Here is a story about the wife: sometimes when you hurt her, she has the ability to show patience and compassion, to try not to take it personally, to forgive. For sure, key words: ability, try, sometimes.
When you hurt someone she loves, that’s another story altogether. In that story, she has the ability to show anger, righteousness. In that story, she will defend the person she loves. In that story, maybe only through that story, will she come to see that she must defend herself as well. That what is not okay for her loved ones is also not okay for her.
In this story, the someone she loves is the dog.
No dogs have been harmed in the making of this story. We need you to know this. The dog has been in the good care of the wife since the split. The harm done to the dog is at the level of indifference. The harm done to the dog is only that the husband now says he no longer feels strongly about the dog, feels the dog is a burden, likes the dog about as much as any other dog, would just as soon not dog-sit again in the future, but will honor his obligation, up to you. There’s no harm done at all, not really. So maybe we should say it like this: the dog doesn’t know he’s been harmed. Or maybe he does. Maybe the dog understands things about harms done that we can never know. Maybe the dog has the answers she’s been looking for all this time, and just can’t put it into words. Maybe this is what had to happen for the wife to get it.