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’ve been getting increasingly nervous about my aging parents, particularly because my mother, who’s a very vigorous near-90, likes to ignore the real risks of continuing to vacation in their old, 2 story, roughing-it country home. She loves to garden, take vigorous walks, build fires, and keep to the same routine she had when she was 40. I know I’m a nervous person—I’m a nurse, and I’ve had to deal with an injured leg since childhood—but I’m haunted about what could happen to her if she fell down and it’s no place for my dad, who’s very frail after a stroke. When I said something to her yesterday about how she should hold onto my father’s arm when he walks, she told me to mind my own business. I’m the only one of the kids who lives nearby, so their safety is my business. How do I get her to understand she needs to be more careful?

It’s understandable that you worry about your parents, but even if they were both freakishly healthy and lived in a hermetically sealed bubble, the sad fact is, they’re both going to die.

[Moment to process.]

Yes, your aging parents are lucky to have a caring child nearby, particularly someone who’s medically educated, as you are. You also know, however, as someone who’s lived with a crippled leg, how necessary it is to take risks if you want to live a full life and how important it is to make those risk-management decisions yourself.

Your goal isn’t to breathe easy, knowing that your parents are safe as can be, or make yourself responsible for their safety. As much as you’d like them to be safe, they can’t be, so those goals would drive you and them crazy (and provide me with a steady income).

Now that you know you can’t make them safe or ease your own fears, you’re ready to think creatively about realistic risk management, knowing that bad things (like death, but lesser things, too) will happen.

Your goal isn’t to prevent those bad things from happening, but to help your parents do whatever they’re willing to do to prevent them, then forget about them, and live their lives (and let you live yours).

Instead of nagging them to be more careful, offer to get them professional advice on how to manage risks from slips, falls, fainting spells, medication mistakes, and assorted worst-case scenarios.

If that doesn’t work, leave their doctor a message encouraging him/her to do the same and if that doesn’t work, take a course yourself and do what you can. Then, you’re finished and enjoy the veggies from the garden.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement for keeping your responsibilities in check. “As much as it would hurt to see my parents injured and as much as it scares me to think about it, I respect their determination to live independently as long as possible, despite the risks. I can do more for them by offering good advice than by inducing guilt. I will take pride in doing this job well, regardless of whether they accept my advice. Indeed, the less I can do and the more helpless I feel, the more pride I’ll take in not letting my management interfere with their choices.”

Two years ago, my wife was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. We’re both overweight, but she also used to be a smoker, so her health’s always been more of an issue than mine. We were both warned that if we didn’t get better eating and exercise habits, we’d be in trouble, and now she knows her diabetes puts her at much higher risk of heart disease, hypertension, infections, and kidney disease. Well, two years later, and I’ve started taking the dogs on long walks, stopped eating from the vending machine at work, and lost some weight. My wife, on the other hand, hasn’t really changed her habits at all. She says she’s eating less crap at work, but at night she’s making the same unhealthy (delicious) stuff we’ve always eaten, and she always says she’s too tired to walk with me. I don’t know what I can do aside from nagging her, and that’s not working, so I’m really worried that she’s going to go downhill fast and that I’ll lose her. My goal is to get save my wife from herself.

As much as you’d like to keep your wife around as long as possible, you know that your influence over her health habits is limited, and trying to control her health will cause you more conflict and probably drive both of you to an earlier grave…which contradicts your purpose.

Unlike the concerned daughter above, you don’t have the luxury of ignoring the inevitable; she can’t make her parents immortal, but theoretically, you can help your wife to change her habits. If you’ve ever tried to change any of your own habits, however, you know it’s never really that easy.

Weight control, for example, should be easy because putting food in your mouth and swallowing are supposedly voluntary actions. In reality, people don’t have that much control over their habits or their health. Ask anyone who’s eaten at Cinnabon.

It takes great effort, not everyone can do it, and other legitimate priorities, like raising kids and making a living, get in the way. Biology is powerful, and our bodies are designed to survive famine, not taste-bud seduction.

Accept that she has a chronic, incurable illness and you’ll start to be more helpful. Instead of nagging, offer advice on impulse management and eating better (but don’t force that advice, because then you’re back to square one).

If that doesn’t work, ask her doctor to do the same, and if that doesn’t work, learn CPR, read up on living with a diabetic, and enjoy your time together. After all, you don’t want to ruin the quality of your relationship for the sake of a little more quantity.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a nagging-restraint statement. “It’s hard to watch my wife’s unhealthy habits, but I’ll do more for her by keeping my feelings to myself, offering advice if she wants it, and enjoying her while I’ve got her. A good marriage always requires tolerating the pain of traits you can’t change, and this is more of the same.”

I’ve been a complete, stinking failure since I graduated from college. My job pays well, but I hate it with a passion because I’m treated like shit. Then again, I don’t have the skills to find anything better, though I’ve tried. My drinking has kept my girlfriend from moving in, and, since I’ve never loved anyone else, that means I’ve never had a relationship that works. I don’t really have friends because I’m too nervous to let anyone really know me and I work too hard to meet anyone (at that job that sucks). Now I wonder whether I’m being honest with you, or just whining and slinging bullshit. My goal is to be someone else.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who launch into the most brutal monologues of self-criticism would never allow their friends to talk such shit about themselves in their presence. The only thing they truly fail at is holding themselves to the same standards they hold others.

Your tirade makes you sound like the Yankees fans who can’t stand it when their team isn’t number one. When the Yankees are losing, they always find someone to blame: the owner for paying too much for bad players, or the slumping batter for not caring enough about the game to deliver value for his multimillion dollar salary.

In reality, sometimes other teams are better and hard-driving players slump, and it’s better to ride it out than to rage. The same goes for life in general, because blaming yourself and cursing your performance isn’t going to make it any better, and, unlike the Yankees, you can’t afford the reinforcements.

If you succeeded in hating yourself like this in front of a friend, he’d not just tell you to shut up, but express respect for the strength and courage it takes to work hard at a job you hate so that you can be independent and have some money.

He’d credit your persisting in a job search despite rejection and a bad economy, and express hope for a girl-friendship that has so far survived your drinking problem. He’d admire the other friendships you’ve started, despite your shyness.

Well, I’m not your friend, so I’m going to skip straight to telling you to shut up. I don’t like to hear people be mean to themselves. Don’t do it in my presence. Besides, I’m a Sox fan.

Your goal is not to indulge self-loathing, but to bottle it up and treat yourself with respect. No, I don’t know why you feel that way and I’m not too interested in exploring that question unless you’re willing to stop, now.

Not wait until you feel like stopping, because you can guess how much regard I hold for feelings and the fallacy that bottling them up can kill you. If Girardi had kept his feelings bottled up on Monday, he wouldn’t have gotten tossed from the game (and surely he wouldn’t have dropped dead from a feelings attack).

Thinking like a Red Sox fan—enjoying a losing team on a good streak—is usually more healthy. When the drive for dominance doesn’t trump loyalty, be it to a sports team or to yourself and your values, then losing sucks less, winning feels better, and more fun is had.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement. “I can’t help feeling self-critical, but I will use objective measures to judge how well I’m doing. I will deny expression to self-hate, even if it makes me turn red and develop acne. I will respect myself for legitimate achievements, whether or not they make me happy or rich. I’ll be positive about what I need to do to improve.

I love all my kids, but I don’t know where I went wrong with my youngest son. His older siblings are all accomplished and ambitious; two are married with kids, and one hasn’t had time because he’s finishing his medical training, but he and his girlfriend seem serious. Meanwhile, my youngest hasn’t lived in one place for more than two years, let alone held a job for more than a month, and all he seems to excel at is spending my money and wasting time. I don’t think he’s drinking or using drugs; he just isn’t successful at anything but fucking around. My goal is to get my son’s head out of his ass.

You’re entitled to worry about unlaunched kids who can’t (yet) make a living or misfits who haven’t found their way in life. You can worry, be impatient, or feel resentful; but, as a parent, you are never, ever entitled to get nasty.

Remember (and if you don’t remember, look it up), Archie Bunker was an asshole who made it harder, not easier, for the younger generation to get started by constantly expressing criticism and contempt. He enjoyed venting, and vented poison, so don’t follow in his reclining footsteps.

If your values—self-reliance and hard work— are worthwhile, you will do a much better job of pushing your son in a good direction by praising his strengths and supporting whatever you think will carry him forward. Let life teach him that bad directions take him nowhere. If you tell him, he has to prove you wrong, so let life carry the bad news.

I know, I know, the “real” problem with fucked-up kids is that their precious, testicularly underweight liberal parents never told them they were fuck-ups. Well, that sounds an awful lot like whining to me.

Like one of them liberals, you’ve shared your feelings with your son, and all they’ve done is make things worse. You’re too angry to stop yourself, so let me; Shut up.

He might be a fuck-up, but he’s your fuck-up, so stop cutting him down and start to actually help. Your words will carry much more weight if they make you sound like you’re on his side, which is where you’re supposed to be.

STATEMENT:
“You’ve got imagination and I admire the way you stay clear of drugs. I’m not one of those parents who wants you to do anything that will make you happy, because I think there are bigger issues, like having enough money to support yourself and fight off the crap that life will throw at you, particularly after I’m dead and there’s no financial umbrella. Even now, we can’t support you except in emergencies. So, as much as I hope you will find a happy career, I’m more interested in your developing the strength to make money from shoveling shit, if necessary, because you’re a good person and I want you to be strong and independent.”

When my husband and I first got married (and married young, over 20 years ago), his job was physically intensive, but he enjoyed it and it paid well. Not too long ago he got injured, and it was bad enough that he can’t go back to that line of work, so he’s collected disability and taken over the childcare, which he does well. I found a good job, so we’re making enough money, but I don’t like working and miss spending time with the kids, so I push him to find a desk-job, but he obviously hates that kind of work and can’t seem to find anything that suits him. The whole thing is so unfair, I can’t help but dig into him sometimes, in a way that I know, even as I’m talking to him, is just nasty and inappropriate. It’s really putting our marriage through the ringer, but as hard as I try, I can’t control my temper. My goal is to get through this problem without getting divorced.

You clearly value your partnership with your husband…even if you hate your new role as breadwinner so much that it awakens the asshole within.

It leaves you with a big lump of anger and disappointment that you can’t get over and won’t go away. The expression might be “like it or lump it,” but sometimes, you have to do both.

You’ve found it isn’t easy to shut up about your anger because your inner asshole wants to whine and complain and punish your husband for the unfair suffering he’s put you through. Yes, it’s unfair, but it is what it is, and your inner asshole could ruin things for you and your family.

The good news is that you’re not a complete (or “perfect”) asshole, which, as you know from our scientific papers on personality, is a person whose nasty problems are always everyone else’s fault, and who can be reliably counted on to never, ever change, regardless of the number of treatment programs he or she is sent to by spouses, bosses, judges and bishops.

The bad news is that, having an inner asshole that isn’t the total driving force behind your personality means that you will frequently experience the remorse of a were-asshole, who is always trying to put herself in a locked cell before the moon turns full.

So don’t assume your anger will go away by talking about it with your therapist, friends or husband an understanding where it comes from. Women usually think that talking about things makes them better, but, in this situation (and in most situations), it often makes them worse.

See, while you’re talking away, waiting for your internal rage to ease off and your inner-Oprah to soothe your soul, your internal asshole is venting its stuff and ruining your marriage. So your goal isn’t to get relief; it’s to push your inner-asshole voice down so deep that it might emerge out of its namesake.

You might speculate whether your inner asshole is more like your id, or a reaction to loss or an aspect of your inner child. If so, you might want to shut up. You’ve avoiding the fact that you won’t control it by becoming an inner proctologist. Your goal is to close it.

You’ll discover that, if you’ve got an inner asshole, it doesn’t go away. Close it today, it’s just as strong tomorrow. If you’re ashamed of it, it gets stronger.

So dealing with it requires, as do most such problems, a shameless acceptance of the fact that your inner asshole is going to share your personality for life, and that you need to work hard, every day, to keep it in check, one day at a time.

If you don’t, then there’s more than your marriage at risk; like your actual anus, if you don’t control your inner-asshole, it will shit all over your life.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement to help you bear your burden and tighten your sphincter. “I have a right to be disappointed by the change in my family life but the real problem is that life sucks, my husband doesn’t, and my marriage will if I can’t keep my disappointment to myself. I’ve put together the best compromise for keeping us afloat. Supporting a big family is never easy. The rules are subject to change without notice. The more I hurt, the more I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do. My job is to share that pride and keep the hurt to myself.”

I know it’s a cliché to hate your mother-in-law, but I actually don’t have a problem with mine; it’s my wife who’s decided that my mother is the devil. To be honest, I know that my mother isn’t perfect—she gets on my nerves a lot, too, and has never been good at butting out of my life, and does tend to give my wife a hard time about a lot of things—but I never should have admitted that to my wife, because now she can’t contain herself. When the topic of my mother comes up, my wife becomes a totally different person, like, she dislikes my mother so much it’s almost unhealthy. My goal is to get my wife over her hatred so she can be a normal person all the time.

Blessed be the peacemakers, because they’re always getting fucked by the angry, out-of-control people they like to hang out with.

That’s what warring parties means—people who are angry and out of control—so don’t think for a minute that you’re going to make peace. If anything, you’re going to get blasted from both sides.

Your mother and wife may both have nasty, overbearing tendencies—what a coincidence! Perhaps we should start a linked website, menwholovewomenwithinnerasshxles.com.

The good news, I take it, is that you think your wife is basically a good, reasonable partner, as long as she’s not focused on your mother. The bad news is that she doesn’t see her inner asshole as a problem (and neither does your mother, further coincidence), so you can’t expect her to change and her control will never be great.

Now that your expectations are properly shattered, the real healing can begin. Start by giving up on notions about Sunday brunches with the extended family, and accept the fact that your partnership with your wife is priority one, of necessity.

You can see your mother whenever you want, as long as you don’t see or talk about her with your wife. Don’t try to put them in the same room, because two women will enter, and only one will leave..

Suggest to your wife that it will be in her best interest, and the kids’, to participate in occasional family get-togethers but that, if she agrees, she needs to decide when it’s necessary and how she can best get through it. If your wife won’t agree to contact, there’s nothing you can do about it except to develop your own ways of keeping in touch with your mother and trying to negotiate some contact with the kids.

Either way, don’t try to help your wife to get over her hatred; just make sure to put a healthy distance between her and her hatred’s source.

STATEMENT:
I have a good partnership but my wife turns out to have an inner asshole that will always make it agony for her to spend time with my mother and it’s my job to work around that fact. I won’t try to bring them together. I won’t listen to their complaints. I’ll make it clear, to both women, that I love them and see the animosity as an unfortunate fact of life, rather than something either one caused. I’ll urge my wife to view the problem as my partner in family management and hope that, without changing her feelings, she can see reasons for occasional diplomatic engagement; but if she doesn’t, I’ve done the best I can and must be proud of that fact.

For years, I’ve talked to a friend of mine about my problems who’s also a counselor, and during that time, he’s urged me to seek professional help. I used to brush off that advice, mostly because this friend lives in another city and only ever really talks to me on the phone when I have problems, but in the last few months, I’ve begun to consider taking his advice. I don’t know what to say when I call to make the appointment, however, because I haven’t the faintest how to explain the unknown in my head (which is the main issue that frustrates me). I want to scream, but don’t know why or what. Do you have any advice as far as how to ask for help when I’m not sure what I’m really asking help for?

Remember, funny feelings in your head cause fear, which causes funny feelings, which cause fear, which create a spiral that will flush you down the toilet of needless worry. The first thing to do then is shut up and think about whether you need help.

If you’ve had funny feelings in your head for years, they’re not about to kill you; they’re not telling you to kill yourself or anyone else, and they’re not annoying you to death. Plus, they’re obviously not getting in the way of at least one long-term friendship.

So, taking all that into account, you have time to use your usual problem-solving methods to determine whether or not your weird head sensations are a big deal. You can try exercising and going on vacation, to see if you get better.

The big question isn’t what you say when you ask the shrink for help, but what you say after forming your own decision about why help is necessary. After all, you can’t shut up your worrying friends until you know your own mind.

There are several criteria for deciding when to seek help that apply to most situations, like if your problem gets in the way of making a living or being a good guy, or if your problem causes too much pain.

Assume, of course, that you haven’t been able to solve the problem without help, and throw in one special-knowledge exception: get help if the problem might be a sign of an illness that you might cure and/or prevent if you had expert advice. Then come to your own conclusion about whether you need help and then stand by it.

If you don’t need help, don’t bother to tell your friend to shut up. Let him/her know, if you need to talk about the problem, that you’re satisfied with your own way of managing it, and he’ll probably shut up on his/her own.

On the other hand, if you decide you do need help, shut up about your helplessness. Tell your doctor what the matter is and why you think it’s necessary to talk about it. Then the advice you get will be more focused and less patronizing, so you’ll actualy want to shut and listen to it.

STATEMENT:
“My symptoms are subjective and I don’t know anyone else who has them, but they hurt and distract me a great deal, so I want expert advice on what I can do about them that I haven’t already tried. I don’t care if the experts explain them away or tell me they’re in my head. That just means no one has an answer, and I have the answer I need (though the answer I want would include a cure). Then I know it’s not cancer, I’ve done my best, and it’s time to accept pain and move on with my life.”

After graduating from college last spring, my son moved to a new city for graduate school. The problem is that his psychiatrist, the one he credits with saving him from severe depression and turning his life around, did not make the move with him, and my son doesn’t want to talk to anyone else. The fix so far has been phone sessions, but this doctor is not covered by my son’s meager student insurance, so his father and I have been footing the bill, and that bill is staggeringly enormous. We love our son and want him to be well, but between our own expenses and the money we’re putting towards his graduate education, our goal is to get him to look for a new, local doctor without making him relapse.

Severe depression is scary and hard to control, so it’s not unusual that recovering survivors cling tightly to whatever may have made the bad symptoms go away, including anything from the lucky underwear they had on when the cloud lifted to, of course, their shrink, particularly if he or she is nice to talk to.

On the other hand, it’s also hard for parents to stress a kid who’s gone through depression, because it’s not just the kid that fears a relapse. That’s why you don’t want to tell your son and the therapist that it’s time for them to shut up.

Your goal, however, isn’t to protect him from stress or make him feel good, but to teach him how to deal with depression effectively, and superstitiously clinging to good luck charms isn’t the way to do it.

Instead, encourage him to make the most of his resources by bravely figuring out what he really needs, and what he can do without. Treat him as the agent of his recovery, the expert of his own experience, and the client who seeks useful ideas from many sources, including new therapists, all while debunking the therapeutic impact of nurturing/”special” relationships.

Yes, suggesting change will raise his fears and your own, but it’s your job to do that while offering him reasons for beating the fear and methods for managing it. Also, of course, don’t act frightened; sure, you can admit to fear and talk about fear, but not show fear, or else everyone will be so afraid as to soil their lucky underwear.

You’re there to convince him that facing fear will pay off; it’s for his own benefit in the long wrong, not just so you can make it easier to pay off your bills.

STATEMENT:
“Of course you need a doctor to help you manage depression, but our resources are needed for your education, so we can’t waste a cent. Find a doctor who is covered by your insurance. Don’t use that person for comfort and understanding unless it’s necessary; remember, we’re your friends and you have a dog and we’re all free. Ask yourself what you learned from your old doctor that helped you manage your negative thoughts and/or symptoms more effectively and look for someone who has similar ideas. Also, if you want to learn more about coping with depression, join a group of strong depression survivors. If you want to learn how to correct negative thinking, read a book and take a course. Use your doctor to get what you can’t get elsewhere. Whether we’re managing depression or diabetes, that’s how we can keep the costs of treatment under control.”

I just started at college, and I like my roommate, but she’s bulimic and hard to be around. Not just because she’s sick (and everybody on the floor knows about her problem, it’s hard not to), but because when she binges, it’s on my food because that’s what’s closest, and she always feels really bad about it and cries that she wishes she could stop, but then she doesn’t offer to pay for it and it’s costing me a lot of money. Part of me just feels bad for her, because she’s clearly really messed up, but another part of me is pissed because I’ve lost a lot of money this year on food that she’s eaten and thrown up, and that just makes me feel guilty like I’m a bad person for putting my lost money above her health. I want to move after the break, but I don’t want her to feel abandoned. My goal is to help her and myself.

Welcome to that other part of college, Hard Knocks University, where the class Helplessness 101—what to do when you can’t help both someone and yourself, and sometimes you can’t help at all—is a frosh requirement.

The tough part is not the decision, but accepting the shitty nature of your options. Bulimia, like any chronic condition (depression, addiction, etc.) is not completely curable, not by you or certainly the patient herself.

If you buy into the psychobabble about body image and low self-esteem, you might think you could help her by praising her strengths, noticing her attractive qualities, or getting her to think about the superficiality and limitations of attractiveness. Ha!

Whether it’s coming from you or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of Therapists, your therapeutic support is not going to change those mysterious urges to binge and puke. Buying into that notion will waste you even more time and money than all the cash you’ve already flushed away at the supermarket.

Bulimia, like all addictions, can turn people into assholes. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t choose to be assholes, but when you’re more interested in binging and purging than in anything else, including other people’s feelings and squaring your debts, you’re an asshole. Or really, you’re a normal, possibly good person suffering from a bad case of asshole-itis.

It’s a humiliating thing to say about ourselves, but what helps most in controlling dangerous behavior, when all else fails, is to be treated like a soldier or dog-in-training in a program where our every movement is controlled. That’s the kind of treatment that saves lives when bulimia gets dangerous.

Obviously, it doesn’t cure it, but it stops us from going over the cliff until we can get enough control back to keep it down to a barf or two a day.

So the most you can do is let her and others know if you think her life’s in danger. Otherwise, you’ve got little influence over her for good or ill, and you’re living with an asshole you can’t cure who’s costing you a bundle.

You may wish you could help her, ease her pain, and not make yourself feel guilty by locking the refrigerator if you don’t get a check. Well, I hate to say this, but fuck you. That’s a goal of feeling good, which is much like her goal.

If, however, your goal is to make the best of this situation, it’s not to feel good but to do what’s right by helping her if you can and otherwise preserving your resources for worthwhile causes.

That means bearing the pain of watching her in pain, feeling helpless, and ignoring the guilt of receiving a look that accuses you of adding to her misery. It also means letting her know you’re there if she wants to get real help, establishing your refrigerator perimeter, and getting to eat your own damned ice cream.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a mission statement that protects yourself from false guilt. “I can’t help my roommate feel better or control her eating behavior, but I can watch out for her if her life is in danger and I can encourage her to be a stronger obsession manager by requiring her to pay for what she eats. In doing so, I may temporarily make us both feel unhappy; but that’s an unavoidable part of her recovery and my self-protection. It’s the work we both must do to pass this course in making the best of a bad situation.”

Since there’s no easy way to say it, I’ll just put it out there that I have a problem with my anal sphincter (a botched surgery when I was a kid that left me with very little control). Like everyone since then, my co-workers notice that I sometimes smell bad and like to joke about it, usually but not always behind my back. I do my best to control it, and I’ve seen specialists about it, but what it comes down to is that everyone is happier when I keep my distance and I just wish I could find a job I could do from home. I even avoid attending family events and leave early when I go because I don’t want to embarrass my parents (and I obviously avoid women and people in general). I just transfered to another branch, and now I’m terrified about the reaction of my new co-workers. I know this sounds like a joke, but it isn’t. My goal is to find a treatment that can control this problem or a lifestyle that is less full of humiliation.

By now you should know that you can’t have what you want, either a sweet-smelling body or a solitary, well-stocked bat cave to retreat to. Forgive the pun, but tough shit.

You’re fucked, and if you keep trying to eliminate the problem you’ll never live your life and your parents will die and you’ll regret the things you didn’t do with them or the other things you want to do with yourself like make more money.

Now that that’s cleared up, ask yourself what your goal is when the goals you’ve been chasing are unattainable and there’s no way to avoid a shit-load of pain (last sly double-entendre, I swear).

The obvious answer is to try to reduce your sensitivity to humiliation so that you can live life as fully as possible. It would be nice if you were a natural-born comedian who could deflect nasty jokes, or an insensitive clod who never understood them in the first place; but you’re not. Now that you’re an adult, however, and no longer a school-kid, there are lots of other things you can do.

First, confront the Madison Avenue notion that your self-esteem depends on attractiveness. Your goal isn’t to be attractive, but to make people feel as comfortable as possible with your ugly side while you pursue your other goals.

So pretend you’ve got a colostomy and that’s the way it is and learn how to be shameless. Wear a diaper if it will help, just learn how to not take shit personally and put together a list of what you want to do with yourself and do it. That’s your goal.

Make people more comfortable by telling them, frankly, that you have a GI problem that sometimes causes bad smells and you can’t stop it but that you’re pretty good at managing it. That’s why you, for instance, use incense and deodorizers, and sometimes have to leave meetings unexpectedly. If your smell is a problem and you don’t notice it, you don’t mind having it pointed out to you.

Keep a candle burning on your desk. Be the first to let them know when you’re having a bad day. Read a book of bathroom jokes beginning with “What died in here?”

Your goal isn’t to control your colleagues; that’s impossible with heaps of cash or hypnosis, so accept that they’ll be nice or nasty, as they are. Instead, create a wall between you and your problem and invite them to see your problem as something apart from you. Lots won’t, but a few will.

After all, you’re not a bad smell, just a guy who’s trying to do a good job despite a tough, humiliating handicap. That’s something to be proud of, a much bigger accomplishment than being sweet-smelling and attractive. Fuck advertising.

Give your parents similar directions, letting them know that you’re happy to attend family events, but you’ll let them know if you’re having a bad day and you won’t take it personally if they’re planning a big event in a poorly ventilated space and don’t want you to come.

You can’t control your problem or how people react to it, but you can’t let those factors take over your life completely. After all, even for those of us with cooperative anuses, life often stinks. You just arm yourself with Fabreze and carry onward.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a manifesto that keeps you focused on your own priorities rather than the reactions of idiots. “My job is to lead my life and try to make a living and find friends, and I’m not responsible for my bad smell. I manage it well by protecting others and making it easy for them to protect themselves. My bad smell may humiliate me; but it can never outweigh my pride in not letting it stop me.”

My aunt is in her late 70s, and I’m on the only family she has anywhere nearby (my cousin, her daughter, lives in Europe). I try to look after her—check in every few weeks, make sure she has food, that the heat’s on, etc.—but it’s gotten harder now that she’s convinced my husband has stolen from her. In reality, my husband has never been to her apartment, plus he’d have no use for the pink sweater he’s accused of taking, but I can’t convince her otherwise. What drives me crazy is that, when she’s not calling me with absurd accusations, she screws up every plan I’ve labored to put in place to keep her safe. After I got her to the top of a housing list in a safer part of town, she took herself off and promptly got mugged. Then I arranged for a public health nurse to keep an eye on her health (she hasn’t seen a doctor in years) and my aunt refused to open the door for her so they closed the case. I’ve thought about getting guardianship powers so I can put her in assisted living, but my cousin, who phones her daily, says that would be cruel and make my aunt’s paranoia that much worse. If I can’t help her, I want to keep away from her because this is driving me crazy. I can’t stop her from screwing herself. It was her decision to reject my help. My goal is to help her or save myself.

As your beloved, dementing aunt demolishes your rescue attempts while accusing you of plotting against her, you can’t help feeling like, if she’s going to make it this hard to save her, you’d rather just kill her instead.

If you pay too much attention to the horrible way she makes you feel, however, you’re putting your mental pain ahead of your concern for her survival, which means you actually care more about saving yourself than her.

If your goal is to find a way to save her and/or end the pain of dealing with her, forget it. There’s no answer that will make you feel better that won’t also make things worse. If you make more arrangements, she’ll undo them, but if you walk away, you’ll feel responsible for the next disaster.

So accept that both you and she are fucked, and that the pain of dealing with her is unavoidable. Ultimately, and not surprisingly, your goal has nothing to do with your feelings. It’s to protect her, if possible, from a painful death, even if it means gathering a full arsenal of social services to do it.

You’ve already done a great job, whether your efforts worked or not. You’ve lined up public assistance and home visits and, though this time she blocked services, you now know where to turn and whom to call when the time comes.

And when the time comes—when it becomes clear that she can’t take care of herself—you can not only have services lined up to help her, but authorities lined up who can remove the yoke of responsibility you’ve placed on your own shoulders.

Prepare for that day by asking a lawyer to define what is required for a guardianship, i.e., how bad things have to be before the law lets someone else take over and force her into care. It probably includes any behavior that shows she can’t take care of herself, like neglecting a serious health problem, or leaving the stove on or going out and getting lost.

Then ask a social worker what services the state will provide. If you were able to provide those services, you might do it with more love than the state can provide and it would appease your guilt, but you wouldn’t last long and you don’t have coverage for when you’re sick, away, or dead. So your job isn’t to provide services but find the people who are responsible for providing them and persuade them that terrible things will happen if they don’t.

In the end, you may feel the silent disapproval of clinical professionals who resent having responsibility dumped on them, and it may add to your guilt. But, if you think of what’s best for your aunt in the long run, and not what makes you feel better, then screw their resentment—you’ll have reason to believe that you’ve done the right thing.

STATEMENT:
Write a statement to address those, including yourself, who expect you to rescue your aunt without regard to your limits or the self-destructiveness of her behavior. “I love my aunt and will do anything that will actually help her, within my capacity. I know that my efforts will sometimes feel inadequate, but what is really responsible for my helplessness and guilt is not failure, but the ravages of aging. If, in spite of my frustration and worry, I continue to keep an eye on her and do whatever good I can, particularly when it’s emotionally exhausting, I should remind myself that I’m doing a good job, because no one else will.”

I work in law enforcement, and a year or so ago, I had a piss test come back dirty. One of my superiors sprung the test on me because he suspected that I was using drugs. He was sure I was into heavy stuff, when really, I was just smoking pot occasionally as my way of dealing with an ugly divorce. Either way, it was dirty, so, in order to keep my job, I had to jump through a bunch of hoops, like going to meetings, monthly testing for a year, and having to sit behind a desk with most of my privileges and responsibilities stripped away. Worse, I now hate the place and don’t trust anyone, but I can’t quit this job until I’m seen as “rehabilitated” or no one else will hire me. So now, even though all I did was smoke a joint every weekend, I pretend to be a recovering junkie, and I’ve done everything they’ve asked of me for the past 16 months. At this point though, it feels like a game and I would do anything to get them off my back. I want to point out to them that I’ve done my time, stayed clean, and that I deserve to get my privileges back but I have a feeling that anything I say will just make them talk down to me about how I need supervision and they’re trying to help me. My goal is to get these people off my back and get things back to the way they were.

Once people have doubts about your ability to control your drug use, you don’t win back their confidence by complaining about unfairness (or complaining, period).

That’s because your complaints will do nothing but remind them that they wouldn’t have been having this unpleasant conversation if it weren’t for the weed in your wee-wee. You may be right and their treatment of you may not be fair; but shut up, or you’ll make things worse.

Your goal isn’t to win back anyone’s trust, because when people feel that you’re focused on their opinion, rather than on your own reasons for doing something, they tend to fear manipulation. Which means they’ll trust you even less.

Focus instead on your own reasons for sticking with this job, regardless of how the bosses make you feel. Assuming they will take their own sweet time before they trust you again, and that you will have to eat beaucoup de merde before that happens, decide whether the job is worth the trouble.

Set aside your anger and pride and think of the pay, security, flexibility of hours, benefits, length of commute, and what the job does or doesn’t do for your family life. Score the advantages and disadvantages. Then you’ll arrive at an answer that is not reactive to your anger, hurt, humiliation, or the provocation of others.

Bosses come and go; you want an answer that reflects your own long-term interests. And then you can decide whether to leave, transfer, or cowboy up, ignore the bullshit, outwait the review board, and get your old job back. If that’s what you decide, you’ll be a lot more careful before you jeopardize it again.

And here’s an added benefit. If your decision reflects your inner priorities other than your desire to get them to give you the green light, you’ll be much more persuasive. Because, of course, they’ll know that you have more important things on your mind, and only unimportant things in your pee.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement that describes your thoughts about the value of your job. “This job feels like shit, but I’ve been around, and it offers me a lot more than I can get elsewhere. It may feel like a humiliating pain in the ass, but I’ve got good reason to stick it out and pay more attention to avoiding this kind of problem in the future. So if I have to wear the brown crown, I should remind myself that I’m accepting my pain for a good reason and have a right to be proud.”

My son just started school, and I’ve become friends with his best friend’s mother. She’s a very nice, cool person, but I’ve gone shopping with her a bunch of times now—at the mall, at Costco—and I’m almost 100% sure that she’s a serial shoplifter. The first time it happened, I genuinely believed that she just forgot to pay for the sweater she’d put over the handle of her younger daughter’s stroller, fair enough. But then at a mall I saw her use the same stroller to steal again, arguing with a manager over a shirt with a missing button while she walked out with a $100 pair of shoes. It’s weird, because every time we walk out of the store, she’ll be like, oh, I forgot to pay for those shoes, I’m too embarrassed to go back now, which is getting really hard to believe now that she’s done it over and over again. Part of me worries that she might be a little nuts and it worries me to have her watch my son when he goes over to her house to play with his friend. But mostly I think she just has a problem, like smoking or something, but one that could get her into a lot of trouble very quickly, and if I could just talk to her about it as a friend, I might be able to help her. My goal is to do what I can to keep my new friend, and keep her out of trouble.

There’s one part that always gets left out of the Biblical story of the Good Samaritan– Risk Assessment.

There’s no arguing that it’s good to help people, but, since it feels good to help people, you know there’s a down side, and that down side is that it’s sometimes dangerous. After all, any good lawyer would tell you that if Jesus had lived longer, he would have gotten himself sued.

Your first job, as a responsible person and mother, is to assess the risk of being helpful by guessing, from her past behavior, whether your friend is likely to turn on you and rip out your guts. Remember, some people with destructive habits are sharks; they’re angry, very sensitive to having their weaknesses exposed or criticized, and will respond to your kindness by swearing a blood feud.

If you’ve thought through the risks and still wish to help, consider the two major approaches: Dr. Lastname’s, and that of the Interventionists Dramatique (or just Interventionists, translated from French into A&E).

Interventionists try to get through to people by flooding them with sincerely helpful feelings. Behold the love and pain and fear I feel about you and your problem and sense my sincerity and respond because I care and accept this gift, the end.

That approach works sometimes, particularly on TV, but usually fades as soon as the intense feelings go away. Plus, there’s another disadvantage: your friend gets help for you, not for herself, and loses her motivation the moment she feels you’ve ignored or disappointed her. So then her relapse, should it occur, is all your fault.

Dr. Lastname favors a more rational approach that avoids making anyone responsible (including her and you) for things they don’t control, while helping friends overcome stigma and do their best.

Indicate concern because of behavior you’ve observed and its potential for hurting someone you respect; not because of how much you’ve been hurt, angered, victimized, forced to lose respect or almost abandoned by someone you love.

All those feelings may be true and may cause guilt and a heightened sense of responsibility, but expressing those feelings is likely to cause more harm. Remember your purpose—and don’t defeat it.

STATEMENT:
Compose your statement before delivering it. “I think you’re a good, responsible, honest person and I like you, but I’m concerned that you’ve got a shop-lifting habit that could get you into terrible trouble. I know there’s no easy answer, but I also know the problem is not uncommon and that people can’t talk about it because they’re ashamed. So I want you to know that I’m on your side and would like to help if I can. And, if I don’t go shopping with you, it’s because it makes me nervous and not because I’m feeling critical.”

I’m an assistant to a high-ranking executive at a large company. He’s nice enough, but not exactly warm, and I don’t exactly care as long as I get paid and he’s not an asshole. Recently though, I’ve walked into his office a handful of times and it’s clear that he’s been crying. It’s not like I’ve been sneaking up on him, but he quickly wipes his face with a Kleenex and acts like nothing’s wrong. I haven’t told any of my friends at work because I don’t want to humiliate him and get fired, and, like I said, he’s not exactly a buddy, but he is a human being and so it’s hard to see him suffering. I worry about him, but I also worry about keeping my job. Is it worth asking him if he’s OK? Should I talk to one of his peers about talking to him or is that even worse? Or should I just keep pretending everything’s alright?

Lucky you, you’ve discovered yet another major area of risk that can get would-be helpers into trouble, and that’s screwing up your job. And should you get fired, your boss will not return the favor and offer you a shoulder to cry on.

You may feel for this guy (red flag right there), but it seems you’ve already assessed the likely outcomes of actually talking to this guy, and those results aren’t so hot. And remember, your goal isn’t to be helpful because it makes you feel good, or quiets down an overactive conscience; it’s to do good if you have good reason to believe the result will be worth the risk.

For example, if he has any concerned friends or relatives, it’s unlikely that your response will add anything important to his life. And if he doesn’t have caring friends or relatives, he still has your employment in his hands. Sounds harsh, but your help has a concrete value, just like your paycheck.

Ultimately, helping your boss, or attempting to help him, is essentially a lose-lose situation. You could either make him mad at you (and get yourself fired) or make him too nice and thereby get everyone else mad at you (and possibly get yourself fired).

So after considering the risk, ask yourself how likely it is that your kindness will benefit your boss (not likely, plus, you’re fired).

If after all this assessment you still think a kind word would be helpful, don’t add to the complications. Say what you think needs to be said, and don’t encourage closeness or confiding unless it’s unavoidable.

And if he does confide, channel his sharing elsewhere as soon as possible so as to protect what’s left of your work relationship. Assuming you still have a job.

STATEMENT:
So draw up a statement if you really feel compelled to speak. “I believe we have an excellent working relationship and have no complaints, but I have one area of concern, and that is, that you’ve seemed unhappy lately. I may have noticed it more than others because we work together particularly closely. Of course, it’s not something I would discuss with others, but I wanted to let you know I’m sorry and that I hope things will get better for you in the near future.”

Please talk me down, because a friend of mine has managed to make me feel really shitty for the fact that he was basically a dick. I had to leave town for a few months—long story, work-related—and so I had to ask this guy, let’s call him Jim, to watch my car for me. He’s one of my only friends around here, and even though I know he’s not exactly a totally solid dude, all I needed him to do was watch my car, literally keep an eye on it and make sure it didn’t get stolen or towed, and in return I told him he could stay in my house if he needed to. I said he could drive the car around town if he needed to, and that he couldn’t bring more than one guest into my house, so it wasn’t totally open season, and he said cool, and when I came back, everything was fine. At first. But then I found used condoms in the trash at my house (gross!) and found out from one of Jim’s co-workers that he’d driven my car to another state. I just went to call him on it and he completely blew up at me, as if I was the one being a jerk, telling me I was being unfair and literally pushing me out the door. Now I’m starting to feel guilty, which is making me feel crazy, so please reassure me he’s the dick and not me. PS, I have a real skill in trusting total assholes, but you probably already guessed that.

Wanting reassurance you’re not a dick is a pretty dumb goal (and, if you were seeking my services in real life, not covered by insurance), because you’re telling this dickhead and every other quasi-pimp who wants to take advantage of you that you need someone to reassure you that you’re not a dick. Thus cementing your status as dickbait, so the circle will remain unbroken.

So if that’s really your top priority, you’re telling him he’s the boss, and his version of right and wrong is what counts. Oh, I know, what you tell yourself is that your goal is to find nice friends who can be counted on to tell you you’re not so bad, and that a good circle of such friends will make your life OK. And that might be true in another universe, just not the known world we live in.

In this world, sooner or later you’re forced to deal with people who aren’t your friends and situations in which your friends are nowhere near, and if you haven’t learned to bear the pain of your easily-stimulated doubts and your need for reassurance without actually asking others for that reassurance, you’re asking to be someone’s bitch. Again, dickbait. So reassurance is not what you’re going to get.

Or you may believe that some good psychotherapy, or maybe a success or two at work, or maybe seeing Jim again on a good hair day, would give you the self-confidence to believe in yourself and stand up to the assholes of the world. And were we living in a Sandra Bullock movie, this would be a good plan.

In real life, however, people who tend to feel guilty and doubt themselves never stop being vulnerable. If they don’t expect to change their behavior until they feel more confident, they don’t change. If you’re smart, you’ll assume the doubts will never disappear, and it’s your job to go ahead and learn to manage them better.

So your goal isn’t to get a pat on the head (or a snazzy new haircut), but simply to do the right thing. Judge yourself and stand by that judgment, so the dicks of this world can’t steal your freedom. You started out perfectly by doing nothing wrong; you asked him for a favor, offered him something generous in return, and were clear about your expectations. He took gross advantage. If you’re keeping score, you 0, dick 1.

If you retain the right to judge his conduct and decide he’s a shit-head, then there’s no point in discussing your opinion with him unless you think it will do some good. But realize, at that point, that if his behavior fits what you know about him, you’re not going to uncover and clear up a simple misunderstanding. The only misunderstanding was yours, when you misunderstood that he wasn’t a shit-head.

If you confront him, you know he’ll see himself as doing you the favor, much as a pimp sees himself as devoted to and self-sacrificing for the girls in his “family.” If in doubt, ask him if he thinks his use of your car and apartment went beyond his understanding of what you had said. I’ll bet you knew what he would say. So, in the future, re-enact the confrontation in your head instead of having to get manhandled out the door.

You may have trusted unwisely, but don’t make it worse by asking him to understand your position and relieve you of guilt. He’s the one who should feel guilty, not you, but that’s never going to happen.

If you’d hired him to be a car/house-sitter and he did this, you’d never pay for his services again, so don’t bother hanging on to his friendship, either. He can have his fond memories of his tryst in your house, you can have your self-confidence, and then between you and this dick, it’s tied at 1. At least until the next asshole comes along.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to help you manage your guilt under your own solo authority. “I have weaknesses and I make mistakes but I can usually tell, in the end, whether I did something wrong and need to make amends. So whatever pangs of guilt I feel when someone yells at me, I will not try to ease my pain by apologizing or asking other people to tell me I’m OK. I will bear my pain while I rely on my own experience, conscience, and common sense to judge myself and then I will act in a way that respects my judgment.

My fiancé and his brother inherited a beach house from their parents. It’s really big, totally beautiful, and technically split 50/50, but my future brother-in-law is loaded, my fiancé isn’t (well, he’s average, but his brother is really rolling in it), so the few times we’ve gone to the house, I thought it was really tense. Mostly because the brother pays most of the taxes, feeds everyone, puts up for the repairs, etc, and my fiancé just sort of rolls with it like it’s not weird because everyone knows he can’t afford those expenses and the house is legally half his. Thing is, my fiancé wants us to get married there next summer, and I hate this idea, because I think we’re imposing, and that his brother is either going to say yes but get openly resentful towards my fiancé which will make the wedding and all future visits completely unpleasant, or say no and cause open warfare between the two of them (which would mean, now that their parents are gone, that the two men’d lose the only family they currently have). Normally, my fiancé’s a reasonable guy, but he has such a blind spot about his brother and this house—when I’ve tried to bring this up to him, he tells me that I’m being overly sensitive, and that it’s not my family/not my business. But my wedding is my business, and I don’t want it to turn into a major drama that will put a shadow on the rest of our lives. My goal is to get him to see sense, pick his battles, and generally not start a war he can’t win.

Your fiancé can’t seem to understand what you feel and observe, so trying to get him to see your perspective is a bad goal. The more you try, the more you’re telling him that you’re right and he’s wrong, and that’s what he’ll react to. Also, you’re telling yourself that he’ll eventually change and come to understand what you mean, and that’s not going to be.

I wish he was wise enough to trust your people-sense, but he isn’t and doesn’t, and he’s stubborn, and, just so you’re clear on this, he’s about to be your husband. I’m not saying you shouldn’t marry him, but you need to accept his weaknesses because they’re not likely to change. Brides always think they will. If you think he’s going to change, go kiss a frog and see what happens. Brides also think anyone but them cares about the color of the napkins.

As usual, your acceptance of a painful reality opens better possibilities, but first, I’m assuming, unlike our asshole-prone friend, that you trust your judgment and don’t need his confirmation or approval. Or, if you need his confirmation and approval, I’m assuming you have the balls to force yourself to do without.

I say this because if you need his agreement before you can act, you’ll feel helpless, stymied, and resentful, much like the Senate when it can’t overcome a filibuster. Once again, fuck common “wisdom”: if you want a good marriage, learn not to communicate. Because this one of those times when communication is bad and silent frustration is golden.

Once you have confidence in your judgment and, without blaming your fiancé, are prepared to do what you think is necessary to avoid family trouble, tell him you’re dying to get married, but not at the house. You respect his dream, but you have another place in mind.

Don’t offer an explanation, because explanation opens the door to argument. You need to know if he will accept your veto, when exercised respectfully but firmly. Assure yourself that you would accept his. You need to know if your preference alone is enough. If not, you’ll have trouble later in the marriage.

Go further. Launch your own diplomatic offensive to let your future brother-in-law know that you appreciate the added burden he carries. Offer to do more of your share of the cooking, cleaning and repair/managing.

If your fiancé says he doesn’t understand what you’re doing, that’s OK, he doesn’t have to. What you need to know is, can he stay out of your way.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to protect yourself from the urge to be at one with your fiancé when that requires dumbing down. “I respect my fiancé’s wishes except when I think he’s stubborn and wrong-headed. If I can’t change his mind and believe the issue is important, I will try to steer us out of trouble, or at least disengage myself as much as I can, without demeaning him or engaging in argument. I will try to bear the pain of being at odds with him without seeking excessive compromise or expressing anger, so I am free to do what I think is right.”

I’ve always had a God-given gift for communicating with people and have tried to use my gifts to lead people in a moral direction. In recent years, after achieving success as a lawyer, and marrying a truly remarkable woman, I felt a calling to run for office and, with her help as campaign manager, I was elected to office. I wasn’t afraid to take unpopular positions if I felt I was doing the right thing, because I trust my passion; that’s what connects me with people. About a year ago, I felt an unbelievable sense of connection with a beautiful, foreign woman. I’ve never felt so close to anyone, and it seemed unfair to either one of us not to share our love. But instead of having a beautiful experience to share and then put behind us, I became obsessed. It distanced me from my wife, who sensed that something was wrong, and it distracted me from work. I had to lie, and I hate lying. Finally, and with great relief, I confessed the truth. But I still can’t stop thinking and talking about her and now my marriage and political life are a mess. In the past, passion has brought me all my success and I need passion in my life. Now, I want to recapture that passion in a way that revives my marriage, interest in my job, and relationship with the public.

To successful politicians, who often have your style and personality, intense feelings often seem like the core of their being, and what makes them special. Such feelings give the gift of easy communication, charisma, material success, votes, and a certain je ne sais what the ladies love (and, sometimes, the dudes—here’s to you, Larry Craig, for having more charisma in your feet than most of us have in our entire bodies).

Sooner or later, however, your skills work their mojo, you achieve your goals, and life settles down to boring conversations with family and the same old guys at work (even if many are relatively famous), and at that point, if passion has become your elixir of life, you may feel like you’ve lost your oxygen and slid into meaningless mediocrity. The spark, as you might call it, is gone.

Making it your goal to sustain the high level of passion in your life (because passion seems to give your life its greatest meaning) is very dangerous, because you won’t be able to satisfy that need without pushing yourself to do things that will threaten your commitments, promises, partnerships, and sense of yourself as a good person. Your desire will make you cross the line (including, but not limited to, the “sex line,” per your description).

Politicians are supposed to be cool and calculating, but, if you are, it’s because you’re also abnormally driven by excitement, adrenalin, and need. Which means you’re abnormally prone to getting into trouble, particularly if you think excitement is what you’re supposed to be looking for. Which is why you’re one of a fine fraternity of politicians who just can’t keep it in their pants.

Give some thought to whether passion is as important to you as you think. It’s true, passion will put bounce in your step, joy in your heart, and inflate your air-mileage points, and the public may forgive if you they don’t think you’re too hypocritical.

On the other hand, it will also make you a self-centered and unreliable asshole, particularly to anyone who needs you as a stable parent or partner. That’s where you and the Kennedys have more in common than you think, except that John Sr. never waved a Bible around, so he was much less vulnerable to self-deception.

If you want to restore your marriage, you need to revise your idea of the importance of passion in your life, much as an alcoholic must assess the impact of alcohol. You must decide whether you can give up the thrill of a good sparking and just endure the common, humiliating irritations that always crop up in long-term relationships and families.

You must also decide whether it’s meaningful for you to put yourself through withdrawal, abandon your role as Bible hero and poly-soul-mate, and embrace being blamed by wife and kids for common domestic frustrations. Unless you find it meaningful to embrace this goal, nothing will change. And you’ll be down one wife and one shot in hell in 2012.

If you do decide to subordinate your passion to other values, you can’t expect to get off easy. Your passion won’t give up. It will push you to touch others, talk more, meet yet more soul-mates, speak to the crowd, and avoid the ordinary. You will need to build great strength to keep it from controlling you, and keep up your vigilance one day at a time.

Take some solo time to think about it, maybe in the woods off the Appalachian trail, to think about it, and then let me know whether or not that’s your goal.

STATEMENT:
If it is, compose a statement to help you manage your “my feelings, myself” instincts. “I value my political gifts for everything they give me, and they’re a big part of who I am and how I function, but I can also see they are particularly good at getting me to be a jerk. If I want to be a good guy and claim the kind of self-esteem that comes from doing the right thing rather than from surfing the high of relationships, I’ve got to work harder than most people to examine the consequences of my most basic yearnings and desires and accept the pain of frustrating most of them most of the time. That’s the cost of my goal, not of being true to my feelings, but of being my own man.”

My husband used to be my best friend, and I would have told you we have an exceptionally complete marriage, because we worked hand-in-glove in his job as a politician, for which I managed his campaigns, and as friends and parents of terrific kids. I always saw him as a man of integrity until he told me, recently, that he’d fallen in love with another woman and couldn’t stop thinking about her. He promised to stop seeing her, and then lied about that, and then the whole thing became public, which was a huge humiliation for the whole family. I’m pretty tough, so this hasn’t slowed me down or destroyed my confidence, and I really know I didn’t cause this by doing something wrong, but my goal is to put my marriage back together.

You begin on solid ground, because you’re not trying to figure out what you did wrong (except marry a politician). Still, it’s always unwise to make it your goal to put a marriage back together without first considering whether you really can, and whether it’s a good idea.

You and your husband would like to consider the marital problem as something he can control by taking the time to recover the loving feelings he once had for you; but the kind of loving feelings he’s looking for are probably not in his power, or yours, to recover, whether you seek them through prayer, therapy, or the long, sunset walks on the beach with a side-order of groveling.

That’s because those feelings depend on a relationship’s being new and unencumbered by mutual responsibilities, like kids, and things that go bad and smell bad and keep you from doing what you want. So seeking renewed passion seldom revives marriages, even if you find the secret of his sexual joy (hint: you might need to purchase a lot of self-tanner).

On the contrary, the priority of intense loving feelings is usually antithetical to marriage and bodes ill for your reconciliation or the longevity of his future liaisons, particularly if they involve living together and sharing kids and a bathroom.

So don’t make it your goal to salvage your marriage—though that’s a good wish—nor to summon up forgiveness. Instead, work to assess whether your husband’s values have changed and whether he wants to establish a kind of control he’s probably never had before. Or, if control looks unlikely, you need to decide whether the marriage is worthwhile, anyway.

Once you’re ready to accept the fact of his bad habit, it’s not hard to assess the likelihood of his getting stronger. It’s the same as assessing an alcoholic’s likelihood of recovery. He’s more likely to recover if he owns up to the problem as chronic (not one-time), and likely to be repeated regardless of remorse.

If he thinks he has to feel like recovering before he can recover, he won’t recover, because feelings (blech) like his don’t change. He has to decide that his values are more important than his feelings before there’s a hope of change.

Fundamentally, he needs to admit that his impulses will never be completely under his control, and that, regardless of his shame, he’ll be honest about them with you, and watch out for them every day of his life until his testosterone dries up, and then probably longer.

Lady Bird Johnson, LBJ’s wife, would probably challenge you to ask yourself whether it’s worth breaking up your marriage, even if you decide you can’t trust him to stop having affairs. Try to put aside your hurt because you know his infidelity isn’t personal, it’s just the way he is. That was the path another former-first lady took, and she’d argue that getting to be Secretary of State was a pretty fair trade-off.

If you can still be together, still work together, then your goal is to make the best of things for your family, not decide whether you’re angry enough to leave.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to protect yourself from anger, hurt, and self-doubt. “My husband’s infidelity does not detract from the fact that we’ve worked well together to do a lot of good, including his political work and building our family, and it certainly says nothing negative about the quality of my love. It’s a problem he has that has caused all of us much pain. I’m not sure he can control it. I need to assess whether he can stop and what our marriage will do to our family if he can’t. I’m determined to do what’s best for the family, regardless of my hurt and humiliation.”