Posted by fxckfeelings on August 23, 2012
We never advocate trying to change or control someone else, but imposing standards on how someone behaves with you isn’t necessarily trying to control that person, just the behavior that occurs in your immediate vicinity. If that person is someone you love, you hope they can change their behavior for the sake of a better life and closer relationship/even tighter vicinity. As long as you accept your powerlessness over that change, however, you can enforce your standards without rancor, bitterness, or guilt, while hopefully giving them an opportunity to decide to control their behavior on their own.
–Dr. Lastname
A few months ago, after I caught my boyfriend in a series of lies and secretive communications/meetings with several old girlfriends, he agreed to cut off communication with all but two of them whom he considers close friends. I know that this guy absolutely despises authority, so I will not “demand” that he cut off communication to women that he had slept with just before meeting me, women that he had very inappropriate texts and emails with until I caught him, but he told me, with those two women, he will now keep his communication with them “clean.” I say, if he couldn’t stop himself before, he is likely a compulsive (something?) and he’d do himself a huge favor by simply cutting ties. He has sworn to me that he has been physically faithful, but I think that what he did constitutes emotional affairs, and that safeguards should be put in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again. By the way, when he was seeing these girls before me, he WAS physically cheating on every single one of them. So there definitely is a compulsive behavior he needs to get under control…
Intellectually, you’re right to assume that your boyfriend’s past behavior shows that he’s a liar and cheat and that, regardless of his sincerity now, the only way to guarantee he’ll change these behaviors is breaking his texting fingers.
What’s missing in your account is that you haven’t asked yourself what he could possibly do that would make you think he has this problem under control, and what he can do and what he can say are two very different things.
Don’t accept weak, bullshit answers like “I’ll go into therapy” or “I’ll cut back to two friends,” because they don’t acknowledged the likelihood that he’ll do it again, which is the part of his problem that most concerns you. Instead, they allow you to hope that things will get better and forget about the open-door policy of his pants. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 20, 2012
Maybe you can’t help feeling guilty when someone tells you that you’ve destroyed their self-esteem, particularly when you’re critical of something they’ve done, no matter how much you know they’re overreacting. If, however, you remember how little control you have over anyone’s self-esteem, including your own, and have expressed your criticism positively, you can arm yourself against guilt and stand by whatever you’ve said. It’s not your fault if they’re hypersensitive (or hyperbolic).
–Dr. Lastname
I’m going to kill my kid if she doesn’t kill herself first. She’s a drug user and chronic fuckup, on probation for a DUI, and she just can’t stay out of trouble. Last week she stole my checkbook and went on a spending spree at Best Buy. A month ago she got restless, took my keys, and went out for a midnight drive without a license. I don’t think it’s just because she’s depressed. I think I’ve failed her, probably because I’m an alcoholic and wasn’t sober during her first ten years. It’s so hard for me to feel compassion for her, though, because I’ve managed to get sober and put the work in to stay that way. When I confront her about how stupid she’s being, she says “I want to die, you’re right, I’m an awful person,” and puts a handful of pills in her mouth. That’s when I really want to kill her, while I’m driving her to the hospital. She’ll only go to AA meetings if I drag her along, and she doesn’t get anything from them, so maybe she just has to hit bottom first, although I can’t imagine how low she’d have to go. My goal is to stay away from her before I do something I regret.
It’s horrible to have a kid whose fuck-ups are fearsome, persistent, in your face, dangerous, and expensive. You give her an inch, she takes a mile of rope and hangs both of you.
Even more horrible, however, is letting your anger loose on such a kid, then watching her declare you’ve made her hate herself so much that she does something risky and dies. Losing a kid is terrible, but losing a kid after so many words you can’t take back is worse.
While you’re the first to call her a fuckup, you’re the last to actually believe it. It’s true that some fuckups can see the light, try to get better and learn how to hit the breaks on their urge to partake in fuckuppery, but that’s their call, not yours. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 16, 2012
Since marriage is supposed to exist between two people, it’s understandable that one partner’s adding an inner demon to the mix can make things a little crowded. Demons are hell to live with (pun intended) and, unless you’re Buffy, a neurosurgeon, or, evidently, Abraham Lincoln, they’re also impossible to kill. While psychotherapy has little power to exorcise them, it can do much to increase the coping skills of those brave people who are determined to survive, be decent, and keep their marriages together, regardless of the obstacles created by these intimate enemies.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve recently gotten married to a wonderful man after a very brief courtship (we’d lived across the country, and he’ll be moving in with me in the fall). Now I’m terrified I’m going to ruin this relationship by behaving the same way I’ve behaved in every other significant romantic relationship I’ve ever had—by never being satisfied by what he does, by framing things in terms of who’s right and who’s wrong (of course I’m right!), and by letting my anger take complete control in the moment and being unable to communicate civilly. Intellectually and practically, I thoroughly appreciate him; he tells me he loves me, he misses me, and I’m beautiful, and he consistently tells me he has complete faith in my ability to work through my problems and for us to share something deep and meaningful. I’m in therapy and I’ve gone to therapy during previous relationships, and I spend time journaling to reflect on my behavior, and am sure to apologize to him when I’ve calmed down and thought about things and can see how my emotions took over and distorted my perspective. We often take time away from each other when we’re/I’m upset so we can calm down, which I think is good, but it’s not enough. When I’m calm, I know (intellectually) that my own happiness is my responsibility and his is his, and that our relationship is an extension of our own personal lives, not our lifeblood. When I’m upset, however, he can’t do anything right, he won’t see things from my perspective, and I don’t even really like him or think he’s smart – all of which I know when I’m calm is not only nonsense, but damaging, and cruel. We fight, because of me, every day. How can I remember my love for him and his love for me when I’m in this space? How can I work to keep from entering this space to begin with? My goal is to avoid what so many of your letter writers have: years of difficult and painful relationships with a person they love. I’m just at the beginning of mine and I’m trying so hard, and failing every day. I don’t know why I won’t let him love me and why I push him away. What can I do to let go, and change these vicious habits?
For a long time now, judging from what you’ve written, you’ve had a problem with anger and emotional reactivity. Long enough that it’s time to stop considering your anger a problem, and start seeing it for what it is—part of who you are.
In other words, despite several courses of psychotherapy and a strong determination to keep yourself under control, you just can’t stop yourself from nastying out and turning from Dr. Justyou into Ms. Hyde. That would indicate that it’s time for a new approach.
So, to keep false hope from interfering with your planning, it’s time to accept that you’ve got a bad case of demonic possession and your impulses aren’t likely to change, despite your finding a kind husband whom you love very much. This is the first of the 12 steps, as well as your first step towards demonic management. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 13, 2012
We’re not the first to say that love is a drug, strong enough to either addict you to the wrong person or to keep you chasing one new person after another. Your friends will attempt countless interventions, but the only way to get clean is to figure out what’s good for you and seek the strength to pursue it. Otherwise, you’ll be a bitter ex who has trouble letting go of past dreams, or a compulsive cheater who leaves a trail of bitter exes who call you liar, always longing for your next fix.
–Dr. Lastname
After three years with my boyfriend, everything went in a downward spiral in the past week. He was talking to a girl who hated me and was bent on breaking us up for a while. When I talked to her about it to get answers, she replied that my boyfriend no longer loved me and liked her. That made me suspicious, so I started snooping around—I found messages to girls where he would give a compliment and then ask for their number, a secret twitter where he only followed female friends, a secret Facebook where he had only female friends (a couple of which have tried to get with him) and messaged them asking for phone numbers. I also found on that Facebook that he had went with a female friend to the movies the same day he told me he was broke. He admitted that he had female friend numbers in his phone under male names, but he said they were all just friends and he didn’t know why he hid everything, just that he was scared of how I would react. I know that I should just let him go—at least I think I should—but I don’t know how I’ll cope. I feel like there was something wrong with me for him to hide everything from me. I don’t understand why he created this other life for his female friends. I know most people would read this and say he was trying to get with someone, and maybe that’s true, but I don’t think so. I know he is extremely insecure about his image, I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. I know I’m over thinking but I feel like I can’t have closure until I know what was going on in his mind, but he says he doesn’t know.
You say you need to understand what’s wrong about your compulsively lying boyfriend before you decide whether or not to dump him…which, unfortunately, is just one more lie.
Of course, the two of you would like to understand why he’s a liar (you probably more than him), but you also know by now that there are no answers to questions like this that ever make a difference. Whether he got his lying habits from being abused, misunderstood, or beset by impulses, he’s got what he’s got.
The truth is that your quest for understanding, in a situation like this, avoids and postpones hard choices that you don’t want to make. In order to avoid the pain of losing him, you’re stifling that part of your personality that is supposed to protect you from being screwed and help you find a good, honest partner. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 9, 2012
The heart may be a lonely hunter, but it’s also picky and easily irritated, particularly when hungry. If you enter the hunt without knowing what you really need, you risk being too impatient, too easily rejected, or both. In any case, try to remember all the important things you and a partner need from a relationship, aside from emotional fulfillment, so you can preserve the not-always-loving relationships that are still worth saving, and let go of the ones that won’t work. You might not get everything you desire, but you won’t return from the hunt empty-hearted.
–Dr. Lastname
I have a friend who is in town visiting from far away (she recently moved). She is not a great communicator, and at the last minute decided not to stay with my family but to instead stay with a friend I don’t get along with, citing some pretty lame reasons. I am often hurt by the communication style of this visiting friend. I also have a trip planned to stay with her in a month, and I can’t decide if I should A, suck it up, not take her decision too seriously, and continue my plan to stay with her, B, have more self-respect and tell her she’s hurt me (a conversation we’ve had before; it hasn’t done a lot of good), or C, redirect my trip and avoid her since I don’t want to invest more energy in this person. It would take a lot of energy to redirect my trip, but it’s been over a year of me being really sad, her engaging in formalities like birthday cards but not actually spending time with me or returning emails or phone calls. I feel I am over reacting but I also feel that if this is the reaction I have to her, isn’t everyone better off if I just separate? Most of all I want to engage in action that I will still be able to endorse 20 years from now. What to do?
Looking back twenty years from now, you probably won’t care about how often your friend ignored your texts or chose to pal around with your enemies. What will matter more is whether she was the best friend she could be, and whether that was worth it.
In all friendships, there’s a balance between your painful feelings and the times you find your friendship meaningful and rewarding. It’s up to you to decide whether you value the good side enough to ignore the shortcomings. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 2, 2012
Sure, there’s something to the childhood logic that first comes love, then comes marriage, but only between two people who aren’t allergic to commitment, which has much more to do with character than love. Instead of trying to forcibly wrest commitment from the one you love, even if that someone seems totally loveable, focus your own ability to commit, and insist on receiving the same without negotiation. If they can’t meet that commitment, then what you’ve got isn’t true love, and it’s time to find someone else to sit in the tree with.
–Dr. Lastname
I know it’s a cliché, but here goes. For a little over a year, off and on, I’ve been dating this smart, good looking, talented guy, and when we’re alone, he’s sweet and perfect. Thing is, he doesn’t want anyone to know we’re together/”be official,” so when we’re together in public, he either ignores me or acts like a jerk (which he says he’s doing so his friends won’t suspect anything). He also stands me up and doesn’t call me back, which is why we’ve broken up a few times, but then he begs for my forgiveness, reminds me why I like him, and we start seeing one another regularly again until a few weeks later, when he fades away until I can’t take it anymore, and then it all repeats, over and over. He swears he’s just confused about making our relationship public and official, but I can’t put up with this much longer. What can I do to convince him to get over his fears, admit we’re together, and be the great guy I know full-time?
Love gets people to think with their hearts instead of their minds, and since your heart’s currently taking you on an emotional rollercoaster, your mind’s a little too dizzy to think straight, or at least see the big picture.
After all, treating you badly in public is a dubious tactic, no matter what the motivation, and ignoring you, with or without a suspicious audience, is also almost impossible to justify. The way you’ve described his overall behavior does not make your boyfriend seem “sweet,” and certainly not “perfect,” but very close to “jerk.”
So stop being in the moment and take a second to look for facts that could put this guy’s behavior into perspective. Otherwise, you won’t be able to do anything but pick the petals off flowers asking yourself whether he loves you or loves you not, and what you’re supposed to do to make it work. Unfortunately, all that leaves you with is a bunch of bald daisies and no self-esteem. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 30, 2012
From Dorothy’s mantra to the mortgage crisis, having a home is a considered a crucial part of our lives. That’s why having to share your home with a jerk is a special kind of torture; between their criticism and your own unhappiness, it’s hard not to feel like you’ll never be happy or successful until you get free of them. In actuality, however, life sometimes forces good people to live with bad, and the trick is to figure out for yourself whether it’s really necessary to leave, not in order to avoid pain, but because you’re doing what you think is best for you, your family, and your finances. Sure, maybe there’s no place like home, but if your home includes a monster, you need to think it through before finding a place like home, but better.
–Dr. Lastname
I try very hard to treat my wife’s father like family (her mother died years ago), but her dad is a hard guy to spend much time with. He drinks too much, refuses to own up to it, and (surprise!) isn’t a reliable baby-sitter (although he thinks he’s the greatest), so we can’t leave him alone with the kids. Worst of all, he’s very sensitive, so any hint of criticism is likely to put him into an “I’ll never talk to you again” mode that, I’m sure, would be hard for my wife to bear. I’ve learned how to put up with him over the course of our marriage—I basically walk on egg shells, agree with everything he says and count down the minutes until we can leave—but he recently decided he wants to come live with us, and I’m totally stuck. If we say no to him, it will hurt my wife terribly, but if we don’t say no, we’ll end up divorced, or he’ll end up dead and I’ll get the chair (ha ha). My goal is to figure a way out of this dilemma.
Nobody wants to have a broken relationship with their parents, which is why your father-in-law can threaten your wife with a shunning. Since this guy isn’t actually your parent, you see his threats to cut you off as a promising possibility.
After all, if he stops talking to you, you don’t have to put up with his demands, supervise time with his grandkids, or accept him as your future housemate. Unfortunately, you know that, even though your wife agrees with you, expressing your negative feelings about him to her will likely stir up a bunch of guilt and make her feel worse. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 19, 2012
If your relationship feels threatened by your partner’s attachment to a difficult, intrusive parent, you may well feel that you have to fight for his/her time and loyalty, but going to war over an in-law is like getting involved in a land war in Asia; a classic blunder, per “The Princess Bride.” Instead, remember that, while a partnership requires a mutual commitment of time and energy, it also must leave room for work, exercise, and time with friends the one party doesn’t like. So draw up a schedule that minimizes three-way togetherness and maximizes stiff-upper-lip politeness and the repression of negative feeling. It might occasionally be painful, but of course, life is pain, and anyone who says differently is selling something.
–Dr. Lastname
My partner and I are both in our 60s with difficult marriages behind us. We have separate homes dozens of miles apart but meet often, share many interests, have a healthy sex life and enjoy meals out, daytrips or just being together. His elderly mum lives some distance away and is socially awkward with a serious hoarding issue that escalated when her husband died. Part of her house is uninhabitable due to this, and she goes without hot water rather than let someone in to repair her broken boiler. We used to get on OK until last year when she started coming to stay with my partner on a frequent basis for visits of indeterminate length. She would be included in everything we did and be a real pain. I tried to be understanding but tension mounted and came to a head on her sixth visit of last year when, without discussion, she began getting into the front car seat with her son leaving me to take the back. He denied and defended her behavior and blamed me. I feel I am being cast in the same role as his ex-wife whom he also blamed for “being difficult” with his mother. Her needs were put first over the Christmas holiday and there was another furious row when she wanted to extend the visit and he felt guilty for saying no. To be fair he is now trying to set boundaries and consider my needs but she is about to arrive again. How do I protect the relationship and what is left of my sanity from her manipulations without looking like the bad guy?
While the mother-in-law-from-hell has been around since the dawn of time—they provided the motivation for a daughter-in-law fish to escape onto land and evolve into human kind—this mother-in-law has created problems for her son before. Just ask his “difficult” ex-wife.
That means your situation is twice as challenging, because you’re not only dealing with an extremely sensitive situation, you’re dealing with one that’s been a deal-breaker in the past.
The only way you can avoid falling into the traditional trap of becoming a bad guy is to figure out what you think is reasonable and acceptable, according to your own needs and standards, in terms of how much you’re willing to share his time with his mother, and under what circumstances. After all, you can never be a bad guy if you know you’re doing the right thing. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 5, 2012
In the aftermath of being dumped, you have two possible courses of action (and vegetating in front of Netflix with Ben & Jerry’s is not active); you can either blindly pursue your hope for reconciliation, or figure out what went wrong and decide whether reconciliation is possible and a good idea. If you follow the second course, you may sometimes work it out, but you must also be willing to work out that you can’t work it out. Otherwise, you’re unlikely to avoid more heartbreak in the future (and gaining 10 pounds in the present)
–Dr. Lastname
I have recently fallen in love just to be broken up with. He said as he was dumping me, “I love you, I want to marry you, you’re my dream girl…but it’s not working out.” It doesn’t make any sense. I’m hurt, shocked, anxious and scared. He represented security to me and now I’m worried I won’t find it again, by myself or with anyone else. I need help working out how to create security and self-esteem without a man.
I assume, when you say this guy who dumped you “represented security to me,” that means emotionally, not financially. After all, you’re worried about pain, not poverty; you felt emotionally secure in being able to trust both your instincts and him. Now you feel something akin to free-fall.
While it’s a horrible shock to be blind-sided by someone you trust (as opposed to being hurt by something you saw coming all along), the good news is that you weren’t making a mistake against your better judgment. Unfortunately, that means you’ll be left with an extra-bad case of ambushed-heart PTSD. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 2, 2012
Wishing someone will change is a lot like wishing you’ll get disgustingly wealthy or that your worst enemy will drop dead; it’s futile, not entirely healthy, and will leave you feeling like a jerk. If that person feels you don’t accept their personality, they usually get worse (and blame you), and if your needs are stronger than your sense of reality, you won’t be able to get over it and stop nagging. Either way, the change they’re most likely to make is leaving for to a new place far away from you, or, worse yet, staying in a state of perpetual resentment. Instead, see if you can get them to want to change. If they can’t, your job is to do the best with the limitations you’ve got (yours or the other guy’s), and either make it work or make a plan to move on (that doesn’t hinge on great wealth or homicide).
–Dr. Lastname
Is past behavior really the best way of predicting future behavior or can a leopard sometimes change its spots? I am aware that people mature, evolve, adapt, etc. but wonder if they can ever really overcome long-held behavior patterns such as dishonesty. Do we tend to revert to character by default setting whatever relationship or job we are in? My partner is kind and loving in many ways but his workaholism and difficult mother are starting to cause problems between us just as they did in his marriage whereas my ex appears to have improved without me. My goal is to learn from the past and avoid falling into the same old situations.
Instead of wasting time and avoiding hard truths by debating whether leopards can change their spots, look at your current particular leopard and ask yourself what he has done with his spots in their current, seemingly-permanent placement.
If the answer is unacceptable, you might search for a spot-removing/issue-solving specialist. You won’t find one with any real power to change much of anything, but at least the search will allow you to stall for a while and allow specialists like myself to pay the mortgage. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
