I just want to start this off by saying I love him, we have more good times than bad, he loves me and treats me like a princess and I have no intentions of leaving him but we do have one very big problem.

I’m a very empathetic person, I care about strangers and friends and family and I absolutely adore animals. I cry at every movie and I treat my dog like he’s my baby (which he is.)

My boyfriend however, isn’t. He’s very focused on his immediate surrounding and puts all love and attention into that, family, me, and work. He thinks dogs are just dogs and should be trained to a snap or whistle and treated as such. Which I kind of understand, the problem I’m having though is my reaction to him.

He thinks I’m ridiculous because of how I interact with my small dog(Nutella) Nutella has always been there for me through my depression, the death of my best friend and moving away from my family. So I tend to rely on him a lot emotionally, I like having him with me as much as possible and because of that we’ve developed separation anxiety. I hate not having him around and he stresses out (gets into the garbage, poops in the house) when I’m not home. So today my boyfriend and I get home and Nutella has pooped on the floor, so I yell at him and give him the silent treatment but my boyfriend picks him up and puts him outside in our unfenced patio. When I go to bring him back inside my boyfriend tells me not to and he needs to stay outside “he’s a dog he will be fine” so a minute later I’m stressed and bring him back inside and ignore him again. I end up searching how to help separation anxiety and it says find a safe space to leave them when you’re gone to make them feel more secure so I tell my boyfriend that I wanted to get a puppy pen and he says “that’s stupid and it won’t help, you need to stop treating your dog like a ducking child” I walked away after that. This is a fight we have constantly, he thinks I baby my dog and I disagree.

I want to foster dogs,and adopt old dogs that nobody else wants and give them an amazing last life and spoil them because dogs are so good. But I don’t know if that’s ever something he would be willing to do with me, if he can’t handle my one tiny dog, how would he ever react to more? I love him so much but is having him worth never having my dream of fostering dogs? Can I really live my life with someone so fundamentally different?

I know this is a long read so thank you, for getting this far. Do y’all have any advice?