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 17, 2014
Timing isn’t just a crucial factor in comedy and decent microwaved popcorn, but also in finding relationships, especially when you’re reentering the dating scene after a long absence. Some people decide they shouldn’t try again because they got hurt, and some that they should just to relieve loneliness. In truth, however, some hurt people have good reasons to keep dating and some lonely people are likely to get into trouble if they try it. So don’t let feelings guide your dating decisions. The most important thing to consider when timing your return is whether dating is worth doing and whether you have the skills to manage the risks. Then, whether it works out or not, you’ll know you made the right decision, and you’ll know when the time is right.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m in my early 50s, and newly widowed after my husband’s extended illness. I’ve been lonely for a long time, he had Alzheimer’s and was like a child for many years. Recently, I joined a dating site and met a number of men. In the last three months, I’ve had eight sexual partners. I decided to get testing done for STDs and found out that I have hepatitis B. I ‘m not really sure whom I contracted it from, and not sure if that matters. I have advised all of my partners of my diagnosis. My question is, how do I go on from here? I’m scared of what this diagnosis means, and embarrassed to be in this situation. I can’t tell my family or friends because they would be appalled that I was having casual sex, and a couple of my partners have been nasty and threatening. I had hoped to eventually pursue a healthy long-term relationship, but now I feel dirty and like damaged goods.
To endure a husband’s suffering and early death from Alzheimer’s is a major achievement, at least to anyone who knows how hard it is to watch someone slip away bit by bit and not be able to mourn him or move on because he’s not yet gone. It’s a harrowing experience that would leave anyone struggling to find her footing.
Whatever other feelings your brain may throw your way, or however you explore your post-married life, you deserve to feel pride. 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 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 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 24, 2014
Maybe it’s the eternal bond that makes it hard to walk away from a conflict and impossible not to start a fight in the first place, but when you throw down with family over a fundamental disagreement, it’s almost impossible not to be either beaten down or drawn into a fight. So, regardless of how uneasy it makes you or how much you want to get into it, learn how to stop talking, politely, when you feel further conversation will do you no good. You may be condemned for doing so, but only by others in the clan; the only thing you’ll be condemning yourself for is getting into it in the first place.
–Dr. Lastname
My parents know my brother and I both have bipolar illness, and they’ve seen how stable I am on my medication. My brother, on the other hand, pretends he doesn’t really have it and refuses to take medication. Then, when he gets hospitalized, they don’t disagree with him when he blames it all on stress and bad marijuana. After his last admission, I wrote him a letter begging him to do what I do and be careful about taking his meds and getting enough sleep. His response was to tell me he resented being called bipolar, and tell our parents that he resented me, period, and now they want us all to meet so I can explain to him I didn’t really mean it. I’ve had it with all of them. My goal is to not have to deal with him, his illness, or my parents’ co-dependence, ever again.
In many ways, your brother is like the princess that needs saving at the end of a video game; both you and your parents have set out to win and free him, but you’re all stuck on different levels for different reasons, all equally unlikely to get to him anytime soon. As games go, it’s not exactly a bestseller.
Unlike most Nintendo princessi, however, your brother is not passive and helpless, but he’s fighting to stay unsaved, mostly because he doesn’t actually acknowledge he needs saving. Despite all the levels of difficulty that come with this specific quest, that doesn’t mean you should get fed up and walk away.
Certainly, you have a right to be angry, but your feelings are relatively unimportant compared to your desire to help your brother if possible, while staying out of conflict. So don’t get beaten down and don’t get drawn into a fight. Keep your mind on the goal and your ass in the game. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
