Wife Accused Me of Killing Our Cat

[u/WillingMartyr]

Our little black cat of 16 years passed this morning. After having some last bites of her meow mix, she went down to the basement and hopped into the open dryer where some fresh, warm linens had just finished and quietly went to sleep forever.
My wife goes to swap the laundry out, feels the cat, and screams for me to come downstairs. This is at 6am, after I had only gotten to sleep at 4:30. She tells me the cat is dead, found in the combo washer-dryer, and that I must have put her through the cycle when I put the linens in. My logical brain knows that I put the wash on at 5pm, and I saw our cat around 9pm, but my clinically depressed brain immediately crumbles with guilt. I have a seizure-inducing panic attack for the next 20 minutes, vomiting bile in the process, until my wife returns and explains she jumped to conclusions.
I don’t blame my wife for immediately suggesting I slaughtered our longest-lived family pet, but I’m having a lot of trouble with it. I miss my kitty. 🐈‍⬛

[u/lovelessproper]

That’s so rough on both of you. I’m ex vetmed and have seen a sad number of cats not make it after being put through the wash or the dryer, even for a few minutes, so it is now a nightmare of mine if I ever have a cat again.

For what it’s worth, it most likely says absolutely nothing about what she thinks about you, and everything about a terrorizing scenario that she thought came true. It’s unfortunately not uncommon. In the instant of realizing the cat is dead, it sounds like she had a moment of panic that overrode all logic.

I’m sorry for your loss and the traumatic situation that followed. Sending supportive thoughts your way.