young. What being young means is that you're both going to change a lot, and move around a lot, because neither of you is really settled in life yet (especially if you're still in school). I think communication is obviously important, but it's also important to remember than people our age (I'm only a year older than you are) tend to be a little selfish, because we're all focused on getting our own disjointed and frazzled lives together (I know I am). Maybe the snakes/animals are just a good outlet for her general nervousness about life commitments. Not necessarily the case as I don't know you or your fiance, but it seems possible.

The second thing to remember is that talking about something and doing something can be different things. Maybe the idea of getting a dog seemed good at the time, but once it came down to the actuality, she felt like it was too much. It seems like "we'll" get one means a dog that belongs to both of you. It could be that being as she's living elsewhere right now, she doesn't feel responsible getting a dog with someone she doesn't live near.

Third thing to remember is--to those of us who are "animal people" having several animals around the house (especially when most of them aren't free-roaming) seems like nothing, but to people who did not grow up around many pets it may seem overwhelming. It sounds really like an issue of a difference in lifestyle. It is something that likely needs to be talked through openly to see if a compromise can be made, but--I think it's important to consider your compatibility if either you have to constantly give up the animals you love, or she has to constantly give up her comfort in the home to maintain your relationship.

Hm.. I was going to say that it'd be a good idea to ask her point-blank what the problem is, in a nice way. If it were an issue of money, I could sort of understand. My husband and I do not "require" permission from one another per se (to buy large purchases) but we do run it by one another, to be safe. The exception (which sounds like your situation in only merely wanting to switch one snake for another) is when, say, he trades in one of his guns for another gun of similar value. That takes no extra funds, and really affects my life in no big way.

I would watch out for controlling behavior. Not to get too in-depth about my life, but if it surfaces, it should be dealt with quickly. If you feel like you're being controlled, you can bring it up in a nice way (like "I do not hold it against you when you spend money on ___.. I only want the same in return." No one person in a partnership should be enjoying more liberties than the other.. If it were an issue of spending a large amount of $ that would hurt you both financially, I could kinda see.. or if you were not taking care of your animals (which I am no way implying! just trying to come up with reasons a partner would be irate about it.) I wish you the best, and (not trying to brag here, seriously) as a person who's been in my present relationship for 11 years, it is Not always fun and perfection.. it takes communication and there will be bumps in the road when things seem to be crumbling everywhere, but that should not be an eternally occuring thing.