I've been reading about toxic parents and I haven't read anything about parents favouring pets over their children, does anyone else have this experience?
My father doted on our cat and always favoured the cat over me. I was an only child. If I was sitting in a chair and the cat wanted to sit there, he would threaten to hit me if I didn't immediately get up. If the cat fell asleep on my bed I was not allowed to move him. If the cat scratched me he would say it was my fault. If we were eating dinner and the cat came in he would insist my mother got up to attend to the cat, even if the cat didn't seem to want anything. He also put himself out for the cat, if it fell asleep on his lap he would stay there until the cat woke up, even if he had something important to do or was hungry. Most annoying was the need to leave all the doors ajar in case the cat wanted to come into a room, including bedrooms- this meant no privacy. I remember bringing a boyfriend back for the weekend when I was in my early 20s and he knocked on our bedroom door after we had got into bed and said we must leave it ajar for the cat! He was adamant, and we actually stayed awake until he went to bed, then shut the door and locked it, and I was worried in case he came to check overnight and got angry. I was always worried he would let the cat into the bathroom whilst I was there (no door locks), this never happened, but I think it shows the extremeness of the situation that I considered this a possibility. As he had angry outbursts and was violent, disagreeing openly about the cat wasn't an option, my mother used to shift the sleeping cat when he wasn't around but she went along with his wishes when he was there.
In retrospect it feels like the bloody cat was the golden child! Is this possible?? The cat could do no wrong.
The cat was originally bought by my mother before I was born and she intended it to be a friendly cat. My father didn't want a cat but once she surprised him with it, he became besotted and spoilt the cat. My mum was always upset that the cat was so spoilt and quite nasty and wasn't the friendly cat she had longed for. When the cat died he was really upset, I personally think he kept the cat alive too long when euthanasia would have been kinder, although some cat lovers may disagree.
They now have several cats and he also panders to them and anthropomorphises them, and spends lots of his day dealing with their every whim. For example when I was bringing my baby DC to their house to visit my mother he thought I was coming to visit their dying cat, and he was surprised when I said the purpose of my visit was my mother seeing her GC, not me seeing the cat.
Does anyone else have this experience of an animal being so consistently favoured over them?