You’re With Stupid

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 23, 2010

When you do something truly stupid, the punishment is twofold; first, you have the knowledge of your stupidity, and then, you have living with the results of said stupidity, or making someone you love live with your stupidity, which makes you feel guilty and makes them feel stupid for loving you in the first place. Unfortunately, stupid is an incurable part of being human—some of us have a more dominant stupid gene than others—and remorse makes it worse. If you want to get smart, begin by accepting your inner stupid and getting to know its habits. Then, maybe next time stupidity calls, you’ll have a better answer and skip the punishing results.
–Dr. Lastname

PLEASE NOTE: We will have a new post on Monday, 12/27, but we’re taking a week off after that for family’ing. If you have angst, holiday related or no, that you need to share, speak now or wait until 2011.

Every now and then my husband, who is a sweet soul and mostly very smart, does something so mind-bogglingly stupid that it puts the whole family in danger. The latest incident happened when he was hanging out at a bar after work and, deeply (into drinking and) moved by the hard luck story of the guy on the stool next to him, he offered, without asking me, to guarantee the guy’s car loan. The next thing we knew, the bank was after our savings because his ex-best-bar-buddy had stopped paying the loan and the car was nowhere to be found. I admit it, I did a lot of screaming and feel like I was a saint for not killing him, but the real goal here is, how do I prevent him from doing it again.

You’re asking a mental health clinician to help you understand and/or change your husband’s behavior. Instead, you should be talking to a lawyer.

You want to stop him from doing it again, but what you really need is to protect yourself from the sure-to-happen next time his impulsive, besotted generosity imperils the family treasury.

You probably expect me, as a mental health clinician, to support the humanistic, liberal, uplifting belief that therapy can help people can change. Sadly, you don’t need a professional of any kind to tell you what you already know: that therapy doesn’t have that kind of power, people don’t change, and that the best you can hope for, from therapy or your own wifely intervention, is a chance at better self-management for those who really, really want it.

So if you told me your husband recognized that he had a weakness for either drinking or foolish generosity or both, acknowledged that he was probably going to do it again, and was humbly working to get a better handle on himself, I’d share in your hopefulness (even if I wouldn’t lend you money).

What I assume from your silence on this issue, however, is that your husband was full of shame and remorse, apologized profusely, and swore it would never happen again…just as he did after the last time something like this happened. He’s sorry, until the next time he turns into the drunken fairy godfather, and the collection agency is back at your door. The circle of your life continues.

Instead of feeding the circle further with your anger, accept his weakness as a fact of life, and if you don’t (yet) want divorce, find a lawyer to help protect your finances. Tell your husband that, anger aside, you know he’ll do it again unless he ‘fesses up to his weakness and works on it, preferably in frequent 12 step meetings lasting until he no longer knows how to sign a check or find a bar.

Forget about changing your husband; work on building your independence and an emotional distance that can protect you from murdering him. Be nice if he works on his problem; otherwise, go about your business, but keep that lawyer on speed dial.

STATEMENT:
“My husband’s weakness for giving, particularly drunken giving, scares me and means I can never trust him. Attacking him or trying to get him to change is a waste of time. I must bear my fear and disappointment while I separate our finances, prepare to manage on my own, and use emotional distance or praise to encourage him to improve his self-control.”

I knew my ex-girlfriend was a little crazy—that’s why we broke up—but I had no idea she was going to try to get pregnant afterward, because who does something like that? She begged me for one more dinner together as friends, which led to one last night stand, or so I thought. Now, fast forward 6 months, I’ve got a not-crazy new girlfriend I’m really serious about, and I get a call from my ex telling me I’m going to be a father and I don’t have to marry her but she’ll expect child support. My current girlfriend thinks I’m either an idiot or a liar (and she might be right about the first part). My goal is to win back my girlfriend’s respect and not be such an idiot.

The first question you must ask yourself when you do something stupid (see case above) is, am I ignorant or am I incurably, repeatedly stupid.

Most people past a certain age are the latter, and the sooner they accept that fact, the sooner they can empower their friends and family to lock them up when they inevitably show signs of doing the same thing all over again.

Let’s say it and get it out of the way: in a bloodless coup, your body’s leadership was taken over by your penis—the original benevolent Dicktator–and always will (until it runs out of steam or gets soft-armed by a serotonin-boosting antidepressant, at which point your IQ goes up at least 10 points).

If you swear to your now-girlfriend that you’re totally devoted and have learned your lesson and will never, ever be stupid again, she should run the other way; total devotion, either to her or your romantic feelings, is another way of saying that you’re not interested in rational thought about consequences, and are just as vulnerable to sentimental manipulation as ever.

Instead, own up to the power of your true, supreme leader/wiener. Discard false pride, look for the warning signs of your next lapse, and know what you’re going to do when they appear, which they surely will. Look around for your local chapter of Dickheads Anonymous and tell Bill to say hi to Hillary from me.

Tell your girlfriend you know you’re an idiot dickhead, but you’re really, really trying to keep it under control. If you think it will help, explain that it’s not that you’re a sex addict (at least, you don’t seem to be), just stupidly sentimental. Make it clear that you hate being a dickhead because you hate being a dickhead, not because you want to please her.

As for your ex-, don’t talk to her until you’ve talked to your lawyer (see above, again), come to terms with the inevitable, and decided whether you want to have anything to do with your we’ll-always-trust-one-another love child.

Then send her a closely edited, unemotional letter (anything you say will be held against you) telling her, in nice terms, what you propose to do. Remember to keep a copy of that letter and frame it; let this shrine to your stupidity encourage you the next time the Dicktator tries to call the shots.

STATEMENT:
“I can’t believe how badly I’ve hurt myself by being stupid, but I can’t undo what’s happened or change the Stupid Center in my brain. What I can do, however, is learn about my weakness for sentimental proposals and develop new habits for thinking, waiting, and seeking advice before I and my little man do things that can’t be taken back.”