Husband Says Six Years Ago He Switched His 'Wife's Cat With A More Well-Behaved Lookalike'

Nov 10, 2021 by apost team

For many people, pets aren’t just seen as animals they have to take care of — they’re viewed as best friends or even family members. It’s extremely common for owners to love and care for their pets almost as if they were their own children, and they grow close bonds with these sweet animals. However, not everyone is as patient or wants to tolerate bad behavior from an animal, so they decide to do something about this.

One man went to Reddit’s r/TrueOffMyChest forum on Nov. 2, 2021, to reveal a secret he has been hiding from his wife for years about her cat. The forum is a safe place for users to anonymously share stories with other Reddit users about issues in their life. The husband revealed that he had switched his now-wife’s cat with a more well-behaved lookalike.

Her original cat was a black cat that was very aggressive and would always scratch the husband. The cat had other behavioral issues on top of that, and it seemed like no matter what the wife did to try to encourage it to behave better, it just wouldn’t. The husband had gotten pretty tired of always having to deal with the animal, so he came up with a plan to fix that.

Without his then-girlfriend’s knowledge, he switched her cat with a lookalike, and to this day, she still doesn’t know. It’s started to really eat at the man’s conscience, so he went to Reddit to share his secret and seek out advice on how to move forward.

In his Reddit post, the original poster (OP) shared a secret that has been haunting him for many years. “Six years ago, I swapped my then-girlfriend now-wife’s cat with a more well-behaved lookalike,” he said. The cat had some serious behavioral problems that didn’t seem to be going away, no matter how much anyone tried to encourage the cat to change its ways.

“She had an all black cat that was extremely aggressive,” OP said. “It scratched everyone, hissed at everyone, and didn’t use its litter box half the time. My wife insisted she could get it to behave better.” OP didn’t want to wait around any longer to see if the cat would change its way and devised a plan one week when his partner went out of town to visit her family.

OP was given the responsibility to go to her apartment to feed and care for the cat while his then-girlfriend was away. The first night he went there, the cat scratched his arm pretty badly, spurring OP to joke about replacing the cat if it scratched him again. “The joke stuck with me until I had thought about it enough that it wasn’t a joke,” he said.

The next morning, OP went to his local animal shelter and found a cat identical to his partner’s. It was litter box trained and did well with people except for the fact it was a little skittish. He explained that its old owner had died of a heart attack, which is what led the animal shelter workers to believe it was the cause behind the cat’s skittishness.

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OP explained, “But overall, it was a lot friendlier and better behaved, and the skittishness would help it resemble the original cat.” So, he adopted it and swapped it out with his wife’s cat. He took her original cat to an animal shelter in the next town over. “I was paranoid my wife would find out if I took it to a local one,” OP said. However, he later checked to make sure that the place was a no-kill shelter.

It’s been six years since he switched out the cats, four of which he and his wife have been married. OP said:

“We still have the swapped cat. It answers to the original cat’s name. My wife knows nothing. She loves this cat and brags about how much better behaved it is.”

However, OP couldn’t get over how much guilt he felt knowing that he had been hiding this from his wife for so long and thought about it every time he saw the cat. Fortunately, he went to a forum where he was able to vent his issues and receive some feedback from other Redditors, although many pointed out just how wrong he was for pulling a stunt like this.

One user commented, “I would absolutely be considering divorce if I ever found this out. Unforgivable.” Another shared a similar sentiment and said, “If this is real, under no circumstances should you EVER tell her. You will completely destroy her trust.” A third user added, “No wonder the original cat hated OP.”

What would you do if you were in this man’s shoes? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to any pet lover you know to see what they think about this predicament.