When faced with finding a different home for one of your pets, how do you deal with the grief?

I raised my tiny black cat from a newborn. I was her mother. She’s my little furbaby. But she won’t stop peeing on our leather couch and my husband refuses to buy new furniture unless I find the cat another home. I keep saying that if we get rid of the couch with the odor, I think she’ll stop, but he doesn’t want to take that chance.

I know we need to get new couches, because it’s so embarassing to have people come over and I have to tell them, “Don’t sit there, the cat peed there.” It’s mortifying. But I’m so torn up over losing my furbaby. I remember giving her catmilk from a bottle and snuggling her with me at night to keep her warm.

The thought of giving her up, in my mind, is like she’ll be dead. I’ll never see her again. I won’t know if someone’s taking good care of her. I won’t ever play with her again or watch her and my big male cat bathe each other. I’m balling like a baby just at the consideration of what might be best for our home in the long run.

I can’t keep this couch that no one can sit on, and my daughter has friends coming for a sleepover to celebrate her birthday. I can’t have this group of girls come over and then make fun of my daughter for having a “pee couch”.

Have you faced a situation similar to this, and how did you deal with the grief of giving the animal up?