My husband always saw himself as the righteous protector of our daughter and, after our divorce, he got into the habit of dragging me into court to force me to pay for some super-costly treatment or schooling that was always no more than a little bit better than what was available for free, but he’d look like a hero to our daughter and the court and the social worker, and I’d look like a miserly shit, and I’d complain bitterly, which just got everyone more on his side, and I was screwed. My daughter bought the bullshit, which meant she and her father shared a tight bond based on hating me, the Scrooge. But I thought the court assaults would stop when she turned 18, until yesterday, when I learned he’s suing me, once again, this time to pay for our daughter’s college tuition, even though she never asked me, she’s over 18, and, with her history of alcohol abuse (and no attempt to get sober), paying for her to go to college without going to rehab first is a waste of money. I think they’re both just scraping the barrel for reasons to drag me into court and I’m getting flashbacks about being raped by the judge. I don’t have any illusion about all of us getting along, but I think it’s fair to want this craziness to stop.

Like it or not, it’s your ex’s legal right to haul you into court at his whim, force you to hire a lawyer, and make you look like a creep. As a reward, you get to give him a good chunk of your savings to pay for something you don’t believe in, to someone who’s out to ruin your life.

Say what you will about justice, but most of the time, it isn’t very fair.

There’s no way you can avoid feeling helpless and outraged, and there’s no shower long or hot enough to make the violated feeling walk away. If, however, your goal is to stop this from happening again by repeatedly venting your outrage, you’ll actually make it worse.

You’ve described the process well; when you’re angry, you look like a monster, not a victim. Your ex has got the knack for pushing your buttons down so well, you shouldn’t be surprised that he treats you like an ATM.

Instead of fighting back again and again then, accept the fact that he’s got you nailed, and shut up. (If you don’t like being told that, remember, I’m not the one who told you to marry him.)

Don’t mistake a Jerry Springer shouting match as the best way to stand up to someone. Remember, no matter how cleansing the venting is on Springer, nobody walked away from that show without looking like an asshole. If you can get yourself to shut up and keep your rage to yourself, you can start to work on a more effective defense. You’ve collected lots of good facts and they can speak for themselves…if you don’t drown them out with your feelings.

Put the facts together, forget your ex-husband’s allegations, and respond to the issues like a caring parent. Then sit back, shut up and be patient. Initially, people will believe him because he believes himself, but if the facts don’t check out, they’ll come around to your point of view.

Don’t pursue your daughter or the Tag Team of Educational Virtue will punish you with her silence. Make it clear that you care by taking your parental responsibilities seriously and articulating that it would be better for her to cultivate her own relationship with you. Beyond that, however, you can only respect her choice, and hope those facts, not blustery emotions, lead her to the light.

The legal process isn’t very fair, but as we often point out on this site, not much is, so it’s better to keep your mouth shut. If you don’t want to remain tied up in the courts forever, stay quiet until your ex has enough rope to hang himself.

STATEMENT:
Put your response in writing and edit out your rage. For example: “You and I both want our daughter to get a good education and I am more than willing to help financially if it looks like she is ready. I wish I knew how she’s been doing for the past 6 months, but I can’t say because she hasn’t kept in touch. Before that, as you know, she had several drug-related legal problems and hasn’t finished a course. As much as I share your desire to help, I don’t have any reason, as yet, to believe that she could make use of college. Asking the court to mandate me to pay her tuition does her a disservice and wastes a large portion of my remaining resources in legal fees. I would advise her to get sober first, get some work habits going, take a course or two, and then she’d have a better chance of success. Talking to me herself would also give her an opportunity to let me know what she’s accomplished and benefit from my input.”

I don’t think she beats him up, but my son can’t seem to stand up to his crazy wife, no matter what she does. She gets furious with him over nothing and then anything goes. She’s thrown away his model airplane collection, screamed at him in front of friends, and locked him out of the house. The grandkids are always nervous. She always has to have the last word and insists that he apologize for things he hasn’t done. I wish he could stand up for himself and let her know that she’s got to stop. She wouldn’t act like this if he were stronger. All he does is keep quiet, look sad, and try to make her happy, which allows her to act like a jerk. My goal is to protect him or teach him how to stand up for himself.

If standing up to someone means out-intimidating them, it’s seldom a good goal, particularly when you’re up against someone who seems to believe they’re as infallible as the Pope.

Go toe to toe with her holiness and you’ll get a slugfest that not only scares the kids, but draws police like flies. It’s tempting to believe that toughness will carry the day and straighten out the bad guys, but that’s only in the movies. Everyone wants it to happen, which is why you can sell tickets, because nobody ever sees it off the screen.

On the other hand, you don’t want your son to feel responsible for the anger and unhappiness of his crazy wife. It’s nice that he’s caring and nurturing, but this is the evil flip side of being overly-sensitive.

If you push him to confront her, he’ll feel more responsible for her feelings and you’ll quickly see his backside (as I’m sure you’ve already discovered); you’re actually making him more responsible for her feelings by suggesting that he could get her to act better if he was firmer.

He thinks he’s upset her, you think he hasn’t upset her enough, and you’re both making him responsible for her. The Pope/wife remains without fault. Holy shitstorm.

A better goal is to help your son develop a better boundary, and this doesn’t require confrontation or hostility. By a boundary, I mean not allowing an excessive feeling of responsibility for his wife’s unhappiness to get in the way of his doing what he thinks is right.

He wouldn’t fight back, he just wouldn’t take such a hard hit every time she attacks. Then eventually, please Jesus, he’d also ask for a divorce.

STATEMENT:
Show him how he can reject blame without attacking her. “I think we’ve got a good thing going and that it would be better if you could manage your anger. I want you to be happy but you’re right, after all is said and done, I don’t necessarily agree with you about what you feel I’ve done wrong. If you yell or try to punish me, it makes things worse. I am who I am. So my idea about how to make the best of things is to back away from confrontation. I’ll always listen to new suggestions but I won’t stay in the room with yelling or physical intimidation.”

I’m in my mid-30s, about to have my first child with my husband of about a year. My husband is a solid guy—he’s steady, and very caring—but deep down, I know a big reason I married him is because I wasn’t getting any younger and wanted to start a family. I dated a guy in law school that I was really in love with, but he was a lot older, made it clear he never wanted kids, and was your basic passionate, unavailable nightmare. I admit, I’m hormonal, which means my husband’s been getting on my nerves a lot lately, which just makes me obsess more and more about how I’ve settled for a life without love. My goal is to figure out how to get through the next stage of my life and live with my decision.

Don’t get superficial and compare the Valentine’s Day smiles at the next bistro table to your current mood and nostalgic memories of past lovers. In my experience, finding the love of your life isn’t too difficult, but finding a good partner is a real pain in the ass.

By “good partner,” I don’t mean someone you’re crazy about, under any and all circumstances, forever and ever, amen. I mean someone who is strong, easy to live and work with, accepts you during your weaker and less likeable moments, communicates on your wavelength, and picks up the load when you can’t. As well as someone whom you can put up with most of the time.

If you think two Harvard degrees have made me too selective (or obnoxious) to encounter lots of likely candidates, my patients tell me the same thing, including those with friendly, engaging personalities and dazzling beauty (they still have to see a shrink, after all).

As I’ve said before to other people seeking romantic advice, don’t yearn for someone you can talk to or someone who makes you feel special; those needs can be met by a good hairdresser. You describe your husband as “steady” and “caring,” which is worth more than the best of hair days.

Just as positive feelings can make you lose sight of what’s important in a relationship, negative feelings become dangerous when they cause you to devalue an otherwise good partnership. You can get negative because you’re a grump, or hormonal, or irritated by your partner’s less-than-perfect behavior, or because you ate too many turnips. Having those feelings, however, doesn’t mean you have to take them seriously.

If you think your relationship has become empty and meaningless because you can’t find a twinge of love, then negative feelings have made you forget what’s important. What’s important is not romantic advice, because romance is not what partnership is about. As you begin this next stage of life, that will become abundantly clear.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a reminder to help you fight the love-sick, sick love, Valentine’s Day blues. “As much as I love love, my goal is a family that has emotional and financial security. I’ve chosen carefully and we’re off to a good start. I wish there was more positive feeling and less bickering today, but I think we’ll be good at working and living together and managing the challenges of raising kids and dealing with setbacks, so we’re on the right course.”

I know my girlfriend’s a little unstable, believe me—I’m the one she stabbed twice with a steak knife (seriously). We broke up for a while, but after she came to me a few weeks after the incident full of remorse and apology, I had to take her back, because, even though she can be a freak, I have more fun with her than any other person alive. She’s the most exciting, dynamic woman, so, even though she sometimes flips out, I put up with it for all the times she’s just being a blast and making me stupid happy. I told my mom I was thinking of asking her to marry me, and my mom almost had a heart attack. I know we’re young (I’m 19) and that she really went overboard that one time, but I love the crazy bitch. My goal is to get the girl of my dreams, even if she sort of tried to kill me.

I’m not going to tell you that you’re crazy, or make waking-up-with-missing-anatomy jokes, because that’s what all your friends are doing, and maybe it’s not the way love feels to you.

Love can feel unselfish, like the joy of giving and helping and making a better world and having sex all mixed together, so it may feel meaningful to you, rather than just one big thrill.

On the other hand, I may be overestimating you. You may be the sort of guy who just wants to be stupid happy. That common expression is a most apt term in this case, and boy, will you be both (although more “stupid” than “happy” in the long run.

Maybe you think love will cure her problems. Unfortunately, love’s power is in what it makes people feel, not in changing their characters. It won’t make your girlfriend’s temper go away, at least not for long.

If anything, love makes needy people worse. It’s like heroin; the more they get, the more they need, the more they’re convinced you’ll never give them enough, the more they hate you for controlling them.

Maybe you want to believe that she wouldn’t get crazy if you could be more available, find the right words, and demonstrate your true love. That might be the plot of at least a couple of Drew Barrymore’s mid-career films, but it’s not what’s going to happen to you or any poor sucker in real life.

The good news is that love will make you very happy. The bad news is that you’ll be lucky to get away without third degree burns.

The other good news, while you may not take comfort in it, is that young men like you have been drawn to unstable women for centuries (a few of whom have written in the past). These unions aren’t totally without worth; after all, if it weren’t for gullible male/temperamental female pairings, we wouldn’t have tattoo removal technology, reality television stars, or so many girls named Amber.

Listen to your mom, however, and avoid being a part of that breeding statistic and put aside your wishful thinking. If love makes her crazy, ask yourself whether your love is really doing her a favor, and if this is a favor you want to commit to for the rest of your life.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement you’d be wise to deliver. “Our love feels wonderful and there are times when it brings out the best in both of us, but I think it also stirs up feelings that can’t be controlled and that could ruin our lives. What’s most important to me is not how good it feels to be with you, but what will do you and me the most good in the long run, and that’s why we need to walk away.”

I’m fine now (I’m 14), but I’m trying to figure out how to deal with a crazy father who physically abused me until a couple of years ago—that’s when my mother finally figured out what was happening and had me come live with her. The trouble is, I guess you could say my father doesn’t see reality the way other people do and he never remembers hitting me. In his mind, when he’d hit me, it was because I was trying to destroy him, so what he tells the judge is that he loves me and that my mother is a raging alcoholic who has brainwashed me to hate him (my mother stopped drinking after the divorce, years ago) and he really believes what he says. My goal is to get him to stay away from me and convince others that his version of reality isn’t real.

Kids aren’t the only ones who have trouble accepting the fact that we often can’t protect ourselves from scary crazy boogeymen, particularly when the craziness isn’t obvious, and the boogeymen are family.

We’ve said it here before: certain crazy people are not obviously crazy and are particularly good at persuading other people to see them as injured victims because they truly, truly believe they are, no matter what really happened. It’s a kind of sickness for which no one has the cure, and nobody feels sicker than the victims in the wake of these sickos, who don’t necessarily feel sick at all.

So cops, judges and social workers often can’t figure out who is telling the truth for a long time. Meanwhile, they often make mistakes and put restrictions on kids and families that hurt everyone and cost more money than the family can afford. It’s a sad fact of life, but they’re trying to do the right thing.

The system usually works to try and protect the weakest party, and when you’re aggressive, even if you’re just aggressively trying to get people to see the truth, you make sickos look that much more weak and innocent. It’s unfair, but pushing hard to express the truth will often push it underground.

So Dr. Lastname’s advice for kids is the same as for adults: don’t think that expressing your emotions sincerely and eloquently will solve the problem. If your father is sincere and has a good lawyer, he’ll persuade the judge that you have, possibly, been brainwashed by your mom, and they’ll treat you like a poor, emotional kid who deserves pity but doesn’t really know his own mind. Then everyone will spend lots of time visiting shrinks. Thanks for the business, but no thanks for the bullshit.

First things first, give up on the goal of convincing others, and try instead to make positive sense of this experience and prepare a statement that you could, if necessary, read to your father.

The less anger and fear you put in your statement, the more it will help others get at the truth. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have negative feelings—of course, they are what they are—but the goal of your statement is to keep out the negative feelings without in any way holding back on the facts of what really happened.

You might not make his sickness go away or get people to see the truth, but being clear, honest, and emotionless is the best protection against the boogeyman.

STATEMENT:
Here’s an example. “I think it’s a bad idea for us to spend time together. I know you care about me and want to see me, but I think you forget about the bad things that happen when you get upset and lose your temper. You forget about (put in details, including bruises and dates). I don’t want to hurt you and I want you to be happy but I don’t think we should spend time together until I’m old enough to protect myself from your temper. Sincerely.

I’d like to get help for my wife’s younger sister because she drives the family crazy. Simply put, she’s a lying drug-addict, and my wife’s parents are always trying to help her in a way that ruins things for the rest of us—they give her money, pressure my wife and me to accept her at family events, and then make us feel guilty if we don’t want to see her. She’s totally poisonous as she is, but I know she can’t help herself, and I’d like to get her real help, not just hand-outs and pretending everything’s OK, so we don’t have to continue like this.

Your goal is just as bad as your wife’s parents’ goal, because you’re both assuming that your sister-in-law can be helped when all the evidence points the other way. They’re throwing their money away at her directly, you’d be throwing your money away at “real help” she isn’t ready for. It’s a lose/lose.

Really, everyone wishes your sister-in-law could be helped, but proceeding on that assumption when it’s not true is a good way to make things worse, and that’s exactly what you’re complaining about.

The sad fact is, treatment is often hopeless. You know that’s true for lots of medical problems, from cancer to Crohn’s disease, so why not accept the fact that it’s equally true for everything else.

Instead, stick with the realistic hope that she’ll change someday, and that you (and others) will have an opportunity to help. It might happen, but it’s not something that you can make happen or are responsible for.

In the meantime, don’t blame her, because there’s a good chance she has as little control over the problem as you do, even though it’s her body and her problem. Blame life, it sucks more reliably than anyone or anything else.

Now that you’ve listened to me and given up on your goal of getting help for your sister-in-law, realistic thinking suggests some positive things for you to do. Since you’re not responsible for saving your sister-in-law or protecting your parents-in-law, you can bow out of family events you don’t really want to go to.

Ignore feelings of guilt or responsibility. You’d help if you could, but you can’t, and there are other important priorities, like going on with your life and enjoying time with those you love.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement that responds to the most guilt-provoking accusations you can imagine. “I’m concerned about my sister-in-law and take full responsibility for helping her whenever possible. One thing I’ve learned, though, from watching her parents do a wonderful job of trying to help her is that, for the time being, it’s just not possible. When it’s not possible, we do more good by distancing ourselves from her problems so as to limit their harm and provide her with more incentive to change. Distancing ourselves from her problems does not mean distancing ourselves from her. The better we protect ourselves, the more welcoming we will be if and when she begins recovery.”

I consider myself to be a pretty thoughtful gift-giver—I pay attention to what other people need, things they don’t even know they need, their birthdays, their anniversaries, and I usually get it right. My husband, on the other hand, isn’t sentimental at all about birthdays or anniversaries and doesn’t remember them, so he’s a lousy gift-giver and, I can’t help it, it really gets to me. After I knock myself out to get him a good birthday present, he either forgets mine, or gets flowers at the last moment, or thinks of getting me something and then doesn’t follow through. We have a wonderful marriage but every year around Christmas, his lazy, lousy gifting really gets on my nerves (particularly since I can’t help doing a good job with his gifts). It’s humiliating. My goal is to find a good way to address this problem so I won’t resent him this Christmas.

There’s not one, but two good reasons why it’s a bad idea to address the problem of unequal gift giving with your husband, and the first, it’s a safe bet, is that you’ve done it before and it turned out badly. I’m right, am I not? (It’s important for me to be right, given my Harvard background).

You reproach your husband for neglecting your Christmas needs, he gets defensive, tells you how he knocks himself out for you, maybe goes further and remembers the time you didn’t do your share, and then you have to tell him how he got the facts wrong.

Meanwhile, both of you are drifting further away from any spirit of Christmas giving, other than that old staple of gift-giving everywhere, the Christmas Earful.

If you don’t address this issue, it will fester, but if you do, it will explode. Take your pick, but don’t believe for a moment that there’s any solution that will make your husband a truly satisfying, gift-giving mirror of yourself. For that you don’t a husband, but a wife.

It’s frustrating to need a certain kind of thoughtful attention and know you’re not going to get it from your husband, even if you get lots of other things from him. You have a right to hurt, but that’s life, and there are other, more important kinds of support, like help with money, kids and illness, so keep your priorities straight. A good marriage is not just about feelings.

Then there’s the second reason you shouldn’t address the problem: doing so makes it more personal. I know, the normal human response to being forgotten is to feel unloved, neglected, and disrespected, particularly when you care about a person and give him more than you get.

It’s likely here, however, and in most cases, that the lack of response isn’t personal. Your husband is probably a poor gift-giver by nature and would be that way, given the opportunity, for any of his wives, including ones he loves very much.

So ignore your feelings, and ask yourself whether he’s a good husband, regardless of his low gifting IQ and, if he is, figure out what you want to do with this sad area of congenital weakness.

If it’s worth the trouble, and he’s not truly un-giving, you can get yourself the gift and charge it to him (what you always wanted!). Your goal, however, isn’t to get him to be a good gift-giver or to get a good gift, it’s to prevent his gifting disability from devaluing your relationship.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to deflect disrespect. “You’re a giving husband but you’re not as good as I am with gifts. We have a good marriage because we give to one another but sometimes it’s in different ways, or not exactly what the other person needs, and that sometimes causes hurt and frustration. But what matters is that, regardless of the disappointment, we know we love one another and are good partners to one another.”

My father was a nasty drunk and my mother got so depressed she hardly noticed, so, as the oldest, I ended up raising my younger sister. I’m a dad now, and my parents are long gone, but my wife has always noticed how quiet and sulky I get during the holidays, and she thinks I should deal with all the pent up feelings that come from being raised by alcoholics and being a substitute parent all my life. I don’t really know what my wife means or how to begin going about dealing with all that stuff, but maybe it’s worth it. My goal is to confront those feelings so I can get over them.

You might think that spending time with your childhood sorrows will free you from them, but that’s not what usually happens. Often, the more you remember how sad your past Christmases were, the sadder you get, which makes your family sad and ruins Christmases Present and Yet To Be.

Unlike Scrooge, you probably won’t rediscover memories of good people whose love you rejected. You’ll recall ugly and frightening scenes when everyone was scared and you were obliged to assume adult responsibilities.

You don’t deserve to feel blue and it’s not fair that you do, but between the impact of Christmas trauma and inheriting your mother’s depressive genes, you may not have a choice.

However, there’s a good goal for you after you give up on trying to feel better. It’s to acknowledge the good things that were done when times were hard.

You’ll never know how much choice your parents had over their weaknesses; we like to say that everyone has choices, but that’s bullshit.

Many drunks don’t see the harm they’re doing or, if they do, can’t stop. And many people with depression are too far gone into despair or are simply too symptomatic to carry their load. They were fucked, you were fucked, but look at what you did with it.

Celebrate the strength and courage of the boy who took care of his sister. Perhaps there were times when your parents acted like parents and did tough things in spite of their weaknesses, so take pride in your ability to create a better partnership and do better for your children. You may never feel great; but what you’ve done is all the greater.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to wall off sad feelings from proud fact. “My parents were impaired, but I’m proud of the way I carried my load, and perhaps my parents did some good things too, in spite of their impairments. There was seldom a happy holiday, but that didn’t stop me from trying to protect my sister and eventually create a better family of my own. And that’s what I’ve done. So if I can’t feel Christmas joy, too bad. I’ve made a much better Christmas for my wife and kids than I ever had, and that’s what I was always after.”

I have been struggling with depression for most of my adult life, and I do mean struggling. No matter how many times I find myself going through months at a time of feeling hopeless, angry, and miserable, I know it’s a treatable illness—a chemical imbalance— nd that there must be a way to control it. Over the past twenty years, I’ve been through a handful of shrinks and at least a dozen medications, because no matter how bad it gets, I’ve refused to give up looking for the treatment that will allow me to fulfill the promise of my otherwise lucky life. The problem is that, twenty years into this battle, and I’m still not winning. Treatment works for a while, and just when it seems like things are finally working out for me and I’m in the clear, everything falls apart again. My goal is to figure out how—with what treatment, medication, game plan—to get control of this disease and live a normal life, because I’m stronger than this, and I refuse to let depression get the last laugh.

Hold up—did I miss the morning’s headlines that declared depression a curable illness? Up until yesterday, it wasn’t, and when you think about it, the list of truly curable diseases is an adorably short one. Really, unless you’ve got athlete’s foot, you’re probably shit out of luck.

That said, it doesn’t mean you should shoot yourself unless you’re similarly upset by the incurability of hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, and all the other illnesses that most of us get, sooner or later. Even athlete’s foot isn’t worth it.

The issue here is that if you think that beating an illness means getting rid of it, you’ve lost before you’ve begun to fight. And if that illness is depression, then losing means getting more depressed, which means becoming a bigger loser, ad infinitum.

You’ve been watching the TV news where they declare that someone lost his fight with cancer by dying, which is an amazingly cruel thing to say. We don’t lose a fight with illness by dying, but by letting aging, pain, symptoms, and all the other shit that life throws at us slow us down more than absolutely necessary. Relapses aren’t a form of losing, they’re a form of life. C’est la vie. And la vie often sucks.

So take credit for tolerating all those treatment trials, because it sounds like you’ve done a terrific job managing your illness and reducing its impact on your life. I hope, however, that you paid just as much attention to what you were doing while you were depressed as you did to your symptoms, and invested as much in your work and friendships as you did in your treatment.

So don’t make your pain worse by telling yourself you should have been able to cure it. You live in the Home for Incurables, so push the limits and be proud. And, if you use the shower at the gym, wear flip-flops.

STATEMENT:
Pull out a statement you wrote to yourself when you were feeling more positive. “Depression always makes me feel like life’s biggest loser. But it’s just pain, I didn’t create it, and I don’t deserve it. It won’t last forever. I’ve done my best to manage it medically, I know lots of tricks for keeping myself going and distracted from it, and I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do in spite of it. Whatever happens, I’ve done fine so far and I’ll stick with what I’m trying to do. It can kill me. But it can’t change my values or my goals, which will keep me living what I can of my life for as long as I can.”

I see a therapist, but he doesn’t have any good ideas, so I thought I’d get a second opinion. I’m a so-called senior citizen, and while I’m in a wheelchair with now-useless legs, my mind is still quite intact, thank you very much. My husband, who passed away almost ten years ago, was a great man, and he left me in a very financially comfortable situation, which I look forward to passing down to my children. All that said, I’ve struggled with periods of depression ever since the birth of my first child, and so, despite all the good in my life, I’m also in a lot of pain (mostly mental but some physical, in my legs) and am not afraid to tell people, like my family and now the shrink they want me to see, that I’m looking forward to death and am actually quite eager to die. Nobody seems to want to hear it, but I feel like I’ve earned it, and besides, the timing is right. My goal is to either figure out what’s wrong with my wish or get enough ammunition to get everyone off my back.

If your goal is to escape your pain, then suicide is a reasonable option. The trouble is, you’ve got more important goals in life to think about first (with “in life” being the operative words here).

No, you are no longer responsible for caring for children or other dependents, but that really doesn’t change the fact that one of your most important goals, as a parent and person, is to bear pain and live life in spite of it. And now you must ask yourself whether that goal ever changes, regardless of age or mobility.

What suicide means is that your pain becomes more important than anything else. And sometimes that really happens, or you know it’s about to happen, and anyone who knows the truth will understand that you didn’t give up your values by exiting life, you were simply overcome.

Otherwise, your job is to make the best of what you’ve got. You may not be ready to play murderball, but you’ve got a sharp brain, an ability to care, and a wealth of experience. You express yourself well. Your goal is to try to find a way to use your abilities and make life better, regardless of how negatively you feel. Hell, if you’re really at loose ends, you can write a blog.

But don’t talk about being ready to depart unless you want to guilt your relatives into visiting more often. Talking about it gives more power to your pain and boredom, and that’s not good for you.

Don’t talk about your right to die, either. Your goal is to live by your values and encounter death within those values, not as a reward for hard work well done. That’s the same balance sheet rationalization that people use to justify downing a quart of ice cream when they’ve got diabetes, or a liter of vodka when they can’t afford to get drunk.

You’re on a car trip that’s become boring and painful and you want to ask “Are we there yet?” You’re old enough to know better. You’re making the trip longer and even more painful.

STATEMENT:
Reach back to a statement you might have composed in better days, when you knew things would get painful and you didn’t want pain to make you forget your values. “When I’m depressed and disabled, life doesn’t seem like it’s worth living. But it’s easy to forget that my relationships will never stop being important to me and that I have much to contribute, even when it seems like I’m nothing but a burden. There’s value in much that I do, even if I can’t see it, so I will try to do what I’ve always done, and try to contribute, and make the most of my relationships, and that’s how I’ll fight the distortion of depression and continue to be me.”

It’s been a tough year (surprise), and so I’ve been a little more quick to anger than I usually am, and I tend to have a few more beers after work than I would normally have. Things with my wife were kind of rough because of all of this, so she told me to see a therapist, and for the sake of my marriage, I agreed, because losing my wife would be the worst thing that could happen. Six months or so ago, my therapist started asking me about my childhood, and it finally clicked that my dad also had a really bad temper, and was also a pretty lousy drunk, but I’d never really thought of him that way, and I’d never really made the connection to my own behavior. My therapist was really pleased at my breakthrough, but here I am, six months later, and I don’t feel any better, and my wife is ready to leave if I don’t stop yelling at her. My goal is to use what I’ve learned in therapy to solve my problems, but what is it I haven’t figured out, why do I keep acting this way, and why am I spending money on therapy if I’m getting nowhere?

Once psychotherapy helps you figure out where your mean streak comes from, you can write an interesting book about it and, usually, blame it on a brutal ancestor and tell Oprah all about it.

What all that hard-earned knowledge probably won’t help you much with is keeping you in check the next time you get irritable and/or drunk. Bad daddy or no, what will help you a lot more is to get sober and learn how to shut the fuck up.

No one knows why some people have a mean streak, but such a trait is probably one of those things that are both bad for you and good for you; in the right situation it helps you survive (no one messes with the Hulk) and gets passed onto your green children in your genes.

The Darwinian solution provides a good answer to most questions—”no one knows why you do X, but it’s probably not all bad”—because it’s hard to disprove, and carries an implication that you can probably guess by now: you’re probably not going to get rid of your mean streak, unless you’re agreeable to a friendly lobotomy.

Many therapists think they can help you overcome your anger if you work hard with them, and, while they’re sincere, they’re usually wrong. They can help you manage it, but nothing more than that, and, in your case, not until you get sober.

If you wait for your anger to go away before doing anything about it, you’ll be on wife number 5 in no time. This is why certain kinds of therapy can do lots more harm than good unless you’re willing to ask yourself the one question you’d prefer not to: what do I do next if this treatment doesn’t make my anger and dependence go away (just my money and patience).

So your goal isn’t to figure out why you’re angry, or to stop feeling angry, or even to stop feeling thirsty. It’s to accept the feelings and urges that you’ve got, and get better at managing them.

You’ve got to accept the shame of not being able to control a natural and unavoidable tendency to transform into Superasshole (maybe you were bitten as a child by a radioactive rectum).

Once you make that your goal, you’ve got a much better chance of succeeding; not at feeling better—because c’mon, you’re not stupid—but at reacting to life’s misery with fewer tantrums and beers, daddy be damned.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement you can use to keep yourself on track. “I hate being mean and I know that, when I’m mean, it always seems like other people deserve to be put down. But it hurts me and my family more often than not, so regardless of whether people deserve it, I’ve got to improve my self-control and learn to eat shit, rather than become an asshole (there’s a consistent metaphor here). Which means controlling whatever releases my anger (tasteful restraint on the metaphor), like drinking. I will have no shame about admitting my asshole tendencies, as long as I know that, whenever I tighten up (can’t escape the metaphor), I’m strengthening my self-control.”

I’m not a stupid girl, but it took me fifteen years to realize that I always date the same kind of guy, someone who is kind of sad and wild but always turns out to be nasty and unreliable. I don’t know why I’ve always gone for mean sad sacks, but I have, many, many times, and knowing that, I want to avoid my deadbeat curse. The problem is, I don’t know how to start being attracted to different kinds of guys, or even where to find them. And meanwhile, I’m still a deadbeat magnet, so I want to know how I can stop attracting such losers and reel in better quality material. My goal is to get out of my romantic rut and date guys that don’t suck.

If you can find a survival benefit to being mean, (under the appropriate football field or nuclear apocalypse scenarios), you can also find a survival benefit to being attracted to the mean.

For example, your partner’s cruelty will protect your genes, or, maybe you’re so good at nurturing you can’t distinguish between babies and outlaws. Whatever.

Again, the genetic explanation is far from scientific, but fits the fact you’ve already encountered: you, and your tastes, are not likely to change, no matter how much you talk about them.

So tell your friends that you’re tired of hearing them tell you they told you so–almost as tired as they are!—and that you want to change your ways and are open to suggestions.

The usual ones that come up, like drawing up a list of negative screen-outs for your dates and sticking with them (e.g., no guys who had nasty fights with prior girlfriends unless the girlfriend was clearly nastier and crazier). Have your friends screen your dates.

Don’t be discouraged if you’re not attracted to nice guys. Remember, there are some songs you dislike the first time around, but wind up liking a lot in the end. You can’t force yourself, but give yourself time and you’ll probably wind up liking a nice guy well enough.

Sure, you may not get as hot about a nice guy as you would about an outlaw. But if your primary goal is to get turned on, stick with outlaws and get a good, solid humiliation at the same time. And if you yearn to nurture and live with a nasty, vicious, out-of-control criminal, get a Jack Russell terrier.

STATEMENT:
Announce your policy with a statement. “I may want to tame a beast, or beastly guy, who’s in pain, but I don’t have the touch, the whip, the chair, the whispering technique, whatever, and meanwhile I need a friend and partner I can trust. So I’ve got to watch out for my sick yearnings, stick with better ways of screening out the ones I want, and stay single, lonely, and unsatisfied until I find the one I really need.”

My mother is a drama queen– she thrives on family conflict and gossip and needs to control every step of my life. She has her nose in everyone’s business, talks badly about most people, and also has a violent temper (at 79 years old, she still throws things and flips people [like me] the bird out of anger). Several events happened that finally made me so angry with her that I literally told her off and have cut ties with her for over a year, but during this year I have suffered from terrible guilt and shame for turning my back on my elderly mother. Believe me, I feel better and more relaxed without her constant turmoil, but there are nights that I wake up from a dream where I am shunned at her funeral as “the daughter who abandoned her mother”. I have tried, in the past, to talk sense into her and explain my feelings but she creeps back to her same troubling ways. My goal is to get over the guilt that I feel about cutting my mother out of my life.

Anger is never a good reason for doing anything, and particularly not for cutting off ties with your mother; after all, anger’s a feeling, and you know that’s a dirty word. It’s not that you don’t have good reasons for being angry, just not for letting anger make your decisions.

As you’ve now realized, once you let anger take over, it’s very hard to protect yourself against guilt, which is where your major problem lies now. The only good, healthy defense against guilt, other than drowning your neurotransmitters in alcohol, is to know you’ve done the right thing, regardless of how unhappy you’ve made someone feel or how badly they’re suffering while you’re the one standing watch.

In this instance, unfortunately, you haven’t done the right thing, so guilt has become your master.

It’s not so bad to tell your mother off, but you’ve kept the bad feelings alive by cutting her off and letting her know that she’s at fault. That’s where you’ve assumed a share of responsibility for the conflict between you, and that’s not just a guilty feeling, that’s real guilt.

You have good reason to want to punish your mother and avoid the pain of her abuse, but that goal has two major flaws. First of all, your mother doesn’t deserve to be punished, because she can’t help being who she is, and there’s no point in punishing an asshole for being an asshole any more than punishing a snake for being a snake. You’ll wind up feeling guilty and responsible for the pain you’ve caused because the snake had no choice, but you did.

Second, that goal creates more conflict and commits more of your attention and energy to the worst part of your mother and your relationship with her, and that’s simply not what you want, because that will make both of you more miserable and part of your misery will be, you guessed it, guilt.

And you won’t just be tortured by the guilty feeling aroused by your mother’s accusing look and defiant digit—a guilty feeling you can tell yourself you don’t deserve—but by the real guilt of causing pain you could have prevented.

A better goal is to protect yourself from your mother’s anger, and your own guilt, while making the most of whatever good you can find in her. If there’s no good there, and she really lacks any redeeming features that you may someday recollect with fondness, admiration, or even bitter laughter, she may well be someone with that rarest of psychiatric DSMIV diagnoses, a “perfect asshole.”

Well, come to think of it, she already meets criteria for being a perfect asshole, because she always sees her nastiness as merely a reaction to other people’s faults, and that’s why there’s no point in reasoning with or trying to get through to her. On the other hand, she may also be an irredeemable asshole who is perfect all the time, which would be remarkable because few human beings are perfect, even in that way. But perfection rarely flashes the middle finger.

Yes, it may seem disrespectful or disloyal to say “my mother is an asshole” but, really, it’s the only way to make it not personal. It’s a scientific fact that being an asshole is not an obstacle to getting married and having children, and may even help in those pursuits. So, without any offense intended, you’re the child of an asshole and it’s your job to deal with it getting shit on (so to speak).

So don’t try to “talk sense into her” or “explain your feelings.” You’re not going to change her and trying is a waste of time, an invitation to more trouble, and an aggravation to your mother. It will also lead to your assuming more responsibility for the bad feelings that happen next.

Surely you’ve done business with people who had their nasty side but could be pleasant if you caught them on a good day and treated them carefully; as long as you didn’t try to hold them accountable, correct their behavior, or offer them lip. So do the same with your mother and treat her like an asshole who has, at times, taken good care of you and probably done some other good things (like given you life).

You know the drill. Talk about nothing personal, go with a friend when you see her, meet in public, keep it short, and leave quickly and politely if her inner demon appears.

And yes, you’ll feel better in the short run if you tell her that she’s an asshole and refuse to talk to her until she apologizes and attends assholes anonymous. As if an asshole would ever settle for anonymity.

In the long run, however, you will come closer to living by your values and protecting yourself from guilt if you suck up your pain and humiliation and maintain some kind of polite (on your side) relationship. She’ll never do right by you on your terms, but if you do right by her on your terms, you can tame your guilt and reclaim your life.

STATEMENT:
Since you’re not going to confront your mother, prepare a statement to answer someone who says “how can you take that abusive shit lying down without seeing yourself as a total victim and wuss?” “My mother has never had much control over her inner ass-hole which makes her a giant pain in my ass. But fighting her is pointless and makes me act nasty, which is the opposite of what I want to do and is worse than the humiliation she occasionally throws my way. I don’t need to prove I can stand up to her. What’s more important to me is to try to act decently regardless of the shit she throws at me.”

After 10 years of marriage, 8 of them fairly miserable, I finally got a divorce from my husband. We have a daughter together, which is why we tried to stick it out so long, but he was a really terrible partner; rarely worked, often angry, and not even that available to our kid. Now that we’re over, however, things aren’t much better in that he’s become this cloying, pathetic presence who’s always lurking around, fishing for pity and reconciliation. When we were married, I was pretty good at keeping my anger to myself, but now that we’re divorced, I have no patience for his bullshit and find myself really digging into him all the time. I try not to do it around our child, but his behavior brings out a really mean side of me to the point where I almost feel guilty for the way I treat him, even though he’s a pain in the ass who’s never done one nice thing for me aside from give me my little girl. My goal is to stop feeling bad about treating this asshole so badly.

Sadly, when you make your goal to feel better about treating an asshole badly, you’re actually hoping to become an asshole yourself. Only assholes can torment without guilt, just ask your ex-asshole. I mean, -husband.

So if you back up and think about it, your goal is actually to stop acting like an asshole and stop treating your ex- badly, so your guilty feeling doesn’t become the real thing. And the best way to do that is to have less of a chance to act around/react to your ex, period.

If your pathetic-acting ex- succeeds in making you feel guilty, you’re more likely to act mean, which will allow your guilty feeling to cause you to act badly, which will leave you with real guilt, which will confirm your ex-partner’s reality.

So another major reason for your loss of control may be your inability, because of your guilty feelings, to create a boundary and shut off your contact with your ex- when he starts to drive you crazy. If you’re feeling guilty, you may bend over backwards and spend too much time listening to him. Which will then get you irritated and mean. Rinse, repeat.

So your goal isn’t to stop feeling guilty, but to tolerate guilty feelings while acting reasonably, and the first reasonable thing you can do to protect yourself from your ex-husband’s neediness is to create a boundary that defines what you talk about, and excludes everything else.

It’s OK to talk about anything child-related, but not to express feelings other than admiration for the children, the weather and/or your favorite baseball team. If your ex- tends to ramble, sigh, or otherwise emote, politely leave the conversation and give him your email for dealing with any left-over child-care issues.

Cut it off before anyone gets a chance to be an asshole, and you’ll have nothing to feel bad about.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement to respond to any protest he might lodge against your lack of empathy or respect. “We both deserve respect and it’s important that we treat one another with respect. I believe the best way to do that is to avoid expressing negative feelings about our marriage or lives or discussing issues that used to cause us conflict. Instead, let’s focus on informing one another about our kid and making arrangements to care for her. If I stop a conversation or appear abrupt, it will be to keep the conversation away from bad topics and focused on good topics. It will not be intended to express disrespect.”

My mother has always been quick to take offense—hear things the wrong way, feel easily hurt, want an apology—and I’ve always been the one to smooth things out and reassure her and, if necessary, tell her I’m sorry. Recently, she got really angry when she heard me talking to a family friend at a party and thought that I was being critical and complaining about her. I told her that was absurd, I didn’t mean things that way and that the family friend didn’t hear it that way. Besides, it’s not the sort of thing I’d say about anyone. But my mom acted like I didn’t realize how mean I’d been. So I spoke to the family friend, who agreed with me, and I asked her to talk to my mom and let her know she hadn’t heard any criticism either, but my mom says she’s just trying to smooth things over. I know this is just how my mom is, but that doesn’t mean that it ever stops making me crazy, and everything about this latest stunt is totally unreasonable. My goal is to get her to see she’s being a nut and get over it.

Freud famously put a lot of emphasis on mothers, and most people assume that “tell me about your mother?” is the first question a psychiatrist asks a patient. My response to that, however, is that I don’t really care about your mother. And even if your mother was my patient, I wouldn’t be able to make her “better.”

You think, if only you could get your mom to stop being a nut, your problems would be over. And hey, if only I could find a way of turning dog turds into solid gold, I’d never have to work again. Alas, turds are turds, and your dreams haven’t come true for many years. Assume they won’t come true now.

That said, it’s time to consider what it means to you to have a mother who periodically threatens to, essentially, break up with you. At least, let’s assume, for the sake of our discussion, that it’s that bad, and that her injury and mistrust are so deep that she and you believe the relationship will go into the deep freeze if you can’t get her to see the light.

Ask yourself, what’s the best thing a person can do when they’re threatened with the loss of that much love. Your wish, of course, is to patch things up if you can—it’s painful to be orphaned—but trying too hard to hang onto anyone whose demons periodically require you to jump through hoops isn’t good for you. It tends to stunt your growth, put you on the defensive, and make you a slave to fear.

I know, it’s no fun to be a motherless child, but the opposite, in extreme cases, is to become a victim of abuse, and that’s far worse. Be aware then that you may be walking a fine line between two lousy alternatives, and the one that grabs your feelings the most, easing your mother’s hurt so you can avoid losing her love, may be worse in the long run.

So your goal isn’t to make her better and smooth out your relationship; no amount of groveling and witness testimony is going to make things right, so give it a rest.

Your goal is to make things better to the extent your power allows, and do so without accepting a relationship dominated by fear. If fear remains the status quo, your goal is to build a wall and bear the pain. Don’t avoid future social events, but don’t let your next celebration be a pity party.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement that balances your desire for a good relationship with your responsibility to protect yourself from abuse. “I care about you, hate to see you upset, and would never want to say anything to hurt you. I’ve examined what I said and asked others to provide me with their impressions. In the end, I’m confident I was not trying to hurt you and that you can be assured that your negative impression of my words is not true. I hope we can put this behind us now. It’s never good to dwell on these things after we’ve done our best to deal with them. “

In the past few years, I’ve become pretty close with my sister’s husband (we play basketball together sometimes or have beers, that kind of close). Anyway, I like the guy, but I’m 99% sure he’s cheating on my sister, don’t ask me how. I could easily be 100% sure, but then I’d have to tell my sister, wouldn’t I? Or would I have to talk to him about it and see if I can get him to stop, or make him admit everything to my sister himself? Because right now, the two of them seem really happy together, and they have two great kids, and I don’t want a divorce to fuck all that up. My goal is to do right by my family.

This is the sort of soap-opera situation where your protective feelings for your sister and her kids might well push you to confront her husband, but ask yourself what good that would do. Because, unlike what you see on TV, you do not have the luxury of cutting to commercial after the big reveal.

Sure, it will relieve the pressure of your angry feelings for a few minutes, that’s true; but you know what we think of feelings, and this is a good case in point. A confrontation will focus on what’s most negative about his behavior and make it harder for everyone, particularly him and your sister, to consider what is best for them.

The plot goes like this: you’ll label him a betrayer, he’ll find fault with your sister, they’ll both feel like shit and find shit in their relationship, and their ability to remember what’s good about their relationship and what they might want to salvage will get lost.

If you really want to be a good friend to your sister or her husband, be a friend of their marriage. If possible, remember what you like about him and, if the opportunity comes along, let him know that you know that marriage can be tough, but that having affairs usually does more harm than good.

If anything, your problem is a perfect example of my old adage that bottling up feelings never hurt anyone, but unbottling them has caused a world of pain. If you keep your mouth shut (except for the aforementioned occasional advice), you give yourself a chance to think, choose your opportunity, and say something constructive.

If you become a warrior for justice and gain relief by getting everything out in the open, you will probably bring out the worst in everyone, and maybe get yourself a black eye. So put this melodramatic subplot on hold and suck up the pain.

STATEMENT:
Draft a statement that expresses support for your sister and brother-in-law while avoiding anger and blame (regardless of how you really feel). “I care about you and your marriage and believe you’ve done a very good job and are good people. Under pressure, people sometimes do things that cause more harm than good. I’m not interested in who’s to blame. I want you both to do what’s best for you and your family. Don’t burn your bridges, cause pain, and compromise your integrity. Take your time and, if you want to end your marriage, do it right.

I don’t fight with my adult son, but it’s because I bite my tongue. When he’s working as a doctor he’s very professional and well respected, but he’s basically always been very moody, and when I hang out with him for more than a few hours, I often run into a big dose of real nastiness. He’ll look sour and complain that I want him to do something he really doesn’t want to, or that I should have gotten him something, or that he doesn’t want to go out to dinner and I should go out alone. He’s rude and grumpy in a way that he would never be with a friend. When he was an adolescent, I wrote it off, but he hasn’t changed at all. Afterwards, he never admits that he did anything wrong. No wonder he doesn’t have a girlfriend. My goal is to get him to see that he acts like a shit and get him to apologize.

It would certainly ease your pain if your son were to apologize, but a solicited apology is about as helpful as unsolicited advice; it’d merely be a response to your feelings rather than a genuine realization that his behavior is out of control and bad for him.

So far, that’s eluded him. Making him say he’s sorry for it is not the same as making him be sorry for it.

And you should always remember the dark, demonic side of nice people who get nasty sometimes; even when they’re sorry, the next time they feel bad, they want to hurt someone. It’s particularly tempting to hurt someone who says “ouch, you’ve really hurt my feelings,” because that’s like remarking to a hungry bear that you feel really delicious that day.

Telling them they should feel guilty is accepting an engraved invitation to an argument. He’s already shown you his control is slipping, so there’s no reason to make it worse. In the movies, a big fight clears the air. In real family life, it’s Agent Orange. Afterward, he may well say, and with perfect sincerity, “I’m sorry,” and mean it…until next time.

Of course, some people say that you should be able to speak freely to your family and that’s what family is for, but you won’t get that advice here. No one can make you madder than your family can, or more in need of expressive relief.

The only trouble is, you have more to lose and nothing to gain from family conflict. But that doesn’t mean you can’t draw a line without engaging in conflict.

Your goal is to draw a line against nastiness, but not by getting him to stop being nasty. Instead of sharing your hurt or trying to make him feel guilty, steer him in a better direction while making it clear you won’t join him in any direction you consider negative and unhealthy.

Wait until you’re calm and put together your thoughts about why nastiness is bad for him and what you’re going to do about it. Be prepared to decline an invitation to fight; if he doesn’t like your words or interprets them negatively, that’s his right. You’ve said what you wanted and need say no more.

Make sure that what you say is well-intentioned and not provocative. He’s free, then, to think otherwise and you’re free to disagree and refuse further discussion. And if he acts hurt, remember you’ve done the right thing; it’s your turn not to be sorry.

STATEMENT:
“I’m impressed with the good things you’ve done with your life and I respect you highly, but there’s one problem I think needs to be mentioned, and that’s the way you talk negatively when you’re in a bad mood. I believe people can’t help the mood they’re in or the feelings they have, but negative talk can be destructive by driving your friends away and leading you to say things you’ll regret. I think the best way I can help you, when I believe your talk gets too negative, is to step back and encourage you to contact me when you’re under better control. In other areas of your life, your control over negative talk is great, but I understand it’s harder with family. But it’s also more important to keep your control with family, so I think it’s worth my mentioning this problem to you and hoping you can improve it.”

Two years ago, my sister lent me a large sum of money when I needed it during my divorce. She really saved me in that situation, and I really thought I made my gratitude clear at the time (and while I haven’t repaid her yet in full, I do send her a check every month, and will until it’s covered). The problem is that my sister acts like I’m an ungrateful mess, and I don’t know what I can do to convince her otherwise. She literally makes jokes in public about how little money I have (I’m doing fine), how lucky I am to have her in my life (I’ve told her that!)…everytime I slip-up and mention a new boyfriend she says she’s going to start saving up now for my next divorce. It’s not funny, it’s not fair, and it’s driving me crazy. My goal is to give my sister enough gratitude so she’ll get off my back.

You’re already stuck paying off your sister with cash; saddling yourself with paying off an endless debt of gratitude isn’t good for either one of you.

You’ve said you see flaws in her judgment of you, and suspect she’s critical because she’s controlling, and not because you’ve done anything wrong. Knowing that, it’s dangerous to expect her to be rational and give you the approval you deserve.

The harder you try, the more you feed the side of her that wants to feel superior. So don’t buy into her negative ideas about what you could have or should have done, or what you’re doing wrong now.

I assume there’s a positive side to your relationship because she lent you a large sum at a time of need, and I doubt she did it just to lord it over you for the rest of time. Hang onto the positive in that and the positive in what you’ve been doing and you’ll be OK.

The worst thing to do would be to respond to her criticism with resentment or counter-criticism. She’ll feel you’re resentful of being in her debt, and that lending you money destroyed your friendship, and the nastiness will get worse and endanger what has, until now, been a supportive if not entirely positive relationship.

Point is, there is not such thing as enough gratitude where your sister is concerned, so trying to thank her enough is not just a fruitless task, but a dangerous one.

To stay positive, use your own judgment to decide whether or not you’ve done right by your sister and, if you haven’t, do what’s necessary to satisfy your own standards.

Then treat her criticism as a bad habit in a good person and let her know, in a positive way, that you acknowledge her criticism, don’t agree with it, and intend to avoid talking about it (or even listening to it if it’s too persistent). But that doesn’t change your respect for her or the importance of your relationship. It just changes your expectations of your sister, nevermind what you look for in a husband.

STATEMENT:
You’re a great sister and you’ve been my rescuer during hard times. And I know that my troubles have left you with some concerns about me, my poverty, my apparent inattention to the sacrifices you’ve made to help me, and my tendency to make bad marital choices. I assure you I’ve heard your concerns, thought hard about them, and benefited from them as much as I can at this point, and, from my point of view, I’m satisfied with the results. I also think that further talk about these subjects is not good for our relationship and should be avoided, and this I intend to do. I can understand that your concerns may well continue and I know they are well intentioned. But I truly believe we will do better if they do not get mentioned in the future and that time will show you that I am stronger and that our relationship will be stronger because of all we’ve gone through together.

After my husband and I got divorced, I started going to a therapist, because I was really leveled by the whole experience. Plus I worried I was facing a custody battle over our son, who was only five, and wanted to make sure I kept it together for him. Ultimately, custody went more smoothly than I expected (my son lives with me over the school year and spends summers and some holidays with his dad), and my ex and I are on civil terms. To make a long story short though, in talking to this therapist about my ex and his odd family (with whom he spends lots of time in the summer), the therapist asked me if my ex-husband had ever talked about being molested—the family behavior I described as odd, on top of my ex-husband’s own quirks, seemed indicative of a pattern of abuse. I got up the courage to confront my ex about it, but he shut me down pretty fast. The problem is that he has our son with him and his family, and I’m worried absolutely sick, but there’s nothing I can do. I’d like to help my ex in a way, but my goal, really, is to do what’s best for my son.

Let’s imagine, just for the sake of argument, that your ex-‘s family is eccentric but not abusive. You push your ex-, he tells his family, they’re all offended and can’t talk about you without snarling with anger. Now they’re not just eccentric, they’re enraged.

Then, your son picks up on the vibrations and starts walking on eggshells with everyone, including you. That’s how dangerous it is to try too hard to protect your son from abuse; declare war on those who threaten him, and he could be your first casualty.

A better goal is to do whatever you can to protect him from abuse while also trying to protect him from the potential conflict an allegation will trigger. It’s certainly a fine line, and you must be able to tolerate fear and uncertainty to walk it. You don’t really have a choice, because the alternative is worse. And, anyway, it’s part of your parental job description.

Begin by putting aside fear and collecting facts. Consider what made the therapist raise this issue; some therapists tend to treat hunches, suspicions, and symbolic connections as if they were facts. In part, this is an old tradition among therapists and also reflects their intense wish to find something to work on when they don’t know what else to do.

The fact is, however, that therapists aren’t particularly good at identifying abuse, which requires the solid, fact-gathering techniques of a detective. So thank the therapist for raising the question, but a hunch like that needs solid evidence, as hard as it may be to gather.

Of course, the fear that haunts you is that you’ll fail to protect him by not taking action. But you don’t have the power to take action without causing greater harm, so remind yourself that, as a parent, your job is to do your best with very limited powers and then pick up the pieces if something goes wrong. You’re doing your job well– it’s the job that sucks.

While you can’t be there when your son is visiting his father’s family, you’re in a good position to pick up a great deal if something goes wrong. You’ll know if your son’s mood changes radically after a visit or he becomes withdrawn.

And that’s when, if you have a specific reason to be alarmed, you must walk the line between anger and an aggressive—but respectful—investigation.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement of your right to pursue the issue that is as unprovocative as possible. “I’ve always had reason to respect my in-laws (pile on every positive that isn’t a lie) and regard them as a resource for my son. But, now that I’m no longer there to be part of their family time with him and a therapist has raised the issue of abuse (it wasn’t my idea), I’m bound to keep an eye out. I can understand that my husband would feel insulted by such a suggestion, but it isn’t an allegation, it isn’t mine, and we both put his safety above everything. So I mean no disrespect by asking my husband to pay special attention and to join with me in avoiding risky situations if he thinks a risk exists.”

My ex-girlfriend cheated on me with this guy from her work, but she was angry at me for breaking up with her. I wish I could explain her logic to you, and believe me, I’ve tried to explain it to myself, but no dice. Normally, I’d write her off as another crazy ex to tell stories about with my friends, but the problem is, she has my watch. Or really, she has my grandfather’s watch, which I left at her apartment by accident before we broke up (and no, he didn’t hide the watch in his ass during the war, but pretty close, so if you’re going to just tell me to get another watch, don’t, this watch is way more to me than just a way to tell time). So I stormed out of her place and didn’t realize the watch was missing for a day or two, and there’s only one place it could’ve been. When I called her to ask for it back, she insisted it wasn’t there, she didn’t know what I was talking about, that I was an asshole for walking out, whatever, anything but the truth, which is that she has my grandfather’s fucking watch. You deal with crazy people, so tell me, how do I get this nut-job to take a break from lying and give it back already?

Before we try to figure out what could work, let’s go over what doesn’t work, and nagging seems to be at the top of that list. We know this because she’s dug in her heels, and whether she’s too embarrassed to admit she’s lying or just getting satisfaction out of watching you squirm, pushing harder is not going to get your watch back for you.

In fact, every time you ask for your watch, she feels like you a, like your watch more than you like her, and b, are being forced to go through the same suffering you put her through by dumping her. In other words, you ask for the watch, and she asks you and the watch to go fuck yourselves.

Painful as it might be, you have to try to accept the fact that your grandfather’s watch may be gone for good. You can go the OJ-in-Las-Vegas route, but I don’t recommend it (and neither would he). You can bribe her roommate, if she has one. If you have friends in law enforcement, that might work, too.

Trying to make friends with her might work, but it’s not likely to happen if she’s feeling vulnerable and angry. At least not for 10 years. Besides, if she’s as nutty as you make her seem, you’re probably better off having her out of your life for good.

But your goal is to try your best, whether or not it works, and this requires you to address her positively, despite the cheating and stealing. The angrier you get with her, the crazier she’ll get with you. It’s a perfect storm of feelings that leaves you frustrated and watchless, so put on your best customer service smile and try to make a deal.

And since you mentioned she’s one in a string of “crazy exes,” you should also ask yourself what you were doing with the kind of girls who would cheat, lie, and steal. Sure, they provide stories that amuse you and your friends, but would you rather make your friends laugh or have a faithful girlfriend who doesn’t swipe heirloom accessories?

Don’t ask yourself why you gravitate towards the crazy, because it doesn’t matter. Just avoid women who fit your usual girlfriend profile and opt for women who are more steady and reliable. With or without your watch, there will always be a next time. Make grandpa proud.

STATEMENT:
Here’s one way to approach your ex that might be more fruitful. “Our relationship was important to me and what I’m feeling now is mainly anger and disappointment. But I hope we can both take away what’s positive and learn from our mistakes, so we do better next time. I wish you could find that watch and send it to me, not because I wish to have nothing to do with you, but because it will help me remember the good times and think about doing better.”