Familial Fire

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 4, 2010

We’re hardest on family because, unlike those we’re not bound to by blood, family is stuck with us forever. Then again, being stuck together often forces the released negativity to bounce back and forth, like light in a laser, until it gets strong enough to zap your perspective and make you feel like a loser. Getting out of that mindset requires looking outside of the family circle and unsticking yourself from your nearest, dearest and harshest.
–Dr. Lastname

I don’t consider myself a lazy person—I take care of the kids and sell some of my paintings—but my husband isn’t crazy about selling cars and would really like to stay home and take care of the kids himself, so he’s always making remarks about having to carry the harder load and asking me if I could find a way to make more money. I’ve tried to find better-paying work, but I’m dyslexic, and what I’m doing is probably about as good as it gets, given my skills and the flexibility I need for the kids. Anyway, he’s been nastier lately because car sales are down and it’s getting to me. My goal is to get him to stop putting me down.

You can’t stop someone from putting you down—haters gotta hate, as the kids say, even if the hater is your husband, and most husbands are haters, at one time or another.

On the other hand, just because someone you love is trying to put you down doesn’t mean you have to take their criticism to heart and sink, doomed unless you can get them to take it back and promise never to do it again.

There are usually two obstacles to staying buoyant. The first is the emotional impact of being put down, which causes you to act like a slacker or a jerk, which loses you your self-respect and makes it impossible to stand up for yourself to yourself. When you don’t even have your own back, you’re in trouble.

The other problem is that, as with most people, the pain of a partnership besieged by too little money and too much childcare has its own illogical power to make you feel like a failure, even when you’ve done nothing wrong and everything right. To further paraphrase the kids (in a dated way)—no money, most problems.

You assume that, if you were successful, you’d be happy and your spouse would be happy with you, which is bullshit, of course, but that’s what happens when you use happiness as your rating system.

One good thing you’re telling me is that you haven’t let feelings of failure or anger slow you down—you take care of the kids and do your work, regardless—so now all you need to do is get used to the idea that successful parents often feel unhappy and get no respect from their spouses. See: Homer, Marge, Hillary, etc.

Forget about happiness and your husband, and judge yourself the same way you would judge a friend, by whether you’re doing a good enough job with what you’ve got. Don’t hold yourself responsible for doing things that your brain isn’t equipped to do.

Remember the dyslexia—you can’t cure it and there are certain jobs it won’t let you do. Don’t pay too much attention to the outcome, which you don’t control, but to the process, which you do.

Finally, give yourself a bonus. Assuming you’re doing a reasonable job as a partner, you should also pat yourself on the back for carrying another burden: putting up with your husband’s complaints. You deserve, as the kids say, mad props for staying afloat.

STATEMENT:
“I know you feel you bear an unfair load in this family, particularly when we’re short of cash, but I’m proud of what I do, and I think you’re doing a good job, and the only thing that’s isn’t so hot is your focusing on what I can do better when I’ve already told you I’ve considered your advice and disagree with it and don’t expect us to agree. So I think I’m doing both of us a favor by insisting that we respect ourselves for the work we’re doing and let the other matter drop.”

I know I always feel super-responsible for my brothers and sisters, maybe because our parents died when we were young, but we’re all pretty close and, and, at the same time, independent, except for one sister with Downs Syndrome who lives in a group home. I’ve never minded bringing her to stay with me for the weekends, but lately she’s becoming demented and it’s getting me down, because she’s irritable and sleepy and it’s hard to get her to participate in things and I hate feeling angry at her. My goal is to find the patience to take good care of her.

The more you love someone who is now dementing, (which happens early and rapidly with people with Downs Syndrome), the more impossible it is to feel kind, gentle, supportive, and, in the end, like you’ve ever done a good enough job.

For one thing, the more demented they get, the more they complain, show their unhappiness, and expect you do take care of them, even if, when they were strong and in possession of their strength, they encouraged you to live your own life.

To whatever degree your nurturing instincts drive you nuts until you can make the crying baby stop crying, you’ll feel terrible, and that’s on top of the terrible you feel for watching a loved one decline. It’s an emotional car crash.

For another thing, few people are comfortable with how irritated they get or how well they control their irritation; you can understand how elder abuse can take place. Most of us don’t abuse our elderly relatives, or come close, but we can’t keep our irritation totally hidden and the guilt is hard to bear.

The biggest danger is that, between your guilt and inability to ever feel you’ve given enough, you keep giving, more and more, until you’re drained dry and not taking care of yourself and your other family members are criticizing you for being a grump whenever you see them, if you ever do. That’s the point when people are often referred for treatment.

The answer, as usual, is to ignore your feelings and rate yourself reasonably. In this case, reasonably means helping your sister to the degree that helping her really has a positive impact, while keeping in mind your other obligations, both to yourself and others.

Forget about whether you can make your sister happy or whether you need to prove your love by knocking yourself out. Given her circumstances and your own, the best outcome isn’t good. If you can achieve mediocre results, however, while doing things the way they ought to be done, you’re in the running for brother of the year.

STATEMENT:
It’s hard to feel like I’ve honored my love for my sister, and taken good care of her, when she’s never happy and so often irritating; but I see to her safety and I make her happy when I can and, to do so when the process is painful and thankless is an achievement to be proud of.