My cat acts afraid of my husband only if im present.

[Abby's mom]

My female 5 yr old cat acts afraid of my husband. She is a mamas girl for sure but he can feed her and she will love on him when I'm not around. When I'm home She will follow me from room to room and sit close to me. If he walks in she will lower her body and go hide and growl or hiss. She has done this for months now and we have had her for 5 yrs. He text me from the kitchen and said tip toe in here and look at her behavior with me. Sure enough treating him just like she would me. Then I let her see me and she acts weird toward him and comes and gets behind me growling. What is up with this silly thing? Someone help!

 

[ArtNJ]

Cats are sensitive to situations, and can a trust a person only in one room and not another where they are noisier. So it stands to reason that a couple that argues, likes to tap dance, shouts along to sports or has karoke night, might be viewed more dimly together than indivually. Or something related to a cat-event, like when they are together its nail clipping time.

Or maybe if your schedules are different, the cat bonded with you separately, and just somehow views you together as different. This one doesn't seem too likely to me. My wife used to work nights, and I used to work long hours, but we never had a cat that viewed us being together as a different thing. But maybe its possible.

 

[Caspers Human]

I'll bet that your cat thinks of you as her main human and thinks that your husband comes between you and her.

Our cat, Casper, has similar behavior but not nearly so pronounced.

Casper is his Girl-Human's cat and she's his human. He literally follows her around the house. Wherever she goes, he goes. When I walk into a room where they both are, Casper goes "all eyes" on me but, if we're alone, he's perfectly calm.

If I try to give her a hug, Casper is right there, looking up at us. If I give her a back rub, Casper gets visibly upset. Anything else and we have to close the door or else he would come up and insert himself into the situation.

Casper tussels and plays with his Girl-Human. He'll only play with me in his play area and only in specific ways. If I try to play with him the "wrong" way, he'll just sit there and look at me as if to say, "What do you want ME to do?"

Even if it's something as simple as a laser toy. He'll chase it all over the house when she's doing it but I'll get one or two runs before he stops and just looks at it.

I don't know what's up with Casper. He certainly does like me. He just seems to get jealous of me when his Girl-Human is around.

That's fine with me. Casper is her cat. We got him to take care of her. He's doing his job very well.

Casper's male and so am I. Maybe it's just a "guy thing" and he just wants to be more like "Wassup, Bro!"

 

[Tik cat's mum]

I have a cat that did this with my hubby for 2 years. He never hissed or growled at him just stayed away from him. When he would go to pet him he'd duck away and move. Even running out of the room. He did eventually come around he's 4 now and will go to him for a pet even when I'm there, but still doesn't choose to sit near him for long periods of time. I'm his human it's just always been that way. My hubby found if our boy is on the stairs for some reason Patches will allow all cuddles even going belly up for him to rub. He ended up spending a lot of time sat with the cat alone on the stairs. Like Caspers Human said some cat's just have one human. Our other cat runs to greet my hubby when he comes home from work and is never to far from him. He cuddles me when he's not there so he's his cat.

 

[TardisDance]

I have a cat like this too. If I’m alone in the kitchen, she’s fine. If my husband is also there, she runs away. He plays with her in other rooms and gives her treats. It’s just something about us together in the kitchen. I can only think that it‘s because we used give her nail trims in the bathroom near the kitchen? She used to freak out and thrash and I had to death grip scruff her so she would hurt hurt herself or us. We eventually realized we could trim while she sleeps on my lap . .less traumatic for her and us, but I think maybe she has PTSD from it. It’s been almost a year since we trimmed her nails like this.