Posted by fxckfeelings on December 5, 2011
People often think of their workplace as a family, but what’s more true and less acknowledged is that a family is a workplace, albeit one in which you have a deeper investment and more casual Fridays. In any family, money is love and love is money, and you can’t disagree about money without its getting personal, so don’t let it. Maybe you can’t stop the hurt when you feel short-changed by someone you love, but you can keep it from spreading by keeping your feelings to yourself and remembering your most important priorities before you negotiate. You’ve got too much to lose to endanger your job security.
–Dr. Lastname
I trust that my sister will be a fair executrix for my father’s will, but I often feel out of the communication loop because she’s closer to my other sister, and I’m often the last to know about her decisions. When I’ve shared my feelings about this in the past, she’s just gotten testy. Recently, I wondered why his will had not put in a special bequest for my daughter, because he’d once expressed that intention, so I asked my sister whether she could get hold of an earlier will and see whether the bequest had been there before and then taken out. She blew up at me about how I didn’t trust her, and couldn’t see why it was such a big deal. My goal is to get her to see that my request was legitimate and to keep me informed.
Nothing has more potential to damage a family dynamic—not a long car trip, adultery, a coming out here or there—like a dispute over a will.
If somebody feels screwed, cheated, or in any way shortchanged, blood ties will get bloody.
Luckily, you trust your sister, so that eliminates the most common source of conflict. Unfortunately, you’re now creating conflict in an extremely fragile situation where it doesn’t need to exist. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 1, 2011
When what you yearn for in a partner and what’s good for you are not the same, it’s tempting to trust your feelings and try to bring reality into line in the face of any obstacle, especially reality. Eventually, however, you will tire yourself out and/or end up seeing a shrink who will tell you you were doing nothing wrong except for not facing facts and giving up. On the other hand, if you trust your ability to judge what’s good for you, and impose your judgment on your feelings, you’ll do better and come closer to your dreams. So when your Pollyanna instincts tell you about the transformative nature of love, remember the cost involved (beyond the shrink’s fee).
–Dr. Lastname
I thought I’d always be able to trust my wife, even though I’ve never been able to trust anyone else before. I’m just like that, always nervous and suspicious, even when people are reasonably nice. My wife is an unusually nice and nurturing person, but when I found out she was doing some compulsive shopping and she lied about it, I flipped out and I can’t recover. The more she tries to reassure me, the more I don’t trust her. She’s just about had it with me and I want to recover our old intimacy before our marriage breaks up.
It’s really remarkable that you assume that your wife isn’t necessarily bad, just because she’s triggered your suspicions. It’s also remarkable that she’s the first person you’ve trusted, but why focus on the negative.
Most people who suffer from severe suspicion are pretty sure that it’s the other person’s bad actions that have caused a loss of trust, but you aren’t falling for that trap.
You’re open to the idea that your wife isn’t that bad, even though her actions have shattered your peace of mind. But you’re also a little too accepting that one white lie and the sadness that lie has caused you can lead to your divorce.
It’s a bummer, but this sounds less like therapy-inducing “trust issues” and more like a severe case of “the honeymoon is over.” In other words, if you expect to get back that old trusting feeling, given the demon of suspicion that has always haunted you, you’re probably wrong.
Plus, trying to get it back will just make both of you feel more angry and responsible for the pain you’re in. False hope is more dangerous for your marriage than your wife’s covert shopping habits.
Rely instead on your good common sense and do a fact-based investigation of your wife’s trustworthiness as a partner; don’t listen to your feelings before you collect, and review, the facts. Begin by defining the crimes that you consider deal-breakers, like compulsive shopping that empties your accounts or major drug use or lying about other close relationships. Imagine advising a friend about the kinds of bad spousal behavior that can turn marriage into a dangerous, depression-inducing burden without hope of redemption.
Then weigh your wife’s behavior against these standards. If her shopping doesn’t represent a major drain and her lying doesn’t apply to most difficult topics, then it may not represent a major threat. From what you say, that’s a possibility, but it’s for you to decide.
If it’s true that she’s not so bad, however, then you’ve got a tough job ahead of you that will actually increase your pain, not make it better, but thems the breaks. If you decide your marriage is worth hanging on to, then you’ve got to stop breaking it up while seeking a relief you’re never going to feel.
Once you stifle your paranoia and decide this is your problem to manage, you open new doors for yourself. You can talk to a therapist about ways of thinking positively despite your mistrust, and you may also find that your mistrust gets better if you don’t stimulate it by expressing it. If nothing else works, you may find that medication can help.
It may initially make you feel helpless and hopeless to allow suspicion to reenter a relationship you thought would be a safe haven. In the long run, however, tolerating a certain amount of suspicion may save your marriage and allow a deeper sense of trust to develop. Sure, you’ll always worry about her shopping sprees, but you may also take comfort in the fact that she tolerates your faults and that your partnership is good for both of you. Trust your own standards, rather than your feelings, and divorce may not be so inevitable after all.
STATEMENT:
“I’m profoundly disappointed to discover that my marriage is no longer a refuge from the suspicions that have always tortured me, but I won’t let them control what I do with it. If I decide that my marriage is solid enough, I will find ways to keep my suspicion from making my decisions for me, even if I can’t get rid of them. If I let them control me in the past, I’d have never gotten married. Now I need to take the fight to the next level.”
I’ve broken up with my boyfriend many times over the 5 years we’ve dated, but after I made it clear to him, for the umpteenth time, that he had to start including me in his inner family circle, he turned around and told me not to drop by on Thanksgiving because he needed to spend time with his kids, which made me explosive. It’s not just that he excludes me from his inner family circle; he’s always backing out of plans, which is why we still live separately and I never know whether we’ll spend time together next weekend. Now that I’ve cooled off, I find it hard to really end things with him when we’ve been together so long and know one another so well. I feel like we should be able to work things out, but maybe we keep breaking up for a reason.
You’re obviously attached to your boyfriend and haven’t been able to give him up, even when you knew the relationship wasn’t working for you. Maybe you love him too much or you’re too needy, which are also two reasons that you should flee from this unhealthy relationship in the first place.
In any case, you’ve told him what you want, again and again, and there’s been no progress. The problem isn’t that you’ve failed to get through to him; it’s that reality has failed to get through to you.
The sad fact is that there’s usually no way to change the distance between you and the person you love. It’s like the distance between molecules; you can push it back and forth, but there’s something basic about it, on average, that you can’t change, even with a megaton of talk, therapy, or whatever.
If you can bring yourself to accept the idea that he, and the relationship, are not going to change, and decide that this relationship will never give you enough of what you want, then you have to find the strength to move on.
Remember that you’re right to look for someone who includes you in his intimate family gatherings and with whom you can make reliable weekend plans. Until you find that person and check out his credentials, however, you must become strong enough to keep your heart to yourself. Hang out with friends and family, develop social hobbies, and build up your independence muscles so you aren’t forced to lean on people who aren’t sturdy. Build your strength while remaining wary of your instincts.
Don’t assume there’s someone out there for you, because there often isn’t, and the false assumption that there is will confirm your belief that you’re doing something wrong every time you don’t connect, and that will lead you back to connecting too much. There may be someone out there for you, or not, but your job is to conduct a good search, not compromise your heart or try to force the wrong guy to do the right thing.
STATEMENT:
“I can’t help feeling very connected to my boyfriend, but I know he can’t meet my needs and I can’t change him. If I want a chance at a better partnership, I must move on and become independent enough to resist going back or falling into some new and equally painful compromise. I know what’s good for me and I can’t afford to accept less.”
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 28, 2011
If you take any relationship wisdom from this site, it should probably be that good partnerships are not the same as relationships that feel good. That doesn’t mean they have to feel bad (although bad feelings are unavoidable sooner or later), just that they have to survive bad feelings and offer benefits to both parties that are worth the trouble. So relationships that grab your heart but show no signs of becoming good partnerships are dangerous to your health, and relationships that turn you off but have much to offer are worth putting up with. Ain’t love grand, and ain’t love gone wrong a royal pain in the ass.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m always a little annoyed at my boyfriend, even though we never really fight, because he always seems a little unavailable (you’d think at our age he’d be over playing games). If we spend lots of time together this weekend, then next weekend I can be sure he’ll call back late, find a reason we can’t meet early in the day, and leave me with an option for getting together briefly that doesn’t work well for either one of us. He used to say it was because he needed time for his son, but now that his son’s in college things haven’t changed. I don’t think he wants to date anyone else, and our friends think we’re great together, but I’d like to share my life with someone and our relationship is stuck.
Sometimes the worst thing about a relationship is that it’s too good to be bad, but too bad to be worth the effort.
Your boyfriend is almost a good match, good enough so that you look forward to seeing him every weekend, but it’s not mutual enough for him to feel the way you do. So you’re always chasing him, but never quite catching him.
If it were truly bad, then either he’d end it, or pride, fighting or the protests of friends might eventually help you break up, grieve and move on. Here, no such luck. You’re in relationship purgatory, but on the southern side. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 17, 2011
Just as there are diseases that can compromise the human immune system, there are factors that can compromise our emotional immune systems, as well. If you’ve been abused or take too much pleasure in giving, you’re more susceptible, not just to bad relationships, but to more psychic damage from those relationships. There are ways for the emo-immuno-compromised to protect themselves by strengthening their minds and learning to avoid the kind of people that could hurt them the most. Until they develop a mental prophylactic, adopting strict self-standards is the best way for anyone to stay safe.
–Dr. Lastname
I was sexually abused quite a bit by my dad (and am de-repressing memories right now, fun-fun). I am realizing that I am very fearful of the people I love, and avoid them. Honestly, if I didn’t need to bond to keep from going insane, I would never have a close relationship, because anyone I care about enough can destroy me. But I’m in a lot of pain from loneliness as it is.
Many people believe there are tons of benefits to confronting your past, namely that it will teach you something that will bring catharsis to your present. The common notion being that if you can figure out what went wrong then you can avoid being victimized again.
The problem here is that reviving memories of sexual abuse by your dad will also bring back the old feelings of helplessness and having no choice, which, of course, is the opposite of your situation as an adult, so the lessons are the opposite of useful to your life now.
You’re not examining the past to drown yourself in feelings of helplessness, but to assure yourself that you can protect yourself from abuse. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 14, 2011
When you love someone who gets mentally ill and doesn’t recover, you may not only lose that part of their personality you loved the most, but also get stuck with a double dose of what you liked least. After all, it’s one thing to vow to be there in sickness and in health, but sickness and negativity and mania are usually more than most people bargain for. If your spouse’s mental illness makes your marriage unbearable, keep a lid on your negative feelings by respecting the burden life has put on both of you and refusing responsibility for putting things back the way they were. Once you can accept that sad reality, it’s time to figure out whether there’s room in your marriage for you, your spouse and the disease, or if your old vows no longer apply.
–Dr. Lastname
My wife suffers from non-medication responsive depression (we’ve done ECT’s, every med in the book, and she has a psychiatrist). She’s bitter and short to family; she goes off on the kids and then can turn around and be nice. I do all the work around the house, get the kids to activities, etc., and I’m wearing out. She comes home from work and just logs on her lap top and sits in front of the TV while I get dinner and clean up. She shows no affection towards me and I feel like a servant. When I complain or push her, she talks about killing herself and putting herself out of our misery (she’s been hospitalized several times) or just hurting herself (sometimes she cuts on her arms and legs). I’m getting to the point where I don’t like her anymore. She just seems to have given up. Nothing interests her, nothing tastes good…she gets no enjoyment from anything. What can I do? She’s in her forties, now, but she struggled with depression in her twenties and this current bout has been going on for 5 years. Her doctor and therapist are really committed to her, but it seems like she doesn’t care, like she enjoys being miserable. Sometimes I feel like I’m spiraling down with her, but I’m not going to give up. If I just stand by, she seems to just sink lower, but I can’t leave, because she’s said that the kids and I are the only reason she’s still alive.
If you’re like most married people, you become dependent on your spouse for a positive response, no matter how independent you are as an individual. You married her because you respect her opinion and take pleasure in her approval. You make her happy, everyone feels good. You see the problem here.
So it’s normal to feel bitterly disappointed and deflated when depression turns her into a grouchy, nasty, unappreciative, unaffectionate black hole who threatens suicide if you criticize her and never does her share.
It’s not just the lack of approval from her that’s bothering you, it’s the overabundance of disapproval, of you and everything else. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 7, 2011
Frequent readers of this site know that, when confronted by a crazy person, (or asshole ™), one should react the same way they would if they were getting charged by a Grizzly bear; don’t run, stay calm, and play dead. This is hard advice to follow when that crazy person is someone close to you whom you care about and normally count on to be sane, but if you take their symptoms personally and react to those symptoms with strong emotions, they’ll come at you harder than they would some stranger on the street/in the woods. With some people, the illness consists of surges of fear, anger, and despair that cast them and you in leading roles in a suicide-bomber psychodrama; with others, the fear is more centered in thoughts than feelings, which means less drama and less spite, but more crazy ideas that can’t be reasoned away. Either way, the challenge is to remember the difference between the person you love and the craziness going on, make no sudden movements, and wait for the attack to pass.
–Dr. Lastname
When my wife is feeling fine, she’s a reasonable, hard-working, dedicated woman who believes in helping others, but then she gets into this grim, obsessed mood and knocks herself out and then gets mad about how people don’t respect or appreciate her and she just doesn’t care any more. Yesterday, she told the boss she didn’t care if he fired her, because she didn’t care. If he fired her, it would damage a career she really cares about and, besides, we need the money, but when I tried to tell her she needed to shut up, she told me she didn’t care about our marriage or about living any longer, particularly if I didn’t support her. What do I do to stop her from hurting herself?
As we’ve said before, there are a lot of people out there who either don’t believe in mental illness, or do believe it exists but don’t really understand what it is. The former usually believe in Xenu, the latter are baffled by “Hoarders.”
Either way, the easiest way to explain mental illness to those types is to describe the disease as a demon, and yes, it’s a sad fact that people are quicker to understand satanic possession over an actual illness, but such is the biz. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 3, 2011
When people who look smart and capable perform poorly, we assume they can do better, and if we can only bless that co-worker/child/local sports team with more encouragement, they’ll be able to come out on top. Trouble is, many of the obstacles to good performance are big, bad, and beyond our understanding, and that’s when a “can-do” attitude becomes a burden and a curse to those who look so capable but are actually “can’t-don’t”s. So, when encouragement becomes discouraging, keep your positivity up, just lower your expectations.
–Dr. Lastname
Is the habit of procrastination a reality that cannot be changed, or not? I often find myself procrastinating so long that something I feel I want to do or should be doing is no longer possible to do. Then I feel terrible about myself and berate myself. Should I give up those dreams/things I want to do or should I plug on and do the best I can, hoping that I can overcome procrastination enough to actually accomplish a few things?
Berating yourself whenever any bad habit gets the better of you can make you feel weak, angry, hopeless, etc. The one thing it can’t do is make that habit go away.
On the plus side, your frustration shows that you care about doing better, but self-blame leaves you feeling weak, angry, hopeless, etc., which makes it harder for you to get out of your chair and start catching up.
While logic dictates that finding the source of a problem will lead you to the solution, trying to find out why you procrastinate doesn’t usually help. For one (deliciously ironic) thing, it gives you a reason to avoid doing what you need to do. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 31, 2011
Every asshole is a pain in the ass, but not every pain in the ass is an asshole, and sometimes, a pain in the ass is better than the alternative. In other (less ass-centric) words, don’t write someone off without a fair evaluation, and don’t hang on to someone who’s all pain, no gain. Deciding that you’ve got your own reasons for putting up with pain is what shields you from humiliation, defeat, and, well, assholes.
–Dr. Lastname
I cannot accept the fact that my boyfriend looks at porn and it’s a specific kind (hentai and very tall women). For some reason, for it to be a certain type for some reason hurts me more. I grew up looking at porn and still do off and on, so I guess I am hypocritical about this whole situation. My therapist thinks I am madder at myself than him. He feels ashamed about it and said he will discontinue, but unfortunately, if he stops or not, I will still feel the same way which is not good enough for him. Am I a terrible person for having such double standards? I want to achieve self-worthiness, take things less seriously, and confront jealousy in a productive, less destructive manner, but my compulsive thoughts get the best of me. Your advice would be of great value to me.
I’m not sure which is likely to cause you more trouble: the impact of your boyfriend’s porn-watching on your feelings and the chemistry that holds your relationship together, or what his attachment to porn says about his character and ability to be a good partner.
In other words, he could be an asshole, or he could just like to look at animated ass. Figuring this out maybe be a very tall order (pun definitely intended). WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 27, 2011
Intimate feelings should be a side-effect of relationships, not the other way around. When that intimacy becomes an end in itself, you forget, not just the other reasons why you’re spending time with someone, but the other things you need to be doing for yourself, your job, and the other people in your life. So the opposite of a strong attachment isn’t necessarily to break away, but to regain your sense of who you are and what you value the most, whether or not you’ve come down with a chronic partnership.
–Dr. Lastname
Approximately three years ago I realized my psychiatrist preferred other patients and liked other patients more than me. That realization was incredibly devastating to me. I want to deal with this reality, however, my psychiatrist keeps denying this is the reality and will not openly admit he does indeed prefer other patients. Part of me that hopes (wishes) this truly is not the reality (him preferring other patients) and I TRY to believe that what he says is the reality! However, I simply can’t believe him. I have told him I can’t believe something that I think isn’t true. Even though he has helped me immensely in many ways, and I’m extremely attached to him, I have lost trust, confidence and faith in my psychiatrist over this issue. I think he is preventing me from having the opportunity to deal with reality by denying he prefers other patients. I have a need to hear him say, “Yes I do prefer other patients and your observations/perceptions about this have been accurate.” I think if I hear him say these words I could actually work to deal with it. Since he’s obviously not prepared to say this, MY GOAL is to somehow “detach” from him, stop therapy with him and move on and forget about it.
When you do therapy right, a shrink is like a thesis advisor, helping you explore the toughest issues in your life until your work is complete.
If you lean on therapy too much, however (sometimes through no choice of your own), a shrink is a crutch, which makes deciding when and how to end therapy much more complicated. Remove the cast too early, and you still can’t walk on your own. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 24, 2011
We’ve talked before about the myth of “help;” how applying the mantra “you need help” to everyone and anyone with problems isn’t always the right thing, whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of this recommendation. After all, just because someone begs you to get help doesn’t mean that you need it, and just because someone begs you for help doesn’t mean it will do them any good or be worth it. Forget feelings of disloyalty, use your own judgment, and remember, most of the time, the most helpful response to people who want you to be involved in help-giving or help-taking is to let them know when help isn’t the answer.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m a 22-year-old who is coming out of a pretty rough emotional patch. I got into a bad habit of leaning on a male friend, being a complete needy, co-dependent mess with a guy who is a pretty heavy drinker and, you guessed it, a needy, co-dependent mess. Well. Now I’ve sobered up and tried to develop some space between us, and he’s not taking it well. He drunk-dials me at least once a week, and leaves these crazy, rambling, needy voicemails. (I moved away a while back, and he keeps pushing me to make plans to meet up.) I basically want to cut him out of my life altogether, because I really think he’s bad for me. But he was there for me—albeit in a f*cked up way—when I was a mess. Does dropping him make me a bitch?
There are two sides to every sin; for example, murder is evil while manslaughter is just really unfortunate. The same is true for good deeds, and fidelity, while less deadly (hopefully), works much the same way.
There’s a bad kind of fidelity based on feelings and a good one based on what you think is right. The bad one is a gut-level sense of obligation you feel towards anyone you’ve shared a bed or bread or booze with, who cries out to you in need and expects you to respond. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
