Posted by fxckfeelings on April 21, 2014
We’re all familiar with the ol’ break-up mantra, “it’s not you, it’s me,” which can also apply when you’re having repeated issues with a loved one. Sometimes, however, it’s worth considering whether it’s not you, but them; sure, sometimes there’s nothing wrong in a relationship other than the feelings they leave you with, but other people who look normal have subtle problems that can’t be changed. Instead of responding to your instincts about normality, weirdness, and responsibility, learn to accept your observations, discount your feelings, and think hard about where you think things need to go. Then you’re much more likely to come up with action or non-action plans that will best serve your needs, and turn them and you into a more functional “us.”
–Dr. Lastname
My ten-year-old daughter is sloppy about her homework, but I don’t let her watch TV until she’s done it properly, so it’s past her bedtime so she never gets to watch her programs and she’s mad at me. At that point I’m mad at her, because I don’t like being the evil mother and she could easily do her homework in a fraction of the time if she was just a little more careful in the first place. Her teachers also say she blurts out answers before she thinks and makes herself look foolish. My goal is to get her to take care with her homework and get it done properly the first time, so we don’t have to struggle through the rest of the evening.
Both you and your daughter seem dedicated to getting through this homework situation, as evidenced by the fact that you’ve both made the ultimate sacrifice; you’ve given up your precious evening relaxation hours, and she’s given up prime time television.
What you need to ask yourself, however, is whether her sloppiness and foot-dragging are due to low motivation and stubbornness or a glitch in the way she learns new information, because your sacrifices—your time on the couch with wine, her “Vampire Diaries”—may be in vain if her brain doesn’t do homework well and she’s feeling like a failure. 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 February 3, 2014
Outside of the cold world of Facebook, friendships are not just about liking and/or disliking. They can also be good or bad for you and necessary or unnecessary for the real-life social network you’re trying to exist in. So don’t pass up on learning valuable lessons from friendships, be they strongly moved by feelings of kinship or personal dislike. You’ll discover how to be a good friendship manager as well as a good friend. And hopefully you’ll friend fxckfeelings.com on Facebook.
–Dr. Lastname
How do I treat friends who are selfish and self-absorbed? I know I can be self-absorbed, in fact I am right now, but I’m at the point where I just don’t know what to do or say anymore. One friend constantly complains about her life and when I try to help her, she just makes excuses and goes on complaining without ever asking how I am. She lives to have people feel sorry for her. Another is completely oblivious to other people, so when she does things that are hurtful, she doesn’t understand why so I end up just dropping the issue because I feel like there’s no point. I love them, but I feel like I just can’t anymore. I also feel like maybe I should be “killing them with kindness,” because I’ve always felt kindness was the answer, but now I’m out.
Unless they hire you as a tennis coach, personal trainer, or plastic surgeon, your job with friends isn’t to change or improve them, but accept them. That’s why there’s no pay and more time spent at bars than gyms.
Accepting them doesn’t require you to continue as friends, but it does mean that, whatever you decide, you take the whole package. If you find all your current friends basically unacceptable, you may gently dump them and take some time to catch up with your other friends, Netflix and books, while you take a more selective approach in finding new human companions. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 11, 2013
Many women think that having a friend turn on you is just a call for better communication, deep soul-searching, and improved understanding, but “turning” as acceptable behavior is reserved for werewolves and superheroes, not friends; anyone who turns on you is probably not a friend worth fighting for, and such reaching out usually causes more harm than good. Instead of hoping to find a TV-like misunderstanding, unknown secret identity, or even a way to even the score, learn to accept the fact that friendships are not always forever. Stay true to your standards for friendship and learn strength and better rules for admitting people (without supernatural powers or super-Asshole-like tendencies) into your inner circle.
–Dr. Lastname
Recently one of my best friends arranged a party with some of our mutual friends and purposely did not invite me and avoided my phone calls (which I only realized after). I feel like she’s just stuck her middle finger at me– she knew what she did, it wasn’t a mistake as she’s already tried to cover it up which is the part that hurt the most. We’ve been good friends for over 9 years and this is the first time anything like this has happened. I was in shock and have not been able to stop thinking about it and why she would do that. I take my few close friendships very seriously and the friends that I do have I spend time on and treat with respect. I would never treat her the way she treated me. I haven’t talked to her about the way I feel, and to be honest, I don’t even know what to say…knowing her she would blow it over and pretend it was nothing. She gossips a lot about her other friends and now I can’t help but now wonder what she says about me. I’m so angry right now that I don’t want to talk to her anyway and plan on not answering the phone if/when she calls, but I guess my goal is to figure out if I should just move on and focus on my other friendships or try to resolve this. I hate losing a friend but I can’t trust her now and even if there is a way to resolve this our friendship is already different/altered.
F*ck Feelings has always encouraged a pragmatic approach to romantic relationships, and while friendships don’t have the same bottom line that marriages do, they do have a purpose, even if it’s not as grand as raising healthy kids, making a happy home, peaceably sharing space on the DVR, etc.
It’s hard to consider the purpose of friendship in the midst of feeling hurt and betrayed by an old friend, but it’s useful, because friendship isn’t just for the good feelings of shared secrets, emotions, shoes, etc.
It also connects you in complicated ways to family and community, so that an open falling-out with one friend, no matter how well justified, can cause unintended damage to other relationships, including ones that lie closer to your heart or are important to your ideals. For instance, confronting and losing this one friend may cause a domino effect, but instead of all the other connection friends falling down, they’ll all fall-out with you. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 4, 2013
I don’t know who wrote the book of love, but it appears to lack a solid ending; it may lead you through the rules of finding and loving someone, but it’s useless when it comes to telling you how to break up a bad relationship, or even friendship, with someone you simply can’t stop thinking about. While it has been written that you can’t control love, there should at least be an appendix directing you to respect how much toughness love takes, and how much pain you’ll have to bear, in order to move on. Then you would know how to take what you’ve learned from the failed relationship to find someone and make something better, and return to chapter one.
–Dr. Lastname
I have recently let go of a friendship with a narcissist. She meets the standard criteria for being a narcissist and has a Bi-Polar 2 disorder confirmed by a therapist, but it seems I was the last to realize as I was so incredibly caught up in her cycle of “needing” me only to be treated appallingly in between. I am finally in a happy place in my life after a lot of work and therapy and haven’t been able to “help” her as much as I used to as I now have a fulfilling job and support network. She has lashed out at me and I had let go of the friendship, but now I am having types of flashbacks where I can finally see how badly I was treated over the years and I am so disappointed in myself that I put up with it. She has been trying to contact me but I have ignored her, as I read No Contact is best with a narcissist but part of me wants to tell her to get serious help but I know I won’t be heard. I am confused, hurt and feel like I have been living a friendship lie for over twenty years. Please help me to move on.
Though they say that madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, people who compulsively give of themselves to help others, no matter how hopeless the cause or ungrateful the recipient, tend to dodge that age-old observation and be seen less as insane and more as saints.
While you now recognize your former friend’s talent for taking without giving, you need to acknowledge your own help-aholic tendencies and how they got you into this mess in the first place. Otherwise, you might end up in a similar friendship, or worse, driven to try to get this person “serious help” one last time, and either way, it’s nuts. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 28, 2013
Between the scary finality of a legally binding union and the hysteria and excess that go into most modern weddings, marriage often creates a vortex of expectations, chaos and terrible bridesmaid’s shoes that suck in unwilling and innocent bystanders and cause others to run away from the process entirely, even if they should be at the altar themselves. If you find yourself getting sucked into marital mayhem, ask yourself whether your relationship, be it to the bride or groom or as the bride or groom yourself, meets your definition of friendship or partnership, not just in terms of intense feelings but also actions over time. Then you can decide for yourself what and how much you want to commit, regardless of anyone’s expectations, and use that knowledge to either gather the strength to resist the pull of marital-mania or jump in with both feet.
–Dr. Lastname
My friend is getting married on my birthday, but my husband has planned to take me away for that weekend, so it’s created a bit of a dilemma that goes deeper than just the wedding. This friend is an old friend from school who was never particularly nice to me—in fact, she asked me to be bridesmaid, but then changed her mind. My husband says I don’t owe anything but I feel guilty for not being there in her big day. My husband emailed her saying we would miss the wedding and she responded by saying we’ve known the date for ages and can we change the dates. I would rather go away but how can I make peace with myself over the decision?
Given how many labels we’ve created for people with whom we have romantic relationships—partner, spouse, boy/girlfriend, “it’s complicated”—it’s frustrating that, when it comes to platonic, non-professional relationships, the only word out there seems to be “friend.”
Because of this, you can use “friend” to describe someone you talk to everyday, and someone you are merely linked with on the internet, and someone who treats you as poorly as the “friend” you describe.
So, even if she’s never been particularly nice to you and invited-then-disinvited you to be her bridesmaid, she might still technically fall under the definition of friend, but her behavior, not her title, should have you asking yourself why you’ve imposed on yourself the obligations of close friendship. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
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 April 9, 2012
One of the great mysteries in human thinking is why we think pointing out a rude person’s rude behavior will lead to improvement, instead of just elicit a (way more logical) rude response. So, instead of drawing a rude friend or co-worker’s attention to their bad-manners, decide whether your relationship, personal or professional, is worth sustaining in spite of their overbearing behavior. If it is, respond politely to whatever you think needs attention and refuse to talk about anything you think does not; you can be firm if you know what your own standards are, without having to defend or retaliate. If it’s not worth it, then feel free to sever ties (politely and with the utmost tact).
–Dr. Lastname
I have a long time friend who has OCD about feet and cleanliness. Her OCD is so bad that whenever she sees someone’s bare foot touch the ground, they have to immediately wash their feet before entering her house. She recently accused me of having smelly feet when I’m in her car wearing clean socks and boots during winter. In addition, when I got a little irritated with her accusation she said, “I’m only helping you out because someday you will meet a man and he won’t like your smelly feet.” I don’t think I have smelly feet and have not gotten complaints from former boyfriends about it, nor have my other friends or co-workers complained about smelly feet. How do I tell her she’s being rude and that her OCD is getting out of control?
Wondering how to correct a friend’s rude behavior was the topic of many letters sent to the late, great Dear Abby. That said, I’m not sure she would like my answer.
Back in those days, calling friends and family on their rude behavior was the way civilized people policed the quality of social civility, like telling kids on the bus to give up their seat to an elderly person and expecting they would bow to public judgment (and not give you the finger).
The trouble is, unsolicited advice, no matter how tactful and well intentioned, is often a hard sell, even when presented to adults that aren’t naturally rude. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 19, 2012
Sometimes, when you most need friendship, neediness messes it up. Maybe it’s a need for the wrong kind of person or for the wrong kinds of intimacy that are very satisfying in the short run and explode later. Ultimately, friendship isn’t the answer to your needs, but managing your needs will give you a good friendship.
–Dr. Lastname
I have always had a problem with keeping friendships because of moving too much, anxiety, and some other reasons. Almost every friend that has come into my life seems to be very needy and I tend to become anti-social when this happens. My current best friend has showed many signs of being very clingy and a bit controlling; she buys me things when she knows I am busy just so she can hang out with me, she calls me frequently even though she knows I dislike talking on the phone, she is demanding and apologetic at the same time. I am confused on what to do because she is always there for me and I can’t always be there for her. Lately, I have been having so much negative feelings about her that I don’t want to work on the relationship and this is exactly my problem—I lose people because I let my feelings get in the way. Maybe I am not finding the right people to hang out with? I mean we have so much in common, but that might be the problem because we both have severe anxiety and what we hate about life seems to be all we talk about, so it’s just negative energy most of the time. I will admit I am selfish and should be more thankful that I have someone that understands me and is there for me, but I guess I am too unhappy in my life and unhappy with myself to be appreciative of the goodness in others. It’s something I would like to work on, but I don’t even know where to begin.
Whatever draws people into relationships– neediness, sex, an encyclopedic knowledge of “Law & Order”—it isn’t necessarily good for you. When you’re operating on instinct, you stop thinking.
It sounds like you’ve got a good idea of what’s good for you, and it’s a friendship that discourages whining and encourages breathing room and independence. Nevertheless, you give in to the pull of your instinctive need for needy, whiny friends.
Once you give in, you’re stuck. You like the close attention and some of the intimacy, but you also don’t like the high demands and expectations, so you want to pull away. That leaves you guilty, lonely, and more in need of a needy friend. The shitty friendship cycle remains unbroken. 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 »
