Posted by fxckfeelings on April 28, 2014
Everybody knows that parenting is a tough job, but like any job, you do it because you have to, regardless of whether you feel like it (and when your children are toddlers and teens, you often feel like throwing them off a bridge). What fewer people know is that having parents is also a job, so no matter how much you feel like staying away or sticking permanently by their sides, you have to consult your basic principles and figure out what you need, not want, to do. Give weight to the time and energy a parent invested in the job of parenting you, even if they couldn’t do it well, and don’t make yourself responsible for pain you can’t ease. You may not be able to ration your time in a way that feels right, but you can always do it right by your standards, and do your job right, whether they did their job or not.
–Dr. Lastname
I was getting coffee with a friend recently and when it hit me—and it hits me quite often—that I am going to have to see my father in the very near future, and whenever it hits me, I have an anxiety attack. My relationship with my father is basically nonexistent…I don’t like him, how he behaves, or what he says because he always makes me feel bad about myself and always has, but I don’t hate him, I think? I don’t know if it’s my fault that I feel this way, because I’ve tried to have a good relationship (my parents split when I was very young), but maybe not hard enough. I just don’t like being around him or talking to him. Anyway, when I was getting coffee with my friend I was complaining about the fact that my dad is coming to visit me and she said I shouldn’t feel that way. She told me how one of her friend’s parents committed suicide and that I should feel lucky to have him, even though I don’t like him. When she told me this, I didn’t actually feel anything, and if he died, I don’t know if I would feel anything, either. I don’t know if I should try to make a better relationship with him and try to numb myself to his manipulative victimization or if I should just maintain this distance and feel like a jerk when I don’t reply to his texts.
Since you and your father seem to have unfinished (maybe unfinishable) business, try seeing your relationship through a business lens. It’s like a family lens in that it enhances positive engagement, but with extra filters to block out all the messy emotional stuff.
When you strip away the crazy feelings, you get to use the same approach as customer service; positive interactions that promote business-like behavior, within defined boundaries, no negatives allowed. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 14, 2014
Parent-child splits are the absolute worst kind of break-up because, even if you stay apart, the other person is always at the center of your physical and moral universe; you might not speak to your father anymore, but you can’t escape sharing his laugh, methods for problem-solving, and a feeling of responsibility for how he’s doing. So be careful before you get over-involved in attacking or defending yourself from strong parent-child emotions. Remember how much more important it is for you to be a good parent to your kid and a good kid to your parent. Then, if there’s a chance to do it, live up to your values. Your actions may not make you happy or give you relief, but they’ll always give you pride, because you did all you could to keep your family, and sanity, together.
–Dr. Lastname
My new husband insisted that we renovate the house I’ve lived in since my first marriage, in part because we need more space for the new baby, and in part because he didn’t like living in a house that was built by my ex-husband, who’s an architect. He’s being reasonable, and I’m grateful he’s paying for it, but I’m very nervous about how my fourteen-year-old son is going to react because he hates change and always acts as if I’m the one responsible for the break-up with his father. Now he’ll accuse me of destroying what remains of his childhood, and I’m afraid he’ll go live with his father and stop visitation, so my goal is to figure out how to tell him we’re about to renovate without driving him away.
You’re worried that your son’s reaction to your remarriage, renovation, and new family will be unreasonably infantile. Unlike an infant, however, he can more than just roll away from you; with additional support from you ex, he can cut you off forever. Humans grow out of a lot of things—teething, pants-pooping, random boners—but, unfortunately, tantrums can be eternal.
You certainly don’t want to pick a fight with your son, but you also can’t let yourself be blackmailed by a burst of anger. The good news is that, although he is too old to be threatened with a time out, good, plain speech can teach him some important lessons about being an adult without driving him away or discouraging him from coming back. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 10, 2014
Family members can push us harder than anyone or anything else, probably because the family tree literally roots us in place so we can’t escape. Sometimes you seethe while you suffer, and sometimes worry while you do rescue work. In either case, you can’t gain freedom without shaking up the branches and the way you think about them. Once you ask yourself how much good you can really do, either by fighting or protecting, you’re well on the way to managing your feelings and finding the strength to branch off on your own.
–Dr. Lastname
I have returned to a very personal habit that I have never admitted to a counselor since I worry about what they might think. To calm myself, I daydream about getting my hands around my ex-husband’s throat and not letting go. The more detail and the more I replay the scene in my head, the calmer and happier I feel. In reality, my ex-husband is a gold medal, abusive Asshole who always wins, but our sons are teenagers who seem able to stand up to what they regard as verbal abuse and bullying and they’ve been telling a family counselor about it. Meanwhile, my life has been going well and I have a nice boyfriend. I’m not a violent person and my ex is in no danger from me. My goal is to find a new, less violent coping strategy that will promote calm, healthy thoughts and reduce my anger and frustration.
Fantasy can be a powerful tool; it’s what fuels imagination, keeps our spirits up in dark times, and makes LARPing possible. It lets us escape the everyday and find freedom, even if it’s only in our heads. Unless, however, it’s a strangle-the-bastard fantasy like yours, which keeps you bound both to your ex and the fear and anger he inspires.
You probably felt weak when you were married to your ex, partly because of his bullying manner and worry about the kids, but getting yourself away from him made you strong. You left him, moved on, and provided the kids with a stable foundation that apparently gives them good perspective on his nastiness. You liberated yourself in a very real sense. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 3, 2014
As we’ve said before, if you’re not careful, money can be kryptonite to family, or it can be concrete, driving relatives apart or keeping them closer together. That’s why you have to try to keep cash out of the big picture, because there are always good reasons for maintaining family relationships, regardless of financial grievances, and good reasons for encouraging independence, regardless of how money and affection may promote dependence. Develop and heed your own ideas about the proper distance to maintain in close family relationships, then impose those ideas regardless of the push and/or pull of financial pressures.
–Dr. Lastname
My brother was never a warm person, and people warned me he could be unscrupulous, but we were both brought up to put family first. That’s why I was shocked when my brother manipulated our dying, demented father to leave him everything in his will. Everyone was shocked, not just because I got along well with my father, but because I still had school loans (my brother dropped out of high school), not to mention hospital bills from my wife’s illness. Needless to say, my brother was not interested in sharing the inheritance, so we didn’t talk often after that. Now that we’re both growing old and he’s my only family, I find it harder to avoid his emails and calls. My goal is to follow through on the best side of my inheritance, which is to value family, and try to be closer to my brother, though I can’t really like or trust him.
While your brother got the money and you didn’t, it still sounds like you lucked out in terms of family inheritance; you were left good values and a decent personality, and he got the gene for being a natural-born Asshole™.
If he is, indeed, an Asshole™ in the technical sense, he would see himself as deserving of whatever he could persuade your father to cough up, and you as petty, vengeful, and wrong. It’s just the Asshole™ way.
Part of you knows this, which is why you chose to cut him off rather than engage him; you understand how any mention of what he did or why he did it will probably elicit angry justifications that you don’t want to hear or respond to, and won’t bring you any closer to getting money, justice, or anything but a headache. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 31, 2014
Sometimes those who are responsible for nurturing others don’t know how to crack the whip, and those who are responsible for whipping people into shape don’t know to drop the whip because they’ve cracked a little themselves. In any case, before you wield any weapon or argument, know where your responsibilities end and others’ begin. Once you know those boundaries, you’ll have no guilt about expecting others to do their job or letting yourself off the hook for jobs that aren’t yours, and find that you’ve whipped your priorities into shape.
–Dr. Lastname
I know my husband can’t help being mentally ill with depression and I think it’s important for family to stick together, particularly for the kids, but the latest crap he and my son are pulling is driving me crazy. While my husband was driving my son to work (my husband never works, which is another story), they get into a terrible fight over nothing (not unusual, they both have bad tempers). My son then grabs the wheel, so my husband, convinced our son was trying to kill him, has our son arrested without telling me. Now, remember, my son is the one who is working and doesn’t get into trouble, and my husband is the guy who does nothing but see his doctor and sit on the couch watching TV, but if I tell him he’s caused us a lot of trouble and expense that we can’t deal with and that he should have spoken to me first before going to the police, he’ll tell me I don’t know how to set limits on our son, and I just don’t want to hear it. I’m ready to kill both of them, particularly my husband, but before I do that I have to figure out whether my son will need a lawyer and how we’re going to afford it. My goal is to figure out how to survive with such a crazy, fucked-up family.
There’s a sort of physics to marriage; with every aggressive, crazy (or morbidly obese, or nasty) partner there is an equally sane, passive (or stick thin, or sweet) partner. While congrats are in order for being the sane one, the passive part means you seem too willing to accept helplessness than to consider your options.
No, you can’t change your husband or persuade him to work, think or consult you before he acts, or control his temper, but you have the power that accrues to functional, responsible people over time. If you learn to use it, the laws of science won’t be disrupted, and nobody will have to call the law itself. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 27, 2014
Anxiety and depression can act like funhouse mirrors, distorting your thoughts and making it hard to perceive the benefits and obligations of social relationships. Some people can’t say no to social responsibility, no matter how unreasonable, and some people can’t say yes to it, even when it’s minimal. Regardless of the distortions that make you over- or under-embrace your social pleasures and responsibilities, use objective methods to figure out how much is good for you and how much is necessary. Then you can build a social life and discharge responsibilities without burning out or drying up, and substitute the funhouse for actual fun.
–Dr. Lastname
My elder brother was diagnosed with MS when he was in his 30s, and now he’s in a nursing home and a wheelchair. He’s given me his health care proxy and told me he was relying on me, calling me five times a day and giving me a hard time if I don’t answer, so now my anxiety has gone through the roof. He’s always been a spoiled brat and now it’s worse. His health care is actually pretty good, and there are people and activities in the nursing home to keep him occupied, but he expects me to drive 100 miles to visit whenever he asks. I’ve always been the one everyone turns to for help, but now I go around with a knot in my stomach and desperately need to take more medication, even though I know it’s addictive and likely to make me fall. My goal is to find some way to relieve my anxiety that doesn’t kill me.
If you’re an anxious person, then there’s no substance in the world—pill, liquid, magic bean—that can make you suddenly be a not-anxious person. Especially if you continue to do things that feed your anxiety, like say yes to anyone who needs your help because you’re too anxious to say no.
Sadly, the things that currently give you immediate relief are A, making others happy, and B, medications, both of which have side effects. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 17, 2014
Everybody has a limit as to how much they can bear to differ and share with their partner; it’s just as difficult to be with someone who agrees with you too much as with someone with whom you can never see eye-to-eye, no matter what James Carville and Mary Matalin say. Distinguishing between acceptable and irreconcilable differences is tricky; some differences need not threaten a partnership, but it’s not good for either of you to stay together if one of you believes the other is bad and beyond redemption. So weigh everything you know about a person’s reliability and loyalty before deciding what to make of your ethical, religious, or cable news differences and your partnership.
–Dr. Lastname
I think my husband is much happier about our moving to a new town since he joined a local church, and I thought I’d feel welcome there too, but I was not pleased to hear that they recently expelled a woman from the congregation because she’s lesbian. My husband believes it was the wrong thing to do, but he loves the way the congregation makes him and others feel valued and at home, so he’s not about to let go of his new friends. I’ve objected publicly, and no one argues with me, but they treat me with kindly disagreement, making it clear I’m welcome even if I can’t understand where they come from. I still have trouble understanding how my husband can be OK with this under any circumstances when in my eyes it’s bigotry, plain and simple. My goal is to honor my principles while not letting the church come between me and my husband.
Although there’s an apparent difference of principle standing between you and your husband, you have no reason to doubt his honesty, fidelity, or any other character issue that would interfere with his being a good partner. The difficulty is reconciling that with your new impression that he might not be a good person.
You’ve been together, I assume, for a number of years and have weathered storms, so you have good reason to respect him as a person and husband. You don’t expect his continued membership in a church that rejects gays and lesbians will make him less honest and supportive. He did not ask you to stifle your opinion, even though it differs from his, so weigh these considerations before you decide to reject him. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 10, 2014
If you think of your life as a rollercoaster—and there are plenty of inspirational posters that would like it if you did—than the downhill plunges will feel uncomfortable, scary, and inducing of barf. Whether you’re looking back on your best days or your worst decision, it’s hard not to fear the transitions and wonder what you did wrong to fall so profoundly, even when you’re not at fault. If, however, you accept your current low as a painful fact of life that hasn’t changed your values or basic priorities, then you need never feel like a failure and instead can take pride in enduring whatever life throws at you and still working hard. Then life will be less like a scary rollercoaster, and more like a steady old road.
–Dr. Lastname
I wish I could stop thinking about how I’ve ruined my life. I used to be comfortably well off and never worried about the food bill, basic repairs, or even taking a vacation. Then I had to make a major financial decision about my capital and decided to put it all into an investment that was a total bust. There’s no point in explaining everything that went wrong, but, by the time I got out of it, I was broke, and now, every time I thing about it, the bills I haven’t paid, or the phone calls from creditors I have to constantly ignore, I want to throw myself out a window. It was the biggest, stupidest mistake of my life, and I shouldn’t have believed any of the advisers who said it was a good risk. My goal is to stop being haunted by the feeling that my life is, or should be, over.
If you judge your actions by how they happen to turn out, then every bad luck turd that comes your way is a personal failure, including: getting the flu (you were too stupid to get a shot!); getting laid off (too foolish to prepare for the recession); and getting hit by a meteor (too busy watching “Real Housewives” to buy a telescope).
In a fair world, where everything is safe and predictable, you’d be right, but in this world, you’re just being mean to yourself over something that probably couldn’t have been helped. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 6, 2014
The math of human instinct tells us that self + unfair victimization = a right to punish the person to blame, even if that person is a blood relative with the best of intentions. In a fair world, the justice equation would check out, but in this one, the person who appears responsible often had no choice, and just happened to be a conduit for life’s random misery. So whether you’re a blamed parent who is helpless to stop your kid from hitting and running, or a blamed child who can’t escape unfair punishment, judge yourself carefully and fairly. Then, instead of fighting for justice, stand up for what you believe while waiting for blame to fizzle and an equation that adds up.
–Dr. Lastname
My fifteen-year-old daughter, whom I used to be close to, was always a sensitive, over-reactive kid. I was still shocked and hurt, however, when she suddenly spoke up, in the midst of her first visit with me and my new husband, to say to him, “Who the fuck are you?” She stopped talking to me for a year after I left her father, but eventually relented and then we started spending regular time together (though he has full custody, and I get weekend visitation). Now that she’s insulted my husband, however, I don’t know what to say— to not talk like that to her stepfather? To go to her room until she’s ready to behave? My goal is to figure out what to say that will address the nastiness and inappropriateness of her speech and let her know she can’t treat my husband with disrespect.
As hard as reality TV tries to find us the Cesar Milan of adolescent girls, as of yet, there is no such person as the “Teen Whisperer.” The closet thing we have is that woman on “Dance Moms,” and she’s really just an all-purpose bellower.
The reason no such teen expert exists, on TV or off, is because there is nothing you can say, in any volume, that will persuade your daughter to behave better. You have little influence and she wants you to be angry and hurt, so, as with any breach of the law anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of teen self-entitlement. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 3, 2014
Most crises, be they familial or international, involve so many moving parts and wildcard personalities that any one person’s power to keep the peace is limited. That’s why, no matter what the family crisis, or whether it’s in the development or fall out stage, don’t make yourself too responsible for running clean up and sustaining or restoring family peace. If you do, you’ll probably fail, because assuming too much responsibility will just make you mad and wind up adding to the conflict. So, instead of trying to save the day/family name from your own personal Putin, give thought to what you actually control and, within that limit, do what a good person should do for his/her family. You will seldom help your family as much as you’d wish, but you’ll come away satisfied that you did your part in the rescue effort and can ignore the rest.
–Dr. Lastname
I get along OK with my sister, but she’s always been socially retarded with a special ability to always say the wrong thing. She’s been a visiting professor abroad for the last year, but she’s back in this country on a sabbatical, where she’s spent most of her time with a guy down south whom she met online, and I don’t much like. Now she suddenly wants to come up to visit me, but she chose the weekend I was going to hang out with my younger brother, whom I also rarely get to see. Plus, I know my brother had something he wanted to talk over, and I hate the old feeling of having my sister come by when she wants to, leaving me with no choice, though she’s been in the country for a month with some sketchy jerk in Florida. My parents want me to see her because they hate the idea of our family not spending time with one another and they don’t want her feelings to get hurt. My goal is to figure out what to do with her that will satisfy family obligations without ruining my time with my brother, whom I want to see, and he has things to say I want to hear.
You may think your sister is socially retarded, but she has some serious skills if she’s able to create, for you, a good ol’ emotional perfect storm; she’s managed to make you feel angry, guilty for feeling angry, and angry for feeling guilty, all at once. If anything, she’s an anti-social savant.
The path out of the storm, of course, is to think hard about your own standards for deciding what’s right, rather than stewing on how various people are going to feel, including yourself. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
