My ex-wife became the victim from hell after our divorce, which she and the kids blamed on my messing around with another woman. The truth is, I’d been eager to get divorced for the past 10 years, particularly because my ex was so good at messing up and then acting like a victim. I didn’t have that or any affair until I had almost put the divorce in motion and the youngest was about ready for college, and my not-mistress has subsequently become my wife. I felt guilty, however, and the kids see me as guilty, so they punish me with silence, or worse, extend an invitation to have a talk so they can hit me with a blast of endless recrimination before returning to silence again. Needless to say, explaining doesn’t help—their anger is endless—so when they call me up, I wonder what to say. My goal is to help them with their pain and restore a normal relationship.

Most good people feel guilty about leaving a marriage, whether or not they’ve done anything wrong. Guilt the emotion, as opposed to guilt the legal state, is never necessarily caused by bad behavior.

You feel guilty because those you love are hurt and disappointed, and happen to blame you. Given the fact that one of the most important reasons that people marry—perhaps the most important—is to have someone to blame, guilt is an unavoidable part of both marriage and divorce that should never, ever be considered proof of criminality.

As natural as your guilt is, it’s dangerous to let it guide you when you’re managing seriously angry kids (or adults, especially when they’re acting like kids). It’s like showing fear to a tiger, or blood to a vampire, or low-hanging comedic fruit to Ricky Gervais. They’ll just keep coming.

Your first job is not to respond to the kids before you’ve decided for yourself whether you’re guilty, and what for. Begin by listing your standards, which should probably include trying hard to make marriage work, giving priority to the needs of the kids, and behaving well in a difficult situation.

They should probably not include being happy or keeping your family happy, because life is often unavoidably unhappy, and looking for marriage to make you happy, though nice when it does happen, is ridiculous.

The question is how dysfunctional your wife’s behavior was and how badly it affected your partnership, as well as your mood and behavior. My guess, from what you say, is that you tried hard, put great importance on raising the kids, but found yourself hating your marriage. If you believe that’s reasonable grounds for divorce (if you were judging a friend), then it’s time to stop apologizing. If not, then figure out what you did wrong (excluding everything that you didn’t control), apologize, and then don’t apologize anymore.

Once you’ve prepared your statement (see sample below), you’re ready to draw the line on receiving punishment you don’t deserve. You and the kids deserve a better relationship, and from your point of view, their anger is the main obstacle. You hope they can stop it, and the first step is allowing yourself to stop feeling perpetually guilty for doing what you believe was necessary.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like I failed my first marriage since I’m the one who was unhappy and broke it up, and my kids blame me. After thinking it through, I see my responsibility as limited. If this response doesn’t satisfy the kids, I’m sorry, but I’ve heard their views and accepted their feelings and it’s no good for negative conversations to continue indefinitely. I love them and believe we can have a positive relationship, if and when they’re ready.”

The main thing wrong with my marriage is that we lost the incredible love and closeness we had for the first few years, and a major reason is that my husband keeps his distance. No, I don’t think he’s having affairs, and we still get along very well as partners and parents, but he says he just hasn’t felt comfortable with me since I went through a depressed, nasty period, so he avoids kissing and sex. I’ve told him I can’t go on like this, but I’m not going to beg for sex if he’s not going to give it to me. I don’t mention it most of the time, but it hurts. My goal is to figure out how to get the old love back or decide whether the current situation is good enough for me to want to stay married.

The trouble with mixing sex and love in a marriage is that sexual withholding feels like a loss of love, and a loss of love causes deep pain, which causes sexual withholding, and around it goes, flushed down the marital toilet.

If you think sex might bridge the gulf between you, then don’t request it as evidence of his love, or as satisfaction of your needs. To do so is to make the issue more wrought, personal and emotionally explosive. Of course you have those feelings, but expressing them won’t clear them up—it will make them worse.

Instead, propose sex as an activity that might reduce the distance between you by having a positive effect on your emotions. Now that your nasty period is over, you’re confident it will be a good experience, and, if repeated, it might build trust, as well as reducing an issue between you. As long as you don’t emotionalize sex in terms of love and intimacy, you reduce the risk of failure. Market it as nerve tonic, not as proof of his dedication or your personal worth.

If he doesn’t respond, then you know you haven’t scared him away; he’s simply stuck. You haven’t let your hurt feelings make you passive; you’ve done what you can, and your actions haven’t added to your pain by expressing it.

I assume you’ve apologized for the past (see above) to the extent that you could have controlled your nasty behavior, so it’s time to stop apologizing. Propose a better way forward and see if your husband can join you. Having sex, if he can do it, is a way of putting negative feelings to one side. The love issue will have to wait.

STATEMENT:
“The lack of a sex life leaves me feeling guilty, sad, and punished, as well as horny and needy, but I know I’ve been a good partner for a long time and don’t deserve punishment. I believe it would help my husband, and our relationship, if he could put a lid on his anxieties and just do it. It’s his job to try. What he does with it will tell me whether he can.”

I have always had a problem with keeping friendships because of moving too much, anxiety, and some other reasons. Almost every friend that has come into my life seems to be very needy and I tend to become anti-social when this happens. My current best friend has showed many signs of being very clingy and a bit controlling; she buys me things when she knows I am busy just so she can hang out with me, she calls me frequently even though she knows I dislike talking on the phone, she is demanding and apologetic at the same time. I am confused on what to do because she is always there for me and I can’t always be there for her. Lately, I have been having so much negative feelings about her that I don’t want to work on the relationship and this is exactly my problem—I lose people because I let my feelings get in the way. Maybe I am not finding the right people to hang out with? I mean we have so much in common, but that might be the problem because we both have severe anxiety and what we hate about life seems to be all we talk about, so it’s just negative energy most of the time. I will admit I am selfish and should be more thankful that I have someone that understands me and is there for me, but I guess I am too unhappy in my life and unhappy with myself to be appreciative of the goodness in others. It’s something I would like to work on, but I don’t even know where to begin.

Whatever draws people into relationships– neediness, sex, an encyclopedic knowledge of “Law & Order”—it isn’t necessarily good for you. When you’re operating on instinct, you stop thinking.

It sounds like you’ve got a good idea of what’s good for you, and it’s a friendship that discourages whining and encourages breathing room and independence. Nevertheless, you give in to the pull of your instinctive need for needy, whiny friends.

Once you give in, you’re stuck. You like the close attention and some of the intimacy, but you also don’t like the high demands and expectations, so you want to pull away. That leaves you guilty, lonely, and more in need of a needy friend. The shitty friendship cycle remains unbroken.

Instead, get a grip and start to choose friends who are more independent and less fun to complain with. Don’t expect the getting-acquainted process to feel as natural and easy as it usually does, because if it feels too comfortable, you’re probably making the same mistake.

At the same time, discourage your current needy friends from expecting long windy complaint-fests. Keep the conversation positive, don’t share negative feelings, and stick to a schedule. You may be pleasantly surprised to find that needy friends get less sticky when you give them firm boundaries.

Don’t let guilt make you passive or discouraged. It may be impossible to change your relationship preferences, but you can have better relationships if you’re clear about what you want, force yourself to make better choices, and get the kind of friend you really need, not a needy friend.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like I’m a selfish friend who never gives as much as I get and resents the needs of others, but I believe I can do better if I find friends who are less needy. It’s time for me to find such friends, discourage needy behavior in others, and avoid indulging in it myself.”

My closest friend and I usually tell each other everything, and she always seeks my advice before doing something rash and probably dumb (she’s really ADD), and give it to her straight (within reason, and/or as tactfully as possible). The problem is that, when she wants to go forward with a decision she knows is risky (at best, really dumb at worst), I become the bad guy who won’t admit that I really don’t want her to be happy, even though, in reality, I just want what’s best for her. When she got together with her now-husband, I told her the situation was tricky (long-distance, financially rough, etc.), and when she stuck with it and complained to me about the whole thing, it was hard to be totally supportive. After a while, she took my worries about the nature of the relationship as me lying, actually hating her husband, plotting against her happiness, etc. So she didn’t tell me she was eloping hundreds of miles away until the last minute, and when I couldn’t make the arrangements with 10 minutes notice, she thought it was another lie, not a logistical nightmare. When I found out that I was the only person not told she was pregnant, that was the last straw; she said she wanted to talk about it, but her lying to me was so hurtful, unfair, and hypocritical that I didn’t see the point in trying to change her mind anymore, and it’s been months since we’ve talked. My goal is to do the right thing, and while I don’t want to hurt my friend and I miss her, my gut tells me it’s best to just let her live her life and protect myself from being hurt again, since she treats me like an enemy, anyway.

Whenever you find yourself giving a close friend constant coaching about her life, watch out. Intimate advice-giving makes a relationship feel very close and, at times, it may do some good; but you’re playing with fire or, more accurately, all the feelings your friend has towards her parents and everyone else who has given her advice and criticism over the years.

Given that she’s often impulsive (or so you’re implying), she’s probably received more than her share of disapproving advice and is touchy and defensive as hell. She doesn’t think you’re a liar—she thinks you’re her mom.

True, we shrinks give coaching and advice all day every day, but it works best when we keep it brief and business-like and don’t need friendship from the person we’re advising. When we start to care too much, we sound like parents and stir up the same damn hornets’ nest of negative feelings in those we advise.

Imagine, for a moment, removing the “tell each other everything” part of your relationship with your friend and then ask yourself whether the friendship might still be worthwhile. Yes, it would be less satisfying for both of you, but, if she really likes complaining about her life, she should get a dog (that’s my answer for almost everything). If you really like giving advice, become a shrink. Or a manicurist.

When the stinging goes down a bit, firm up your boundaries and see if your relationship becomes more positive. Say whatever honestly positive things you can possibly say about her husband, marriage, and pregnancy. Discount your months of withdrawal in a way that blames no one and signals no danger of confrontations—just wish her well.

Perhaps your performance will salvage the love and good times you’ve shared over the years. If not, you’ll hurt, but you’ll know you did the right thing, and that’s the truth.

STATEMENT:
“I feel unbelievably hurt by my friend’s shutting me out after we’ve been closer than sisters for many years, but I think she did it because we were too close, and not because she wished to hurt me, and there may be a way to build a better relationship. I’ll try to ignore the hurt, build on what was good, and see if a better kind of intimacy can develop.”

I am in the fourth year of a partnership with a great guy—smart, athletic, caring, fair, trustworthy, all of it—but I am bored out of my mind. Although he loves outdoor activities like biking and skiing by day, his only hobby in the evenings is watching TV. I am a musician, artist, craftsperson, not an outdoor whiz, and I feel like I am completely uninspired in this situation. I have talked with him about at least not watching TV every night, and we try for a while, but it always ends up back where we started, with him watching TV, and me in another room reading or doing something somewhat productive, or just giving in and watching with him (I hate TV, wish we didn’t have one). I want to do things together but he is not interested in any of the things that I am interested in. Maybe this is just the most a person can hope for in life and I’m spoiled for wanting more than loyalty and love from someone, but I feel guilty all the time for hiding these thoughts from him. Maybe he would be better off without me, too, you know? Maybe I should let him go so he can find a girl who is really IN LOVE with him.

How much you love someone depends, in part, on the effect of partnership on the necessities of your life, as well as your interests. In your case, however, you don’t seem to see partnership as necessary for the necessities, so the difference between what you two want may be be more than television.

If you’ve been struggling to make ends meet and/or raise kids and someone enters your life who’s decent and willing to share the load, you’re probably going to wind up loving him, even if you don’t love everything you do together.

On the other hand, if you’re a fairly self-sufficient person who doesn’t need a partner in order to have a decent standard of living and raise kids, then there’s no reason to live with anyone who doesn’t ring your bells or leave the couch.

You didn’t mention kids or finances, so I assume you’re kid-less, and, despite being an artist and musician, miraculously not broke. If that’s true, then what do you need this guy for? If you haven’t grown to depend on him after four years of living together, and you’re not eager to have a family, then it’s hard to see him as a better off with you since you don’t really sound better off with him.

Be careful not to get paralyzed by guilt. You can’t control your feelings about him, and what you’re going to do next isn’t about failing or lacking, it’s about evaluating how well the two of you match up and deciding whether that match suits your goals. So add up what life would be without him (the effect on your time, bank account, plans, etc.). You sound as if you’ve done this, but sometimes, feeling guilty can prevent you from doing routine accounting.

If, as you suggest, you can do better without him, don’t feel defensive about letting him go. You both made a good effort to make it work, and you have many good things to say about his character and can be sure he’ll do well with someone else. You’ve just seen many big differences in your interests and activities and have gained a healthy respect for their importance in making a relationship work. Neither of you were stupid to try this relationship, but, despite being a good idea, it was a near miss you can both learn from. You’re doing the right thing for both of you by moving on.

If the pain of breaking up is more his than yours, that’s not as important as the other stuff you evaluated. As a matter of fact, you suspect he may well have an easier time finding his next match than you will.

If this experience has taught you about your needs and you respect what you’ve learned, you’ll become better at screening out your dates and ensuring that you don’t compromise your independence again unless you encounter a more compatible candidate.

If you aren’t happy with someone who’s “perfect” for you, then they probably aren’t. And if you don’t need a someone, period, give them the chance to find someone new (or spend more quality time with the TV).

STATEMENT:
“I wish I could like my boyfriend better and I don’t want to hurt him, but I think I’m better off without him and vice versa. I won’t let fears about negative feelings stop me from doing what’s necessary and remembering that break-ups are part of the learning process.”

Now that I’m 35 and looking around for a wife, I can’t help feeling that I destroyed my future by not marrying my college sweetheart. She’s a terrific person and we had a great relationship, but I wasn’t ready to settle down back then. So I dumped her, she found someone else, and now she’s happily married with kids and I’m a successfully executive who can’t find anyone to compare with her. The women I meet always have something wrong with them and I think my mistake has doomed me to die single and alone.

The biggest danger you face is not dying single, but dying defeated. Well, the biggest danger you face after death itself.

Some good people are single because they aren’t lucky about finding a mate—their lives are too complicated or, for various good reasons, they don’t meet someone who’s both available and on their wavelength—but that doesn’t mean they’re sad, lonely failures. They’re simply dealing with a mixed bag of luck, like everyone else.

As Christ might have said, if he hadn’t been so busy telling parables, what’s important is not whether you find riches or happiness, it’s how you deal with it when you can’t find riches and happiness. And, despite dying penniless, single and alone, he seems to have done alright for himself.

In addition, your negative attitude may be damaging your mate-search technique. While your college relationship taught you that you have a good capacity for friendship and partnership, it’s the timing that was wrong; your personal equipment—the size of your heart, and size is everything—has proven itself. So instead of feeling sad and defeated when you think of your old flame, be proud of your relationship and determined not to give up your independence unless you find someone just as good.

Assess the efficiency of your mate-search. Like any kind of search, it needs to be done efficiently or you’ll wear yourself out and then, see above, feel tired and defeated. That’s often a sign that you’re spending too much time on unsuitable candidates and losing your focus. Ask yourself whether guilt, horniness, or sentimentality are causing you to prolong pseudo-friendships that drain energy, reduce availability, and leave you yearning for solitude. If so, get a coach and learn how to do a good, tight search and a rapid, polite exit.

You can’t make yourself lucky, but you can be sure that there’s nothing wrong with your ability to be a good partner. If you’ve also given yourself the benefit of a good mate-search, you also know you’ve done your best. You may be sad about being single, but it’s not personal and it’s not failure. It’s just life, which, as always, is preferable to the alternative, no matter what your relationship status is when you enter it.

STATEMENT:
“I can’t avoid feeling that I fell off the deck of the love-boat after having been given a choice cabin for two, but I’ve made reasonable choices, I’m a good candidate, and I know what I’m looking for, so I will pursue my search with patience, I will not doubt myself, and I will never give up. “

Please Note: Our next post will be a week from today. Happy holidays, everyone! As always, we look forward to hearing from you if/when they aren’t.

I’m having a hard time since the death of my father. I was expecting the grief to be rough, but I thought I’d reached the acceptance stage and was starting to feel better. Then I noticed that my two sisters were able to talk and share memories much more easily with one another than they could with me, and suddenly I felt more alone than ever before. My wife is supportive, but I don’t want her to feel I don’t love her by telling her I feel alone. My goal is to get over this grief.

You probably were starting to recover from losing your father, but that’s when you experienced another loss—a broken connection with the people who should be the most understanding.

When you grieve the loss of parents with your siblings, a major source of comfort is knowing that, whatever your differences, you’re the only ones who remember the world of your family home and share the experience of growing up there. With that missing, you’ve got a double source of grief.

Pain always causes vicious circles, so the biggest danger here is that your feeling of isolation will cause you to withdraw, which will confirm your isolation. Your job with grief then is to fight to keep your perspective, rather than letting pain shape it for you.

Currently, your perspective is that there were good, meaningful times growing up with your father and sisters, and there were memories worth sharing and preserving. Instead of letting hurt stop you, figure out what you want to say, interrupt your sisters, and see if they can respond. After all, you’re the only guy who remembers that time and they need you as much as you need them.

If they can’t listen, talk to your wife, and if your wife’s not available, a pet’s always a good captive audience. You have eulogies to compose for yourself about your father’s contributions and values and what you wish to carry on, and delivering them to anyone or thing willing to listen will do you a lot of good. Of course, you’re the most important listener but there are others who would benefit from hearing your words.

You can’t shorten the grief or change your sibling relationships. What you can do, however, is respect the strength it takes to live with pain and not let it push you to the sidelines or shade your memories of your dad. With all the loss in your life, you should never lose your right to grieve.

STATEMENT:
“I wish I could share memories with my sisters, but that’s not the measure of how well I’m dealing with grief or of how much I took away from my relationship with my father. I’ll continue to treasure my memories and look for ways to share them, and not expect the grief to go away until it does.”

After my mother died, there were an amazing number of people who came to her funeral and told wonderful stories about their friendships and how much they loved her. It made me feel bad, however, because she and I never really got along. We loved one another, but we really didn’t understand one another, and now we never will. The more I saw the closeness other people had with her, the more I wondered what was wrong with me. I miss her, but what I feel most sad about is never being able to have a good relationship and not being able to mourn her as well or as much as her friends do.

Don’t assume that you could have or should have improved your relationship with your mother without first looking at the evidence. After all, you know that many close relationships can’t be improved because whatever is bad about them comes from character rather than things you can change. They are what they are, or they were what they were.

If your relationship with your mother was sub-par because you didn’t try hard enough, then yes, you’ve learned a sad lesson about not waiting until it’s too late. For most people, however, the problem isn’t a lack of trying or an overdose of waiting; it’s blaming themselves for a lack of good results after lots of trying and still assuming they could have done better if they’d tried harder.

Don’t assume that, because other people didn’t have your problem with your mother, you shouldn’t have had it either. You’ll probably find evidence that you tried hard and that many, if not all, of the reasons for your distance were not under her control or yours.

Like the person above, you have a double grief. You miss the mother you had and you also grieve the mother you could never have. It’s a grief you can’t share, because others, especially those who really connected with your mother, don’t understand.

Don’t feel bad then about not feeling bad the way they do. Your grief for her, like your relationship, is what it is. Instead of examining what was wrong, try to remember what worked. Hopefully, in spite of her disappointment with you, she did you some good and tried to be a good mother, and, hopefully, in spite of your frustration with her, you kept your life on track and spared her your anger. These are major accomplishments that need to be celebrated, particularly since they lead more often to tooth-grinding than to pleasure.

Celebrate the strength it takes to make the best of a bad relationship. Hopefully, some of that strength was hers, as well as yours.

STATEMENT:
“I often felt like a failure because I didn’t feel as positively about my mother as other people did, but I’ve come to accept that those feelings are not under my control and to respect what I’ve done with them. My job, now that she’s dead, is to do more of the same.”

I was sexually abused quite a bit by my dad (and am de-repressing memories right now, fun-fun). I am realizing that I am very fearful of the people I love, and avoid them. Honestly, if I didn’t need to bond to keep from going insane, I would never have a close relationship, because anyone I care about enough can destroy me. But I’m in a lot of pain from loneliness as it is.

Many people believe there are tons of benefits to confronting your past, namely that it will teach you something that will bring catharsis to your present. The common notion being that if you can figure out what went wrong then you can avoid being victimized again.

The problem here is that reviving memories of sexual abuse by your dad will also bring back the old feelings of helplessness and having no choice, which, of course, is the opposite of your situation as an adult, so the lessons are the opposite of useful to your life now.

You’re not examining the past to drown yourself in feelings of helplessness, but to assure yourself that you can protect yourself from abuse.

Also, as an adult, your love for your dad may leave you with a dangerous sense of comfort and familiarity with low-boundary, exploitative sleazebags. In other words, your dad may have given you a tendency to be drawn to people who aren’t trustworthy, and who are worth being fearful of. I’m sure there are people in your life who aren’t scumbags, but your history makes you especially vulnerable to them.

It’s hardly surprising then that your world, as you see it as an adult, will seem full of both loneliness and dangerous people who can’t be trusted. Don’t criticize yourself then for being fearful of relationships or lonely; fear is a good protector, until you get strong enough to protect yourself.

So, as you examine your past, a therapist’s support for your pain and trauma may not be enough to counterbalance an ingrained conviction of helplessness. You may need an additional shield against that conviction before awakening the sleeping dragon of your memories.

One way to get stronger is to approach your past with less feeling and more thought. Develop specific standards for screening potential friends and lovers and use them to override any instincts to get together with, or over-involved with, the wrong people. In other words, if you want to remember your father’s worst traits, look for those traits in people before you decide whether or not they’re worthy of your friendship. Once you convince yourself that you’re a reasonably good self-protector, you can approach your memories with less fear of being swept away.

Find a therapist who’s a good relationship coach, or a therapy group whose members have some wisdom with difficult or exploitative relationships. Don’t force yourself to re-experience memories of abuse until you know how you’d manage it as an adult.

Don’t assume, because you’re fearful of the ones you love, that you’re bad at relationships or that they’ll turn out badly. You’re right, relationships are potentially dangerous, but your awareness of that fact and willingness to get some coaching and training can protect you and eventually help you find friends and lovers who deserve your trust.

Learning from/dealing with the past can be helpful, but beware of the risks, particularly if you (and a therapist) focus exclusively on painful emotions for which you still haven’t developed defenses.

If you want to look back, don’t lose sight of your present ability to spot and avoid guys like dear old dad; then you can learn from and use your memories, instead of being haunted by them.

STATEMENT:
“Because of the past, I may never feel secure about relationships. Once I learn how to detect abuse and avoid abusers, however, I can find friends I can trust, even if my fears remain.”

My friends can’t stand my girlfriend because they say she steals from me to feed her habit, but we’ve been together for 3 years and I can’t help feeling she’s the best friend I have. It’s true, she has a drug habit that she can’t control, and money sometimes disappears from my wallet, but it’s an illness and it’s no good to blame her for it. It doesn’t change the fact that we love one another. Aside from her habit, I know I can trust her. I truly believe our love is a positive factor in helping keep her habit from getting worse. My goal is to help her, of course, while getting my friends to see that she’s a real person, not a drug addict.

Relationships can always be dangerous if you focus too much on the other person’s feelings, or your own, without stopping to think about your other priorities in life. She might make you feel like a hero, feel like you’re a healing saint, feel guilty if you can’t do what she asks, etc. If you focus on that instead of whether or not this relationship is ruining your life, you’re doing it wrong. The more sweet, sensitive and generous your temperament, the worse your peril.

The opposite of caring too much for someone isn’t, of course, to be selfish; it’s to be responsible for your other goals, the ones that arise from your values, interests, and other obligations, including your job to take good care of yourself. You need money for your own education or rainy day fund or, simply, survival during hard times. You deserve to be loved for more than your ability to give.

Go back to basics and think about your own standards for a good relationship, as if you were advising a friend. Yes, you’d say, you need love and good chemistry, but you also need someone who can cover your back, take care of things when you’re disabled, help you on your way, and work well with you in a crisis. You’d have to agree that, without those standards, you’ll team up with someone who can suck you dry and undermine your stability in a very unstable world.

Love is a drug and it can addict and ruin your life and other relationships in a way that puts meth to shame. That’s why, rather than getting into a discussion of how wonderful it feels, you’d urge your friend to think about what he wants a relationship for and how it will help him do what matters.

Forget about what your friends think and put aside your desire to help your girlfriend; instead, focus on what you want to make of your own life and trying to be a good person in a crazy world. Remember who you are and then see where this relationship fits. You’re not a saint, you’re a boyfriend, and if you want to do what’s best for both of you, you won’t even be that much longer.

STATEMENT:
“I love my girlfriend and want to save her from drug addiction and I don’t mind her faults, but what comes first are my own standards for being a strong and self-reliant person that are not dependent on any one person’s love or approval.”

My wife suffers from non-medication responsive depression (we’ve done ECT’s, every med in the book, and she has a psychiatrist). She’s bitter and short to family; she goes off on the kids and then can turn around and be nice. I do all the work around the house, get the kids to activities, etc., and I’m wearing out. She comes home from work and just logs on her lap top and sits in front of the TV while I get dinner and clean up. She shows no affection towards me and I feel like a servant. When I complain or push her, she talks about killing herself and putting herself out of our misery (she’s been hospitalized several times) or just hurting herself (sometimes she cuts on her arms and legs). I’m getting to the point where I don’t like her anymore. She just seems to have given up. Nothing interests her, nothing tastes good…she gets no enjoyment from anything. What can I do? She’s in her forties, now, but she struggled with depression in her twenties and this current bout has been going on for 5 years. Her doctor and therapist are really committed to her, but it seems like she doesn’t care, like she enjoys being miserable. Sometimes I feel like I’m spiraling down with her, but I’m not going to give up. If I just stand by, she seems to just sink lower, but I can’t leave, because she’s said that the kids and I are the only reason she’s still alive.

If you’re like most married people, you become dependent on your spouse for a positive response, no matter how independent you are as an individual. You married her because you respect her opinion and take pleasure in her approval. You make her happy, everyone feels good. You see the problem here.

So it’s normal to feel bitterly disappointed and deflated when depression turns her into a grouchy, nasty, unappreciative, unaffectionate black hole who threatens suicide if you criticize her and never does her share.

It’s not just the lack of approval from her that’s bothering you, it’s the overabundance of disapproval, of you and everything else.

Unfortunately, the bitterness you feel in response to your unmet needs adds to her self-hate, creating a vicious circle of negative emotion that demoralizes everyone. Controlling that bitterness is the one thing you can do to improve what is an otherwise impossible situation.

First, pretend that she’s had a stroke that zapped the part of her personality that was warm, active, and responsive; your loss isn’t personal or preventable, and your needs are no longer plausible. Acknowledging these difficult truths now prepares you to assess, without hurt or a sense of failure, whether your family is better off with the two of you together or apart.

There are positive aspects to your marriage, like the fact that she contributes financially, and that, by staying alive, she helps the kids, and hopefully she does some parenting from time to time. She’s showing courage, whether she knows it or not. Maybe the advantages of staying together outweigh the many disadvantages you’ve listed above.

Whatever you decide is best, present it to her positively; tell her you know she’s trying and there’s probably love and affection in there somewhere, if the depression would only lighten up. Remember the person she was and talk to that person as if she’s still there but, like Sleeping Beauty, can’t wake up.

If you feel separation is for the best, let her know that you value and support her role with the kids and that what you are separating from is not her, but her illness. And if she threatens suicide, tell her that her threats are a factor in the separation.

When depression takes over your personality, it makes you do bad things, like putting your life in other people’s hands. If she could control that side of herself, she might improve her parenting and your partnership, even if her depression does not improve. Recommend DBT, a kind of therapy I often recommend, that helps people who feel terrible protect themselves from acting terribly.

Decide what’s for the best, don’t be a victim, and ignore blackmail. You may be a victim of her illness, but you’re also the man in charge who’s doing a wonderful job of soldiering on. If you do what’s best for you and your kids, then it doesn’t matter what she says now; the healthy part of her approves, even if it can’t be heard.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like I’m taking it from all sides and that all the love and nurturing I give my sick wife comes back as shit. I know, however, that her response is not her, but her illness. I have assumed a huge load as a single parent who must now go on alone without the love and support of a partner. I will make hard choices that she may see very negatively, as she sees everything. I will hold fast to my own vision of what’s best for the family.”

I’m writing because my husband wants me to. He thinks there’s something wrong with me, but I like being a little manic, so I haven’t taken my mood-stabilizer medication in 10 years. It’s true, I talk fast, I can’t hold a job, I’m irritable, and he’s had to put me in the hospital a couple times. On the other hand, I don’t hurt anyone and I like the way I feel, most of the time, except for one thing: he wants me to be the way I used to be and he’s always unhappy with me. I hate sleeping in the same bed, but he’ll give me a hard time if I move to another room. My goal is to get him off my back, so I agreed to write.

As noted above, when you’re married, you can’t help depending on your spouse’s approval, in some deep, hard-wired way, which means that, if you never seem to get it, you become a permanent rebel who cares too much to leave but feels better every time you do the opposite of what he wants. In the process, you lose track of your own priorities.

On the other hand, you know your priorities about your hypomanic mood. Keeping it natural and un-medicated is more important to you than holding a job, staying out of hospitals, and keeping your husband happy. That’s where you stand.

The problem is, you wish your husband would get used to the new (10-year-old) you, but that’s not going to happen. There’s no point in talking about whether he should accept you, just like there’s no point in talking about whether you should damp down your hypomania. He can’t help where he stands and neither can you.

So instead of writing to someone who’s supposed to persuade you to take your medication, face the sad fall-out from your decision. Don’t blame yourself; just ask whether the marriage is worth it, because clearly, your old marriage and the mania can’t co-exist.

On the one side, you’ve shared a lot of years together and your standard of living is probably better with him than without him, given that you’re on disability. On the other hand, there’s the mutual non-acceptance, which is hard for both of you to live with.

Whatever you decide, stop whining. You’re not to blame for a bad decision, and you aren’t a victim of bipolar disease, so don’t make yourself a victim of your husband’s non-acceptance.

If you want to continue to live with him, have the balls to stand by your decision. Tell him you’re sticking with the temperament you’ve got, you still want to live with him, you won’t talk to shrinks, and you’ll sleep where you sleep. If he wants to throw you out when he realizes, after 10 years, that you aren’t going to change, so be it. You don’t blame yourself for choosing to live with your hypomanic mood, and you don’t blame him if he wants to leave his life with you behind.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like I’ve ruined my marriage by deciding to do what’s right for me, but the decision has been costly in so many ways that I know I didn’t do it lightly or to spite my husband, so I respect my decision. Now I need to ignore feelings of guilt or wishes that he could accept me the way I am and instead accept him the way he is. Whatever I decide to do about our marriage, I’ll do what I think is best for us and never be a victim.”

I need to face the fact that I have trouble getting close to people. I recently had a close relationship with a guy I was crazy about, but I often get depressed and, when it happens, I get quiet, and he couldn’t stand it. I’m good at functioning when I’m depressed, it’s never stopped me from getting my work done, and I push myself to hang out with friends, but I can’t help the fact that I don’t have much to say and that I don’t really feel like laughing. I kept telling him it wasn’t personal, but he didn’t really believe me. My goal is to figure out how I can find a partner if I can’t really interact very well.

The biggest negative thought you can have when you break up with someone is to believe it’s because there’s something wrong with you, either because your boyfriend said it or because that’s what your brain is telling you.

Nobody says, “it isn’t you, it’s me,” and means it, so you shouldn’t, either.

Remember, it’s deep human nature to blame ourselves for crap that happens, be it a failed relationship or a failed baseball season. It’s your job, however, as your one and only chief protector, to put this assumption to a logical test.

You can blame yourself for making a bad choice, but not if there weren’t any clues that badness was happening; you have to look closely for the red flags that might have given you warning, like evidence that he was needy or had broken up prior relationships when the feedback tapered off. If none of that was obvious, then neither was your error in judgment.

If this is a type of guy you choose over and over again, however, then you’ve got a bad habit that needs fixing and you should see a shrink/coach with that purpose in mind. On the other hand, as seems the case here, if you didn’t have the experience or data to warn you, then you’ve had a valuable/miserable learning experience.

You took a course in the college of hard knocks where tuition is paid in pain. That said, you should give yourself a good grade.

So before assuming you’re no good at relationships, name your standards. I’m sure you know lots of good relationships where one partner or the other gets withdrawn at times, and unless you’re an unusually outgoing person living an unusually lucky life, it’s only a matter of time before you or your significant other gets hit with an illness, loss or trauma that causes a shutdown. The test of a good relationship isn’t its connectedness (or, at least, not connectedness alone), but its ability to tolerate periods of unavoidable disconnectedness that life will inevitably bring.

You might also blame yourself if your depression made you do negative things, like drinking or turning into a blob. Even then, you wouldn’t have good reason to blame yourself unless you could have done better, and sometimes depression leaves you no choice. In any case, you’re successful at keeping yourself going when you’re depressed, and that deserves credit, not blame.

What you’re left with is the sad realization that, from now on, you must choose boyfriends who aren’t too needy or overly sensitive to your mood. Unfortunately, they might not understand you as well as a needy, moody guy would, particularly if they’ve never been depressed.

On the other hand, they won’t get upset when you fall silent, other than to be sorry you’re hurting, and they might not notice unless you tell hem. Ultimately, it’s not you or them that’s to blame, it’s just that some relationships aren’t strong enough to survive bad circumstances. Luckily, you are.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like my depression killed the happiest relationship I’ve ever had, but my experience tells me I can be a good friend, whether I’m depressed or not, and that’s the only standard that matters. So I’ve learned that love requires more than mutual passion and I will never go out again with anyone who requires happy feedback and shows no ability to tolerate pain in the ones they love.”

I’ve become very uncomfortable with a friend who has been very good to me. He’s the one who, when I was depressed, took me to the hospital, even though I didn’t want to go. He was right, I was suicidal and I needed help, but now I feel like he’s so good and reasonable and I’m the idiot-child whose diapers he had to change. I imposed my problems on him when I was totally out of control, so seeing him makes me very uncomfortable and ashamed. How can I get past this feeling of inferiority and embarrassment?

If you’re one of those people who has to learn to live with depression—and you are—one of your most important tasks is to get over your shame. I mean, shame is probably an unavoidable feeling when you’re disabled and have nothing to offer anyone but trouble, or at least that’s the way it feels. Still, you know on a logical level that you can’t be blamed for something you can’t help, and you’d protect anyone else from blame if you knew they had such a problem.

So at some point when you’re thinking clearly, you have a moral obligation to yourself to stand up to the negative thoughts and feel proud of yourself for surviving a very painful time—with a little bit of help, or more, from a friend.

Don’t give power to the side of you that values control at all costs and blames you for losing it. We all have those feelings, but they turn nasty and mean whenever we fail to meet their performance standards. Unfortunately, their standards lie in performance alone, when other values are what are important.

Ask yourself then how you expect other people to behave when they’re super-depressed. You got over your pride and allowed a friend to save you. Give yourself respect, and give that friend the credit he deserves; if he didn’t judge you then, he won’t do it now. Your friend did what a good friend should do and what you would have done for someone else. Don’t let shame deprive you of that friendship or reward his kindness with distance and discomfort.

You can’t help feeling ashamed, but what you can do is give attention to what you and he did with the depression and give respect where it’s due. Don’t apologize or act on your shame; let him know you’re grateful, that he did exactly what you needed him to do, and that you’re proud you survived with his help.

Then talk about other things, be friendly, and give the old friendship chemistry a chance to reassert itself. You went through trauma together, and now you can help each other with the recovery.

STATEMENT:
“Depression always has a way of making me feel humiliated, but it can never really humiliate me as long as I fight it as hard as I can. I will take pride in my survival and in the good friendships I’ve nurtured that have helped me survive.”

When my son was born 30 years ago, I met two other moms and we became friends. Although with partners, we shared the same interests and our kids got along well, and we spent the next years as very good friends doing lots of things together and with the children-one of those friends even married my brother (one son and three years later, they divorced). At the same time, I met a new partner (I was now separated from my son’s father), and we spent the next 27 years having a very on-off relationship. It’s difficult to sum up all those years but I think I can say that I probably cried through most of it! I should have left, I didn’t, he wasn’t committed, I was, I wanted a family life, he didn’t. I’m not perfect and I didn’t always behave well. Five years ago he had a son by another, not partner, woman and when that didn’t work out he and I got together again. Then last year, I invited my friend/ex sister-in-law to lunch with us, and they got together. The shock was immense … and it’s not so much the loss of either but this terrible feeling that I have been used as a sort of dating service by my friend and I just can’t get rid of this feeling of betrayal. It’s now a year on and I haven’t seen them since, and the emotional hurt is a lot less– I have done lots of new things, made new friends, and life is rosier, but I have this constant anxiety that this friend is going to take someone else from me – my sister? my other brother? and, worst of all, I have this strange fear that it will be my son. I would like to be happy for my ex and my friend, but I can’t. I protect myself by staying away but I have this huge sense of loss that I have lost this whole part of my life. I need to let go of this underlying anxiety that I am going to lose someone to her again.

When it comes to kids, we expect parents not to expose them to unnecessary rejections and losses from adults they’ll get attached to, who will then go away. When it comes to how parents protect their own hearts, however, the same standards don’t seem to apply, even though, as your experience shows, they really should.

Yes, I understand, you’ve loved a guy for 27 years, but it was always off-and-on, causing you intermittent heartache and wasting your opportunity for something better. You wouldn’t have needed a shrink, psychic, or your average plumber to predict a sad end to all you invested in him and his family.

That doesn’t mean your love was meaningless or less than real. It was powerful, at least for you. Like a good mother, however, your job is to protect yourself from real attachments that can’t work, and you haven’t done that.

What’s worse, you’ve come to assume that love controls you, as it has, so you’ve become a victim and fear that love will screw you again, and take away someone you care about. You’re afraid, but if you’re more careful about who and how you love in the first place, you will have the control you need, some peace of mind, as well as a lot less heartache.

The good news then is that love can’t screw you if you don’t let it. The bad news is that most love won’t work, and you’ve got to leave it alone when you know it won’t, regardless of what your heart says. One thing you’ve learned from your 27-year affair is that life is short, and it’s better to feel some pain now than feel a lot of pain over the course of decades.

First, resolve to stop being a victim. It’s no accident you’ve done better since your friend put an end to your underpowered (it takes two to power) love. Instead of worrying about your next loss, celebrate the fact that you’ve gained new friends and found better relationships.

You’re also more likely than ever before to find relationships that will last, but only if you interrupt the flow of good internal feelings at the beginning of a relationship to ask yourself if there’s any evidence it will actually work.

By the way, it would also help your brother and possibly your friend to ask themselves the same question. If you hang around with people who follow their attractions without giving much thought to consequences or values, you’ll find yourself in the midst of a boiling soap opera, and often be its victim. And the victimhood ends now.

As for that former friends’ tendency to use your friends and family as her dating pool, you’ve finally done what you should have done long ago, when you saw her mistreat your brother, by putting her out of your life. Suck up the sorrow, embrace your ability to do what’s necessary, and don’t let your feelings of powerlessness make you paranoid. You’re in control now, and even if you can’t control her, you can’t let her craziness run your life.

So, in addition to giving yourself better, more compassionate management, stay away from people who regard feelings-management as unacceptable interference with their inalienable right to follow their hearts.

As you’ve learned, following your heart often puts you on a decades-long trail of tears. Protect yourself as you would your son, enjoy your freedom, and keep enjoying it until you find someone reliable enough to enjoy it with you.

STATEMENT:
“I may always be sad about my old lover and scared of losing again, but I learned a lot from that love, I’ve done much better since I gave it up, and I will continue to do better if I remember what I’ve learned and stay away from people whose self-control I can’t trust.”

I promised my wife I’d stop messing around, and I meant it, but last month I did it again and restarted an old fling. I love my wife and the last thing I want is to lose her and the kids’ respect; I’ve got a wonderful family, and I’m not some macho guy who goes cruising to pick up skanks in bars. My problem is that women have always been very attracted to me, I don’t know why, and the sex is very, very satisfying (for both of us), even when we don’t really have much of a relationship. I’m an asshole, and I can’t stop myself. What can I do?

Certain ingredients make love particularly addictive, and one, for guys, is female adulation. They say women loves compliments and being adored, but they rarely ruin their marriages in order to receive them.

Certainly, what addicts you is not your fling-partner as a person, and sex is probably just a part of it. What lights up your pleasure centers and creates needs you can’t control is a mysterious combination of feeling strong, desired, and personally admired.

Whatever feeds your habit, it’s been going on a long time, and understanding its sources in your personality will probably not help. More likely, analyzing your feelings will make you more self-critical and vulnerable to the need for sexual re-inflation.

Unless I’m mistaken, you’ll find the addiction is hard to break, no matter how hard you try, and your first task will be, as they say in AA, to admit your helplessness and accept it as a fact of life. No, that doesn’t mean accepting that it will control your life, simply that it will be a presence in your life that you have to work hard every day to control and that may never be entirely controlled. The first step to avoiding asshole-ish behavior is acknowledging that you’re acting like an asshole in the first place.

Indeed, some people never control it, in spite of overwhelming incentives to do so. The good news, however, is that some good people have sustained meaningful marriages in spite of this behavior. Somehow, their wives felt loved, valued, and secure, despite their husband’s many affairs (and went on to become Secretary of State).

If it’s available, I recommend a 12 step group with other men who know what you’re talking about and who are trying to keep themselves under control. Look for a few attendees with good control who are leaders and sponsors. Unfortunately, there aren’t many guys who have this problem in the way you do, and stigma keeps them from identifying themselves, even to one another, but they are out there.

Even without a 12 step group, however, use 12 step principles. Accepting your helplessness means you shouldn’t promise your wife you’ll stop, because that will likely trap you in lies and shame. Tell her you can’t make promises, but you’ll try, one day (and come hither stare) at a time.

Take strength from your honesty and honest efforts. If you can regain your pride, you can show your wife how much you love her, instead of mollifying her like an angry mother.

Don’t give up. Spend time thinking about the reasons you want to stay faithful, aside from appeasing your wife. Look for any activity, or even a medication, that will allow you to think for a couple more seconds before you act. An antidepressant that has the side effect of reducing sex drive will go a long way towards preventing the act in the first place.

Shame, lying, and mollifying are probably as disruptive to your marriage as the infidelity itself. Work on all fronts and you may be able to improve your marriage and self-esteem, and then you’ll be able to look for some compliments and adoration from within.

STATEMENT:
“My compulsive sexual habits make me feel deceitful and threaten everything I value, but I’ll try to take strength from what I value to invest in my marriage, let my wife know where I stand, and stay focused on improving my self-control.”

My best friend and I got together after 9 years of friendship. A couple of years before we got together, I was with a guy that my best friend absolutely hates and also works quite closely with. My friend and I love each other immensely, but after only six months it was all over and done with; his trust and jealousy issues got the better of him in our relationship even though there was no basis for it, and he called it off as he knows that won’t change about himself. While he loves me, he wants us to be in each other’s lives forever so broke it off. I thought it was something we could work on so never really gave up hope that he would return. We finally had a proper talk about all of it, however, and now I get that he is never coming back to me, but I still don’t know how to reconcile that. How can he give up on himself and his chance of love, and how do I stop beating myself up over the guilt I feel for being with that previous guy, when all that goes through my head is that had I not done that, we could still be together? I feel like I ruined what could have been the best thing in my life and don’t really know how to move on, especially when all I want is for him to have a main role in my life. How do I separate my friendship and feelings? How do I stop hating myself for what I’ve done?

Many people hate themselves whenever something goes wrong, picking apart everything they might have done different, from bringing an umbrella to not swinging on a pitch that was down in the dirt.

As long as you don’t think too hard, there’s no difference between could have and should have, leaving you with heaps of regret (along with ruined shoes and/or play-off chances).

Trouble is, the only way to defend your self-respect when things go wrong is to ask yourself whether you did your best and then believe in the answer. Otherwise, you’ve given yourself total responsibility for all bad things, which is pretty unfair (as unfair as having your “best friend” be jealous of a guy you dated years ago).

If you accept total responsibility for all sorrows, you also have no way of judging anyone else’s contribution; by deciding that you’re the one who fucked up/the one guilty party, you give any offending assholes involved a clean record and lose your ability to defend against them.

If you look back at the situation with a clearer head, you’ll see that a lot of what went wrong wasn’t just someone else’s fault, but completely out of your control. After all, you can wish you’d brought an umbrella, but you can’t beat yourself up for making it rain in the first place.

So stop giving yourself grief for losing your “one true love” and apply your own standards of right and wrong. By your standards, there was nothing wrong with your brief relationship with the guy Mr. True-love happens to hate, and there was no reason you could think of why, two years later, he should still get jealous enough to throw away the good thing you had going.

Instead of giving yourself a hard time, ask yourself whether intense jealousy that appears for no reason is likely to go away, and what it’s like to live with someone who’s jealous and suspicious and feels entitled to make it your problem. In other words, consider not just the circumstances for what caused things to fall apart, or how painful it feels, but the actual value of what was lost.

Relationships don’t need love as much as trust; if he couldn’t bring it to the table from the get-go, you’re biggest mistake was letting feelings instead of thinking guide you forward. You’re doing the same now, but you can separate your friendship from your pain if you can see your ex as the flawed, less-than-ideal partner that he is and adjust your expectations of him accordingly. It’s not a painless process, but it’s necessary if you want to stop torturing yourself, which is more painful (and much more useless) in the long run.

You wouldn’t punish a kid for doing nothing wrong: don’t do it to yourself. Be a fair judge, and, while it’s true, you’ll never cure your ex-beloved’s jealousy or win him back, you’ll treat yourself fairly and protect yourself from taking responsibility for your ex’s dark side.

When you learn to see the red flags, you’ll stop blaming and start crediting yourself for the preparation it takes to avoid heartbreak, rain, a fastball, or anything else.

STATEMENT:
“I can’t help missing the love we had, but I know that, for some people, jealousy is a curse that can’t be controlled and it’s impossible to live with. Next time, no matter how nice he is, if a guy tells me that jealousy has destroyed his relationships, I’ll stay away.”

I don’t know how to keep my daughter out of trouble, particularly since she doesn’t want help. She’s always flown into rages whenever she’s frustrated, and it got worse as she got older. She has learning disabilities, so she was often frustrated, and I feel for her, but the worst part is that she blames everyone else and thinks she has a right to hit anyone who deserves it, meaning anyone who makes her angry or “disrespects her” or “causes drama.” Now, at age 21, she’s living with me and I’m afraid she’ll even hurt me if I make those mistakes. She sees a therapist because her parole officer insisted, but she says nothing and it’s doing no good. I’m afraid for both of us. What should I do?

During the early years of childhood, parents assume that when their child has a tantrum, it’s their responsibility to calm them down, deliver the desired relief, and accept an apology or contrite behavior afterwards. Every now and then, especially beyond puberty, however, that’s not a safe assumption.

Ask yourself whether your daughter feels sorry about hurting people, especially you, or whether she wants to avoid getting into trouble. If the answers are no, and they seem to be, you can’t keep on thinking of her as an unfortunate kid who needs something you haven’t yet been able to provide. Thinking that way gives you responsibility for something you don’t control and forces you to keep your door open when it may be dangerous for both of you.

You’re not responsible for her rages or for housing her if you’re afraid of her; you’re responsible for helping her control her rages if, and only if, she agrees to try and you and she are reasonably safe.

Give her information about where she can stay if you can’t let her stay with you, and don’t be ruled by fear or guilt if she refuses your recommendations and threatens to hurt herself if you send her out the door. Your safety and hers may depend on her believing that she leaves when you say so, with or without a police escort.

Then write a contract of basically acceptable behavior, making it clear than any basically unacceptable behavior will require here to leave your home, at least for a day or two. The basic no-no’s should include not backing off when you tell her it’s necessary, not contributing her share to the house, and not taking drugs if you think they’re dangerous for her.

As the parent, you know what’s necessary to keep your house safe and your daughter from doing anything destructive. Don’t expect her to understand; just to agree and follow through. The same argument you used when she was a toddler applies now; because you’re the mom, that’s why.

Her not getting better doesn’t make it your responsibility to do more, but rather to define the limits of acceptable behavior so that you don’t make an unsafe situation even more dangerous. Even if you can no longer soothe her, you can still give her a well-deserved time out.

STATEMENT:
“I feel for my daughter’s pain and anger and I know she has good reason for her feelings, but I can’t hold myself responsible for giving her self-control. I won’t let guilt or fear stop me from telling her that she can’t stay with me if that’s what I believe is necessary. In the end, I hope that will help her to straighten out.

I can’t seem to recover from my wife’s infidelity. Six months ago, when I found out, it nearly destroyed me. I stopped sleeping, and started eating compulsively, and felt depressed and anxious all day. I have a demanding job and we have a 2-year-old son and I simply had to keep going. Now, after months of couples therapy and my wife’s promising to stop drinking and then starting up again, I’ve gotten strangely detached. I don’t think our marriage is going to make it and, on some level, I don’t care. I can’t lose the 20 pounds I gained, I don’t exercise the way I used to, and I can’t seem to get my confidence or happiness back. What more should I be doing?

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you, not for losing a horrible spouse (that seems both insensitive and obvious), but for becoming a fat, lazy mope. Most people consider “letting themselves go” to be a bad thing, but in this instance, it’s a positive side-effect of recovery at work.

After all, the best measurement of how well you’ve recovered from trauma is not how good you feel. This Sunday marks a rather grim anniversary for many Americans, and after 10 years, some of those people still hurt, and some of those in pain are also in shape. Trauma doesn’t factor into it.

Depending on the trauma and what it means to you, there may be no way to feel good for aa long, long time, no matter what you say or do. What counts is how well you cope with it, and coping well doesn’t necessarily make you feel good or hit the treadmill.

For instance, you’re telling me that you’ve continued to co-manage a growing business and parent a 2-year-old boy despite a severe emotional shock. At any size, that’s amazing. You’ve also accepted the fact that your wife has resumed drinking and is unlikely to get control of other behavior. It’s sad, but you’re not obsessing about what you did wrong or what you should do to change her.

This is the kind of pain you need to have. Not that you deserve it, but life sucks, and it’s far better than the pain that would come with denial, holding on to what you can’t have, or assuming responsibility for things you don’t control.

Indeed, the fact that your weight and appearance come last is also a strength. You’re absolutely right in acting like what comes first is parenting your son, making a living, and accepting what happened. Dieting should never be your top priority.

Exercising would help if you have time for it, but there are times when you don’t, and shouldn’t, have time for it. When the chaos subsides a bit, you can renew your gym membership. For now, be proud that you’ve got your priorities straight, even if you feel rotten and sluggish and look large.

You’ve done the right thing under difficult circumstances for both yourself and your son, so stop mourning how far you’ve let yourself go and instead admire how far you’ve come.

STATEMENT:
“My heart remains broken and I don’t have the energy I used to have, but I’m doing what really needs to be done and I’m realistic about my options, so I know I’m doing the right thing, even if I feel far from confident about myself and life in general.”

I’ve think I’ve gotten over my last boyfriend, but my friends tell me I still need help. They know that my ex had a fidelity problem and a way of borrowing money from me and not paying it back, but I didn’t tell them about how worried I was that the loan sharks would hurt him (and I knew he wanted to pay me back), so it was more complicated than my friends realized. In any case, I eventually realized he was getting money from someone else and, when I confronted him, he said he couldn’t stand my nagging and that he needed someone who would give him more respect. I was shattered, but I’m OK now, and I don’t know why my friends don’t believe in my recovery.

Once again, the point of getting over a bad relationship isn’t to feel better; as nice as it would be, your top priority in “getting over” something isn’t to land in the sweet valley of bliss (and weight loss). Instead, you get through it in order to learn what went wrong so you can do better next time or, at least, figure out whether there was any way you could have seen the bad stuff coming.

If you feel better without learning something, you won’t feel better for long; there’s always more trouble coming, and no valley in sight.

Don’t try to forget him before first trying to remember what went wrong and searching for warning signs. No matter how shocking a boyfriend’s bad behavior can seem, most guys who have fidelity problems don’t develop them the moment they meet you. They’ve had them for a long time and the behavior problem isn’t invisible if you know where to look (and aren’t blinded entirely by the good feelings that come with a budding romance).

Usually, it’s just a matter of asking straightforward questions about past relationships and getting corroboration from friends and family—the same methods a dumb cop would use. Ask yourself whether your love of romance caused you to turn off not just your inner detective, but your brain entirely.

Trying to protect loved ones from behavior they show no signs of stopping is another red flag, announcing that you have a weakness for your own nurturing instincts. It’s a good thing to protect babies and children, and a terrible idea to protect grown babies from behavior that can take you both down. I suppose he doesn’t see himself as having a problem, and that’s his cross to bear. That you also don’t see it is a big problem for you, and that’s what worries your friends.

Of course, there are smooth-talking-but-bad boyfriends whom no one can see coming—those polished psychopaths who fool everyone because they believe in their own lies and are good at hiding their pasts. If your inquest doesn’t uncover that kind of nutjob, then you have less to worry about, because you didn’t make any mistake other than to have bad luck.

So before you insist he’s in the rearview and you’re feeling great, figure out exactly what you’re putting behind you; do your homework, figure out what went wrong, and then it’s OK to forget about him. As the old saying goes, you don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been. If you push through the pain and figure out what your last relationship was really about, you’ll be able to go forward without getting over quite so much.

STATEMENT:
“I’d prefer to put the past behind me, particularly because I’m much more attractive and fun to be with when I’m feeling happy, but I’ve learned more from my mistakes than from the relationships that went well, and I take pride in being a good learner.”