Trying Power

Posted by fxckfeelings on June 12, 2014

There are many moments in life when we wish we had telepathic powers, and while some occur during Presidential debates or doctor visits when you’re getting test results, most are inspired by the challenges of relationships. Mind-reading feels most useful when you either can’t do anything to make your spouse happy or can’t blink without setting them off, but if your first concern is just to repair your relationship, you will wind up taking too little or too much responsibility for whatever they’re mad about. Before trying to make up, measure your responsibility for their grievance by your own values. If you can read your own mind, then you’ll know whether it’s you who needs to improve, or your partner’s temper, with no special powers necessary.
–Dr. Lastname

I don’t know why my partner won’t let me make amends. I’m crazy about him, and I really didn’t mean to start drinking again, but I got very depressed because I have depressive episodes from time to time, and drank to relax. Now I’m dried out, back to normal, and I’m trying to do everything I can to make it up to him, but the nicer I am, the madder he gets. He says I should go to AA meetings and get a plan for my life that includes what I’m going to do the next time I get depressed and/or drunk. I just want to get back to living life, finding a job, and being close the way we used to be. If he keeps on hammering me for being loving and attentive, though, I don’t see how I can keep from getting depressed and drunk again. My goal is to get our relationship back.

The reason your partner isn’t reacting well is because trying to assuage his particular issues with affection and remorse is like trying to help a hungry person by giving him a blanket. Your partner will feel better if he knows that you’re serious about staying sober, and just like you can’t eat an afghan, you can’t say you’re focusing on sobriety with flowers.

He knows you love him, but that didn’t stop you from drinking and it won’t stop you, in the future, from getting stressed and drinking again. You write as if it’s all behind you, but since he believes, with good reason, that it’s never behind you, he worries more when you appear to worry less.

You, of course, are the one who has to decide whether drinking is a problem. You’ve got the most information; how long you’ve been able to stay sober, whether you’ve put yourself at risk, whether there’s anything basically different about your vulnerability now versus then. Depression tends to come back, even when you’re happy, and life never keeps you happy forever, so if depression triggers your drinking, then the gun will surely go off again.

If he’s your partner, he’s not just worried about putting up with your sour booze breath but supporting you when you lose your job and caring for you when you piss the bed. He also may not like hanging out with your drunk personality as much as the healthy, sober one. So, as much as he appreciates your attention and genuine remorse, he’d probably feel better if he thought sobriety was your number one concern and he was number two.

Yes, you can honestly tell him you don’t want to drink and you hate making him unhappy, but he’ll have more faith in your future if you take steps (and Steps, as in Twelve) to change your life.

Yes, it hurts to be estranged from him and it’s natural to want to feel better about your relationship, but wanting to feel better is what got you into this mess. Think instead about what you need to do to be a person you can rely on and not apologize for.

Take care of your own business and your relationship will take care of itself, because showing that you’re invested in staying sober is all you both need.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like I can’t go forward without my partner’s love, but, if I’ve lost it, it’s because I’ve lost control of myself. I need to regain my self-respect and then have faith that, if I can take care of myself, my partner will be glad to have me back.”

My best friend and I started a business together a few years ago and have had a great deal of success, which has helped keep our friendship intact, at least until six months ago. The business is still doing well, but our relationship is a mess, and I have no idea why; I’m the same old girl I’ve always been, but now I can’t do anything without making her really angry. I swear, I’m doing nothing out of the ordinary, but I can’t sneeze without pissing her off (and nothing pisses her off more than asking if anything’s wrong). I don’t want to lose our business, but I just can’t seem to please her and being around her is almost unbearable. My goal is to figure out what happened and fix it.

If you haven’t figured out how to fix your best friend’s sour feelings by now, your next question isn’t what you can do to change your behavior, but whether she has a history of this behavior, and usually you’ll find she has. The less able you are to get or figure out an answer to what you did wrong, the more likely it is that she’s the answer—she has a switch in her head that suddenly turns best friends into disappointing has-beens. Check out what happened to her exes and those offensive relatives she said were so mean to her, and you’ll probably find her version of events was a bit skewed.

It’s good that you know you’re the same old girl, even if she doesn’t; if you started to doubt yourself, there’d be reason to worry that she could get you spinning. Your need for her reassurance would buy you more rejection, which would make you needier. You seem well able to protect yourself from that danger.

Since you know you’ve done nothing wrong, and you’ve given her every opportunity to air her grievance, it’s time to close your investigation into the reason she’s feeling bad and open a new investigation into whether she can recognize and control bad behavior. Forget about your friendship, because the question now is whether she recognizes the fact that her behavior has been negative and interfered with your ability to do business together. If she doesn’t acknowledge it, you’re fucked. If she does, let her know that it needs to change or it will kill the business partnership that feeds you both.

Then check with your lawyer to see whether you’ve got a buy-out clause that will let either one of you dissolve your partnership if it isn’t working. If you pursue her approval, she’s likely to keep dishing out the shit. If you tell her to cut the shit and pay attention to the partnership, maybe she’ll gain enough self-control to keep her hostility to herself.

Either way, make sure the law is on your side, because there’s a good possibility you’re dealing with an Asshole ™, and if you think she hates you now when she has to work with you, just wait until you tell her you don’t want to work with her anymore. Her possible wrath has Biblical potential.

You can’t do much about losing a close friendship and realizing it was much less secure than you thought. You can learn from the experience, however, and you may be able to salvage a working relationship with a competent partner. After all, Gilbert and Sullivan wrote beautiful operas together even when they couldn’t stand talking to one another.

At this point, you don’t want to know what you did wrong, and fixing your relationship is not an option. You just want your partner to know that you’re satisfied with your own behavior and that hers had better improve if she wants to avoid a business divorce. Just make sure you’re fixed up with a good lawyer, and that what you’re doing is right.

STATEMENT:
“I feel treated by my best friend as if I’ve done something wrong, but I know I haven’t and I’ve done all the right things a friend should do to show my concern. Now it’s time to stop chasing her approval and instead remind her that good behavior is more important if we’re to keep working together.”