Posted by fxckfeelings on May 1, 2014
Unlike most pay-cable drama series, old relationships can often be best judged by how they end; bad relationships tend to leave you with lingering attachment and confusion, and good relationships can leave you feeling so free, you might even wonder whether you cared enough in the first place. Of course, what matters most is not whether a relationship leaves you feeling fettered or free, but what you did with it and how you carry it forward into the future. You might never get over how your relationship/Dexter ended, but if you look at your relationships in terms of effort, value, and achievement, instead of feelings alone, you will have no trouble finding positive meaning in what happens next.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m scared about trusting again. I met my now ex through a friend last year and the attraction was instant. When we met he was up front that he would be going traveling six months later for an indefinite period, but this was fine with me as I understand the need to travel. It was the easiest relationship either of us had been in, it just worked. At first, he changed his trip to come back every couple of months for some weddings, so we thought we would try long distance to see if it could work. Then, unexpectedly, he breaks up with me because he said he doesn’t love me and feels he should be madly in love with me by now. He also says he’s never been in love before (the butterflies in the stomach kind which I tried to explain wasn’t love but initial lust) even after being in long term relationships. I went through his phone and turns out he met someone while volunteering. the fact that he has left me for someone else and could replace me so quickly has crushed me. I feel betrayed but mostly feel so insignificant. My thoughts have become obsessive over it. My goal is to stop how feeling so horrible about myself.
When the one thing you and your beloved have in common is a belief in the power of close chemistry, you know you’re in trouble; that’s like having a relationship based on the fact that you’re currently sharing an elevator or a common cold. Don’t start planning your jubilee anniversary just yet.
Unfortunately, getting along quickly, easily, and intimately with a lover is never a good guarantee of anything other than that he’s someone with real sales potential.
The fact he intended to travel for a long, unlimited period of time and isn’t in his early 20s (I assume) also tells you that he values excitement over commitment, and the most exciting things in most long-term relationships is figuring out what to have for dinner.
Ask yourself how thoroughly you completed a due diligence character review before deciding he was a wonderful partner. You should have checked out his prior relationships and how they ended, as well as what he wanted to do with himself when he came home and whether he wanted a partner to do it with. It would be interesting to know how big a nest-egg he was using and how he planned to replenish it. These questions may not build romance or make good love songs, but they sure predict how things will turn out.
You were right to suspect that the value he places on good company might allow him to replace you pretty quickly, and probably before you knew you were history. Since friendship is all about having a good time together, there wouldn’t be much point in his continuing the relationship since you, clearly, were no longer having a good time or likely to be good company.
You’re absolutely right, you deserve someone who believes that you, and a relationship with you, is important. What you must screen out are people who feel that you’re important as long as you’re pretty, charming, and/or fun, and not for deeper reasons. You didn’t get dumped because you’re insignificant but because you didn’t make this distinction and protect yourself properly.
Let your pain teach you a good lesson, namely that it’s important to put a higher value on your definition of a serious relationship, and not to give your heart to someone who doesn’t take relationships as seriously as you do.
Hopefully, they’ll also be fun, at least some of the time, and enjoy traveling, but whether they are or not, you may someday find yourself thanking your ex, the wandering schmuck, for helping you learn what’s important to look for and hopefully for finding the real, not-temporary thing.
STATEMENT:
“I feel like I’m disposable to someone who seemed to think I was wonderful, but I know I did nothing wrong to lose his love. I may feel like shit, but I’ll accept my lesson in how to make better choices.”
I grew up with my wife, so we knew each other for most of our lives. We got married right after high school and were especially close when she died last year, so it seems very strange when a day goes by and I actually find myself having a good time. The kids give me a funny look when they see me smile, as if they can’t understand why I’m happy. Of course I miss her and often talk to her, but she was dying for two years and, now that it’s over, I can feel life getting easier and simpler. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m avoiding grief, or if I cared as much as I thought I did. My goal is to respect and value the most important relationship I had.
One thing you understand better than your kids is that a relationship is better defined by actions than feelings. It’s not that you didn’t have loving feelings for your late wife, but you’re also proud of the way you cared for her during her illness while also raising kids together. Without that actual achievement, loving feelings wouldn’t have meant nearly as much.
So don’t measure your love by how passionately distraught you are now that she’s gone; rely on your own experience and wisdom to define what’s meaningful about your love. It sounds like you could rely on one another and that you shared a dedication to the kids and one another’s lives and concerns for years. The way she lives in your heart is more important than the depth of your sorrow. Help the kids value what they shared with her, rather than dwelling on what they missed out on. Pain causes us to think about what we could or should have done or what might have made things better, so instead, lead them to think about the difference she made in their lives and the ways they helped her get through her illness.
If you feel more vulnerable and in need of support, be careful to find the right kind. Find a positive therapist or hang out with friends who are good at reminding you that your strength did not depend on your wife, and that you can find ways to keep your family life steady and manage loneliness as a surviving, single spouse without requiring an immediate partner.
A good marriage doesn’t leave a void that has to be filled or a grief that is more unbearable. It leaves you, in this case, with a strong family and confidence in your ability to keep it running the way you and your wife believed it should be. You know the advice she’d probably give you; to not make up criticism you don’t deserve while you get on with life and see how well you can manage the family on your own.
STATEMENT:
“I feel like the world should never be the same after the loss of my wife, and it isn’t, but we worked to build a world together, so if it seems, in some way, to continue on unchanged, that’s partly our doing and what I’ll continue to do until something better comes along.”
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 24, 2014
A reputation, good or bad, can go very quickly from being about you to being a part of you; it doesn’t matter if you’ve grown out of it or never grew into it in the first place, getting rid of a reputation is about as easy as removing a limb. Regardless of how unfair or painful your reputation and the lack of acceptance that it can bring, your goal isn’t to retaliate and allow it to direct your life, but to stick to your own moral standards. Your reputation may stay connected to you, but your actions always matter more.
–Dr. Lastname
Although our family therapist did his best and our marriage survived, my husband never got over his suspicions and jealousy. It’s true I was abusing pain pills five years ago after our son was a newborn and I feel very guilty about that, but I’ve done everything possible to make it right. Even though I went through rehab and get my urine tested regularly, my husband still isn’t sure I can be trusted. That means he won’t leave me alone with our kid, and when he is there, he’s always resentful and critical, so he’s hell to be around. My goal would be to get through to him if I could but, if not, it’s to split up without losing access to our son.
Trust and sobriety have a lot in common; both can be regained after a lapse, but only with a lot of hard work, patience, and dedication. Unless your husband is as successful at rebuilding his faith in you as you have been at staying sober, the strength of your recovery will beat that of your marriage.
Unfortunately, something’s snapped in his brain that just doesn’t allow him to trust you. If you felt his opinion was the most important thing in the world, his lack of trust could well throw you into relapse, but luckily you have the strength to see it as his problem, not yours. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
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 April 7, 2014
Love and/or laughter might be so-called universal languages, but they still require some sort of verbal communication. Hate and criticism, on the other hand, must be intergalactic languages, because, in couples especially, someone can be ripped to shreds without anyone saying a word. In any case, whether you express them openly and verbally or just quietly roll your eyes, negative feelings have a way of chain-reacting in a marriage. Few good marriages don’t have at least a bit of it, but too much can be explosive, especially when two emotional people are expressive at the same time. So, whether your spontaneous criticism is loud or quiet, try to balance it with some of that universally spoken love through deliberate praise and appreciation. That’s why most good marriages are not just a reflection of spontaneous loving chemistry, but also hard work and carefully chosen words of all kinds.
–Dr. Lastname
My wife and I spent years running our own restaurant and, though we both have strong opinions, we usually worked together pretty well. Recently, however, we got bought out by a larger restaurant group and hired by them as consultants to start a new place from scratch. The problem is, I just don’t like her vision of how it should be done, from the location to the menu. I think my own format is more exciting, cheaper, and easier to do, but she doesn’t agree. I’m afraid her plan will cost too much and get us into trouble. My goal is to get her to see the flaws in her plan before it’s too late and we lose everything we’ve worked for.
There are lots of decisions, small and large, that go into putting together a new restaurant—the color of the napkins, the cuisine, the shape of the forks—but before you make any more choices involving fusion or flatwear, you must decide what’s more important: your marriage or your vision for the restaurant.
Of course, if you and your wife are still talking after having worked closely together for years, you might think it’s easy to have both, but then you have to remember that two people with strong tastes and opinions, faced with an open opportunity to create their dream restaurant, may have a hard time finding middle ground.
So face the worst-case scenario of not reaching agreement on your dream restaurant and having to accept a plan B that is less satisfactory to your standards, but more satisfactory to your vows. 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 20, 2014
Families have the magical ability to hide their contempt in plain sight or, sometimes, create the illusion that that their torment doesn’t really exist. No matter what type of nasty sorcery your family works on you, don’t fight it ineffectually by rebelling or getting angry. First figure out what you think is right, then, when you have sufficient conviction on which to ground your courage, draw a line without allowing yourself to be drawn into a fight, and shazam, the spell is broken.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband knows his family is full of overbearing jerks, beginning with his father, but he has a strong sense of duty and wants our kids to know their cousins. So, for a long time, we spent long holidays with his father and sibs, but after a few years my husband agreed that it would be best for me to opt out because they were especially nasty to me and I couldn’t see any point to putting up with it except during special family events. The strange thing is that my husband still spends quite a bit of time with them, even though they’re pretty sarcastic and critical with him, and then he comes home worn out and grumpy. I wonder if he spends more time there than is good for him, but he treats my concerns as if I just want him to take my side against his family. My goal is to get him to see that I don’t want him to support me against his family, just to own up to the fact that his family possibly isn’t that nice to anyone and he spends more time than is healthy.
Whether you wish to comment about a husband’s overinvestment in anything from booze to his bracket to, yes, social time with an overbearing family, you can’t tell him what to do without becoming an overbearing wife who “hates” his dad. And while you may indeed dislike his father, that’s not your point.
You don’t want your relationship with or opinion of his family mediated or commented upon, because the issue concerns his relationship with them, and you wish he would take your concerns seriously rather than treating them as a personal emotional problem, a challenge to his loyalty, or a general rattling of the chain the he imagines connects you to his ankle. 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 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 »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 17, 2014
Marriage requires a lot of sacrifice, and while surrendering some independence and half your Netflix subscription fees are worth it, the ability to keep strong emotional reactions from screwing up rational judgment is not. Sometimes, marital conflict will cause you to blame yourself unfairly, just to restore peace, and other times, you’ll blame your partner unfairly, to head off a situation that scares you. In any case, don’t forget that you can make an independent judgment without blaming or demeaning your spouse. Give yourself time, use normal business practices, and you’ll always find a positive way to discuss your differences and stand by both your vows and your own vision of what’s right and wrong.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband stormed out of our house last night because I just can’t seem to meet his needs or understand where he’s coming from. He’s needed more help lately because he hurt himself falling on the ice, and it’s hard for him to do the chores. I could make excuses for myself and tell you I have a full-time job and I try to be sympathetic, but obviously I’m not succeeding. My goal, if I could only achieve it, is to be better at understanding my husband and making him feel valued so he comes home.
Certain marital complaints are impossible to judge, the most common being that you sounded nasty or uncaring. Until a smartphone app is invented that will scientifically judge the negativity and/or offensiveness of a spouse’s tone of voice, this is a complaint about which no one can be objective.
Then again, in the absence of smartphones, there are always plain old smarts, which means creating standards of your own to compare his complaints with. 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 »
