Too Into Being Over It

Posted by fxckfeelings on June 24, 2009

Trying to loudly convince someone that they’re wrong about you is like trying not to think about elephants; the harder you work at it, the more you fail. The women in these two cases are obsessed with someone else’s disapproval, they couldn’t think of elephants if they tried.
–Dr. Lastname

I knew my father wouldn’t understand, but I thought it would be harmless to visit my ex-boyfriend, who is also my son’s father, who was also an abusive jerk. I was young when I dated this guy and was pretty naive (naive enough to get pregnant), and my father really had to step in and protect me, which I swear I’m grateful for to this day. I haven’t dated any jerks since then (well, jerks that bad : )), and I’ve got a great kid, and I’m not the person I was when my ex and I were together. I avoided him, and kept our son away from him, for over ten years, but when he reached out to me a few months ago, saying he wanted to make things right, I guess I slipped, and I went to see him. Nothing happened, honestly, but my father won’t stop being angry with me and telling me I don’t value myself enough, as if I were still a 15-year-old letting a guy slap me around. It kills me that he feels this way, tears me up inside, and I can’t stop crying about it. I wish you could persuade him to stop believing this about me. My goal is to get him to believe me that I’m over this guy and that it won’t happen again.

Ultimately, you’re the only person who can truly judge your worth. Unless you’re a child, lobotomized, or eager to join a death cult, it’s your job to make that determination, not your father’s or anyone else’s.

That’s why you can’t try to restore your self-esteem by changing someone’s opinion of you because, in doing so, you’re giving someone else that power, and it’s not theirs to have. There’s nothing wrong with wanting his good opinion, but it’s total self-betrayal to make his good opinion more important than the judgment that you and only you are capable of making.

I always recommend the standard business model for responding to complaints. Review the evidence relating to the disputed boyfriend/baby-daddy visit: you don’t think about him often, and you haven’t done any stalking or candle-burning that you or your friends know about, nor did you agree to the meeting with any foolish hopes or intentions. With those facts, your own conclusion is that you had a dumb impulse, with no harm done. If your dad concludes otherwise, tough shit.

Stop looking to your father for your cues—or any man, really—and instead address yourself, and decide for yourself, whether you’ve done something wrong and/or need to do better.

If what I’m telling you seems overly simplistic, look where your bad goal leads. You can’t wail at the injustice of your daddy’s criticism and expect him to treat you like a competent adult. Nobody’s ever won someone else’s respect via begging.

The more you cry and scream, the less he thinks of you, and on and on it’ll go, so stop. Your goal isn’t to get his good opinion. It’s to re-assume your job as the competent manager of your life.

It’s painful not to have your father’s respect, but that’s the price you have to pay for being your own person; sometimes, people you care about will lose respect for you, and there’s nothing you can do. You’re not a little girl anymore, so stop pleading for his approval. Instead, be an adult woman who makes her own opinion the only one that matters.

STATEMENT:
Then compose a statement, which is also a summary of your own findings and judgment. “I hear your concern, respect your opinion, and will never forget how much you helped me get on my feet after I left the jerk, so I looked carefully at my recent contact with him to see if I’m more vulnerable to getting stupid again than I think I am. I looked at my actions and asked other people what they think and tried carefully not to fool myself. And I concluded that I’m really OK and just made a bonehead move. I’m sorry what I did upset you and can understand why, but I’m not worried and I hope you won’t worry. And I don’t think we should talk about it any more.”

Deep down, I really do love my mother, but until she stops trying to get me to come to Jesus, I can’t be around her at all. I tried to be nice about it at first and just let her holy roller stuff go, but after a few really pushy dinners (she had pamphlets!) I lost it and told her to drop it and accept that I’m not going to be saved. I don’t know why it took her 50 years to find God (was he hiding under the fucking couch?), but whatever, glad she found him, I’m not looking. Now whenever she talks to me, she gets really upset and starts crying and telling me how much it hurts her knowing that I’m going to burn in hell. She’s obsessed with where my soul will spend eternity, when really, I’d rather she care about the fact my boyfriend and I (a fellow heathen) are engaged, because it would be nice to have my own mother attend my wedding, but I really don’t think that’s going to happen. I think sometimes it might be worth humoring her and going to one Sunday service, but the more I think about it, the more I think that will make her obsession worse, not better. I know I can’t convince my mom that God isn’t real, but I would like her to understand that God isn’t real to me. So my goal is to get my mother to give my soul a rest.

You might feel like the victim of an obsessive here—it’s your mother who started this by finding Christ in the sofa cushions and deciding you need to be saved—but ultimately, you’ve both become fixated.

At this point, your mother is obsessed with your opinion, because she’s worried your immortal soul, but now you’re obsessed with her opinion, because she’s your mother. As such, you can’t stand seeing her worry or disapprove of your actions.

You might think you don’t care what she thinks, but if you didn’t have some need for her approval, it would be easy to dismiss her evangelical chatter. Instead, it’s driving you crazy, which means your goal isn’t for her to give your soul a rest, but for you to stop torturing your soul yourself.

So now her opinion about you is as important to you as your opinion about God is to her, so if you try to argue with her about God, it will stimulate her fervor, which will piss you off and cause you to attack her views while feeling like a bad child. Then she’ll act hurt and upset, and it will spiral hell-ward from there.

But lo, it gets worse, because she’ll then feel bound to defend her Lord and more obligated than ever to save you from the God-hating state of sin into which she’s somehow let you fall.

This will drive you away from her and towards talking to me; hallelujah, as I’d like a new car, but I think you’d rather avoid a vicious, depressing, relationship-ruining circle with your mother than pay for my new Lexus. And all because you care too much about what she thinks.

If your goal then is really to ease her pain or win her approval, and it is, then you’ll never be your own woman; a strong, moral-but-godless woman who is not overly reactive to mother, husband, boss, or any other important, opinionated person in her life. On a deeper level, whether or not your mother vocalizes it, your mother wants you to have that strength and independence.

So suck up the fact that she worries and disapproves and get used to it. She is who she is. Once you accept the sadness of her obsession, your goal becomes simple: to make the most of a relationship with a holy roller you happen to love.

You’ve probably been flattered and perhaps annoyed by the attempts of friends in the God squad to convert you and found ways to let them know, respectfully and firmly, that they can talk about anything they want but, if your conversion to their idea of God is the topic, they will be talking alone. Use the same polite speech to let your mother know the topic is over. Amen.

STATEMENT:
I value the moral teaching you’ve given me and I believe it’s very important to be a good person. We share many common values. But you’ve also given me the strength and freedom to find my own spiritual path, and it’s not exactly the same as yours. I appreciate your sharing your joy with me and your belief that I won’t be safe unless I follow the same path as you; but I believe my path is right for me and doesn’t need to be changed. I understand that you will worry about my soul; but it’s a mother’s job to encourage her daughter’s independence and tolerate the worry that goes with it, and I suspect I’ll have to bear the same worry when my child grows up. Now that we’ve discussed this subject, I think it’s best to leave it alone and not talk about it again, ever.