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Originally Posted by Kivgaen  I am okay. I am not sad or depressed or upset. He was one of 3 cats, and I felt that we had too many cats and maintenance was draining on me. Before we had children, our cats were our children. But since we had children, we don't feel that strong connection to our cats anymore -- they are, in fact, JUST our pets.
Mulder was deteriorating for a long time. When DH brought him in on Friday the Vet said it was the right decision -- his eyes were jaundiced and his liver was failing. He lost a lot of his body fat. It was the right time.
I was nervous that DH would be upset about it like he was with Neelix, but I haven't really noticed a change in him like we did when Neelix died. The situation around Neelix was completely different though. We didn't have kids at the time, so our cats were still our "children" at this point. He also died very suddenly. He was happy, running around, eating, etc. The next day -- dead! (Cardiomyopathy). Neelix was also the cat who played with us all the time, playing fetch, etc.
We have two cats still living. Dax is a cuddler -- he'll sit in our laps when we are at the computer, he sleeps with us (usually with DH). Blaze is the youngest (just over 8 years old) and is still a very active cat. He plays with us all the time and loves playing fetch. It will hurt more when Dax and Blaze go. But we've made peace with Mulder's death -- he had a good, long life.
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I was shocked at the depth of my DH's sadness when we put our C down.
Like what you describe, our cats were our children prior to having a real, human child. I said this before on MDC but I think it is a dirty little secret that many people won't admit but relationships with "children" pets do change after having a real child.
Also, like you describe, I was
worn down by the maintenance. We were just on the cusp of it being
too much work. By too much work, I mean the constant care was in danger of taking away from positive family function. My DH would start getting anixous at 3pm in the afternoon about dealing with X, Y and Z health issues he knew would occupy the better part of two hours once we arrived at home. I was starting to be resentful because I didn't want to scrub pee off the floor for the 3rd time each day. DS couldn't understand why we would get upset when he was "playing" with C and we were constantly saying "leave her alone!"
Glad to hear you and Mulder are at peace now.
He was already registered and had his name given to him by the breeder (his full name was Blazenfudge, if you can believe it!) We despised his full name, but we could live with "blaze". We couldn't be bothered with changing it and eventually it grew on us.
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