Posted by fxckfeelings on January 31, 2013
Unless you’re living in a Nora Ephron movie, breaking up is a painful ordeal, often for the dumper as much as the dumpee; while initiating the break doesn’t have same level of shock and betrayal as being broken, there’s often tons of guilt and paralysis, and everybody ends up spending lots of money on fatty foods, impulse electronics, and shrink bills. While there’s no painless way to break someone’s heart, wallowing in guilt never makes things better, so instead of trying to change feelings that won’t change or punishing yourself for having them, learn from your experience and do what’s necessary. You can’t control your heart but you can make the best of what it does to you and, sadly sometimes, to the people who love you, even if you can’t love them back. It’s what Nora would want.
–Dr. Lastname
Just over a year into my relationship with my current boyfriend, and a week after we had moved in together, I met a man at a month long intensive personal growth course. I was clear with him that I was in a relationship (as he was clearly interested and single), but the feelings developed over the month, especially with the work we were doing together in the class. It was very hard to say goodbye. It’s been exactly a year since that time and I have not for one day stopped thinking about him and the friendship/closeness/attraction that was there. I’m still with my boyfriend and have had doubts about him ever since. I know it’s really affected our relationship. I’m a person who’s always working on myself and trying to be better, growing and changing, where he is not so much. I’m trying to get him to be more open with his feelings, but I feel like I’ll be trying my whole life. I can’t help but wonder if I’m with the right person and have to stop myself every single day from contacting the other man. I don’t know if I’m just a crazy person with fantasies about a better relationship, or if I need to take a risk and move on (even though I’m terrified) – if not for the other man but for someone who is more sensitive to my need to share deep feelings regularly. I should also mention that my boyfriend wants to have kids and we need to make a decision as soon as possible as right now I am just stalling. This dilemma has me up at night and I think about it constantly. I wish I could just trust my gut feelings but I am so confused.
If you feel a prospective husband must be someone who’s also into self-improvement and feeling-sharing, then you’re right to worry. On the other hand, after some additional experience with feeling-sharing self-improvers, odds are you’ll realize your standards are a little wrong.
You don’t have to spend as much time around the feelings-ful and improvement-driven as I have to realize they make up a high risk group of people who are exciting to get to know and talk to—much more so than most people, including your partner—but then become changeable and unreliable in the long run. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 24, 2013
The search for sex and love is almost always put in a competitive context—it’s a game, a hunt, or some “Hunger Games”-like combination of the two—but unlike other competitions, there aren’t many reliable measurements of your dating success. Sure, it always feels like you can tell how you’re doing by whether you feel sought after or dumped, but those feelings really have nothing to do with success; feeling sought after can be arbitrary, distracting, and over-stimulating, and feeling dumped when you’ve merely been dismissed can make you lose your confidence and will to keep looking. So instead of paying too much attention to how dating makes you feel, keep your eye on the real trophy—contacting a large pool of candidates and using solid search criteria to screen out the out-of-control, the unacceptable, and the time-wasters. If you stay focused and work hard, you’ve got a fighting chance to win, especially if you know how to actually keep score.
–Dr. Lastname
I rarely meet men who are interesting, make me laugh and when I kiss them find I have a sexual chemistry with. So when this happened and he took my number, said he wanted to meet up again and texted me the next day (I replied and we had a bit of text banter), I thought, great. Only thing is, he never arranged a date (having said he was a traditional guy), and I just don’t get it. I’m trying to think that I wouldn’t want to be with a man like that anyway but why text the next day if you don’t want to see me? To validate himself by getting confirmation that I like him? I know I shouldn’t analyze this but I find it weird and annoying. How do I let it go and move on?
If you considered how doubly rare it is to find a guy who both triggers the right chemistry and is a decent human being, accepting the long odds would make for a shorter sting. Getting brushed off by a potential partner in the game of love is as personal as a quarterback getting sacked in a game of football, and just as routine.
Since most women have ended up with a copy of “He’s Just Not That Into You,” either because they had a long lay-over, or because their secret Santa phoned it in, most ladies are familiar with the notion of not-quite-connections.
The problem with the title/thesis of that book, however, is that it makes the problem seem personal, when it isn’t. Most of us just aren’t that in to most people, and guys, with their sexual preoccupations, are even less so. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 21, 2013
For all the lip service people give to the importance of truth, your average person is willing to work a lot harder to preserve a bullshit notion than admit what’s real, and that’s not just true for college quarterbacks. Depressed people prefer to listen to their rotten emotions telling them a hundred reasons why they’ve failed, no matter how many victories they’ve achieved, and people with bad habits can find a hundred reasons for thinking they had no choice, despite the many avoidable fuck-ups they’ve fucked up. That’s why thinking is better than just believing, so you can follow a simple moral procedure, add up what you’ve actually accomplished given what you do and don’t control, and give yourself good advice, fair judgment, and a break from all the hard work that defending bullshit requires.
–Dr. Lastname
In 2011, I was working two minimum wage jobs seven days a week, trying to cram in a social life while getting over a REALLY bad break up. Eventually, I gave up trying to fix it myself and started going to therapy once a week for 8 months. A year later, I got a better paying job, had free weekends, a new boyfriend, our own flat, an OK social life, BUT I sometimes still feel like it’s 2011 in an emotional sense. I still feel emotionally drained, exhausted, suffer low self-esteem and spend most days trying to not fight with my boyfriend over dishes. I then start feeling bad because I think I am not being grateful for the fact that my life did change for the “better.” I know I suffer from depression– have done since I was about 8 due to having a very abusive father, and long story short, I moved out when I was still in high school (about ten years ago). I thought therapy would help but it seems to have brought other problems to surface. Anyway, my question is, at what point should I stop trying to find happiness and just be happy and what does that even mean? Everyday is very different– one day I feel like buying a one way ticket to anywhere that will have me & leave everyone and everything I have behind, and then the next day I am dancing around the house feeling like I won the lottery. It’s starting to drive my boyfriend crazy but he tries to accept me as I am. So extreme are two days that I am not sure I know how I feel anymore about anything. My goal in 2013 is to stop getting upset/stressing about things that do not help my situation and to learn to relax more and enjoy just being. How do I achieve this seemingly easy task but which to me seems like a very very difficult algebra problem?
While many Christians ask themselves “What Would Jesus Do?,” we often ask our readers to ask themselves “What Would A Friend Say?” While Jesus’s imagined answers are often similar, it’s hard to imagine going out to a bar with Jesus after work and kvetching about your life, so “Friend” seems to work better.
That said, if you told a friend about your struggles—depression, irritability, past-trauma—they would tell you that they’re sorry you’re hurting, but that it’s worth taking time to appreciate all you’ve accomplished, despite what you’ve gone through. Like Jesus, they would not judge. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 17, 2013
It’s often been said that if you want to make god laugh, make a plan, but this is not the case for people dealing with mental illness, mostly because of all the pain you have to accept before you even get to the plan-making stage. If you ignore that pain, you’re a dumb ostrich who will make an avoidant plan, but if you focus too much on it, you develop a ruminative plan and become your problem. So brace yourself for unavoidable pain, prepare to do two things at once, and plan away. Then your choices will take you as close as possible to where you want to be, and your plan, or at least your ability to make one, will make any higher power proud.
–Dr. Lastname
I have a big problem getting myself to study. I do things late and then don’t get good grades, or I don’t get anything done, or I stop somewhere in the middle. I guess I have a problem with concentration and also with laziness. I’ve also done this thing since I was a little child where I turn on music, I sit on a couch or my bed and rock myself, hitting my back towards the backrest of the couch, sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it’s quite quick, like half an hour. I also have quite low self-esteem, not sure what is the reason…I am trying to overcome it somehow but it always gets to me again and I have to deal with it and then I have these days like I do not want to get up—I can’t think of a reason to, and I do not want to go anywhere and I am scared of everything. Sometimes I feel like people are watching me and criticizing me and I don’t want to go to the market because I don’t want to deal with anyone. Sometimes I eat a lot because I am in that crazy mood and I feel bad about it, not because I’ll gain weight (maybe a little bit) but especially because of my health… I criticize myself a lot. I write something or say something and in a while I hate it even if the first impression about it was really good. So… I might be a little bit screwed up I guess… I would be thankful for some opinion or advice what to do with all this.
You’ve certainly got a ton of problems, including trouble concentrating, studying, getting up in the morning, keeping your weight under control, dealing with paranoid thoughts, etc. (but hopefully not memory, because I’d have to think there are even more issues you forgot and left out).
The big question to ask yourself, however, is not what’s wrong with you and to count all the ways, but what you’ve done with your life in spite of these problems. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 14, 2013
When people judge success or failure by the ensuing level of happiness, good guys blame themselves for things they don’t control and bad guys blame everyone else for their own mistakes. Instead of putting your accomplishments on a feelings-based scale, think carefully about what you really can and should control, given your values. That way, no matter if you’re a good guy dealing with bad luck or a jerk who assumes he’s a victim, you can at least feel happy about doing what’s right.
–Dr. Lastname
I wish there was something I could do for my older son (now about 30), but he’s never been happy and I’ve gradually got used to the idea that maybe he never will be, although I’m not sure I’ll ever not feel bad about it. He’s got a job and takes care of himself but, unlike his younger brother, he doesn’t have a girlfriend or a job that he likes. My own belief, and I’ve lived by it myself, is that everyone should at least find work that they like, and then it’s not hard to be happy, but he doesn’t seem close to finding work he likes, and he doesn’t seem to be trying. So I doubt there’s anything I can do to help him, but I thought I’d ask you anyway, because, as his mother, I’ll never feel I’ve succeeded until he finds happiness.
There’s nothing that warms a mother’s heart more than to see her kid smile, but you should also know, by the many good, well-parented, miserable adults in this world, that a good upbringing can’t stop someone from being downbeat.
Your son’s tendency towards misery is not more your fault that it is his; it’s a tough world, genetics has no mercy, and bad things happen. Don’t make those bad things worse then by making him responsible for his inability to get happy and causing you both to feel like losers.
It’s common to believe that one can be happy if they find work that they like, but, like taking good care of yourself, eating right, having regular bowel movements, and most other common sense keys to happiness, that belief is largely bullshit. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 10, 2013
Deciding whom to blame for a problem you can’t get a handle on is easy if you follow your instincts, but instincts should also tell you that a decision made based on intuition instead of thought is probably wrong. In reality, you need to look carefully at whether a person is doing his or her best with what’s actually controllable before deciding whether what’s missing is better discipline or better luck. Ignore your instincts, assess the uncontrollable and you’ll come up with helpful and constructive ideas by looking for facts, not blame.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m in college, and my problem is that I have ADD and even when I’m on Ritalin, I get distracted very easily if something about a course is hard to understand. Then I wind up fucking around, doing other things, spending too much time with my boyfriend, and falling behind. After two or three weeks, it’s too hard to catch up and I don’t want anyone to know, so I stop going to class. A few weeks after that, there’s nothing to do but drop the course, which makes me feel like a loser. I had the same problem in high school, but I’ve never found a drug or dose that’s made the problem better. My goal is to find a better medication or a way to try harder so that I don’t get behind in the first place.
There’s no doubt ADD is your problem, but another problem lots of people with ADD develop over the years of experiencing learning as a painful, humiliating process is avoidance. It came from your ADD, but it’s its own problem, and not the kind they make pills for.
A lot of people with ADD get good at lying to themselves and others about what they’re failing to do and what the consequences are going to be. It started as a coping mechanism, but it’s developed into a pain in the ass. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 7, 2013
Talking is many things—an activity, a profession (ahem), an anathema in almost any public setting if done via cellphone—but it’s rarely a constructive, active solution to a personal problem. Talking about fears is a good way to avoid doing something about them, whether that means stopping bad behavior or taking a good risk. So, whether you’re talking in therapy or with a friend, don’t talk up your issues until you’ve talked with yourself about what you need to be doing and whether it’s worth the fear-fighting effort. Then, if your goals are worth the trouble, suck it up and limit your talk to your fear-fighting efforts, excluding what it would take to make you feel better, like talking about your fears, especially on a cellphone in an elevator.
–Dr. Lastname
My ultimate fear is this– that my girlfriend will be swayed by another man who is more handsome and stronger and more interesting than me. I am not a jealous guy normally, but when it comes to girlfriends, then I don’t trust them. I think I am what is called an “Anxious-Preoccupied” type person. I am never reassured of how much my girlfriend loves me, or how much she cares about me, and I always need more and more validation and confirmation. My clinginess and overly attachment is what killed my first two relationships. In the beginning they adored me and found me interesting, but as our relationship grew I would slowly become more and more scared, until it ended up being an almost self-fulfilling prophecy. When I am not with her, I fear she will be with some other man. She has never given me any reason to doubt her, besides the fact that she is a desired attractive female. It’s the unreasonable trust, and one a human being cannot give someone else, but the fear is killing me, and I want to end the relationship to this person whom I love deeply, but I know I will take my weird conditioning with me to the next relationship, anyway. I don’t know how to accept this likely outcome that can happen in every relationship. My father was a cheater, and he left me and my mom when I was five. I’ve had a bad relationship to him ever since. My stepdad cheated on my mom as well, and it killed me as a nine year old seeing my mother break down. Now I am 25, and have periods of confidence, but also bad ones (like when I become overweight, as I’ve yo-yo’ed through my teens and mid 20s). Right now I am in a bad period, 20 pounds overweight, and have no job. Maybe it’s no wonder that my confidence is low, but why can’t I slay this demon? Can you tell me what to do, because this is not only ruining my relationship, but also me as a person. I seem incapable of being close to anyone without destroying their respect for me with overly attached nature.
Despite the number of little Nevaehs and Aubreees out there, the act of naming someone or something is usually given a great deal of importance; giving something a name is a sign in itself that that person/bridge/boat etc. is consequential and valuable. Given that your fears should be neither of those things, however, taking the time to name them is an odd choice.
While you might hope that naming or explaining your fears will set you free or give you courage, the reality is that focusing on your fears can easily make them seem more important than what they prevent you from doing, and make you believe that you can’t act better until you feel better. Making your fears that important then, or at least as important as a yacht, is not a good place to begin. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 3, 2013
Any number of sources, from teachers to parents to inspirational posters featuring wolves, teach us that we should be able to achieve our goals by working harder and feel great when those goals are achieved. Unfortunately, mental illness often trumps these expectations by making it impossible to do certain kinds of work or enjoy the non-working hours that should bring happiness. So, if you’ve got good evidence that mental illness has altered your capacities, despite good treatment, it’s time to change your teachers/parents/wolves’ assumptions about high performance and happiness and identify the other things that matter more.
–Dr. Lastname
My daughter suffers from bipolar disorder, and while I admire her determination to finish college and want to support her confidence, I know that she hasn’t been able to read more than a chapter or two since her illness started 10 years ago. She does fine on courses that don’t require much reading, as long she takes one at a time. Otherwise, she melts down– she can’t do the work, withdraws, stops attending classes, and looks more symptomatic for a month or so until she recovers. My goal is to build her confidence and help her overcome the stigma of having mental illness.
People often think that the measure of recovery after a disabling illness is how much normal function you get back, but when you’re dealing with an incurable illness, “normal” and “recovery” are defined differently.
Pushing yourself harder to meet the old standard under your new set of circumstances is an effective way of meeting your goals, but only if those goals involve making yourself feel like a loser for not being able to accomplish something that’s practically impossible.
True recovery means doing your best to live up to your values, regardless of how well your equipment is working; performance is the means, not the end. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 27, 2012
Giving advice is like taking your pants off in front of someone; there better be some sort of invitation or context, or things are going to get weird. That doesn’t mean giving unsolicited advice isn’t the right thing to do, or that there isn’t a right way to do it; you just have to be prepared to control your emotions, particularly anger, fear, and helplessness, and only speak up when you think it’s necessary, if you wish to prevent harm or enmity. Using the proper procedures for advice giving, you can do right by the ones you wish to help, even if you can’t control or guarantee the results. If you can’t keep your negativity to yourself, however, or you know speaking up will do more harm than good, better to keep your proverbial pants on.
–Dr. Lastname
Please Note: We’re off again on Monday for New Year’s Eve. Here’s to a great f*cking 2013!
I talked to my cousin about her son’s guns & isolation, and now she tells me her family is “devastated.” How can I remain at peace with myself? I feel strong at the moment but feel a vague fear that a slow degradation of my strength may occur over time. Her family has been self-devastated for a long time. She divorced years ago. The oldest, adult son has never worked a meaningful job and has developed an intense focus on guns over the past couple of years. He shoots small rodents in their suburban back yard, then cooks and eats them (he uses just a pellet gun for this but with a home-made silencer, which must be illegal). The other son was within one semester of a college degree when he began using heavy drugs. His parents invested a fortune in the best rehab available but the son dropped out with two weeks to go. Start big and quit is one of the family’s MOs—a deeply ingrained pattern. I have often thought they all need “tough love” but now that I’ve provided some, I seem to be a catalyst for further dysfunction. My conscience is clear but I feel sad at what I have set in motion (other sane people encouraged me to raise the warning so I did not operate in a vacuum). Of course, it was heavily influenced by the occasion of the CT school shooting.
When someone you care about appears to be stumbling into deep trouble and letting things get out-of-control, scary, and/or armed, it’s hard not to get scared shitless on their behalf and offer them a piece of your mind.
After all, if they can’t figure out where to draw the line, you figure you can be the one to show them, even though you can’t imagine how a parent could ever, ever allow dangerous behavior to go so far. You want to help your cousin by stopping her from doing something wrong, but telling her that is the wrongest way to go about it.
When someone in trouble doesn’t ask for your help, it’s usually because they’re already worried that they’ve done something wrong and are afraid you’ll think the same. If you confirm their fear of being judged, then they’ll devote their energy away from actually confronting the problem and towards defending themselves against their new problem, you.
You were certainly right to share your worries with her about her weird gun-toting, varmint-eating son, and right to voice your concerns about dangers she may be ignoring. What you shouldn’t do, however, is imply criticism with the words “tough love,” which usually imply that a parent’s over-permissiveness has created a spoiled brat. Even assuming it’s true—which may not be the case if her son is a paranoid schizophrenic—there’s nothing like knocking someone’s parenting to cause a negative, defensive reaction (and nothing like comparing their son to a mass murderer to lay them especially low).
Try starting over, if you can, by telling your cousin what you admire about her parenting and her kids’ good qualities. After all, the older child was obviously hard-working and capable until drug addiction stopped him cold, and, since you don’t describe the younger son as a brat, there’s reason to think he may have been doing well until something went wrong, as well. Tell her you’re sorry if she felt your were criticizing her or her boys, but you just want to be sure she’s safe and offer any help you can.
Then, if she’s receptive, ask her about her older son’s behavior in concrete, specific terms. Don’t ask why he’s changed—that implies that she should have an answer that she obviously doesn’t have and that may not exist—and don’t imply that he’s behaving badly, because you don’t know how much he controls himself. Just ask for the facts, particularly about whatever he’s said or done that’s dangerous or shows his brain isn’t working right. Ask about threats, punches, voices in the head, silence when she asks questions, lost hygiene, and ideas about the FBI or Virgin Mary (it’s funny how they fall into the same category in the psychotic mind).
Whatever facts you uncover, don’t let your fears prompt you to tell her what to do; instead, find out what options she’s tried. If she seems to be ignoring a threat, ask her to consider her reasons for not being more worried. If she seems to be discounting the possibility of mental illness, ask her to read up on the signs and symptoms and consider what to do if they seem to fit.
You can’t tell your cousin how to straighten out her fucked-up family—it would be nice if you could, and even nicer if there was a way she could actually do it—but you can remind her that there are many good parents who can’t stop their families from being fucked up, and many ways of being helpful to your fucked-up kids if you don’t feel like a failure.
Offering help when it isn’t asked for is always tricky, but if you make the tone of the conversation constructive instead of critical, she might not be able to change her family, but she may be able to change her approach. And if she doesn’t, or can’t, you’ll still know you did the right thing, and you did it the right way.
STATEMENT:
“I feel like my cousin’s son could go postal while she pretends there’s nothing wrong, but I know these things don’t happen because of bad parenting. I will try to make her feel respected before inviting her to share what she knows about her son. If I have an opportunity to advise her, I will encourage her to make rational decisions about what she knows rather than following her emotions. I will not let my helplessness force me to become impatient and critical.”
My 22-year-old daughter is a good kid and deserves to be treated as an adult, but she’s been living at home since graduating college because she needs to save money, and I can’t help but notice how many guys she dates and spends the night with. She often seems disappointed when they don’t call her again, and then seems too eager to respond when someone new asks her out. I know if I use words like “bad choices” or “low self-esteem” she’ll stop listening, and maybe I shouldn’t offer advice unless it’s invited, but I sure wish I could help steer her in a better direction.
There’s an obvious danger to giving unsolicited advice (see above), and don’t think the danger is much less when people pay a shrink for it. All you need do is imply they’re doing something morally wrong and you’ve either crushed their confidence or stirred them to crush yours. Unlike the woman above, however, your concern comes from observations, not suspicion, and it regards behavior that is far more within her own control. You know of what you speak, and as long as you speak carefully, a conversation is not impossible.
Fortunately, you can often engage people in willing discussions about their dating problems if you keep the discussion positive, refrain from showing negative emotion (no matter what you really feel) and focus on the kind of thinking you want someone to do, rather than actions you want them to take. So don’t show fear or disapproval, or do the psychobabble equivalent by talking about low self-esteem.
Instead, tell her you respect her achieving her degree, saving money, and taking on the search for a good relationship. Then let her know that, if she’s interested, you’ve got some good ideas for how she can search for a partner while protecting her heart.
It’s true, you may be unacquainted with online dating or be one of those lucky individuals who stumbled into a good partnership without first having had many bad dates and a first marriage. Nevertheless, you can draw on other life experiences, like hiring someone for a job or working out a business partnership.
In the non-emotional, business-like manner of a professional matchmaker, ask her what sort of person she’s looking for and what criteria she uses to screen out deadbeats, heartbreakers, and baggage-bearers. Find out how she gathers factual information about a person’s reliability, work, credit card debt, and dumped-girlfriend history so she can head off trouble before she starts to feel attached. Discuss methods for keeping her distance while doing research.
If she feels unattractive, remind her that making herself more beautiful may get her more candidates, but also requires more careful, tougher screening. Help her list her strengths, which you know well.
If you respect the privacy of her heart while offering to coach her on a head-hunt, you can talk frankly without making her feel threatened. Then she can benefit from your wisdom while you enjoy the pleasure of being her friend (and avoid the mess of accidentally become a grandma).
STATEMENT:
“I hate to see my daughter expose herself to rejection and self-doubt as she looks for love, but I know that criticism of her poor choices will add to her self-blame. She has good values, many strengths, and much to offer. By inviting her to think about search tactics and techniques, rather than about feelings of wanting, needing, and being dumped, I will make my love and experience available to her in a way that she can use.”
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 20, 2012
When you believe in the value of a close family, it’s natural to take on the role of diplomat when a conflict between some of your nearest and dearest threatens to make you all distant and estranged. Unfortunately, there are some disagreements that can’t be resolved, be they by diplomat or total destruction, but that’s not reason to despair; there’s much you can do to be helpful and cement relationships that do work if you allow negative feelings to exist without blame, and respect the value of spending limited amounts of time with family you have to be with. After all, a good diplomat knows that peace isn’t found through open togetherness, but through respectful time apart.
–Dr. Lastname
Please note: There will be no post on Monday due to Christmas Eve. Happy holidays to all (and if that doesn’t happen, you know how to reach us).
My sister and I have been raised by our single mother, and I have excellent relationships with both of them. Unfortunately, my sister and our mother’s relationship has always been difficult and it’s getting worse. My sister recently revealed that she had been sexually abused by one of my mother’s boyfriends, and inexplicably, I felt like I knew it all along. My mother was obviously distraught by the news, although I don’t know that my sister and her have had any deep discussions around that issue. My sister did briefly see a shrink but never went on a full therapy. In a nutshell, I think my sister has built a lot of resentment towards my mother and their disagreements/fights are becoming more and more bitter, to the extent that my mother is becoming less and less inclined to have a relationship with my sister. I’m tired of being in the middle of it all and have decided to let them deal with their issues themselves. I don’t like to see them unhappy but it seems to me that they refuse to take the necessary steps to heal their relationship. Am I right in deciding to stay out of it? Or is it my duty to keep trying to mend their relationship?
When two people you love are estranged, it feels like your only choice is to try to get them to reconcile or give up entirely—the “Parent Trap” trap. Fortunately, there’s a third option, although it’s not very Disney, and there’s no happy ending.
Your third choice happens once you accept the fact that their reconciliation is neither your responsibility nor under your control. You didn’t pull them apart, you can’t put them together, but you don’t need them to pull you apart, either. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
