What I would like to share with you, and in turn, hear you share your thoughts about, is chronic unhappiness. Is there ever an end to depression and its shadow? Is there a way to “get over it’? My goal is to be able to live beyond depression and to actually grow from it. Sure, I hate those books where people claim to be grateful to their depression… but I hate it mainly because I resent their ability to feel that way! What do you think?

There’s no way to “get over” problems you have no control of in the first place and, no matter what form it comes in (shitty in-law, brain tumor, Hurricane Earl, etc). Chronic unhappiness is high on that “uncontrollable” list.

So now you have to ask yourself what it means to “get over” an uncontrollable problem. Usually, it means you’ve asked yourself to do the impossible and thus given yourself a chronic headache to top off your chronic unhappiness.

Know your exact strain of chronic unhappiness so you can figure out what you can and can’t do with each one. Depression is unique in being a thought-distorting illness: it’s more than a poor outlook or a bad mood caused by bad luck or a rough divorce (or both at once). It’s a bad mood that goes on and on, even when you win the lottery or hit your 50th anniversary.

As an illness, it hits you with a variety of complicated, brain-related symptoms, like messed-up sleep, appetite, focus, energy, social urges, and sexual reflexes, and that’s not counting the storms of anger and/or anxiety. It’s a bad mood on steroids.

Having an unhappy life, on the other hand, can make you depressed, but not necessarily. Some people with happy lives can get very depressed, and some people with grumpy personalities aren’t depressed, although other people may wish they were. In each case, figure out, through trial and error, what you can and can’t do. Each strain is unique.

To “get over” your “getting over,” try cognitive therapy. It protects you from negative thinking by attacking the plausible, idiot assumptions you make without thinking, the most dangerous of which is that you should be able to get over chronic unhappiness.

Once you’ve done what you can do with your particular flavor, whatever that is, give up and chill out. It’s time to go on with work and relationships, however much your chronic unhappiness hurts or slows you down. The better you do that, the more you’ll grow.

No, no one should be grateful to aging, loss, and chronic pain—I think we’d all be happier with fewer “growth opportunities”—but there’s no choice. This is the life we’ve been given, so take pride in what you do with it, with or without depression (or a brain tumor).

STATEMENT:
“I don’t know why these blues won’t leave me alone. Maybe I inherited them as part of a gene-package deal from my creative, reach-out-and-connect-with-people ancestors. In any case, I’ve done what I can to manage them and I haven’t let them make me lazy or isolated or self-absorbed, and that’s a major accomplishment (which I’d be happy to do without).”

My younger brother is four years younger than me—that makes him 26, but you’d never know it because he acts like a freaking toddler. He’s not mentally impaired, he’s responsibility impaired. He dropped out of college to “find himself,” and he’s still searching, sometimes getting crappy jobs but mostly going on “adventures” and landing our parents with the bill (and sometimes the bail). I love him, but the older we get, the more I worry, because our parents won’t be around forever and I can’t be the one to clean up his messes—I’m not rich and I have my own kids to care for. Is there anyway to get him to take life a little more seriously?

Sorry for the obvious response, but the real question is, are you serious?

I’m sure your brother would say he’s serious about experiencing joy and living in the moment and that you ruin your chance of present happiness by worrying too much about things that aren’t going to happen. In other words, he’s not going to change.

Even thinking about trying to reform him will backfire and trigger conflict. You’ll give your brother a worried look, he’ll return that with a look of tolerant condescension, and your parents will accuse you of undermining his confidence. This will all leave you stewing about good deeds, their punishment, and his bullshit.

Forget about your responsible feelings and figure out what a good sibling should do to help one not-so-good. Your parents have shown you that rescuing him does no good, so rejoice. Since they’ve proven there’s not much you or anyone can do that will actually help him, there’s nothing much that you have to do, period.

When he makes a mess, help him help only when you think it will do good and it’s not someone else’s job; that won’t be often and it won’t drain you dry. The rest of the time, give him your best wishes, condolences, and directions on what he can do if he can get it together.

Don’t expect to feel comfortable, at least not at first. Your guilty, responsible feelings will be stirred up, but if you don’t keep those feelings hidden, other people will stir the pot. If experience and logic tell you that you’re not responsible, believe them and act accordingly, regardless of how you feel or what the rest of the family has to say.

Announce, don’t communicate. Let him know what you think is best without paying much attention to his response. Yes, it would feel better if you could get him to agree, but your need for agreement opens a door you want to keep closed.

He’ll keep his carpe diem attitude, and all you have to do is keep your end of the bargain, on your terms. He can go find himself, and you can find some peace.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to keep you from trying to change him or win him over. “As much as I want to protect my brother and parents from his irresponsibility, I know I can’t. He will wind up in horrible messes. I will not stop loving him, caring for him, or doing for him if there’s a real chance to help. Most times, it will hurt to watch him suffer, but I will not turn away.”

I decided recently to listen to my friends and family and see a psychiatrist about my depression, but I don’t know whether I’ve made the wrong decision, or whether I’ve just chosen the wrong doctor. Basically, I decided to get help because I feel helpless, but my doctor wants me to do a lot of the work myself and doesn’t really help that much. It’s not just he wants me to ask myself a lot of questions (and answer them—if I had the answers, would I really be paying him?—but also deal with my insurance company and read up on the medication he suggests (he tells me about them, sure, but he says I owe it to myself to read up on them on my own, and that doesn’t make sense to me since he’s a doctor, knows everything about the pills, and he could just tell me himself). My goal is to figure out whether therapy is worth it, or whether I’m just getting help from the wrong source.

I hate to sound like your psychiatrist, but ask yourself what you have a right to expect from treatment, given what you know about its limits and your resources for paying for it.

If you want, you can spin things positively by saying that you’ve heard about good new treatments that can really help and that you’ve got great insurance that you pay a ton of money for. Of course, you’d probably be full of shit.

You don’t need to do months of research to know that no treatment has yet been acclaimed as a cure for mental illness or any other life- or personality-related problem.

Plus nothing you’ve read (or probably haven’t bothered to read) about the effectiveness of any current treatment implies that it works 100 percent of the time or that the treatment, if medical, is safe from possible side effects.

In addition, every method of “screening” for depression that you’ve heard about involves a questionnaire, right, rather than a blood test or scanning machine, which means that the burden for enduring, measuring and tracking the results of a trial of treatment falls, inevitably, on you the patient. And those are unfortunate facts of life whether you’re rich or poor, smart or stupid, board certified or not.

That’s the next problem: you’re not rich. And while you bristle at having to deal with insurance limits, you can’t afford insurance that would give you unlimited mental health treatment because it doesn’t exist. All insurance puts a limit of some kind on the amount of treatment you get and, unless you know what that limit is, you’ll use up your resources too quickly and have no idea about what, if anything, entitles you to more.

In addition, insurance limits your doctor’s fees and the amount of time s/he can afford to spend on a visit, so don’t fall for the professional who is ultra-amiable until your money runs out. Instead, look for someone who gives you what you most need in as little time as possible. In other words, beware smiles and frills because they may drain your limited resources.

Depressed people like yourself also tend to get negative and helpless ideas, which make them act negatively and passively, which makes them yet more depressed. That’s why mental health clinicians will push you to challenge your negative assumptions, learn more positive ways of thinking about your problems, and put the breaks on the depressive cycle.

It’s a cognitive kind of psychotherapy and is very helpful, although it’s often unpleasant in the beginning because you need to clamp down on your natural instincts. It’s a mental workout to make your non-depressive muscles stronger. No pain, no gain.

So yes, therapy of all kinds can be worth it, but you’ll be the one doing much of the work, not because someone else is slacking, but because mental illness sucks and both treatment and the resources to pay for it require careful management—by you.

Now you just have to decide what’s harder—doing the work or doing nothing. It might not be what you want to hear, but there’s no psychiatrist out there with a better offer.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to keep you positive about a negative treatment process. “It’s hard having an incurable illness and knowing that the treatments are iffy, take a long time, and can easily use up my insurance before helping me, but I owe it to myself to give every reasonable treatment a try and become and good resource manager because that’s what I have to do.”

I’ve been in therapy for five years, and while I like my therapist a lot, I’m moving soon (my girlfriend got into grad school on the west coast), so I’m ending my treatment with her. She asked me recently though whether I was going to continue my treatment in my new town or whether I thought I’d taken it far enough, and I realized I honestly don’t know. She had some suggestions in terms of determining when and why to end therapy, but to be honest, they didn’t really help. I’ve been in therapy long enough that I don’t really remember how I coped beforehand, and while I feel much less tormented than I did when I began therapy, I’m not sure if my state of mind will crumble once I’m no longer getting help. How do you think one can determine when therapy has run its course, or whether there’s more to be done?

There’s a simple way to figure out how much talking psychotherapy you need: imagine paying full fee for it.

Before you crunch the numbers, ask yourself why you started therapy in the first place. Forget self-improvement, introspection, or generally pondering your bellybutton. Figure out what’s so bad about the way you feel and/or handle your life that you need to continue to spend lots of time and money on changing it.

Having failed to solve your problems over the past 5 years, you should wonder whether you can realistically expect a cure in the next year (no way) or whether you need maintenance treatment to keep you from slipping backwards (which is what you’ve been wondering all along).

At the same time, go back to the original question and ask yourself how much you can afford to spend on treatment each year and whether you should hold a few sessions in reserve for use in emergencies.

Unless you’re rich, don’t waste time worrying about how stopping treatment will make you feel. Instead, try stopping and see what happens. Even if you miss your therapist’s support, lose confidence, and re-experience your nervous stammer, suck it up, give it time, and the earth will continue to turn.

Next, think of therapy as a course that’s supposed to give you a specific marketable skill in exchange for your hard-earned debt. Don’t think like a college kid; you’re not there to party, please your parents, or become cool. If the first few sessions don’t deliver what you need, drop the class.

If you do have ample insurance coverage for therapy, don’t let it make you forget basic resource management skills. For one thing, many insurance policies are stiffening the limits on outpatient psychotherapies and are about to force you to do the above.

For another, being an active manager protects you from unnecessary dependence and time-wasting. Give your therapy specific goals, then examine how close to those goals you’ve come.

If therapy is more about discussion, then save the insurance hassle and start a search for a fun hairdresser. You can get your hour of talk and never have a bad hair day.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement that keeps you focused on making the best of limited resources instead of going for all-you-can-eat and then feeling deprived and abandoned. “I like psychotherapy and feel it’s been good for me, but it’s time, before it eats up more time and/or money, to think hard about how badly I need it, how well it’s working, how much is necessary, and how much I can afford to pay for it. The more I answer these questions for myself, the less likely I am to depend on experts to tell me what I need.”

Just after my girlfriend and I started dating, she decided she had to stop hanging out with her closest friends, not because I told her to, but because she decided they partied too much and it wasn’t good for her anymore. I supported that 100%, but it puts a lot of pressure on me to spend a lot of time with her since she literally has no one else to hang out with anymore. Plus, I have to travel a lot for work, which is why I took the job, because I love being on the road. Even though she knows this about me and tells me it’s OK, I can tell that my leaving town really depresses her and so I feel really guilty because I know she’ll be really lonely when I’m gone. I want things to work with her, but I can’t change who I am and don’t want to change what I do. What can I do to feel less guilty? How much compromise is too much?

I’m not sure if this is comforting, but it’s not guilt telling you that you’re making your girlfriend unhappy. I can see why this is confusing, because your girlfriend isn’t outwardly saying she’s unhappy, either.

Still, guilt isn’t your problem because you haven’t made vows, you don’t have bad intentions, and you don’t owe her something for giving up friends and a lifestyle that weren’t good for her in the first place.

You feel guilty just because you’ve chosen a lifestyle that may make her unhappy, but, given that you’re the ramblin’ kind, it’s also your responsibility to find out if you’re the right boyfriend for her.

You can’t help the fact that you’ve got traveling shoes that don’t come off and a priority that’s even more important than pleasing her, which is to find out whether she can tolerate your traveling ways. Otherwise, pleasing her becomes a dangerous and destructive prison.

It’s good that you know your work priorities require you to travel. That’s nothing to feel guilty about, but it means that, if you want a partner, she’d better be independent, or the two of you are going to be very unhappy. Yes, it’s OK to fall in love and be on the road at the same time, but if she isn’t an independent type, it won’t work.

So, while it’s true that your actions may make her unhappy, that isn’t your fault. What you need to know is whether she and you can bear that pain without it destroying your relationship. If you flinch and say you’re sorry, you’re implying that you could make things better, but you can’t, so don’t. Naturally, you don’t want to make her suffer, but you need to know whether she can hack it, because this is the way it has to be.

Evaluate her independence by looking at her track record, not just her wishes. Just because she loves you enough to straighten out her life and tell you she’s willing to put up with your absences doesn’t mean she has the strength to do so.

So stifle your guilt and check out her strength. . You are who you are, and she’s not going to change, so either things work with the personalities you’ve got, or the wheels have to hit the road.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement that prevents guilt and fear from distracting you from what matters. “We have a wonderful relationship and I can see how much you’re committed to making it work, but you know that travelling is an unavoidable part of my life, so you need to be very independent and able to tolerate long absences if we’re to have a chance at a partnership that could work. That’s the question I need to ask both of us: whether you would be able to tolerate my traveling lifestyle without feeling lonely, lost and deserted.”

I know it’s sappy, but I do believe that there’s someone for everyone, and that the right guy is out there and I just haven’t met him yet. In the meantime, I’ve put up with a lot of Mr. Wrongs, from guys who don’t open the door for me or pay for dinner on the first date to guys who just live like slobs and only call back on “their schedule.” Some of my friends think I’m too quick to dismiss men for stupid reasons, but if I know what I want, why settle? In the meantime, I’m sick of putting up with losers, and I do have a nagging worry that the one guy for me is just never going to cross my path because I’ll be on a date with a jerk instead. How do I wade through the losers to find the one?

You’ve got a good attitude towards dating because you’re realistic about how draining and sad the process can be if you don’t put as much effort into self-protection as you do into flowers and horseshit.

There’s no such thing as dismissing guys too quickly when you’re dating; the faster the better, but only if it’s for the right reasons. Dating is a two-priority process, unfortunately, requiring both seeking and self-defense, which is why there are no guarantees and why you need to be tough and careful as well as attractive.

My only concern about your dating philosophy is your unflagging belief in your chosen one. If you’re very good at dating, there are still no guarantees that you’ll find someone, let alone the prefect someone of your dreams.

On the other hand, your singleness is not your fault, and pretty people won’t necessarily do any better. Pretty people aren’t guaranteed a soul mate, either. Just free drinks.

So, instead of judging your pickiness by your friends’ opinions, ask yourself what you’re looking for. Don’t waste time on a nice smile, or a sexy feeling, or a six pack (abs or beer). Start with the same essentials you’d put on the job description for anyone you would want to do business and/or spend time with: reliability, generosity, and the presence of abilities you find impressive and helpful for whatever it is you want to do. If a man has those qualities but doesn’t clean up after himself, it might be worth ignoring the slobbery.

Most prospects don’t meet those criteria, so don’t get sentimental about hurting their feelings or looking extra hard for that diamond in the rough. You said it well: the big reason for missing Mr. Right is wasting time (and heartache) with Mr. Wrong. Just don’t confuse Mr. Wrong with Mr. Lacks-Total-Perfection.

STATEMENT:
Give yourself a sensible mission statement. “I’d like to date someone who’s attractive and fun, but my bigger priority is to find someone solid who’s attractive enough and won’t waste my time, and that’s hard to do. I will need to be disciplined, smart, and tough to find someone good; perfection is an illusion. If I find someone good, I can enjoy romance and pretend he’s perfect; but until then, I’ve got a job to do.”

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.

Don’t feel too responsible for everyone’s pain, just because that pain got triggered by your choice of mate. Your wife knew that your family was part of the deal and that pain is unavoidable with certain types of in-law.

Your parents should value your wife for being a strong, steady partner and, if they were grown up, they’d assume that spending time with people you don’t really like and smiling while you do it is an essential part of leading a family, as it is for managing any organization.

Alas, it seems the parent has become the child, so here’s some parental advice from a more mature source; life is hard, bad interpersonal chemistry is unavoidable, and you make conflict worse by taking too much responsibility for improving it.

Accept things the way they are and count the advantages of continuing a painful family relationship, including retaining contact with people you love (even if you don’t like them or the way they behave), sharing meaningful family events, and providing your kids with a sense of where they come from. Then decide how much family time is necessary to conserve what you value while minimizing the pain.

Besides, while you can’t change interpersonal chemistry, you can control what time you arrive and leave, and what subjects you’re simply not going to talk about. If they want to dig into your wife, don’t fight it, just change the subject and exit early if need be.

You’ll never be one big loving family, but you’ll always be family, even if it’s for short periods fewer times a year. It’s not fair, but it’s the best thing for your marriage, your sanity, and a life free of pantsuits.

STATEMENT:
Give yourself a mandate that protects you from having to share anger, guilt, or explanations with your family. “I’ve tried to build a friendship between my wife and family and it hasn’t worked, but that won’t stop me from being a good son and keeping family relationships as positive as possible. If I do what I believe is right, I need never expose myself or my wife to argument or pointless discussion, no matter who in my family feels otherwise.”

My wife and I are concerned about our daughter’s boyfriend. They seem quite serious, and we’d be happy to see her married and settled down, but he seems like a bully. It’s not just that we think he’s not good enough for her, but we’re genuinely worried that he could become abusive, if not physically, then verbally. He’s so combative and humorless it makes us wonder what we did wrong, since we thought we provided her with a happy, jovial home life growing up. My wife has tried to talk to her about it, but my daughter assures her that he’s a good guy and says we’re not being tolerant or supportive of her adult choices. I want my daughter to figure out who he really is before it’s too late.

As parents of a marrying daughter, particularly one who likes defending the misunderstood and obnoxious, you have less control than a drunk at a cruise’s open bar.

Try to protect her, and you’re attacking her baby/lover and pushing the two of them even closer together. You know you’re in trouble when, in trying to help her, you find yourself making dramatic speeches that sound like they come from a movie.

Instead, take poker lessons, or at least listen to Lady Gaga, and prepare to keep your feelings well hidden if you want to avoid making things worse.

Yes, life is that bad; you put decades of love and care into raising a kid, and this is what you get. The good news is that it happens to really good parents, so don’t waste time blaming yourselves or your wife. The bad news then is that there’s no mistake to undo. Life is unfair, and you’ve been tagged by the fickle finger of fuckin’ bad luck.

Now that you’ve cried and accepted your fate (and perhaps asked yourselves who Lady Gaga is), there is much you can do.

Begin, as usual, by expressing respect for your daughter’s love and good intentions. It’s an insult to suggest that her fiancé is an asshole, but you can wonder if the rough edges (of such a wonderful guy) are likely to get in the way of his employment, parenting, or relationship with her friends. You can also contradict the idea that love is going to change him or make his difficulties go away, without suggesting that it’s anyone’s fault.

Having created some non-personal, non-critical ways for her to think about her future, you can let subsequent events speak for themselves while you raise an eyebrow and, pointedly, say nothing. Speeches are weak and melodramatic– silence is a stronger statement.

You’re not blaming him for being a fuck-up; you’re simply expressing concern about the burden that will eventually fall on her in the worst case scenario and noting when events seem to be falling into that category. You’re being an impartial judge, even if the verdict sucks.

STATEMENT:
You need a mission statement that blocks off fear and blame. “We know you love one another and that you have a tremendous capacity to nurture him and be nurtured by him. But we see marriage as two people carrying a load together, as well as a matter of love and feelings, and that’s why we urge you to consider whether his problems will get in the way of his doing his share, not just in terms of emotional support but making money and raising kids. Having said that, we’re happy for you and will welcome him into the family, hoping things turn out well.”

I am a divorced 26-year-old (I have been divorced for almost 5 years). My marriage was a toxic abusive relationship. Regardless of that, I feel “happy,” I have realistic career goals, a loving family and boyfriend. Everything adds up, but I feel as though my happiness is a mirage. I’m happy with everything and everyone but myself. I just never add up to what I feel I should be or can be, especially when it comes to the number on my bathroom scale. I feel as though I will never be thin enough. I know it is unnatural to feel this way, being that I’m thin for my height, but I worry I am spinning on the edge most days looking at nutrition labels and focusing on the number of the day. How can I over come this mind game? Why did it bloom so late after my divorce? Is it even from my divorce or was this monster seeded a long time ago?

Most people aren’t happy with the way they look or how much they weigh, and all people spend at least a little time each day being unhappy, but many still manage to live normal, albeit slight chubby/grumpy lives.

As to the source of your insecurities, your guess is as good as mine and the many other scientists, clinicians, and desperate-for-a-topic writers who explain this phenomenon. It could be your ex, or it could reading too much Cosmo.

These experts assume, for the most part, that you wouldn’t be so self-critical if you didn’t listen to magazines, celebrities, or your critical-yet-well-meaning grandmother, and just believed in your self. They tell you that self-esteem will conquer all. Of course, they’re wrong.

There’s lots of evidence that self-hating body thoughts can happen to people with perfectly good self-esteem, nice families, and normal bodies. Instead of obsessing about why you feel this way the same way you obsess over calorie counts, stop and ask yourself, first, whether these thoughts are doing you much harm.

I know they’re causing you pain, but ask yourself whether they’re affecting your health or relationships. Right or wrong, you can think you need to lose a few without hiding major parts of your personalities and or being a bad friend or parent.

If you think your body-hate isn’t doing too much harm, try ignoring it. Certain kinds of psychotherapy may help, but watch out if you find yourself becoming more self-obsessed and blaming yourself for not getting better. The mark of good psychotherapy, like good coaching, is that it gives you ideas and motivation for managing a problem without increasing your expectations of control.

If body-hate is hurting your health or relationships—if you purge, have become anemic, or acquired any number of the dire symptoms that come with an eating disorder—assemble a treatment team, including a primary care physician, a psychiatrist and dietitian, and don’t hesitate to put yourself into an around-the-clock “eat-your-food” camp if it’s necessary. It can save your life.

In any case, don’t pin your hopes and self-esteem on self-control, or self-hating thoughts will just get worse. If you make it your job to keep trying and regard the illness as you would the weather, it can’t touch your sense of who you are.

You need never see yourself as a food nut or anorectic; you’re simply a person with eating issues, which puts you in the same camp as 90% of the population. You might feel like shit, but you are truly not alone.

STATEMENT:
“There’s nothing wrong with my values or approach to life, and I’ve managed to build a good life, except for one problem. I have an obsession about food and weight that sometimes drives me crazy. I don’t know that I can stop it, but I will always do whatever is necessary to keep it from ruining my health and relationships.”

I feel horrible about this, but ever since my husband gained weight, I find myself feeling much less attracted to him. Neither one of us has ever been super-models, but after 10 years of marriage, I’ve managed to keep my weight from getting out of control and he hasn’t. I tell him he should eat less because of his health, and he makes a half-assed effort, but the truth is, I also just hate his body like this. I’d never tell him that though because he’d be heartbroken and I’d feel like such a jerk. I’d never leave him over this (we have a family), but not having sex is putting a strain on our relationship, which makes being together so much harder. How can I want to be with him if he keeps letting himself go?

The fact that we spend billions of dollars improving and preserving our sexual attractiveness should be a clear indicator that we have absolutely no control over it.

Specifically, we don’t control what aging does to our bodies or how we respond to those changes, in ourselves and others. That’s probably one of the best reasons for not making a big deal out of it; the more we try to control it, the more it tortures us when we can’t.

Many think over-eating should be more controllable than aging, but to those people I say, try keeping your weight down while making a living, raising a family, and living in the golden age of Oreo Cakesters.

Even if you achieve your ideal body weight, you know how easily stress, sorrow and even inattention can open the door on your bad old habits. As Bush II discovered, there’s nothing more demoralising than declaring victory when you’ve temporarily got the upper hand on a problem that is never going to go away.

Even if weight control is easy for you, you know that it’s not easy for most people, like your husband, regardless of how much they worry about it. Worrying makes us hungry, as does reading about one more diet that does no better than old diets if you measure progress after a year or two. So, as much as you miss the old sexual attraction and worry about your husband’s health, don’t get obsessed with the “would-have, should have” of weight control. Blaming him isn’t fair, and will make the problem much more personal.

We’ve had lots of laughs at the expense of those idiot Victorians who advised women who didn’t like sex to “lie back and do it for England.” Sadly, it seems like there was great wisdom in that advice, particularly when you care about your partner and you’ve run out of other options.

First, though, don’t let guilt over your own negative sexual response—or anger at his “letting himself go”—prevent you from exploring those other options. Your husband probably wants to lose weight, if for no other reason than to improve his health. With his agreement, explore all the ways you can create “structure”—incentives and habits— in your daily home routine that will encourage exercise and caloric restraint.

Without letting yourself become a calorie Nazi, (which, for most of us, would be a worse sex-killer than growing a lady-beard), see if you can shape your menu, pantry contents, and exercise schedule.

If nothing works, fall back on your marriage vows. The reason you make vows is not because you’re fickle and likely to change your mind about your partner, but because life is hard and will eventually take the things that are fun now and make them difficult. You can try to help him lose weight (and help yourself), but if that doesn’t work, you need to help your marriage.

The test of a good marriage is not whether it’s fun, but whether two people continue to like and respect one another when it’s not. Through sickness and health, slim and flabby.

STATEMENT:
“It hurts to have a sexually repulsive husband, particularly after I’ve tried to help him slim down, but the purpose of our partnership was always to create a family and look out for one another, and was never about being young and sexually attractive forever, so I respect myself for putting up with this loss for the sake of a marriage that I value.”

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.

The more it costs, relative to your income, to send him to college, the more you’re aware it’s not for fun.

The value of college is boosting his ability to make a living, take responsibility for the well-being of others, survive the horrible things life is going to throw at him, and still be a good person.

Maybe kids would have more realistic expectations if college offered a course or two on the extra-curricular problems that are going to wind up teaching them the most, like dealing with roommates who hate them, or losing their ability to stay organized when there’s no one taking attendance, or not being able to control a deep attraction to someone or something that’s bad for them.

Those are learning experiences that are always painful (after beginning, almost always, with lots of fun), and that often have a lot more value than your average Comp Lit class.

I know, sounding like a grim, worried crank may help you adjust your expectations for his happiness, but it won’t help you get through to him; he’ll feel you’re trying to spook him into working harder when co-eds just wanna have fun.

Instead, do what you usually have to do when talking about the facts of life: assume your friendliest, most professional and optimistic demeanor when addressing the facts of life. In the nicest way possible, inform him that If he wants to live in the moment, he might have to pay for that choice with his future.

Of course, if he really wants to focus on fun now, you also have to discuss who’s paying his tuition.

STATEMENT:
“I’m glad you’ve found something that interests you and, if this were a fair world, you’d have a chance to explore other interests in college, have lots of fun, and then buckle down and get focused in law school, but things seldom work that way. If you’re interested in law, you’d better find out whether law school admissions are tight and, if they are, how to make yourself a viable candidate while still having the best time you can.”

My girlfriend is a loyal straight-shooter, but she’s a little clueless about how people feel—sometimes I think I’m the girl in this relationship when it comes to sensitivity—and recently she’s been acting like an idiot. There’s this guy who’s obviously infatuated with her, but he’s trying to hide his feelings because he has a girlfriend, she’s got me, and it’s not what anyone wants. When I told her what was going on, she laughed it off, took it as a compliment, and teased me for being jealous. Then, without thinking about it much, she continued to look for opportunities to work with him, which is something he welcomes, but it obviously gets him going, and I can see no good coming from it. She says she isn’t making him unhappy, so why should I try to create problems. How can I get him to see he’s stirring up trouble?

It’s tough to have the ability to foresee trouble that others don’t, because, when you warn them, you’ll get called Chicken Little for spoiling their happiness. Problem is, the sky falls on everyone’s head.

If you raise your voice to reflect the urgency of the situation, you’ll have your emotionality explained to you, which will make you more emotional. Alas, Cassandra didn’t have too many friends and those she had, she hated.

In order to be taken seriously, you need enough confidence in your point of view to avoid become defensive, and enough acceptance of the fact that someone may not accept your warnings so that you phrase them calmly and in a language that s/he actually speaks.

In this case, your girlfriend’s blindness to her male friend’s deeper feelings means she experiences your warning as criticism of her irresponsibility and an attempt to deprive her of the pleasure of his company.

So first, dispel any blame. Express appreciation for her friendliness and make it clear you don’t hold her responsible for managing someone else’s feelings, particularly when they’re subtle and hard to spot.

Then ask her to assess the indirect evidence of a problem she can’t see. I know, it’s like explaining color to the blind, but you can do it. Urge her to consider several methods for spotting over-attachment, such as a tendency for her not-crush to be too willing to drop everything when she invites him to work with her, or the reaction of her un-crush’s girlfriend when she’s talking to them both.

In other words, if she can’t see the signs, lead her to them, and ask her to consider the possible risks if you’re right: eventual trouble between her un-crush and herself and, possibly, between him and his girlfriend.

Emotions are easy to pooh-pooh, but facts aren’t. If your girlfriend can see those facts, she might abandon the rush her un-crush gives her in favor of the possible emotional fall-out.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement that disowns blame-casting (“casting” is Yiddish for “stupfing”, in the interest of speaking your language) and urges nothing more than positive precautions. “I hope I’m not right about his feelings but, if I am, I certainly don’t see him acting inappropriately, which is why the problem is subtle. The most you should do, if you see anything that leads you to be concerned, is avoid over-stimulating him with too much friendliness while keeping things positive and non-personal, so as to give him time to deal with his vulnerability.”

I’ve done some research, and I think my girlfriend is bipolar. She gets into these very good moods for no particular reason, and when she’s in this mood she can’t stop talking and seems high and silly (and that’s when she sometimes drinks too much). When she’s like that, she’s more obnoxious-funny than really funny, but she thinks she’s a riot. I’m not crazy about her up times, but what I really dread is the crash that follows; it’s hell for her and everyone around her. I know she sees a shrink, so I told her what I was worried about, but she acted like I was insulting her and then she said she was sorry, maybe I was right, but she likes feeling happy and doesn’t see anything wrong with it and why should it bother me. My goal isn’t to take away her joy, but I wonder if it’s bad for her to be bipolar and, if so, what she should do about it.

You’re right to worry about your girlfriend’s highs, but getting through to her may not be easy. Manic people aren’t exactly perceptive, unless by perceptive, you mean frighteningly giddy and overwhelming obnoxious.

Meanwhile, she sees her mania as the time when she’s fun and funniest, so she may resent you for criticizing her behavior when, from her point of view, she’s at her best, wittiest, and happiest.

Being manic also comes with the certainty that you can do no wrong. Between that and the ecstatic feelings, judgment is lost in a heavy, happy mist.

That’s why, if you have bipolar disorder, you should ask trusted friends to tell you if you seem over the top—it’s an “advance directive,” like the one you would use to tell them whether to authorize CPR if you pass out—because mania makes it hard for you to judge for yourself, especially when you’re too busy dancing on cars in a bikini to notice.

Of course, your girlfriend has a milder form of the problem, but it makes her focus on how she feels, rather than on what’s happening now or on consequences. That’s why she’s heard what you have to say and doesn’t appear to give a shit.

So, instead of expressing worry and doom, encourage her to consider the risks while expressing confidence in her abilities, and respect for her right to make her own choices. If she can’t or won’t understand your warning, accept that fact and do your best with it.

You want her to heed your warning and save herself and your relationship, but if she can’t, it’s better for you to know now than to spend months and years in a negative struggle, trapped in an unhappy mist that will drive you crazy yourself.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement that makes your best case in a non-coercive way. “You’re usually very responsible and good with people, but I worry about your high moods because you seem to get carried away more than you realize, lose touch with how other people react, and drink too much, and afterwards you’re always depressed and very unhappy. Don’t trust my view if you think I’m prejudiced; ask others who know you and ask a professional whether the mood swings might get worse. Then, whatever you decide, I know you’ll be thinking about what’s good for you, rather than what feels good.

I like my brother’s girlfriend—she seems like an all-around good person—but I really worry about the two of them together. They fight constantly, and from what I can tell, the things they fight about are things that are never going to change. Like, she hates that he works so late, but she knew he was a chef when they met and that the hours are long, and he loves his work and isn’t leaving it for anyone. Then he hates how stingy she is about money when it means going without things they don’t need, even when they can actually afford it. I hate to see them fight, but they seem absolutely determined to stay together even though neither one of them wants to, or is able to, change his or her lifestyle. I see that they love one another, and my brother wants to marry her, but I worry that they’re locking themselves into a lifetime of unhappiness.

You’re right not to criticize a relationship that is obviously important and meaningful to your brother, for obvious reasons. What feels like worry to you will feel like criticism to him, with no good results to your relationship or his.

You can help him think rationally, however, (or at least satisfy yourself that you’ve done your best on that score), if you first show obvious respect for him, his girlfriend, and their effort to make things work. Keep your fear to yourself, because it always implies disrespect for his choices. Think like a hostage negotiator, with your brother’s future in bondage.

When he brings up an issue in their marriage, don’t talk about solutions; you’ve already decided there aren’t any, and trying to find one will just make you impatient. Instead, ask him about what will happen to him and her if they are who they are and life does what it does.

The key component you describe as possibly missing is acceptance—she can’t accept the hours dictated by his profession, and he can’t accept her money management–so it’s reasonable for you to wonder what’s likely to happen as their jobs become more complicated, they have kids, one of them gets sick, i.e., if life happens.

If you believe, as you do, that the things they can’t accept aren’t likely to change, then ask him whether, given the worst case scenario for his schedule and her spending, he thinks he can accept her as is and vice versa. You can share the notion that you think acceptance is a more important predictor than love of whether a relationship is likely to work.

Remember, you’re not asking him whether he thinks they’ll be happy together, because marriage is often painful and unhappy for everyone. Non-acceptance, not unhappiness, however, is what blows marriages apart.

You’re asking him whether they’re likely to be able to continue to do business together and, if not, what impact that will have on their lives. If he hears you out and still goes forward with marriage, then at least you can accept that you did your best.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement of your mission. “You’ve got three good things going for you: you love one another, you really want to make things work, and you’re actively trying to find out whether you can live together. You can’t necessarily control your own work and money habits, let alone someone else’s, so you never know whether you can make things work, no matter how much you love one another; but doing what you’re doing is the way to find out and, as long as you have the courage to accept what you find, you can’t go wrong.”

I recently started going to a doctor for my depression. She thinks I should take pills, I’ve seen lots of articles about how antidepressants don’t work and the main reason they’re prescribed is because of the huge investment that big pharmaceutical companies have made in producing and marketing them. It makes sense to me that there are better natural, holistic solutions that get played down by the medical establishment because they can’t make money for anyone and threaten the profits made by those companies. My goal is to find treatments that work best, not the treatments that server the corporate interests.

The problem with most criticism of current drug treatments is its hopefulness; it implies that there are good, effective, cheap and low-side-effect treatments for depression (that are being suppressed). If only principal clause of that statement were true.

Sure, a magic bullet, holistic or otherwise, would be great (there are lots of other unsolved and incurable problems I can work on, so I’m not worried by the hit my business will take).

The truth is, however, that current treatments are time-consuming, weak, often costly, sometimes risky, and not guaranteed to work

Please resist the temptation to change the subject to tell me why current treatments are costly and often ineffective. You’re entitled to be angry about that sad fact, as about any other of the tragic, unfair and irritating facts of life, like tailgaters, the fact they cancelled “Firefly,” and almost anything having to do with hospitals and health insurance.

As much as I agree with you, I don’t want to hear it; you’ve got a job to do, and anger is a distracting escape from facing what you need to deal with if you’re going to manage treatment decisions for depressive illness. Instead of getting mad at your hand, play the cards you’re dealt.

Your treatment choices for depression aren’t that complicated…once you accept the fact that there’s no way to tell in advance which treatments are going to work or what side effects you’ll encounter. If you’re not in a hurry (i.e., if your depression isn’t about to push you out a window or immediately end your relationship with wife and family), you begin with non-medical treatments, like cognitive behavioral therapy, exercise, and diet and life-style changes.

If the symptoms are severe or longstanding or coming back after previous bouts, then you also experiment with antidepressant medications. This isn’t because Pfizer decrees it so, but because non-medical treatments are unlikely to perform miracles and an antidepressant medication improves your chance of recovery, even though it also has possible side effects.

If you want to try holistic remedies first, by all means, go ahead, but approach those treatments with the same care you would conventional ones; do your research to see what the data show in terms of results and what the side effects might be. Most data are inconclusive, but if you believe the treatment is working, then take that placebo to the bank.

Either way, you know the major principle of risk management: the more desperate your condition, the greater risk (pain, side-effects, cost, etc.) you should be prepared to bear in your effort to manage it. Draw on your own experience of your symptoms, their severity, and their impact on your life, as well as what the experts tell you about them, to decide how desperate you are.

It’s not a big pharma conspiracy against your health; your options just aren’t that great, and you have to figure out which one will work out, if not perfectly, then best.

STATEMENT:
Include your doubts about medication in a statement that focuses on management, not resentment or silly hopes for hidden cures stashed away in a cave with Sasquatch. “If I ever decide to use medication, it will be because I’m desperate and other methods haven’t worked. At that point, I’ll try to figure out their benefits and risks by looking at scientific, controlled studies, not emotional statements based on single cases or uncontrolled, badly selected patient populations. I will consult specialists and authorities to explain why they place faith in particular data or don’t like someone else’s data; but I will then make up my own mind, shutting out my emotional response to charisma or sincerity or a desire to include everyone’s opinion. When it comes to decisions about my health, I deserve a good, objective risk manager—me.”

I know the tranquilizer I take is addictive and interferes with my memory, but it’s the only thing that works when I get really anxious, and the other drugs I’ve been given for anxiety made me sick and didn’t work. I’m anxious because I’m stressed by some unusual recent events, which I’m sure I’ll get over in time, and then I won’t need to take medication. So my goal is to get the medication that works for me and avoid the stuff I know is going to make me sick.

It’s wonderful to get relief from severe anxiety, which is a terribly painful and frightening sensation. So I hate to make you more anxious by telling you that, unfortunately, there’s no good, safe medication that provides rapid relief.

The medications that provide rapid relief pose high risks of addiction and impair memory and balance, and the medications that are safer don’t provide rapid relief. That’s not very reassuring, but if you don’t cowboy up and face that fact, you’re in for trouble.

Remember, anxiety isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Much worse is what anxiety can make you do, like avoiding whatever stirs it up, medicating with alcohol, and making it your goal to feel less anxious. Given these dangers, your real goal is to do what you can to reduce anxiety while not letting it change what matters to you.

Don’t stop trying alternatives to addictive drugs because previous trials failed—that’s anxiety whispering its lies. It tries to tell you that everything that caused you pain in the past should be avoided now and in the future.

If you find yourself listening to that shit, you desperately need some cognitive therapy to help you straighten out your thinking. You can get it from books or a therapist or hanging out with anxious people who have learned how to manage their fears. There isn’t an actual Anxiety Anonymous, but there are groups like it.

If you stay with your current plan, you’ll not only lead a restrictive life, but you’ll tend to choose immediate relief over long-term advantages, whether it’s in treatment, jobs, or relationships. At that point, your anxiety is managing you, and that’s a real cause for worry.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to keep you strong. “I need to develop new methods for dealing with anxiety because, as much as I wish it weren’t true, anxiety will always come back, eventually, and the tranquilizers that give me great relief in the short run will cause problems if I take them for too long. There are lots of non-medical techniques I should learn; and, if they aren’t sufficient, there are lots of non-addictive medications I should try that have a very low risk of causing serious harm. I need the courage to do what makes most sense to me, not what my anxiety would prefer.

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.

The sad fact of life is that you are never going to change who you really are, which, at the very least, is a girl who enjoys drinking, and he’s going to have to take it or leave it. On the other hand, if you present the issue positively and he considers it realistically, maybe acceptance will occur, now that you’re not forcing it.

That’s why your goal shouldn’t be to win acceptance from your love; it’s to find out if your love can be accepting. He doesn’t need to like your drinking, but you need to know whether he can accept that it’s part of your package and accept the whole deal.

Instead of getting him to accept you the way you are, begin by accepting yourself. Forget how much you like to drink and ask yourself, on the basis of your own experience and what you’ve read, whether drinking gets in the way of anything you hold dear, like your health or making a living or being a good woman and a good friend. If in doubt, stop drinking for a while and see if there’s any difference.

Once you know your own mind, lay things on the line with your husband in a positive way. Of course, if you’ve come to agree that you’re a lush, let him know that you want to stop drinking because you believe you need to, and not to please him.

Otherwise, state your differences positively while letting him know how much you’d like him to accept you, if he can. If he can’t, then that’s a sad reality you both have to accept on your own.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement of your own views that is not overly reactive to his. “I respect your concern for my drinking and regret that it worries you. I’ve looked hard at how much it affects my health, work, and friendships. In the end, I don’t see it as causing me problems and, as much as I love you, it won’t help our relationship to appease unfounded fears. I hope you’ll accept my decision. Meanwhile, I think we should drop the topic of my drinking and, hopefully, move on to other things.”

My daughter is severely bipolar and lives with us so my wife and I can try to make sure she takes her meds and doesn’t hurt herself. We aren’t always successful—she’s practically an adult now and hates when we parent her—so she stopped taking her meds because she thought she didn’t need them anymore. Now she’s extremely manic, maybe using hard drugs, and extremely irritable. We’re absolutely helpless and there’s nothing we can do because she won’t talk to us. Our goal is to get her to listen to us, stop drugging, and get back on her meds.

Mental illness makes all families helpless; after all, it’s hard to have a dialogue with someone whose brain is diseased, irritable, inattentive and unresponsive. You’d have better luck reasoning with a rabid wolverine.

If you believe that your only power derives from your ability to have a heart-to-heart talk with her, then you are, indeed, helpless. The good news is, you’re wrong. After all, you can help wild horses improve their self-control without first teaching them English. Thus, you, too, can become a bipolar whisperer.

As parents and landlords, you control a number of powerful incentives, like access to money, car, refrigerator, shelter, and, oh yeah, money. That doesn’t mean you can control her or her illness, but it does mean you can create some pretty strong reasons for her to do the good things she needs to do.

Set rehabilitation goals for your daughter that you believe are truly essential, which will probably include sobriety, doing enough household chores in order to live independently, controlling violent behavior, and stopping sudden impulses from affecting her safety or treatment. Add or subtract from these core goals, based on your own experience and other parents’ war stories.

Once you know your priorities, announce them and back them up with rules and incentives for following them. I said announce, not converse. If you’re too worried about her anger or hurt or lack of understanding, you’ll be ineffective.

Don’t pick a fight, but don’t hold back on saying what you think with friendliness, conviction, and optimism. Tone of voice is as important as content. Don’t end sentences with a rising, Valley Girl inflection that asks for approval. Use the same calm, assertive energy praised by Cesar Millan.

Yes, there’s a risk that she’ll do something dangerous or force you to ask her to leave, but a bipolar-veteran parent knows how to manage crises without appearing to panic. It’s a risk you need to take, and be prepared for, because the alternative is way worse than facing an angry four-legged beast.

STATEMENT:
You need a statement that says, “This is what we believe, here are the rules that are required for self-control and independence and this, very simply, is what will happen if you don’t follow them. There are no punishments and we do not believe you are being stubborn or childish; but we will withhold privileges and, if necessary, ask you to live elsewhere for a while if we think it’s necessary, either because your behavior makes it impossible for us to live with you, endangers your safety, or blocks you from making progress.”

I have a hot temper, Latin temper, whatever. I am tired of losing my shit and want more control. I have two children, a loving husband, a usually good job, a fine house and truthfully a full and rich life. So why do things like not getting out the door on time and literally spilled milk make me lose it? I should disclose that I grew up with insanity in my household, my father is a full blown paranoid schizophrenic, my mom a bit of a drinker, however that said I truly do try to parent better than I was parented. I wonder many times am I crazy and would like to have a better handle on my temper.

The kind of anger that ruins everything isn’t your problem. If it was, you wouldn’t still have the loving husband, good job, and lack of restraining orders.

It goes without saying then that you have pretty good control over your anger, but let’s say it, because it needs to be said. Your temper hurts and humiliates you and stirs your remorse, but it’s not ruining your life because you’re good at managing it.

It would be nice if you could get rid of your temper and become sweet, calm, and serene, but for most of us, our temper is part of the internal wiring. Sure, your parents/family history might contribute, and exploring “the real cause of your anger” might help; but often it doesn’t. Usually, the temper you’ve got is the temper you’ve got.

Lobotomy is the one treatment you can count on. (I’ve been wanting to re-tool as a surgeon for some time because procedures pay much better than talking treatments, with the death panels and whatnot, you know the drill.)

If, however, you’re too much of a sissy to accept the necessary frontal lobe alterations, your temper is something you’re stuck with, and you’d better get used to it, because nothing makes a bad temper worse than hating the one you’ve got.

Remember, there’s a stigma against anger. Oscar the Grouch is one of the uglier Muppets and the Hulk is hardly handsome.

On the other hand, if bad tempers were really terrible, then evolution wouldn’t have produced so many of them. They’re probably good for being a soldier or a litigator. God/Darwin/The Flying Spaghetti Monster/etc. always has his/her reasons for the strong inheritance of painful traits.

Now, if you’ve stopped fuming about being an ill-tempered mama, draw a line for yourself on what prevents someone with an evil temper from being a bad person. The first thing on the list of forbidden line-crossers is the obvious: no hitting. Following that is no causing friends and family a lot of pain, no useless bridge-burning or house-burning, and so on.

Your goal then isn’t to get a new temper at Target (they’re fresh out), but to keep that bad temper from turning nasty, no matter how much you feel that it would be a great relief.

Yes, if you don’t let it out, your anger will build up inside, but that’s the price you pay. Keep it there until you can yell in the bathroom, or hit a punching-bag, or practice the drums for hours at a time.

If you want help learning how to further manage your anger, read up on, you guessed it, anger management. It can help to talk to other, more accomplished anger-managers—some are quite nice, if you don’t step on their toes—and you can certainly use all the tools of self-acceptance and self-control that 12-step programs offer. It’s more expensive, but you can also check out the ideas and exercises offered by a cognitive behavioral therapist.

If your temper is really impossible and other methods don’t work, consider seeing a psychiatrist for a medication trial. For some reason, psychiatric medications can help, though they’re not a cure. They pose very little risk of serious side effects when you’re just trying them out for a month or two.

In your journey to accepting your rage, do yourself a favor and avoid books about healing your inner anger. They’re not just useless, but also incredibly annoying, and if you hurl such a book through a window, I’m not paying for the damages. The offer for the lobotomy, however, is still on the table.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to stop you from getting mad about getting mad. “I don’t like having a bad temper, but I must be pretty good at controlling it because my family hasn’t (yet) run away, locked me up, or restraining-ordered me out. So I’ll respect myself for doing what I’ve always tried to do: shut up, pull my punches, and keep my temper under control.

I seem to instinctively know which battles to pick with my kids, however I clearly have “battle planning deficit disorder” when it comes to my wife. Neither of us likes confrontation of ANY sort, so we “appear” to ignore things that bug each other…but not really. Instead, we try to ignore the giant gorilla in the room and this negative undercurrent hangs around until some outside force like kid drama, aging parent issue, health..SOMETHING happens to distract us from whatever it was we were both “ignoring.” If, on the rare occasion I do confront her on some issue, she gets so DEFENSIVE, the conversation comes to an immediate halt. If she confronts me on something, we tend to go round and round. We’ve been married 20 years, so obviously this has become a well choreographed routine, but one that I’m still not comfortable with. How do you know what’s “confrontable material”, and what’s just “white noise” in a relationship that should be ignored?

I’m assuming from the fact that you’re doing well with the kids and not talking about divorce that your marriage is worth it. I often hear from patients who wish they could argue less with their spouse, so someone wanting to figure out how to argue more, or at least argue better, is an interesting change of pace.

First, figure out your criteria for deciding which battles are worth—I won’t say fighting, because the two of you aren’t compatible fighters—so let’s say, addressing.

Let not irritation be your guide, because you don’t want anger to determine your choice. Choose the issues that matter in the long run because they involve your values, safety, health, financial security, the kids’ development, or anything to do with lawyers.

With any battle, you’ve got to ask yourself what you hope to accomplish and whether there’s any way to win. No matter how much you want it, or how much it might lead to an increase in the total amount of fairness in the universe, you’re not going to change your wife, so there’s no point in trying. So ask yourself, given that fact, whether there’s any way you can make things better.

If, as is often the case, her agreement or understanding is unlikely, don’t talk to her before you decide whether there’s something you feels needs doing, and are prepared to do on your own, whether she agrees or not.

Knowing that you’re thinking for yourself will help you feel less angry and wimpy, even if, as most often happens, you decide there’s no reason to take a stand.

Talk to her if you think you’ll have to act independently because of disagreement. Don’t feel obliged to be eloquent or good at explaining your actions, because the important thing is not what she thinks, or whether she agrees, but that she sees that you believe in what you’re doing and that you’re not doing it out of anger or disrespect.

In declaring your intentions, show respect and keep your announcement short. Tell her what you plan to do and why you think it’s better, and, of course, invite her to join you. When you’ve said your piece, close the discussion so as to prevent filibuster.

Ultimately, it’s not about arguing at all, just about sharing your choices vis a vis the negative undercurrent situations in your marriage. You can acknowledge the metaphorical gorilla in the room as you would the real thing: calmly, confidently, and with a quick escape route.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement for picking issues and avoiding battles. “It’s too bad that my wife and I are not good at arguing our way through disagreements, but that hasn’t stopped us from achieving 20 years of pretty good marriage. It also won’t stop me from taking a stand if and when I think it’s necessary, as long as I can accept the fact that, as much as I love and respect her, there are times that we aren’t going to understand or agree with one another.”