Posted by fxckfeelings on April 11, 2013
When a close family member acts like a jerk, punishing them often seems to offer the offended relative the double benefit of getting to express anger and discourage the wrong-doer from pulling the same crap in the future. Unfortunately, that “double benefit” usually doubly backfires, leaving you alienated from the offending relative and twice as pissed off the next time said crap is inevitably pulled. If, instead, you waive your right to punish wrongdoing, you will often give yourself an opportunity to provide good coaching, or, if that’s impossible, to set strong limits. Fighting a jerk by becoming a jerk is cathartic, but it’s more effective to fight a jerk by being a boss.
–Dr. Lastname
Maybe it’s because I was distracted by the fact my second marriage was in the process of finally falling apart, but when my twenty-two-year-old son had suddenly married a girl I thought he’d only been dating casually while living abroad, I was caught totally off guard. I just had no idea it was that serious, or that they’d even have that much in common since English is not her first language. I know I’m a little overbearing, but I love my kids and we haven’t had any conflict, so I was shocked, hurt, as well as a little worried that he’s being used for a green card. His mother was also kept in the dark, but we’ve talked about it and share some concerns, so at least we’re agreeing on something for the first time in years. I know better than to have it out with him, so my goal, I think, is to keep the peace and get to the bottom of this somehow, unless you’ve got a better idea.
While you certainly have a right to feel hurt and worried about your son’s mystery marriage, negative expressions of how you really feel would do nothing but get him defensive and reinforce his conviction that he was right to keep you in the dark.
After all, any criticism, justified or no, just validates his assertion that if he’d told you, you would have been critical, and he didn’t want to hear it. That you would certainly want and deserve to hear about your son getting married is, for him, beside the point.
If you’re up to the job of being his chief adviser and can put aside the normal, natural feelings of a father who’s just taken a jab to the heart, however, there’s more you can do to be helpful than just shutting up. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 4, 2013
There are plenty of things that money can’t buy, but when you don’t have any money, you’d gladly sell any number of those things for some food, rent, or pride. Whether economic desperation destroys a once-solid relationship or forces you to kiss up to someone you once told to kiss off, it’s hard not to feel like a loser when you have no money left to lose. Working hard when you feel like a loser, however, is a much tougher feat than working hard when life is fair and the rewards flow in. If you refuse to hold yourself responsible for hard times and give yourself proper credit for what you do with them, you can survive periods of apparent dependence and humiliation without losing faith in yourself or the truly priceless values you stand for.
-Dr. Lastname
I know my husband wants a divorce because I’ve worn him out with my up-and-down moods, emotional crises and being unemployed and dependent on him for the past three years. It’s lots more than he bargained for, particularly since we never wanted kids and married five years ago for companionship, when we were both making good money and never thought one of us would have to support the other until we were both retired and had good pension plans. Now I can’t afford to let this marriage end, not just because I still love him, but because I’m broke and have nowhere else to go. I haven’t given up on trying to find work—I’ve kept up a steady search, and I’m not too picky—but it’s been very discouraging and my chance of getting anything like the salary I got before I got sick is very slim. So I’m scared shitless he’ll get a lawyer, force me out, and lock the door behind me. My goal is to figure out how to postpone that day until I’m back on my feet.
When uncontrollable events make a nice, companionable partnership increasingly burdensome and loveless for one or both partners, said partners can very quickly turn into archenemies. When two people can no longer turn to each other, turning on each other becomes their next option.
During what amounts to a marital Armageddon, finger-pointing abounds, and you could easily see your husband as a fair-weather promise-breaker, he could see you as a needy leach who promised a lot more than you delivered, and mutual accusations could bring out nasty behavior and more destruction.
Your first goal is to keep a lid on the potential ugliness, but even shutting up can be dangerous. Acting as if you don’t give a damn, or feel like the injured party, or both, can stir up trouble without a word’s being spoken. You need to define and own a positive goal in order to manage an extremely negative situation and keep everything from falling apart. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 25, 2013
Some families are horrible to live with because, although everyone means well, their individual suffering and sensitivity make them act badly, while, with other families, a rejection-sensitive demon-spawn who does not mean well is torturing the clan from within and acting like a terrible beast. So, before letting your own family-focused feelings drive you into conflict or away from the fold, ask yourself how well your family members can behave and under what circumstances. Sometimes better behavior management can help their good intentions overcome their bad moods; other times, the only way to help is to build a solid wall, slip out the door, and solder it shut, like you mean it.
–Dr. Lastname
I feel like the depression and anxiety issues of my husband and three sons is literally sucking the life out of me. There are days here and there when one of them will be in a good mood, but for the most part it’s gloom and doom, and their inability to make a decision about ANYTHING has become equally exhausting. I know they can’t “snap out of it”, just “get over it” etc., and they’re all receiving professional care…but honestly, after a couple of years of this, I’m wearing down. I have lupus, and while I’m generally a positive, happy sort of person, I’m at the point where I really do need their assistance sometimes. I’m starting to feel like my hair could be on fire and no one would even notice, much less get up to help. Sometimes I can get one of them to take the dog out, or bring the laundry downstairs, but it practically takes an act of congress to make it happen…and we all know how that process goes. I want to be supportive, and feel I’ve done my best to be patient and tolerant…but how do I protect my own health and sanity while this situation drags on?
If your family has turned into a misery association that is dragging you down, imagine if it was possible to quit your current family and find a new one. After all, If a workplace is often compared to a family, then it should not be hard to picture leaving your position at Misery and Frustration Inc. for a position elsewhere.
This fantasy also forces you to think about your own goals in life, aside from your response to their depressed feelings and unhelpful, apathetic behavior. As a parent, it’s easy to put those things on the back-burner while you try to make them happy, but as a professional, you’re supposed to think about what needs to get done before quitting time. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 21, 2013
Whether you feel so strongly that you can’t figure out where your emotions are trying to take you or so rejected that you can’t let your feelings take you anywhere, you know the name of the website so pointing out how stupid it is to rely on feelings would be redundant. What does help, however, is to get in touch with the deeper values in your life that make it meaningful to make painful compromises in close relationships. Once you know what these values are, you can always find a compromise to respect, regardless of how it makes you feel (or how we feel about feeling in general), and take action that makes you proud.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been in a relationship with the same guy for the last eight years—we met when we were in high school and have been together ever since. We live together and have talked seriously about getting married and starting a family, but I am not sure I want any of this with him anymore. In recent months (and I’m not sure whether this is a cause or symptom of how I feel about my future with my boyfriend) I’ve developed a giant crush on a guy at work– I really, really like this guy, in a way I didn’t think possible outside of high school, to the point where I wish I (and he) were single. But this crush also makes me feel horrible – I feel like I am slowly but surely destroying my relationship, I worry that I am just going to hurt my boyfriend, and to top it all off I know deep down that I will never be with the guy at work (for various reasons – he has a girlfriend, I’m not really sure he likes me in that way, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t ever date a co-worker anyway). So I don’t know what to do. I love my boyfriend and I still want to be with him right now, but this has made me think that we maybe aren’t going to work out in the long run. On the other hand, the thought of leaving him to live alone is really scary/sad – I don’t have a lot of friends who live nearby, so I think I’d just be by myself a lot, which would be incredibly depressing. I also just don’t think any place would feel like home without him, although I’m not certain this isn’t because I have no idea what life would be like without him. So it just seems pointless to leave what really is a good relationship to live alone and sad, as it is unlikely (as I said above) that my crush and I would ever get together. So, my goal is to determine what I can fix in my relationship with my boyfriend so we can move forward into the future, and to get over my work crush so he and I can just remain friends.
Maybe people who get big crushes need to get their wishes granted, at least once, and have a love affair with someone who ends up breaking their heart and crushing their notion that love is the most important thing in the world.
Without that big heart-break, they can’t break out of the same cycle that you’re in—trying to figure out whether a big crush will run rampant and break up your current partnership without your having any control over it or getting anything good out of it.
In other words, you know you’re in trouble when you have the same sort of fears about having a crush that you do for getting bitten by a zombie. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 18, 2013
When you feel misunderstood or criticized by someone you really need a good relationship with and aren’t a hypnotist, warlock, or mob boss, you probably feel like you lack the power (or powers, or firepower) to find a desirable resolution. Still, don’t think your only choice is to figure out what’s wrong and try harder, or figure there’s no hope and walk away. Instead, ignore their agenda, re-approach the situation with your own idea of what’s best, and talk actively about it while refusing to talk about topics that have been beaten to death. The other person will either find it’s better to follow your lead, or, if s/he doesn’t, you’ll know you didn’t walk away without giving it your best effort on your own, regular-guy terms.
–Dr. Lastname
I need to figure out how to do better during job interviews. I thought I was fully prepared for the last one—I’d researched the company and was ready to discuss the experience and training that made me qualified for the position—and then they ambushed me by asking a series of probing, uncomfortable psychological questions about what I’d do or have done in difficult situations when I’m angry or in conflict, and I got tongue-tied. I’m just not glib or confident when I’m surprised or anxious, so I feel like I showed them I don’t have good self-esteem. My goal is to be prepared to handle anything they throw at me, so I can be competitive in a tough job market.
Job interviews always feel like performances aimed at getting people to want to hire you, but that’s really not the truth. That’s like going on a blind date with a guy who has Nazi tattoos and lives in a dumpster but worrying only about whether or not he’s impressed with you (and if you so much as live in a car, he should be).
While you certainly don’t want to stroll into an interview straight from a jog, with uncontrollable gas, or physically fighting a bad case of lice, your job is to discover whether you and the job would be a good match and to confirm that you really know what your resume and references say you know. Regardless of its pay or prestige, you don’t want a job you can’t see yourself doing. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 14, 2013
Most of us feel driven to help someone who’s in pain, whether they want it or not, but as sitcoms, Jodie Foucault books, and alcoholics have tried to teach us over and over again, stepping in to relieve or prevent suffering isn’t always a good idea. The sad reality is that lots of pain can’t be helped, and the sufferer is the only one who can make the tough decisions required to manage that pain effectively. Helping, then, is often less a matter of providing relief and more of encouraging people to ignore pain that they can’t change and take credit for the good things they do about it. The outcome isn’t as dramatic as it is when you attempt to rescue someone, but it’s often a lot more meaningful for everyone involved.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m a resident advisor in a college dorm (it’s free room and board, and I’m a psych grad student, so it’s training of sorts), but I’m stuck because I don’t know how to help one of the kids on my floor. He’s severely depressed and it’s complicated by the fact that his parents, who are Middle Eastern, don’t believe in mental illness and think he’s supposed to just get over it, so they won’t pay for treatment and would probably accuse him of shaming the family if they knew he got it. For a couple years, he was cutting his arms while keeping it a secret and not letting it affect his grades. Lately he says he’s stopped cutting but often thinks of suicide and sometimes gets into a strange, spacey state of mind where he’s caught himself standing on balconies and thinking about jumping. He’s a good kid and he denies being traumatized (I think he might be in the closet, and with his parents, I understand why he’s afraid to come out), but he obviously needs help. My goal is to find him the help he needs.
Before trying to help someone who’s suicidal and restricted by his own beliefs from getting help, you’ve got to remind yourself that your powers are sharply limited, and that, even under the best circumstances—if you had a practice and he was a willing patient—his case would be a challenge. This is the stuff they don’t teach you in school, or you’d switch your degree to finance.
You can coach him on his options, but the alternatives are all painful and there’s no guarantee of relief, so don’t expect to make him feel better; what you can do, however, is help him see his choices as meaningful and positive. In other words, if the desire to heal others is what’s driving your degree, it’s time to begin your coursework for Life is Unfair 101. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 11, 2013
Many women think that having a friend turn on you is just a call for better communication, deep soul-searching, and improved understanding, but “turning” as acceptable behavior is reserved for werewolves and superheroes, not friends; anyone who turns on you is probably not a friend worth fighting for, and such reaching out usually causes more harm than good. Instead of hoping to find a TV-like misunderstanding, unknown secret identity, or even a way to even the score, learn to accept the fact that friendships are not always forever. Stay true to your standards for friendship and learn strength and better rules for admitting people (without supernatural powers or super-Asshole-like tendencies) into your inner circle.
–Dr. Lastname
Recently one of my best friends arranged a party with some of our mutual friends and purposely did not invite me and avoided my phone calls (which I only realized after). I feel like she’s just stuck her middle finger at me– she knew what she did, it wasn’t a mistake as she’s already tried to cover it up which is the part that hurt the most. We’ve been good friends for over 9 years and this is the first time anything like this has happened. I was in shock and have not been able to stop thinking about it and why she would do that. I take my few close friendships very seriously and the friends that I do have I spend time on and treat with respect. I would never treat her the way she treated me. I haven’t talked to her about the way I feel, and to be honest, I don’t even know what to say…knowing her she would blow it over and pretend it was nothing. She gossips a lot about her other friends and now I can’t help but now wonder what she says about me. I’m so angry right now that I don’t want to talk to her anyway and plan on not answering the phone if/when she calls, but I guess my goal is to figure out if I should just move on and focus on my other friendships or try to resolve this. I hate losing a friend but I can’t trust her now and even if there is a way to resolve this our friendship is already different/altered.
F*ck Feelings has always encouraged a pragmatic approach to romantic relationships, and while friendships don’t have the same bottom line that marriages do, they do have a purpose, even if it’s not as grand as raising healthy kids, making a happy home, peaceably sharing space on the DVR, etc.
It’s hard to consider the purpose of friendship in the midst of feeling hurt and betrayed by an old friend, but it’s useful, because friendship isn’t just for the good feelings of shared secrets, emotions, shoes, etc.
It also connects you in complicated ways to family and community, so that an open falling-out with one friend, no matter how well justified, can cause unintended damage to other relationships, including ones that lie closer to your heart or are important to your ideals. For instance, confronting and losing this one friend may cause a domino effect, but instead of all the other connection friends falling down, they’ll all fall-out with you. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 7, 2013
From “I can’t make you me,” to “You can’t hurry love,” to “You can’t force the funk,” pop music has done a good job of informing the public that you can’t push someone to fall for you if the don’t want to. Sadly, there are fewer hits about how you can’t really make anyone do anything, even if it’s to stop the mistrust and anger of someone you love. If you’re in that situation, you first need to figure out whether their feelings are warranted, according to your own standards; if they are, you have to worry less about changing their mind than changing your behavior to earn back your own (and their) respect, and if they aren’t, you need to figure out whether you’re just being oversensitive about a love that’s worth keeping, or whether you just can’t make it work. At least pop music has heartbreak covered.
–Dr. Lastname
I have made some mistakes in my past and unfortunately my girlfriend discovered them—I never told her about them because I wanted to protect our relationship, and I’m trying to be good. I don’t talk to other girls anymore and I avoid every other temptation because I don’t want to have problems with her. Now when we have arguments she always brings up my past. I tell her not to think about the past anymore because it’s over, and besides, we didn’t know each other back then, but she’s stressed that I’ll repeat my old behavior in the future and do the same thing to her. How can I prove to her that she’s wrong? I’m very in love with this girl and I’m trying my best to get back her trust.
To paraphrase the wise words of RuPaul, if you can’t trust yourself, there’s no way in hell you’re going to earn the trust of somebody else. Of course, as hard as it is to trust, love, or even just like somebody else, it’s even harder to start with yourself.
If you’re just controlling bad behavior for the sake of someone you love, you won’t meet that definition because you’re doing it “to be good”, which you won’t always be, or for the sake of love, which you won’t always feel. Plus, if you screw up, you might be inclined to but the blame on the person for whom you were trying to straighten up in the first place, which becomes a pass to behave even more badly in the future.
So if you want your girlfriend to trust you, you have to know you can control your own behavior and live up to your principles, even when you feel injured, angry, unloved, needy, or let down. It’s not easy to do, but it’s the only way. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 4, 2013
I don’t know who wrote the book of love, but it appears to lack a solid ending; it may lead you through the rules of finding and loving someone, but it’s useless when it comes to telling you how to break up a bad relationship, or even friendship, with someone you simply can’t stop thinking about. While it has been written that you can’t control love, there should at least be an appendix directing you to respect how much toughness love takes, and how much pain you’ll have to bear, in order to move on. Then you would know how to take what you’ve learned from the failed relationship to find someone and make something better, and return to chapter one.
–Dr. Lastname
I have recently let go of a friendship with a narcissist. She meets the standard criteria for being a narcissist and has a Bi-Polar 2 disorder confirmed by a therapist, but it seems I was the last to realize as I was so incredibly caught up in her cycle of “needing” me only to be treated appallingly in between. I am finally in a happy place in my life after a lot of work and therapy and haven’t been able to “help” her as much as I used to as I now have a fulfilling job and support network. She has lashed out at me and I had let go of the friendship, but now I am having types of flashbacks where I can finally see how badly I was treated over the years and I am so disappointed in myself that I put up with it. She has been trying to contact me but I have ignored her, as I read No Contact is best with a narcissist but part of me wants to tell her to get serious help but I know I won’t be heard. I am confused, hurt and feel like I have been living a friendship lie for over twenty years. Please help me to move on.
Though they say that madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, people who compulsively give of themselves to help others, no matter how hopeless the cause or ungrateful the recipient, tend to dodge that age-old observation and be seen less as insane and more as saints.
While you now recognize your former friend’s talent for taking without giving, you need to acknowledge your own help-aholic tendencies and how they got you into this mess in the first place. Otherwise, you might end up in a similar friendship, or worse, driven to try to get this person “serious help” one last time, and either way, it’s nuts. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 28, 2013
Between the scary finality of a legally binding union and the hysteria and excess that go into most modern weddings, marriage often creates a vortex of expectations, chaos and terrible bridesmaid’s shoes that suck in unwilling and innocent bystanders and cause others to run away from the process entirely, even if they should be at the altar themselves. If you find yourself getting sucked into marital mayhem, ask yourself whether your relationship, be it to the bride or groom or as the bride or groom yourself, meets your definition of friendship or partnership, not just in terms of intense feelings but also actions over time. Then you can decide for yourself what and how much you want to commit, regardless of anyone’s expectations, and use that knowledge to either gather the strength to resist the pull of marital-mania or jump in with both feet.
–Dr. Lastname
My friend is getting married on my birthday, but my husband has planned to take me away for that weekend, so it’s created a bit of a dilemma that goes deeper than just the wedding. This friend is an old friend from school who was never particularly nice to me—in fact, she asked me to be bridesmaid, but then changed her mind. My husband says I don’t owe anything but I feel guilty for not being there in her big day. My husband emailed her saying we would miss the wedding and she responded by saying we’ve known the date for ages and can we change the dates. I would rather go away but how can I make peace with myself over the decision?
Given how many labels we’ve created for people with whom we have romantic relationships—partner, spouse, boy/girlfriend, “it’s complicated”—it’s frustrating that, when it comes to platonic, non-professional relationships, the only word out there seems to be “friend.”
Because of this, you can use “friend” to describe someone you talk to everyday, and someone you are merely linked with on the internet, and someone who treats you as poorly as the “friend” you describe.
So, even if she’s never been particularly nice to you and invited-then-disinvited you to be her bridesmaid, she might still technically fall under the definition of friend, but her behavior, not her title, should have you asking yourself why you’ve imposed on yourself the obligations of close friendship. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
