It may be hard to believe but those cute little critters you call pets are actually monsters. Well, they could become monsters – if you let them. And to make them even scarier, most people do not realize when their little cutsie-wutsie has made the transformation into marriage monster.

When people plan for marriage they sometimes talk about things such as how many kids they want to have, what kind of jobs they want and where they want to live. Rarely do they ask the critical question: What’s your critter tendency factor?

The critter tendency factor says a lot about a couple’s compatibility. There are several ways to label it, but essentially there are four different types of critter tendencies. They can be described by the individuals initial thought about animals. When you first see an animal, is your desire to:

1. See it

2. Hold it

3. Feed it

4. Have it move in with you

If you’re married to a #3 or #4 then you probably recognized it immediately. If you’re still staring at the list wondering what the difference is then you’re probably a #3 or #4 yourself. By the time people reach stage 4 they have often lost the ability to differentiate between people and animals.

Before we go any further I should also point out that this is a continuous scale with people falling in various degrees of each stage. For example, some #1 individuals’ response could be better described as “see it and shoot it”. This is not a new category, but is just an extreme of the one category very near zero. You will also find some people who are on the border between #1 and #2 as they will occasionally pet animals, but not every animal they encounter. So remember this is a scale, not contest.

If a #1 marries a #4 then problems are inevitable. You might as well build a separate house or find some other compromise because if either partner gets their way entirely, the other will be quite miserable. Here is a sample conversation between one of these couples:

“Can’t we get another dog? Poochie looks so sad and doesn’t have anyone to play with?”

“What about the rabbit or the cat or the hamster?”

“You know dogs can’t play with those animals! Poochie would eat them all.”

“I know.” (Insert evil grin here.)

“Don’t be mean! You know you love hippity-hop. So can we look at puppies now?”

“I know, why don’t we build a special place for all the animals to live. Oh wait, that place already exists. It’s called a zoo!”

(The conversation goes downhill from here.)

But even couples where both partners fall in various stages of #2 and #3 can end up having problems. Just because someone likes to pet the neighbors dog does not mean they want one for themselves. It’s the difference between baby sitting for friends and having your own baby – definitely not the same thing.

And that space between #3 and #4 can be a huge gap. Feeding a pet (owning it) that stays outside is far different from having a pet sleep in the bed next to you. One is like having a best friend that hangs around a lot. The other is like taking that friend along on every date.

Keep one thing in mind, though. No matter how cute or precious that little critter is, it’s not worth losing your marriage over. It’s really not. So learn to compromise in a way that recognizes both partners critter tendency factor. (Even if I just made that term up.)