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I messed up and introduced a new female 7 yr old cat to my male 8 yr old cat.. They were doing fairly well, a few hisses but tolerating each other for the first few days, then my husband was sitting on the chair and the new female jumped up into his lap, and our male came into the room. He is very attached to my husband, often not leaving his side when he is in bed on days when he is not well.. After seeing the female with my husband my male cat aggressively tried to attack the female.

I have them separated now. but I am afraid of what will happen to the little female, if we were to leave them alone and accessible to each other..

Can I re-introduce them very slowly and maybe have this work?

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Yes, you can reintroduce them! It can be a very lengthy process though, but I'm sure you know that.

  1. Begin by keeping them separated as you have. Idealy so that they cannot see eachother. Have them eat their favourite food on different sides of the door as close to the door as possible without haveing them react negatively. Sideswapping can also be good (that is switch the sides of the cats every now and then so they both own the entire home).

  2. When they are comfortable with eachothers smells, exchange the door for something seethrouch. Like a net-door or something similar. Go through the same process as in 1. Add some playtime while both cats can see eachother. Continue till the cats are comfortable.

  3. When they are comfortable with eachother on different sides of a seethrough barriere let them have supervised visits with eachother. When you feel they are comfortable with eachother without showing any kind of agression you can let them live together.

This is the geist of it but a bit simplified. Positive pheromones can help. I don't know what is available to you, but something like feliway can help http://www.feliway.com/

For more details I can reccomend reading something by Jackson Galaxy or watch his show My Cat From Hell

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