Posted by fxckfeelings on October 11, 2010
Nobody wants to deny help to a loved one who needs it, but once the help is given, nobody wants to deal with the often messy aftermath. Your help may not get the grateful reaction you’d hoped for, or the help-ee may come back to you with a request for more assistance than you can possibly provide. In order to avoid the tense, nasty, Larry David-esque path that thoughtless generosity can put you on, decide first what you think is right to give, without letting your actions be dictated by neediness or a fear of what people will think or say when you say no. At fuckfeelings.com, we aren’t big on the benefits of helping, except when it’s truly appropriate, like right now, with this advice.
–Dr. Lastname
When my wife and I split up ten years ago, she got full custody of our son; she wanted to punish me, and after a long court battle, she came out victorious and I’ve tried to make the best with what little access I have. Since we split up when he was 8, my kid’s in college now, so he can see me if he wants to. The thing is, most of the times he gets in touch, it’s because he needs money. I talk it out with him and only really give when it doesn’t seem stupid (no, I’m not funding his desired giant flat screen), but when I talk about coming to visit, he’s always got a reason to say no. More and more, I feel like I’m being used. My goal is to see my son, and it’s also not to let him feel he can get away with using me.
Even without messy divorces, evil exes, and unfriendly court rulings, some parents find they can’t have a reasonable relationship with a selfish kid.
You might want to blame yourself for his behavior—that somehow your divorce and the ensuing custody fight corrupted him somehow—but whatever, he is who he is, whether nature or mal-nurture, and he’s not going to change anytime soon.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 7, 2010
The feeling of wanting to help someone you love is so strong, it often comes right around from helping to harming you both. Your drive to make that person’s life better can be so intense as to prevent you from seeing that you’re seeking to do the impossible and are actually headed for a head-on collision with the person you want to save. No matter how much you’d like to help, look for the limits on what’s possible and don’t let your emotions become the message or entrance to a vicious cycle.
–Dr. Lastname
I never know what to tell my sister who’s always asking my advice about some conflict she’s gotten herself into. She’s not really asking for advice, really, just giving me a long song-and-dance about how badly she was provoked before retaliating and saying something dumb and nasty. It’s always a situation which winds up with her looking and acting like a jerk, often with her own kids. She knows she’s made a mess of things, doesn’t hold a grudge, and can admit that her behavior stinks; but, under the pressure of the moment, she always make the same mistake again and then comes running to me for sympathy and advice. My goal is to help her get a grip before she loses her kids.
Some people are perfectly nice when they aren’t angry, and perfectly horrible when they are, and there’s no connection between the two. It’s like, if instead of turning big and green, becoming the Hulk made Bruce Banner a dickhead.
When the fog lifts, nice girl is sorry for the messes her angry half creates, and tries extra hard to be likeable to make up for it. Then again, however remorseful she is, there’s no change the next time around.
You know our professional terminology for people who act badly and it’s always the other guy’s fault: “asshole.” People assume that all assholes are obnoxious, when in fact, some are quite nice, and some are aware of their problem. You just wouldn’t like them when they’re mad.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 27, 2010
Defining what makes a marriage successful isn’t an easy task; for some, marital success is starting a family, or running a business, or just living under one roof without poisoning each other’s oatmeal. No matter what your definition of success, however, marriage is often painful, even when it’s doing you and others a lot of good, and even when you’re being a pretty good partner. So don’t buy into the idea that an unhappy marriage is necessarily a bad marriage or a sign that you’re failing or even that you made a bad decision. A marriage can feel crappy but still be fruitful, productive, and not lethal.
–Dr. Lastname
My partner and I have been running a successful restaurant together for almost ten years, and while it’s usually a smooth operation, he does this thing when we’re under pressure of interrupting whatever I’m doing whenever he needs help, as if what he’s doing is always more important. If I’m not too busy, it’s not a problem, but usually I am pretty busy since business is good, and I can’t drop everything to meet his needs. I try to explain to him why I have to finish what I’m doing and how he’s being unfair or throwing off my timing, but it never gets through, and he either sounds bossy or hurt or both, and it’s humiliating in front of our employees. I don’t think it will destroy our personal or professional partnership, but it drives me crazy and my goal is to get him to stop.
It’s safe to say that your partner wouldn’t come to you if he didn’t think his issues were extremely pressing, so good luck convincing him to stop bothering you about said issues. What you see as a petty problem, he sees as an international crisis.
So, according to him, his demands are necessary and fair, unlike your tone. If he’s believed that for ten years, he’s not going to stop now.
The one thing you may have a little more control of—though only a little—is your own sensitivity to his words. If you cook a dish at a different temperature, it makes a big difference.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 23, 2010
You can’t force people to love you, your partner, or your favorite Beatle, but as long as you’re sure you’ve made the right choice, you can learn to stand by your decision without getting drawn into a fight. Defending your choice or partner to your parents or your kids is harder than defending Ringo, so protect yourself from over-reaction with preparation, courage, and a disciplined determination to shut up. And maybe an open mind about Paul.
–Dr. Lastname
My parents have been on my case for years to find a new girl and settle down. I’m not a particularly social guy, so it took a lot of work/internet dating to find my fiancée, an amazing, down-to-earth woman who was worth all the effort. The only trouble is, I know they’re not going to be happy about the fact that she’s not Catholic. I’m barely Catholic myself—I was raised Catholic obviously, but haven’t been to church since high school—and since my fiancée doesn’t have a religious bone in her body, I’m not about to ask her to convert. Still, my parents are going to be unhappy, and I’m sure it will show and it hurts me and will probably affect how welcome my fiancée feels in our family. My goal is to get my parents to see past our faith (or lack thereof).
While we can tell you to fuck feelings, it’s not that easy to tell your parents to do the same, if only because they believe that saying “fuck” can send you to hell.
More importantly, there’s nothing you can say that will change how they feel, and trying will just make their feelings more important, which they aren’t, and trigger a conflict no one can win.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 20, 2010
Since breaking up always feels, well, shitty, people often wonder what they’ve done wrong, should have done differently, what’s wrong with them, etc. Odds are, the person dumping you does think there’s something wrong with you that will never change, but usually, the quality they find wrong in you is probably just wrong for them. People don’t change, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to let your faults run out of control. So cheer up, dumpees– you might not be right for that certain someone, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong in general.
–Dr. Lastname
I had to break up with my boyfriend recently, even though we always thought we’d get married and start a family together, because I got matched in another city for the best residency program for my specialty. He felt that moving out of state would lose him the chance to make partner at one of the most prestigious law firms here, where he’s been working for the past 4 years, so he couldn’t leave. He’s a good guy and we were both serious about commitment and our careers and now I feel like, if I couldn’t make it work with him, my soul mate, then there’s no hope and no point in starting over. My goal is to figure out whether it’s worth trying again.
When it comes to falling in love with someone who shares your interests, it’s exciting to find someone who’s just as ambitious and hard-driving as you are. I’m sure you two put the power in “power couple.”
History teaches us, however, that two powerful go-getters don’t always make the best match. Just ask Hillary.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 16, 2010
Everything about having a kid, from the “birth plan” to the child’s name to the choice to procreate itself, is fraught and complicated. If you choose to have a kid, you feel responsible for making the experience perfect, and if you choose not to, you’ve failed to take a responsibility that many people believe you should. So, if you’re feeling guilt or regret, learn what triggers that guilt-reflex and how to disregard it when your own moral judgment clears you of wrong-doing. And if you could avoid naming your child any derivation of Aiden, all the better.
–Dr. Lastname
My younger brother and his wife just had a baby. While I’m thrilled for them and love my baby nephew to death, it’s been harder for me than I thought it would be. While I’m in my early 30s and don’t have any children of my own (but I do have a great husband), I’m not jealous. Actually, I feel guilty for not being jealous, or not holding my nephew and wishing I had a child of my own. I don’t understand why I don’t want kids, but I really don’t. When I married my husband, he felt the same way, but now he’s started talking about starting a family and I feel awful that I can’t get on the same page, or just can’t be normal and want a baby as much as I think I should. I want a second dog way more than I want a baby, and that I feel that way makes me feel terrible. My goal is to figure out what’s wrong with me and why I can’t be a mom.
If you and your husband agreed in advance to live in the country and he later decided he preferred Manhattan, you probably wouldn’t feel guilty about thwarting his desires by keeping him in the sticks, even if it made him unhappy.
So, while you wouldn’t like to deprive him of his dream, you wouldn’t feel guilty about it, either. Ask yourself then why having children should be such a different issue.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 9, 2010
It’s hard not to judge yourself by how people say you’re doing, particularly when those people are family or family-equivalent; a family or relationship can turn anyone into a version of Ed Koch. We assume that peace of mind begins with being forgiven and accepted, but that’s bullshit (or dogshit if you’d like to keep the Koch analogy going). Just because you love people doesn’t mean that they can stop themselves from giving you shit you don’t deserve or not giving you attention you do, and never being able to see what they’re doing. So be prepared to pursue your own investigation and consult your own conscience before seeking peace, reconciliation, and another term as a well-liked human being.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t get my ex to forgive me, even though I had good reason for doing the things he’s mad about. He’s the one who said we should just be friends (no sex) after we’d been living together for years, which was OK with me, but then when he found out, by accident, that I had a discreet fling (I like sex), he flipped out and told all our friends I’d betrayed him, and walked out. I can’t get him to see I care or that he really has no grounds to be pissed, and it’s an awful way to end things. I now know what his parents meant when they told me years ago he was difficult. My goal is to get him and others to see that I wasn’t a slut and that our relationship wasn’t a farce.
Even before the existence of cable news, gossip websites, and Stephen Colbert, opinion has come more from feelings than facts.
Your hyper-emotional ex sees the past through the “veil of truthiness,” so determining the meaning of what happened is something you’ll have to do on your own.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 23, 2010
Family issues are the grist for any shrink’s mill, and while that’s good news for us, it’s bad news for almost anyone with a relative. After all, you can’t choose your family, but you also can’t choose how the people you marry—those you bring into your family—will or won’t gel with their new kin. Knowing that most of those mismatched relationships can’t be fixed might not be what you want to hear, but it’s the truth, and if you can accept it, you’ll still be unhappy, but at least you’ll save money on therapy bills.
–Dr. Lastname
My family, whom I’ve always been close to, has never liked my wife—they didn’t like her when we were dating, they did a shitty job of hiding how pissed they were when I said we were going to get married, and they still don’t like her now. I know she can seem pushy and anal-retentive, but she’s a good person and she’s been incredibly supportive of me. When we started dating, I’d just lost my job, but she stood by me and even helped me find work again. When we needed a new place to live, she took charge. I’ve tried to get my family to see her the way I do or, if they can’t, at least be polite, but they always manage to undermine her plans and mock her way of doing things, and it drives her nuts. I can’t keep forcing my family on her if things don’t get better, but I don’t want to stop seeing them. My goal is to get my family to change before they drive her, and me, away.
There’s a special kind of torture in trying to make peace in vain. If we all had Hillary Clinton’s job, we’d probably just give up and wear pantsuits, too.
At least your peace-making efforts are not doubly cursed with your wife’s accusing you of being unsupportive and not standing up for her…or maybe you’re not telling me the whole story because you’re forever protecting your wife’s back.
Either way, I assume that sharing your concerns with your family hasn’t worked. Indeed, telling them they’re hurting your wife’s feelings may feed their hope of changing or punishing her or driving her away, and then they’ll act worse. If so, it’s time to shut up and give up on trying to solve this problem and instead ask yourself how to make the best of it.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 16, 2010
When it comes to happiness, Americans are entitled to the pursuit of, not the right to, but try telling that to someone who insists their good feelings come first. No one likes a party-pooper, so you can’t expect your earnest warnings to be heard unless you can persuade people that you like happiness just as much as they do, even if you don’t expect it to arrive any time soon (and are more knowledgeable about American history).
–Dr. Lastname
My son did well in his first year of college and now he’s thinking of going to law school. I told him he needs to talk to an adviser and maybe get a summer internship in a law office, but he told me I’m giving him a headache and that the whole point of college is to explore things, try things out, live in the moment, and learn how to be happy. I don’t want to be a wet blanket—and, of course, he’s not listening to me—but getting into a decent law school is highly competitive and it won’t happen unless he’s careful about his choices in the next 3 years. What do I tell him, without destroying his change to enjoy college?
I don’t like being a killjoy, either—well, that’s not true, but anyway—since when do you spend a vast portion of your limited family fortune so the kid will have a good time?
You want your son to be happy of course, but happiness, being the shitty goal that it is, is also a shitty top priority. He’ll be happier in the long run if he can support himself, since sweet memories of keggers gone by won’t pay the rent.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 5, 2010
We’ve talked many times on this site about how controlling other people is essentially impossible (at least in the long run, but you’d be surprised how obedient people are short-term when you have cake). That’s why pushing for someone else’s acceptance isn’t just hopeless, but when we put that need ahead of our own convictions and priorities, it’s downright dangerous. People in AA are taught right off the bat to accept what they can’t change, which is a valuable lesson to anyone, with or without booze (or cake).
–Dr. Lastname
My husband worries a lot about my drinking and depression but, to my mind, I don’t think my drinking is a problem and I don’t think I’d be depressed if I wasn’t worried that he’d leave me. For the sake of our marriage, I’ve agreed to stop drinking for a while and go to AA, but I really feel that my drinking wasn’t causing me any problems and that I’m doing this to make him happy, which makes me feel weak and angry. I want to get him to accept me the way I am before I can’t take it anymore.
You’re in a tough spot, because partnership really can’t work without acceptance, and acceptance is not something you can control. The more you force acceptance, the harder it is to achieve. Accept that, buddy.
If you try too hard to get his acceptance, you’ll hide whatever you think he won’t accept, which means putting your drinking in the closet and going to the mall instead of AA meetings.
On his end, if he tries too hard to make the relationship work, he’ll pretend you’re not really drinking or that you’re going to change, which also means no real acceptance.
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