Lonely wife rescues puppy when workaholic husband is out of town, marital tension arises when he refuses to help out but she refuses to rehome the pup: 'I told [her] we weren't ready for a dog'

Author image for Briana Viser
Briana Viser • Writer and Editor
Feb 8, 2026 2:00 PM EST

Before getting married, it's important to talk about what both people want for their future, or how they plan to raise kids so you don't end up fighting about how to train a puppy. 

It's a tale as old as time that a husband would be the hard-working breadwinner, and that the wife would be at home listless and alone. Working part-time while your husband works a lot can be nice at the beginning, but it's also existential. It's lonely to be at home all alone waiting for him to get back. Imagine if you just moved to a new area, or don't have a lot of friends in the area. The woman in the story below is a part-time employee at a shop, but she has a lot of free time on her hands. Her husband works a lot, and if he goes into the office then he's there from Sunday night until Friday night. She's home and lonely. Though he does work in his home office as well, the point is that he's unavailable. So when he's out of town, she decides to take matters into her own hands. 

She decides to adopt a dog! It wasn't planned or malicious, it just happened to happen because a neighbor's dog had a liter of puppies. It makes sense, and anyone could do it since it's readily available. But her husband isn't so happy about that. He's downright upset that she would adopt a puppy behind his back. They've talked about the future, and that she would be a stay at home mom when they have a child, and this is actually a decent trial run to see what it'd be like. He claims that the puppy is very cute, but also loud, not well-behaved, and destructive. It's okay because she's a puppy, but it makes him wonder if he made the wrong choice of women. He feels his wife isn't pulling her slack, so he gives her an ultimatum. He tells her that he wants the puppy rehomed, or else he's leaving. You'll have to read the full story below to see if she stays or goes. 

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    Am I wrong for telling my wife to rehome our dog and leaving when she wouldn't?

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    I work from home till time. I only need to go into our physical office once a month. That day is
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    always the last Friday of the month unless it's a holiday but you get the idea. My wife, Angela, works part time retail. It's fine
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    because we discussed it and agreed that she would be a SAHM when we had kids. So she contributes what she can to the
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    household and has he own money for whatever extras she wants besides her share of our budget.
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    In December my monthly meeting ended up being on a Monday because of the way the
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    calendar worked out. I booked myself a hotel for Sunday night and drove into the city. When I got home that evening my wife
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    had a surprise. She had rescued a puppy. Not like officially from a registered place or anything. A neighbor had a litter and she
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    took the last puppy. A coonhound cross. Pretty enough dog but not my cup of tea. We had agreed on getting a dog. Eventually.
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    She had also spent a bunch of her own money and gotten a kennel and other dog stuff. She looked very proud of herself. Named the dog Trudy.
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    Trudy is very cute but also very loud. She howls. A lot. It's usually fine because Angela would go to
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    her and pay attention to her and she would be quiet. But the days Angela works Trudy needs to be
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    in the kennel. Which she very vocally dislikes. Trudy can't roam the house because she is a puppy
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    and therefore she is somewhat destructive. And she isn't house- trained. We can't just leave her outside because although we
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    have a fenced yard there are coyotes to worry about. I suggested moving the kennel to our heater garage. That was
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    deemed not acceptable because we would need to move it back to the house at night. Trudy has
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    become a pain in my ass with this cold snap because my wife won't walk her in the cold and icy conditions. To be fair they are very rare for our area.
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    Cheezburger Image 10603828480
    via Pixland from Photo Images / Canva

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    The next thing is my office. My wife was very good about respecting my workspace so I usually had the door open. The
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    only time I would close it was during meetings. Trudy explores. So I started closing the door all
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    the time. Angela doesn't like that. And Trudy scratches to try and get in.
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    I am beginning to understand what my life will be like if we have a kid. So I told Angela that we weren't ready for a dog and that
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    she needed to either step up and make our home a place where I could work, re-home the dog, I go back to working in the office
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    which would mean me being gone from Sunday night until Friday night. Angela said none of those are reasonable choices because she's trying to train
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    Trudy but it isn't working. I locked up my office on Sunday and got a room at a local hotel. It's great it's quiet and I can work on peace.
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    Angela found out I didn't go to the city almost immediately and called me so many times I had to block her. She says that rumors
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    are starting. I have her one other option. She gets a full time job and pays for doggy daycare out of her budget. She said it was ridiculous to work just to pay for that.
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    So that's where we are this Tuesday morning.
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    I never agreed to this dog. Why should I be responsible for paying everything with regards to her? I paid the vet, I paid for everything so far. Why should I pay for daycare?
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dogs cute dogs adoption puppy doggo Dog Rescue
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