My [25M] best friend [25M] is the vet that put my girlfriends [24F] dog down and now my girlfriend wants me to stop talking to him

A Redditor shared a tense situation involving their girlfriend, who is grieving the loss of her dog. The vet who handled the situation is the Redditor’s best friend, and while the girlfriend initially seemed okay, she now accuses the vet of dishonesty and wants her boyfriend to stop talking to him. The conflict has strained their relationship, leaving the Redditor seeking advice. Read the full story below to understand the dilemma.

‘ My [25M] best friend [25M] is the vet that put my girlfriends [24F] dog down and now my girlfriend wants me to stop talking to him’

As the title states my girlfriend had to put down her dog a couple of months ago. It was really sudden and he was still quite young so we weren’t at all prepared for it. He was her dog but we’ve been together for two years and living together for one so it was hard on me too. We took him to the only emergency animal hospital in our town that’s open 24/7 which is where my best friend happens to work. He was the vet that ended up helping us.

We ran all kinds of tests and tried a few things to help him but ultimately put him down that night. As much as the situation sucked, I think my friend was excellent at handling everything and my girlfriend didn’t seem to have any issues with him.

For the past two months she has expressed that she thinks her dog wasn’t actually sick and our friend just ran all of those tests and put him down so he could make money. I tried to be sympathetic at first but now she’s straight up insulting my friend and wants me to stop hanging out with him. My buddies and I have baseball season tickets (she has one too) and every time I go she asks if the “dog murderer” is going to be there and if he’s going she won’t come. She whines every time I get to get together with my friends too if he’s going to be there.

Can you guys think of anything I can do to get this to stop? I think it’s really disrespectful and I’m probably going to break up with her if it continues. Tl;dr: my friend is the vet that put down our dog and my girlfriend thinks he ran all these tests and put him down just to make money.

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

Mueryk −  You need to nip this in the bud. She has become self deluded into thinking that it HAD to be someone’s fault. Bad things happen and you can’t always salvage them. This relationship might be one. “I need you to sit and listen to me. Your dog died and XXXXX did everything possible to save him. The fact that you are disrespecting my friend by calling him a dog k**ler and saying he just ran tests for money is absurd and rude.

You need to examine yourself and think really hard about what is important to you. I cannot and will not support you in this. If it is more important to you that you bash my friend for trying to help you instead of realizing that bad things happen, then I am afraid we won’t be able to continue as we have.” Then stick to that statement. Because what happens when someone she cares about dies and you aren’t just perfect. It will become your fault. Suggest she seek therapy, shut up, or get out. Don’t tolerate “the crazy”

WokeBro69 −  Wouldn’t he have made more money by continuing to give the dog costly tests and treatments, rather than putting him down? If he had saved the dog, that would be years worth of check ups and other procedures that would have also been money in his pocket.. Your girlfriend is delusional.

Farts_McGee −  I work in the medical field and it’s not uncommon that people respond very poorly to sad things. One of the most important tools in the arsenal is to restate their position in as generous a way possible. ie, “you had a pet that you and I both loved deeply, the pet died because of *whatever*. You feel sad, I feel sad too. You feel betrayed by a system that you thought would help your pet. As best I can tell the reason you feel betrayed is because despite the tests ordered my friend was unable to help save your dog.

Since then you have decided that the vet took advantage of you. Do you believe that the dog would be better off if had let him suffer? I know you loved and still love your dog. I can’t imagine how much you hurt because your friend is gone. (that’s the phrase where people always start crying, so you gotta pause there) What is it about this situation that I don’t understand?” You gotta listen at this point and pretty much exactly repeat back to them what they told you, then i usually ask if i understand it correctly.

he next step is where it gets tricky. Usually i use this dialog because we’re about to call security to pull a grieving mom off the floor cause she’s flipping her biscuit (which is horrible and awful for everyone involved) “What are you presently trying to accomplish and what can I do to help you accomplish it?” At this point one of two things have happened. Either they recognize that they are being irrational with their emotional responses to bystanders or they haven’t.

Most of the time they’ll be rational at this point, but sometimes they won’t, so I’ll then ask more pointed questions. “Will being cold to my good friend bring back your f**ry friend? Does making everyone else around more miserable make you feel better?” Typically I have about a 90% success rate with this dialog for deescalating tense situations.

Sometimes people feel like the best way of showing how much they love their lost one is by being a d**k to everyone. My best guess is that they do it to demonstrate that they loved more than decorum allows, so by violating social rules and norms they can show themselves and others that this is the case. Once they figure out why they are being a d**k it usually settles down. Good luck man. Let us know how it turns out.

EDIT: Oh one more thing. REASON DOES NOT APPLY. Forcing ultimatums will only give her a venue to further demonstrate how deeply she feels/loves whatever. Grief makes people dumb. I’m not justifying her behavior but man, if i had 2 bucks every time I experienced something like this in the face of loss I could pay off my student loans easily. If you try to guide the logic of a grieving person you’ll just come off as m**ipulative and she’ll probably entrench herself deeper in the delusion.

You can’t give them the obvious conclusions even though you totally want to. All you are trying to do is build up the idea that you know that they love the departed and you can’t possibly feel as awful as she does because no one feels as deeply as she can (even though it’s probably not true).

eshtive353 −  This sounds like it is more of an issue with your girlfriend’s grief and her difficulty processing it. Losing a pet, especially one that still so young, is really sad and your girlfriend has a right to her feelings. What she doesn’t have a right to is to control who you can and can’t be friends with. I would encourage your girlfriend to talk to someone to help her deal with the grief of losing her dog, but I’d also stand your ground and back your friend up. Malpractice is a pretty serious accusation and it sounds like your girlfriend’s grief is clouding her judgement.

unhappymedium −  I think it’s really disrespectful and I’m probably going to break up with her if it continues.. There’s your answer.

thebabes2 −  Your girlfriend is suffering some severe break from reality here. If he was some crazy vet who wanted to milk you for money, putting down the dog would be the stupidest thing for him to do. My sister is a vet tech and has told me how crazy bills can get and how desperate people will be to shell out $1000s for a “might help” treatment for their pet. If the vet recommended euthanasia, it was because it was the most humane option for the animal.

I think her telling you not to see him is unreasonable. Her calling him dog murderer is disrespectful. You need to sit her down and have a very blunt discussion with her. Let her know the behavior is not on and you will not tolerate it. I agree that this short of treatment is absolutely breakup worthy. It’s deluded, immature and disrespectful.

buckeyegal923 −  Simply point out to her that if the dog hadn’t actually, truly been sick, you two would not have even been at the emergency vet in the first place. I don’t know about you, but other than his annual check-up, I don’t run my dog to the emergency vet just for shits and giggles. The dog was clearly ill. He clearly needed care. Why she’s denying that now is beyond me…

I agree with you about this potentially being a relationship-ender. Your friend did everything right, the dog was too ill to save (it’s tragic, but it happens…it’s the risk we all take when we get pets), and now your girlfriend needs to grow up about it and quit calling your friend a “dog murderer”.

Kawoomba −  This time it’s your friend.. Next time it’s you.

SugarKyle −  She needs some type of grief counseling. Even if you don’t stay with her, suggest it. Losing a pet is devastating and people often suffer extreme guilt to doing so. The question, “Where did I mess up?” spins around in their heads. Sadly, she is being unreasonable about the entire thing and is destroying her relationship because she cannot handle her loss.

heroicintent −  Holy cow. When I was 14, In the late 80’s I pushed and screamed at the vet that put down my dying cat. A few months later, I went by to apologize. The front desk lady told me he’d died. He was 30. She said AIDS. A guy in the waiting room said,” Must’ve gotten it mess’in with them cityfolk.” (this confused me and made me afraid to go into the city) I realized he was dying himself when he put my cat down. I still feel bad for giving him a hard time.