Happily Married, yet Still my Husband’s “Sidepiece.”

Sidelined by a Feline

Yep, that’s how the saucy thing looks at my man.

My husband, “Steadfast Mister,” and I love each other. We are devoted to one another. We honor, cherish, and, on rare occasions, obey each other. For the most part, our neuroses successfully mesh, which, let me tell you, is an underrated asset in a relationship. Sadly, someone has come between us, and our happy marriage of nearly four decades is being challenged. I have been relegated from primary partner to secondary sidepiece, and I’m not liking it.

Of course she’s younger. Oh, she’s younger, smaller, walks around the house unclothed, and has four legs. Her name is Sasha. Sasha. With a name like that you can tell she’s a feline femme fatale. Can’t you just see her little backside swaying as she sashays by me to claim her man? Yes, ours is yet another mature marriage cleft by cat.

Sasha was a shy, depressed, trembling creature when she and her sister became our children. They were joined later by an older cat who terrified them. She was the image of the most puffed-out, blackest, and yowlingest example of a Halloween cat ever, so little scared Sasha became even more withdrawn. An intervention was in order. After a session with the costly and highly-credentialed animal behaviorist, she came into the full flower of her personality.

(Yes, you guessed it…