Visiting my brother over Christmas – pet issues

I have a dog, and my brother has recently got a kitten and we’re having some trouble with arrangements over Christmas.

He lives in Bristol and has said our parents and my partner and I are welcome to come and stay between 27th and 30th Dec. I live in Brighton so be travelling a few hours to see him.

He has expressed a worry about me bringing my dog, who he loves and has always been welcome before. I understand that his priority is now his cat, and seen as my dog is not a fan of cats, there is obviously worry there about how they’ll be around each other.

He has been messaging me saying, but not saying, don’t bring your dog because she’ll terrorise my cat. My thought that is creating frustration is that there must be a solution to this, and that if we don’t introduce them and risk a little anomisoty to begin with, then I’ll never be able to take my dog up there, and that makes it hard for me AND my partner to go (which is already a struggle as my bf isn’t keen on my brothers gf). I just don’t want there to be another hurdle that means we are less likely to all get together as a family.

I feel a lot of pressure from my mum to get us all together, and it’s like she is upset every time we are not all going to the same arranged gathering. I know her thoughts are hers and just thoughts and not my responsibility, but I don’t know how to proceed with this.

I don’t want to put pressure on my brother to basically put his cat up for practise for my dog to get used to cats, but my dog is my baby and I hate that she gets kicked out of things because of what she is. It feels unfair.

My current position is that I am in the middle of a text exchange with my brother (I’m waiting on a new SIM so I can’t call him unfortunately!) where he’s thinking of his baby (kitten) and I’m thinking of mine (dog), and I don’t know how to proceed with it.

My choices seem to be;
Keep going and argue my dogs case
Accept his decision and the feelings that come with it and that it may mean that getting together as a family is difficult now my brother has a cat (if we’re going to his).

I know I should probably just accept it but I’m finding that difficult to process at the moment.

Any pointers? Anything you can see in this that I can’t? I don’t want to be unreasonable but I don’t want to make a decision that makes future visits difficult too.

 

Answer:

It sounds like this is the model you’re in:
C: Christmas at brother’s house whilst having a dog and cat
T: I don’t want there to be another hurdle that means we are less likely to get together for our family
F: Frustrated
A: See two options for how to solve this, think about how unfair this feels,
R: Make the hurdles the focus
It’s so interesting to witness ourselves responding to new boundaries that others set (even if they have trouble saying or writing it out) – take some time to allow yourself to have and process the feelings that are knocking at the door. You’re having a perfectly human reaction.
If you want to keep to the idea that you only have two options available to you, that’s okay, but whenever I see only two options for a solution to a life problem, my red flags raise themselves high in the sky. It’s very rarely the case in life that there is truly an either/or solution to any problem. If you were to get curious about how you could make this work for both of you this year, I wonder what other solutions you might come up with. Take some time to write them down and check in to see what’s in alignment with you and your brother’s request. What do you uncover in this process whilst coming from a place of curiosity?