If we have a cat who tries to hog all our love for themselves, these are usually cats who have had heartbreak or deprivation in their past. Once they conclude that love and caring are in short supply, they will resent any indication that it might be applied elsewhere.
In games theory, this is called zero sum. It is used for finite, unchanging resources, such as a cake. Cutting a bigger slice for you means having a smaller slice for me.
The jealous cat doesn’t know that love doesn’t work that way.
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We certainly want to cure the jealous cat. Many people do not realize the trouble encouraging jealousy can create. They might feel amused by the focus, or flattered by the demonstration of attachment. They think it’s an index of how much the cat loves them.
But they are mistaken.
This isn’t devotion. This isn’t love. This is screaming insecurity.
Jealous cats can also be aggressive and bullying, or shy and fearful. Either way, to make the cat happy, we will not indulge this misconception of theirs.
We must work to show the cat that love is infinite, and will expand to fill any container.
This is not the same as the One Person Cat. These are cats who get what they need from Their Person, but do not object to that person loving other living beings. The jealous cat will drive off others, and display anger when their person shows affection towards others.
Indulging the cat in this dysfunctional behavior by laughing at their displays, teasing them into reactions, and moving our other affection displays out of the cat’s sight only increases the cat’s insecurity.
We are giving them the false information that love is finite. If we give a slice of affection to another, it is taken from them.
What we are doing when we put up with jealousy is reinforcing a warped view of affection. The cat fears the loss of love and thinks they can demand what they see as a limited resource.
Only there is never enough love for the insecure.
Find out how to fix a jealous cat.
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There’s more ways to get our cat to be affectionate in The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my CAT AFFECTION posts.
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Hello –
Thank you for this post. This perfectly describes what is happening with my beloved Sophie. When we adopted her, we recognized that she had been mistreated and deprived. She blossomed with the love and acceptance she gets but still exhibits shyness and fear. Now that we have cat #2 – Pugsley – she is starting to get aggessive – jealous of the love he gets but I know it’s because she feels insecure and afraid she will be given away. I wanted a LOVING way to repond to this – to teach her about love- and this is IT. THANK YOU!
You are welcome. It always amazes me that “science” keeps claiming animals have no emotions… when it’s perfectly obvious they do, and they are not that different from ours.
HELP!!
I have a 7 year old grey tabby that I got from rescue when he was 8 weeks old. Charlie ( my cat ) was my sole pet for 4 years. Made it through 3 moves, and never had a problem. He was loving in his own way, but only would lay with me at night, and really didn’t interact alot during the day, unless I looked for him to play with. ( BTW..neutered at 6 months, and never an accident outside the box )
We had a small (3 month old ) female Calico march into our home 3 years ago, and although Charlie didn’t like her at first, they soon became friends. eating out of the same dish, even sharing a litterbox with NO problems.
The only adverse reation I saw was him “attacking” her on occasion .Pinning her to the floor in an almost mating looking scenario.
About 2 years ago, my fiance gave me a Boxer puppy. Female also, who has at times chased the cats ( VERY discouraged by me ), but Charlie would seek her out, and I have seen them chase one another through the house. My Boxer has never touched him, but has been at the claw end of Charlie a couple times.
About 1years ago, I began to notice some elimination outside the litter box, but thinking he had “missed” ( he is a big boy..16 lbs thus getting all oarts in the box sometimes doesn’t work!), this has steadly progressed to urinating outside the litter box, in an almost jealous fashion ( he pees on the dog toys, and where she lays ). One other thing..Charlie is a gorger..and currently vomits copious amounts about 1=2 times a week )
I am at my wits end. The odd thing is, when I give him the attention that I am assuming he feels is missing, he gets worse. I can not afford much more cleaning solutions to keep the house from smelling.
Please, any advise would be appreciated, as I am actually wondering at this point if it would be better to look for a different home where he can have his solitude.
Thanks!
Since Charlie’s digestion is obviously distressed, I would try the tricks in this article, Helping our cat’s digestion. That alone could cause the problems you are having.
It seems odd to me that as the puppy is getting older, and more sedate, that Charlie would pick now to show a problem. But eliminating where the dog is sounds like a clear sign; but if you lower Charlie’s stress in other areas, he’d be better able to handle this one. Feel free to Contact Me if you need further help.
Looked over your advice & found it helpful, WereBear. Thank you. I’ve recently adopted a 5 month old kitten who’s partially blind. Literally found this kitten on the side of the road trying to cross it. He’s extremely playful, loving & gentle with me. However, he hates my girlfriend! Every time she comes over, he will sulk until she leaves. Now he’s hissing at her whenever she picks him up. Taking your advice on this one.
I have two 4 year old cats Glitch and Draven. They are sisters and have been together all of there lives. Glitch has been acting very odd the past few days. I took Draven to the vet. When we returned Glitch started to hiss and growl at Draven. I figured Draven smelled like the vet and medicine so Glitch did not like it. Well it has been two days and she has not stopped hissing and growling not only at Draven but people as well. Is Glitch jealous I left her at home?
Thank you for sharing this. I have a 1yr old cat named Buddy. His mother didn’t pay much attention to him so I started playing with and taking care of him. He now follows me everywhere. His mother had another litter of kittens but she died a few weeks ago, so I am looking after and tame her 3 feral kittens, but it is a bit difficult with Buddy pushing them out of the way every chance he gets, following me around even more than ever, pushing himself between me and my bf and wouldn’t give me a moment for myself. Is there anything I can do about this? I’m a bit worried about Buddy.
If the aggression occurs when I am not paying attention to the cat the jealous cat has issues with should I start paying attention to the cat that is the target of the aggression and ignore the other cat or is isolation a better approach?
I recently got a new kitten about 5 weeks old (Oreo) and my 2 year old cat (shakira) that ive had since she was little. She Extremely jealous and hisses and tries to bite me and scatch me and only me, not my mom not anyone else, just me. When she sees me her pupils get really big like she has the strongest hate for me..
. will all of this info. still help?
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Hope this works!she’s jealous of a girl that has been visiting me!
Well, folks, if you have time for a long story, I can tell you the measure of success I’ve had in this particular field so far, although it’s still a work in progress. Long story short, we have an existing kitty, Pancho, we’ve had since he was a kitten of 10 weeks old. And recently we’ve decided to rescue a pair of strays that have been hanging around our house and being intimidated and beaten by two Toms that live nearby. Both are safely in our house now and slowly adjusting. Pancho, however, is having some measure of anxiety where the whole matter is concerned as he’s been an “only child” since he came into our house a little over a year ago. And since ONE of these two is almost identical to him (a small, black male), it only compounds the problem. Pancho, I have found, is a very jealous little kitty. He’s always been my buddy and he knows it and doesn’t understand that love is infinite…toys and territory seem to be a lot more secondary to him than access to “Daddy” is. I love Pancho to death and he will ALWAYS be my buddy. But these two need a good, solid, loving home and hopefully with all of the research I’ve done, I can provide a loving household for all three cats.
Pancho will always be my baby, so to speak. But these two have grown to be no less important to me as they have been deprived of a good home. One of them, for sure, obviously had a home and has been rejected for whatever reason and craves human attention…and that’s where the fun with Pancho began. As he sleeps next to me now, I can see I’m going to need to keep you all appraised of what things I’ve so far found to be successful in trying to bring a peaceful and loving solution to these two new introductions into our house, how they came here and then you can all take away from what I provide what bits of advice as might work for you all and a better understanding of why I took on the insane task of trying to introduce not one but TWO cats to our one cat home…
My older cat is jealous, but not aggressive about it. For awhile it got to the point where he would not tolerate my other younger cat coming near me. To compensate, he would give her all sorts of attention and affection in the hopes that it would be enough to keep her away from me. She’s pretty independent and doesn’t need me nearly as much as he does. So when she does need me, I want to be there.
It got to the point where he started urinating in objection to any time I spent with her. I got really angry, and barred him from coming into the living room. She and I spent a couple of hours together on the couch.
The next day, I relented and let him in.
Now, when she comes over for a hug and a stroke, he obligingly leaves my side and gives her about 15 minutes with me. But then he’s back, which means she leaves.
That arrangement seems to be working. Cat number three wants nothing to do with me. He’s all in love with older cat number one.